Happiness

Captain Titus was not having a good day.

Morning nourishment, paltry. Disguise training, utter sham. Reconnaissance, two patrols lost, one physically missing, one at half strength due to infighting. And now what? He was navigating a course through the ever shifting walls of the hive, attempting to home in on an intense feeling of distress that was being projected onto him from one of his drones, and he needed to find it soon before he himself started getting anxious. Left unchecked, a strong enough emotion would spread through an entire squadron - in some cases upward of a hundred Changelings - like wildfire. If one drone was sufficiently nervous, the feeling would spread and cause trouble everywhere.

Normally such emotions were regulated by the Queen, through the tried and true method of smacking the offending drone upside the head. Earlier in the day, however, for whatever reason, she had been very upset and locked herself in the throne room demanding privacy. This included disconnecting herself from the emotional hive-mind, which she normally did whenever she needed to vent anger.

To the drones, this would be reason enough to be nervous; with the Queen's presence missing from the hive-mind it felt like a huge gaping hole in their heads. It wasn't unknown for unprepared drones to suffer extreme trauma from her sudden absence. To Titus, and the rest of his fellow captains, the effect was lessened somewhat as they needed to be capable of commanding their respective drones even if the Queen was incapacitated, but... the feeling was still there, an empty void at the back of his mind.

In the wake of the failed Invasion Titus had found, completely by accident, that it was possible to retreat into that void. He didn't, though. The silence back there was deafening.

Wait... he recognised these tunnels. This was the approach to the throne room, but... none of his drones were supposed to be in this area. All of his drones were supposed to be either in training or guarding the kingdom's perimeter. So what was one doing all the way over here?

When the drone nervously hopping back and forth outside the throne room saw his armor, the distress dissipated to be replaced with a flooding sense of relief. Its captain was there to take charge of the situation. Everything was now under contro-

Before Titus could inquire about either the problem or why the drone was so far out of its way in the first place, there was a terrific screeching noise from behind the throne room doors, forcing him to cover his ears.

"What was that?!" he demanded of the drone, who was struggling to recover its standing position. He had his suspicions, though, and for once he hoped he was wrong.

"It's the Queen, sir," came the reply. "She's... singing, sir."

To ponies, this would be nothing significant, as it also would be to most Changelings. To Titus, however, who was all too familiar with the Queen's euphoric response to starvation, it was incredibly alarming. When the Queen was content, all was well. When the Queen was happy, it meant she was hungry. From the sounds of the caterwauling he could now hear coming from within, the Queen was very happy, which meant that if she didn't get something to eat soon she was very likely to go on a rampage.

Even more worrying was the prospect of what would happen if the Queen rejoined the hive-mind whilst still in this mood. Changelings had no concept of happiness - only the Queen was able to properly understand it - and no ifs, ands or buts about it, that emotion would spread. It was a scary thought.

There was really no other option but to act now. Alone, Titus could do nothing, so he sent out an immediate distress signal for all other available captains to drop what they were doing and assist. Unless they were working on an order direct from the Queen, this took immediate priority. The throne room was sealed, and they'd have to break the doors down. Drones just wouldn't cut it here.

And as for this particular drone... "As fast as you can, the stores," Titus instructed. "For all our sakes-" he was interrupted by another screech "-find her something to eat!"

The hive was huge but it didn't take too much time to cross it, so it wasn't long before Captain Iaberus arrived. Well... 'arrived' was a strong term for the undignified crash that announced his presence, not in the least bit aided by his current lack of depth perception. He'd received a slight injury in the Invasion, and for reasons known only to himself insisted that he wear an eyepatch until he recovered. Titus didn't approve. The Queen, however, declared it a 'vast improvement' (the insult sailing straight over his head) and so it was sticking, regardless of the havoc it caused its wearer and any other Changelings he happened to run over.

Titus peeled him off the wall. "Congratulations."

Iaberus offered a pained groan. "What do I win?"

Titus considered this for a moment. "You get to be the one who goes in there first."

"Goes in where?"

Both of them regarded the throne room doors for a moment, followed by regarding the wail from within. The junior captain may not have been the sharpest pencil in the box, but he was definitely aware of the implications. He probably would have made a move to leg it there and then had Titus not put him in a headlock.

"But, but!" Changeling facial expressions were limited, but it was fairly obvious he was trying to do what ponies referred to as 'puppy-dog eyes', something that was entirely wasted due to his unwillingness to shapeshift for the occasion. "You wouldn't send an old, injured friend in there alone, would you?"

Sigh. "I'm older than you are," Titus counted off, "the Invasion was months ago, you're fine, and yes, I would."

"I was grievously injured!"

"A pony prodded you with a baseball bat."

"In the eye!"

"Which one?"

"This one!" Iaberus said, very obviously indicating the eye that wasn't covered by the eyepatch.

Understanding Iaberus was impossible at the best of times. Changelings healed extraordinarily quickly - as long as the head and body were mostly intact, all other limbs could be regrown in a week at most. Iaberus' eye had been restored mere hours after the mass exodus from Canterlot, but by then he'd already found the eyepatch, and was unable to comprehend why his eye was suddenly working again. "He's thicker than gourmet custard," Captain Incelidus had said, without explaining exactly what gourmet custard was.

"C'mon, Titus!" Iaberus whined, glancing at the doors. "If I interrupt the Queen while she's... singing, she'll bite my head off!"

"Good, then maybe you won't be so annoying." Titus tried to keep level, he really did, but Iaberus always managed to wind him up. "And she won't bite your head off. If you're lucky, she'll only eat one of your legs." He noted a fresh impact dent in his fellow captain's helmet, and released him from the headlock, springing back a few feet. "That is, if Captain Viune doesn't eat them first."

"CAPTAIN IABERUS!"

Speaking of whom...

Titus didn't flinch as said captain shot out of a tunnel to his left and slammed straight into Iaberus, sending the two of them tumbling. Suitable metals were hard to procure in the area surrounding the kingdom, and so their armorer tended to get very tetchy whenever any Changeling, officer or drone, had needlessly damaged the armor she made. If armor was damaged in battle, she knew her work had done its job, and quite contendedly hammered out a replacement. If armor was damaged in an unpreventable accident, you got a warning, and maybe a punch in the face if she felt like it. If you couldn't give her a reasonable excuse, though...

He watched passively as Viune braced herself with a hoof on Iaberus's neck, surrounded his head in a magic aura and wrenched his armor off. Infighting between Changelings, especially between the captains, was commonplace; Lead Captain Dethyn had once said something about it being 'built into their dee-enn-ay' or some other scientific drivel. All Titus cared about was the fact that it happened and drones knew there was a harsh punishment for it, a fact he sometimes wished he could beat into the other captains.

The Queen, meanwhile, found their arguments incredibly entertaining.

"Captain Viune," he acknowledged.

"Titus," she responded, spitting onto the helmet and buffing it out.

"You didn't... say I wasn't your friend!" gasped Iaberus, pulling himself up again.

"Don't push your luck."

If it were possible to use Iaberus as an anvil, Titus was sure that Viune would be doing just that. He was no physiology expert, but even he noticed that it was the three female captains who got angry the fastest, and tended to be the more violent of the nine. The Lead Captain probably had an explanation for that as well, not that Titus cared.

"So what do you want now, Titus?" Viune asked, throwing the newly-repaired helmet back at the junior captain, who caught it with his face. "This better be good."

Titus gestured to the doors. The Queen is-" a particularly piercing scream from behind them interrupted him "-happy."

"Great." Viune's scowl deepened. "Great going, Titus."

"Yeah, because I did this." Titus didn't get along with Viune. To be fair he didn't get along with any of the captains, but their armorer was definitely up there. Somewhere. With a hammer. "I sent a drone to get her some food. As long as Captain Incelidus hasn't eaten everything we should be fine."

Captain Incelidus's appetite was infamous, and it was the second of two reasons as to why he probably wouldn't be coming anywhere near the Queen; the first being the disgrace of failing in his task to capture the Elements of Harmony during the Invasion, and even now it was still a sore subject. Incelidus was bright, there was no denying that, and he could talk his way out of a lot of sticky situations, but then again he was usually the one who put himself into those situations in the first place.

The theory of the plan had been sound enough: he would lead his drones to secure the Elements while the other captains focused on the city and the castle. Incelidus's execution of said plan had involved charging straight at the six ponies the Queen had specifically told him not to underestimate. The result was a foregone conclusion. His entire force had been all but obliterated, and the Elements might have been used against them if Captain Rhio hadn't had the forethought to pack half of his force into the vault where they were held.

Either way, the last time Titus had seen Incelidus he'd been very vocal in his plans to stay away from the throne room.

Captain Zhoele wasn't likely to turn up either, but then again it was entirely impossible to expect her at any point. She just turned up whenever she wanted to, which was usually the exact moment her presence wasn't wanted, and tended to end any situation by shouting and causing a lot of property damage. Where Viune would sooner rip your wings off than look at you, Zhoele would pummel you into the ground, knock you out, then rip your wings off, then suspend you upside down over a chasm for a couple of hours. It was probably all that time she spent around the Changeling larvae. Not that Titus would ever say that to her face - he was pretty sure she hated him the most and needed little further provocation to leave him twitching in a dead end.

Armorer, scary. Nurse, terrifying.

He saw another movement out of the corner of his eye, and stiffened. "Lead Captain on deck!"

Moments later he ducked under the pebble that the newcomer had thrown at him. "Shut up, Titus," said Lead Captain Dethyn. He wasn't the only new arrival; he had two more of the junior captains in tow, the tiny Mimix and the ugh Mykerion. "What's going on? Where are the guards I left here?"

As Titus begrudgingly explained the situation, there was another arrival, namely that of a reinforced crate from the storage pens, carried by two drones who beat a hasty retreat the moment they set it down. Inside the crate would be one of the cat creatures the Changelings had discovered after their impromptu ejection from Canterlot. None knew what they were actually called, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was that they were unconditionally loving creatures, and essentially never went 'off'. No matter what was done to them, they just kept on loving - and providing huge quantities of nourishment - until they expired.

Only the Queen was allowed to feed from them, of course. If there was no Queen, there were no Changelings.

While he didn't care much for his superior's blase attitude towards most serious situations, this time Titus was secretly glad for the Lead Captain's presence. Dethyn was the Queen's personal advisor; the majority of the hive's big plans were formulated by the two of them working in tandem, and his drones were most capable and best trained. It could even be called trust, if Changelings were capable of such a bond.

That said, Titus was even gladder that he'd been the one to come up with this idea in particular, as most of the time he and Dethyn didn't see eye to eye, and he preferred his own plans over anything that his superior put together.

"Good call on the food." Dethyn looked at the crate. "Who's carrying it in there?"

"Iaberus volunteered."

"I didn't!"

"Excellent." He turned his attention to the idiot. "Now, Iaberus, it is imperative that you work as quickly as possible. If you give her the chance to open up, we're all doomed, and I don't fancy that Zhoele's going to be particularly concerned about us." While the majority of the captains were all vulnerable to the Queen's mood swings, Zhoele wasn't. It was another odd quirk of hers that never became useful, seeing as she was never around when it was needed, and was more likely to laugh at them than try and help. "I assume the doors are still barred from the inside. Titus, Rhio, we're going to try and knock it loose."

Titus paused. "But Captain Rhio isn't-" he glanced to the right, and resisted the urge to facehoof when he caught a glimpse of the bulk of the mentioned captain standing amongst them. "How long have you been standing there?" Rhio didn't respond, not that he was expected to. "How long's he been standing there?"

Rhio fell among the more tolerable of Titus's fellow captains, but the way he just materialized wherever he wasn't expected to be got incredibly annoying after the first few times. The whole stoic silence thing didn't help. He was capable of speaking - he'd once commented on a plan and scared the secretions out of everybody - but apparently just chose not to for 99% of the time. It had its perks, though. Somebody who didn't speak never said anything to get on anybody's nerves.

It really had been a foregone conclusion that he'd been paired up with Iaberus during the Invasion. After all, the best way to avoid idiotic comebacks was not to say anything in the first place. And, naturally, Rhio had abandoned him immediately - not that Iaberus ever noticed.

The throne room doors were fairly thick. They weren't original, of course. Like many things scattered around the hive, they had been stolen. This particular pair had come from the castle that had been their temporary base not too long ago. Given that they'd withstood the Queen smashing them in anger, falling debris, and a magically enhanced beam of destruction, it was known that they could withstand much, and the idea had been that any intruders to the hive would have to try and break them down to get to the Queen.

Evidently they'd forgotten that Changelings might need to get in too. They might need to rethink the door strategy.

"This isn't working." Dethyn stepped back and examined the result, which was a big fat zero. And now, if anything, the high-pitched screeches from inside were becoming more frequent. "Anybody got any suggestions?" Iaberus opened his mouth. "Anybody apart from Iaberus?"

"I think-" started Captain Mykerion, and Titus immediately tuned him out. Nope. Not even a situation as bad as this could get him to listen to the fountain of analytical nonsense that the new guy normally vomited up. Dethyn he could bear, mostly because he was Titus's superior, but not Mykerion. He'd only been made captain a couple of months before the Invasion, and had wasted no time at all in annoying most of the others with 'improvements' they could make to their fighting stances. Then he just didn't stop. He just kept going, and going, and going, until he made the mistake of accepting a thank-you hug from Mimix.

Having both of his forelegs stuffed into his mouth definitely shut him up.

That didn't stop him from opening the floodgate when prompted, unfortunately. Titus watched as his mouth moved a mile a minute; he could see the intense displeasure on Viune's face deepening, and though not a single muscle of Rhio's twitched, somehow he could tell that the big lug was contemplating a face punch. Over on the junior side of things, everything was going in through one of Iaberus's ears and out the other uninterrupted, and Mimix's short attention span had expired long ago.

Why was Mimix even here anyway? It wasn't like she'd be able to do anything useful, not from down there, except trip everyone up. She claimed her small stature was advantageous. Titus had asked how. Mimix had giggled madly and given him a hug. Things quickly spiralled out of control from there, but at least it answered the question. You couldn't hit what moved too fast and could go places you wouldn't fit. Still didn't explain why she was here now.

Mykerion was still talking. Titus wasn't even sure he'd paused for breath. For the Queen's sake, this was urgent! They didn't have the time to be standing around discussing it! Oh, sure, but of course Lead Captain Dethyn has time to listen to a pointless analysis first. Pointless analyses make everything better. Why not follow up with a committee meeting, too? And after that, a-

The force of the clout on his nose sent him reeling. "I said," said Dethyn, and I'll speak slower so Titus can understand, 'That's a good idea - let's give it a shot'. Were you listening at all?"

"No."

With a sigh, Dethyn put a hoof to his head. "Words cannot express how much I want to punch you again, Titus."

Titus scowled. "Feeling's mutual, sir."

Without warning one of the lead captain's hind hooves shot out and hit Titus square in the gut, winding him. "The doors aren't working out," he continued, ignoring his subordinate's pained breathing. "We're going to carve through them."

"Two feet from the floor and one from the right hoof wall at an angle of twenty three degrees," Mykerion added, before Titus had a chance to regain his breath and re-mute him. "It'll make it easier for us to get the hinges out later."

"Yes, thank you, Mykerion."

Mykerion snapped to attention. "It's pronounced mee-kerry-oan, sir."

"Thank you, Mykerion," Dethyn repeated, without changing his pronunciation. "Viune, Mimix, you heard him."

Male Changeling spit was slightly acidic. Female Changeling spit, on the other hoof, was acidic enough to eat through solid rock in a matter of moments, which was why expansions to the hive were always created by a group of female drones, followed closely by Captain Zhoele to break up the inevitable fight that happened when they were finished. Wood was... well, it was gone, fairly rapidly. It wasn't long before part of the throne room was visible through a hole just big enough for the crate to fit through.

All eyes turned to Iaberus.

He pouted. "Don't wanna."

"Don't be such a pupa."

"But it's dangerous!"

"Of course it's dangerous. That's why we're sending you."

"You're not inspiring a lot of confidence, sir!"

Screech, added the Queen, still just as unintelligible as she'd been behind thick wooden doors.

"Shut up and get on with it!"

"But I could be killed!"

"IF YOU DON'T GO IN THERE RIGHT NOW, I'LL KILL YOU MYSELF, YOU BUCKETHEADED BRAT!" There was a certain limit to what Viune would tolerate. It was a very low line. At that moment, she was giving off a very strong signal that anybody not wanting to be mauled should get to the minimum safe distance of Very Far Away, and Titus was having to fight the urge to flee. Whatever way this turned out, somebody was giong to leave the situation without some of the limbs they'd entered it with.

Thankfully, Iaberus did seem to recognize that further protest was a very bad idea, and all but leapt to the hole. "I'm going! I'm going!" He paused on the threshold. "What is it you want me to do again?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Titus caught a movement; Rhio had pinned Viune to the floor before she could do anything stupid.

Dethyn spoke with a very measured tone, one you developed after having to deal with morons for a long time. "Go in. Assess. Out. Yes?"

For a brief moment, it seemed that the idiot was going to prolong the argument further, but to the relief of all, all it took was another nervous glance at the livid Viune to bolster his confidence, and he disappeared through the gap.

After another few seconds, they heard his voice. "My Queen? Are you... oh-kay that's, that's not good. That's not good at-" Screech. Thunk. Wail. More hideous singing.

The remaining captains shared a glance. This was taking far too long. It was a miracle the Queen hadn't yet unleashed her hunger-fuelled happiness on the hive, and the longer they delayed - the longer Iaberus delayed - the longer the miracle would have to stretch. His annoying presence in the hive-mind assured them all that he wasn't dead, so what was he doing in there that would take so long just to report the situation? It didn't make-

With a gasp, he reappeared, falling back through the hole, alive but not entirely intact.

"So she did eat one of your legs," Titus commented dryly. "I told you so. You know this is your fault for taking too long, right?"

Iaberus barely even glanced at the pinched point where his front right leg had been ripped off. "It's worse than that. She found her swords."

All of the captains unanimously took a step away from the doors.

The story behind the Queen's swords had been explained once to Titus, though it had been by Dethyn, so he'd only been half-listening. From what he remembered, she had stolen them from a pony princess, and started swinging them about whenever she got bored. A while back, she had ordered Incelidus to hide them because they kept distracting her; apparently he hadn't done a very good job at that, either.

So the Queen was happy, she was singing, and she was whirling swords around the throne room. Things had gone from bad straight through worse to utterly terrifying. Much as they'd like to, sending Iaberus back in alone was no longer a good idea. In fact, there probably weren't any good ideas left at all.

Titus glanced at Dethyn. "Charge?"

"Charge," confirmed the lead captain with a sigh.

In probably the slowest charge in Changeling history, all seven captains present queued up behind the crate and pushed it through the newly-formed tunnel.

The situation inside was exactly as they feared. In the middle of the room was the Queen, her song apparently in the closing stages, somewhat toned down but still as earsplitting, three swords spinning around her. To one side, two drones, clearly the missing guards, writhing around on the floor clutching their heads in agony. To their immediate left, the fourth sword, impaled in the door and speared directly through one of the holes in Iaberus's missing leg.

It was still twitching. There was hope for him yet.

"(How do you open this thing?)" Titus whispered. Of course it wouldn't be easy to get into, otherwise Incelidus would've gotten in and cleaned out their entire stock.

"(Rhio, work the locks. We don't have much time,)" Dethyn offered in way of a response. "(Quickly, before-)"

There was suddenly silence in the background. The Queen's song was over. They all peered around the crate.

"AaaaaAh, my subjects," Queen Chrysalis trilled, pausing her motions and craning her neck around. The unnaturally wide grin on her face felt like the final nail in the coffin - she was far beyond hungry. "I'm so happy to see youU."

Taking a snap decision, Dethyn jumped out from the safety of the crate and launched immediately into stalling tactics. "My Queen, we have brought you-"

"Oh, shuuUush," the Queen said, rotating the rest of her body. "You're spoiling thE moment." She waved a leg at the two contorting drones. "We were juUuust having a little siingalong, weren't we, boOys?" They didn't reply; Titus imagined they were too shellchocked by the rogue emotion they'd just been force-fed. "Iiiii had a great idea for a hiIiiiive anTHem."

"My Queen, you hate national anthems."

"I love the anthEms!" The Queen made a flourishing gesture, or tried to, and one of the swords sailed through the spot wehre Dethyn's head had just been.

"Queen, you are delerious." Titus had to give Dethyn that, he had guts. None of the others would dare say something like that, even if it was true. "We have brought you food, that you may feed."

"OhhHh, silly, silly Dethyn." By now the Queen was full on beaming, which gave all of her words the underlying message of 'RUN AWAY'. Even Viune, whose default range of expressions went from annoyed to annoyed, was starting to twitch uncontrollably. "WhateveeEr gave you the ideaA that I was hungry? Anypony would thiiIink you weren't happy to seeEEEE me!"

"You don't approve of-"

"Don't approve of what?"

It took a moment for the fact that Dethyn had just made a huge mistake to settle in, but the moment it did, Iaberus and Mykerion vanished in terror, and Titus's own gut heaved in protest of staying. Dethyn settled for some choice curse words. "I didn't mean-"

"Why eEver would I disapprove of being haaaAppy?" The Queen mulled it over. "Iiii can't imagine whyYy."

"(Rhio you'd better have that crate open.)" He didn't.

"HmmMm."

"(Captain Rhio I swear to the Queen-)"

"A-hA!" The remaining two swords in the Queen's grip clattered to the floor. "Hold oooOn. I've got a GREAT IDEA."

"No, wait-"

Titus had just about enough time to vow to strangle Dethyn before the Queen reconnected herself to the hive-mind and the full force of her starved happiness flooded over the five remaining captains and started drowning them. First, he felt sick, then contented, then sick again, then somehow both at the same time. It was terrying, and yet that terror was being... he didn't even know how to describe it. It was filling his head with disgustingly bright and, dare he think it, cheerful colors, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn't form any negative thoughts about them. It was...

Even turning his head felt like it was moving against a tide, and he could see the effects the happiness was having on the others. Mimix had found a beat and was singing (though about what was anyone's guess. Titus couldn't hear her); Viune had pulled Dethyn into some kind of slow waltz (though it was slightly relieving to see that her face was contorted in desperation, and she was taking every opportunity to try and injure her partner)...

Rhio was... smiling. Way to let loose there, big guy.

Having the crate be so complicated to open was a stupid idea. Why couldn't they just have an Incelidus Alarm or something that stopped him from getting in? Rhio had gotten it most of the way open before he'd been interrupted, but he'd been too slow. If someone could just get to it.

The idea hit him just as the faintest of beats started rattling around his head. This happiness was all coming over the hive-mind; if he could block it out for long enough, he might gain enough freedom to finish the job. That would mean disconnecting himself, and...

When the Invasion had failed, every Changeling within a mile's radius of Canterlot had been catapulted southwards, into the banquet that was the village of the cat-things. It wasn't a smooth ride, though for some the landing had been worse. Titus in particular had bounced through two windows and ended up impaled on a weathervane. In the momentary onset of panic that followed, he'd pulled out one of the glass shards from his back, started waving it around, sliced through... something... and in that instant, the background 'noise' of his drones complaining over the hive-mind had vanished.

He'd then woken up an hour later having apparently, according to Dethyn, suffered 'extreme mental trauma', though Titus suspected that was smartflank-speak for 'fell unconscious'.

With the last of his sane thoughts, Titus snatched up one of the swords from the floor, twirled it around above his head - why, he had no idea - and brought it down.

"You are, by far, the stupidest captain I have ever promoted."

"Apart from Iaberus," Dethyn pointed out.

"Iaberus doesn't count," said the Queen. "He broke the scale."

"I hate both of you," Titus muttered under his breath.

He hadn't gotten the remainder of the story until several hours after the event; he'd spent three of them unconscious, followed by three and a half seconds of fighting Dethyn, one minute of being pummelled into the ground by Zhoele, then another two hours of being suspended by his tail above a two-mile-deep chasm after having had both wings ripped off. He felt like he'd learned something from the experience. Namely, make sure that the one Changeling who despised infighting isn't right behind him when strangling his superior.

After the 'ordeal' was over, and the nurse had lifted him down and given him a final punch in the face for luck, Dethyn had dragged him back to the throne room for a debriefing. Apparently, its purpose seemed to be for the Queen to insult him.

"(This means she's vaguely pleased with your actions,)" Dethyn had whispered to him.

The trauma thing had come up again, and even with the Queen explaining it everything was still too complicated. It was unnecessary to say much more than the fact that it had worked. 'You got the Queen her food, everything was fixed, you fell asleep' was infinitely preferable to some blathering description about how disconnecting himself from the hive-mind had been so traumatic that he was blocking the memory of it. He'd have tuned it out, but unlike with Mykerion, the Queen could tell when he was diong it and upsetting her again was in nobody's best interests.

So he was forced to listen to the tale, about how the Queen had been particularly angry about something that the ponies had done, and that she had been too distracted to notice her growing hunger until it caught her off guard and prevented her from summoning help. It was amusing - and this earned him a death glare from Dethyn - to have confirmed the identities of her two previous guards, who had been threatened into retrieving her swords, and when they returned had been immediately overwhelmed by the Queen's 'gratitude'.

Only when the cat creature from the box climbed her neck and gave her a kiss was she able to regain her faculties, sucking the creature's love dry while at the same time overwriting the happiness she'd released with a surge of disgust. She hated them. Everybody did, after a while. But they were so nourishing - and that was worth the numerous Hearts and Hooves Day cards and chocolates they seemingly pulled from nowhere. Besides, it was always fun to then force-feed said chocolates to Incelidus and make him sick.

"But," she said, "if you ever do that again, if the silence doesn't kill you I will."

Par for the course then, really.

"And if you ever touch my swords again I will run you through." Both captains ducked as one of them swept over their heads on its way to join the others by the throne. If Titus still had wings - though he could feel the nubs of them twitching as they were already starting to grow back - he'd definitely have lost them now. "Magic or otherwise. Got it?"

"Yes, my Queen."

The Queen snorted. "And I'll believe that was sincere when Celestia surrenders Equestria. Lead Captain Dethyn, dismissed. I wish to speak to Captain Titus privately."

Dethyn saluted. "Understood, my Queen. Shall I summon Captain Zhoele again?"

Titus and the Queen gave each other sideways glances.

"By all means," the Queen said eventually, her mouth curling upwards into a smirk. "But it would be a shame if it had to come to that, right, Captain Titus? You're not going to do anything else stupid, are you?"

"No, my Queen," Titus grumbled.

"Then no, Lead Captain. Leave."

Dethyn threw another salute, turned, and buzzed out through the hole in the door, leaving Titus alone with Her Malevolence. This was, he had to admit, unnerving. One-to-one talks from the Queen were typically punishments, and while he might not be treated like most of the drones were by having what little food there was withheld from him, he might still end up with lookout duty (cold), expansion (sticky), or worst of all, a posting in the hatchery (all of the above plus larvae and Zhoele). Faced with that last option, he'd really rather take the-

With a soft shing, the Queen drew one of the swords again.

He'd not rather take the sword.

The blade twisted around in the air under the influence of the Queen's magic. "I stole this from the royalty of the Crystal Empire when I was young don't you dare stop listening. I have owned it longer than your tiny mind can comprehend. Our race would not exist without it." She sucked in a breath, and glared at Titus. "Cutting yourself from the hive-mind was reckless. Doing so with my sword was unacceptable." Titus tried not to flinch as the tip of the sword stopped less than an inch from his face. "Since this was obviously not drilled into your head hard enough when you were a grub, it seems I have to teach you this now."

A pony would be sweating. Not being one, Titus wasn't, but he was trying not to let his posture betray his nervousness all the same. At this point if he so much as blinked - again something Changelings didn't do but he was feeling an increasing need to - he was going to get skewered.

The Queen sighed and withdrew. "Sadly at the moment I lack both the enthusiasm to punish you and the pity to let you go. So let's make this interesting."

"Interesting how, my Queen?"

The Queen bent down to his level to look him in the eyes. "There are four of them. You are going to take one out on every patrol you do. If I request it back and you have lost it, or have allowed it to dull, or broken it beyond repair, you will be doing nothing but hatchery for the rest of your miserable life."

Titus scowled. "Understood, my Queen."

"Oh, and Mykerion gets your drones."

"Understood, my Queen."

"Iaberus will need to take your regular duties..."

"I hate you."

"I hate you...?"

"I hate you, my Queen."

"Much better." The Queen smiled that wide grin of hers, which just as quickly faded away when Titus tried to take the sword that she was holding. "Ah-ah-ah-ah! Who said you get this one?" The blade whipped back towards the throne, quickly replaced by another. "This is the one you get."

Yeah... Titus saw a problem with this. "My Queen, this is already broken."

He looked up and immediately felt the pressure of the Queen's gaze burrowing into his head. "And if you can handle that one, maybe you can look at the others again. Now get out of my sight, and send me Captain Mykerion."

Trying not to let his relief show, Titus snatched the broken sword and slunk out of the throne room as quickly as he dared. A sword. What good was a sword to a Changeling? It was useless! Dead weight! If he had to take it out every time he... augh. At least it was better than the threatened hatchery duty. Marginally.

Behind him, there was a loud snap and the creaking of wood as the hinges on the right-hoof door gave way and the huge portal crashed to the ground. Yep.

Just another day in the Changeling hive.

Dread

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With his legs quivering, Mykerion approached the door to The Forge.

The Forge, with capital letters. The Forge, where the Changeling armor was formed, shaped and tempered to protect them in battle. The Forge… home of Captain Viune.

The smell of smoke issued from small vents which peppered the wall around the round iron door, which, much like the throne room doors had been, was stolen. It had happened long before Mykerion had been made Captain, so he wasn’t aware of the details, but it was likely to have come from some sort of factory, or maybe a furnace. That was appropriate, he guessed. He’d never been inside himself, so he couldn’t say anything about what lay within. This was going to be his first visit.

He only wished it was under more favorable circumstances.

It wasn’t as if he wanted to go in. Sheer curiosity aside he’d be perfectly content if he never saw the inside of it in his entire life. Right now though he didn’t really have much choice. This was going to lead to a far more preferable outcome than just waiting for the inevitable typhoon to come to him. Viune would find out. She always found out.

Mykerion dreaded to think exactly how she would react to the mangled pile of scrap metal that used to be his armor.

Having had the long journey down the hive to mull it over, he still didn’t know how it had happened. One minute he’d been flying at the top of the Spire while discussing interrogations with Incelidus, not an unusual occurrence, and the next thing he knew he was all the way at the bottom, his head was spinning, and what he’d been wearing only moments earlier was no longer recognizable. Gravity had conspired against him, it seemed. According to Incelidus, he’d just fallen out of the air. According to Titus, who’d immediately started preparing for the inevitable arrival of their armorer, it was because he exhausted himself by talking too much.

That didn’t make sense, though. Sure, the talk with Incelidus had been animated, but he certainly hadn’t felt any sort of lethargy until after the fact. Even then, he didn’t feel tired, it just felt like his head was going to explode. Titus either didn’t know or didn’t care what had happened, probably both. He had seemed quite disappointed when it became evident that Viune was otherwise occupied and wasn’t going to show up, but either way had refused to accompany Mykerion on what he described as an ‘idiot’s quest’ to be honest and own up before she had the chance to do something about it herself.

On the other hoof, Incelidus had offered his assistance, a promise which, like most made by Changelings, disintegrated twenty feet from the door.

“I’m not going any closer,” he’d said, putting on a brave face but letting the nervous fluttering of his wings betray his fear. “This is as far as I go.”

“You said—”

He’d put a hoof on Mykerion’s shoulder. “Look, Meeks, you’ve not fought her before. Everybody else has and everybody else lost.”

“It’s mee-kerry-oan, and that’s exactly why I’m doing it on my own terms.”

“Well, you’re an idiot, then. You’re giving her the home field advantage.”

“What does that mean?” Incelidus had a habit of rattling off pony idioms that Mykerion hadn’t learned yet.

“Do you know anything about the inside of the Forge?”

“No.”

“Do you have experience fighting Viune?”

“No.”

“Are you at all familiar with the punishments she dishes out for damaged armor?”

“N— Yes. I watched her fighting Lead Captain Dethyn yesterday.”

Incelidus waved a hoof around. “Sorry, tell me again how this is in any way a good idea?”

Mykerion shrugged. “I’m making it up as I go along. Why not help?”

“Oh no. Not even the Queen could make me go in there again. You’re on your own, Meeks. I’d hedge my bets and beat it if I were you.”

“Mee-kerry-oan.”

“Whatever, I’m out.” He’d covered only a few yards when he’d turned to call back, “I’ll be sure to speak well at your funeral!”

“What’s a funeral?!”

Actually, Mykerion was pretty sure he had at least one advantage. He had watched his Lead Captain and the hive’s armorer duke it out, and while the assault had been strong, Viune’s strategy had basically been to blitzkrieg her opponent into submission. If he could just hold the fight out for a while…

Oh who was he kidding. He was terrified and he had no plan to speak of, and there was a very high probability he was going to have to be carried out on a stretcher. Every step towards the door heightened the sense of dread. Every moment his brain was feeding him unfavorable result after unfavorable result. Incelidus was right, he had no idea what lay beyond that door, and he was picking the terrain Viune was most familiar with. Maybe he should give up, hide somewhere, prepare himself for—

Before he could let fear overwhelm him and become strong enough to spread to his drones, he seized the wheel on the door, spun it, and threw the portal open.

The first thing that hit him was the heat. It was a forge, what did he expect? But it was hot hot, a kind of searing heat he’d never experienced. He didn’t even have any points of reference to compare it to, he’d never encountered any abnormal temperature situations that would allow him to say what it felt like. Somehow that made it even worse.

Second was the smell. He’d gotten a whiff of it coming through the vents when the door was closed, but now that it was open his nose was being attacked by the scent of burning coals and molten metals. With the headache he had it didn’t make much of a difference, but with a clearer head he was sure that just inhaling would be painful.

The third thing thankfully didn’t hit him and instead shot past his head and went splat on the tunnel wall behind him.

“You missed,” he heard the armorer comment from inside. “I told you not to adjust the angle again.”

Oh… she was busy. That was okay. He could come back again la—

“CAPTAIN MYKERION YOU GET IN HERE AND CLOSE THAT DOOR.”

Instead Mykerion found himself muttering a hurried apology, fighting all the warning flags about the temperature, and entering, with the door slamming behind him. He was shut in now. No escape.

Most of the hive was a sort of mottled gray-green. Inside The Forge the fires made the walls red, with black soot stains everywhere. The atmosphere was hazy with steam and smoke, which only supplemented the overwhelming heat. There were anvils, shards of metal and discarded tools strewn everywhere. A huge furnace occupied the centre of the room, burning ferociously. Most of the smoke rose to the top of the cavern, which then, he guessed, was funneled out somewhere. Nothing really that was too out of the ordinary, to be honest.

Surprisingly, though, Captain Viune was not the room’s only occupant. Besides half a dozen drones which were flitting about, transporting materials around between workbenches, Viune herself was carrying an alarmingly long poker and gingerly prodding something that was on top of Captain Rhio’s unmistakable silhouette. Oh, good. At least he wouldn’t be without an audience for his beating. …what was she doing?

He attempted to move closer, but the armorer’s voice stopped him in his tracks. “Stay right where you are or this thing’s going to take your head off.”

“What thing…?”

A loud, high-pitched whine suddenly came from whatever it was on top of Rhio, followed by a whumph and another projectile whizzing over Mykerion’s head which splatted against the wall behind him. “I said clockwise, you moron! You spin it clockwise to wind the end cap on! Don’t look at me like that, you heard what I said! You want this—” she gesticulated with the poker “—down your throat?! Do it again, and this time, pay attention!”

Well, curiosity was a good thing to focus on instead of the dread, the youngest captain guessed… but then again, from what it was doing and the noises it was making, he thought he could make a fair guess as to what Viune was talking about. He’d heard tales of The Cannon from various drones, the mechanical machine that was capable of rapid-firing globs of Changeling secretion gunk and was so heavy that only Rhio could carry it. Initially he’d brushed it off as stuff that had been planted by the senior captains to unnerve him.

“Thank you. The end cap’s secure. Now you can test it.” Whine-whumph-splat. “Rhio, I swear to the Queen, if you don’t take this seriously I will end you.” Mykerion had never seen or heard Viune sound at all flustered before. Was this what she was normally like in— “Mykerion if you finish that thought you’ll be his testing dummy for the rest of your life!” —Never mind. It wasn’t worth it, not with what he was going to have to say to wait did she just pronounce his name correctly?

Before he could process that Viune was bearing down on him, the poker following closely behind in her magic. “Don’t stand there gawping. I know exactly what you’ve done and it is only because somebody doesn’t know how to maintain their own weapon that I haven’t already kicked your plot.” She cast a glare back at Rhio, who barely reacted. “So, are you masochistic, or just dense?”

Mykerion frowned. “Sir?”

“Don’t sir me.” She jabbed the poker into the base of Mykerion’s horn, and he flinched. “Why’d you come here? I’d be coming for you anyway. This…” The poker then jabbed into the armor remains. “…I have no words.”

“I’m a little surprised myself, sir.”

“And why’s that?”

“You haven’t punched me yet.”

“Oh, would you look at that, I haven’t.” Viune gestured to the left with the poker, and Mykerion’s gaze was fixed to it; she followed the distraction up with a cross from her right forehoof. “Satisfied?”

Okay, this was getting weird. “Sir?”

“Shut up, Mykerion. I’m busy.”

Rhio coughed. It wasn’t a loud cough, but it was meaningful.

“You can shut up and all. It’s your fault this thing broke in the first place.” Viune tossed the poker aside and picked up the scrap metal. “Alright, here’s the deal: Captain Zhoele says you get special treatment. I say she can stuff it, but she’ll stuff my legs in my mouth. So you get one chance to explain what happened.” Oh, a reprieve! Mykerion opened his mouth— “And you get two words.”

Oh. Er. It was difficult for Mykerion to summarize. Um. How should he, uh…

“I’m waiting.”

Well, it was the simplest explanation… “Spire. Fell.”

The armorer snorted. “You fell down the Spire? Way to go, genius. Not even drones make that mistake.”

“I didn’t make a mistake,” Mykerion protested. “I blacked out. I think. I’ve never blacked out before so I don’t know—”

He was suddenly silenced by Viune shoving a hoof into his face and shushing. “More than two words, dumbflank, now shut it.” In a single motion she turned and hurled the was-armor through a waiting grate into the furnace. “You must be competing with Iaberus for the title of captain who does the stupidest things. Should’ve expected as much when you started naming your drones.”

That wasn’t fair! “Sir, I’ve explained my reasoning—”

“And your reasoning’s stupid.” Viune turned back and jabbed her hoof into his chest. “They don’t need names. You use the hive-mind to identify them and that’s it.” Again! Mykerion opened his mouth to retort— “And don’t give me any of that rubbish about ‘oh what’ll we do if we ever don’t have the hive-mind’. If that’s what you’re telling them it’s no wonder that one ran away on you. Now then.” She inhaled. Behind her, Rhio coughed again, slightly louder than before. “Yes, I know.” Her next sentence was a little strained, as if she was having to force herself to say it. “This… that… wasn’t… your fault.”

Uh… that wasn’t what Mykerion expected to hear. “Sir?”

She leaned towards him. He leaned back. “You blacked out.”

“Yes, sir.”

She leaned further towards him. He had to take a step backwards so he didn’t fall over. “You had a headache when you woke up.” He was sure he hadn’t said that, but she’d phrased it as a statement, not a question. Did she know what happened?

“Yes, sir?”

She stepped forward into his face again, and he found that his hind legs just sort of gave up out of unexpressed terror. “And when you woke up, you wanted to hurt everyone.”

“I…” Mykerion stopped. That… That was true, now that he thought about it. He’d woken up, and even before he’d seen the armor, he’d been filled with an indescribable rage, if only for a moment. He’d just thought he’d imagined that. “I did, sir.”

“Hm.” Viune stepped back again, looked off to the side in a moment of thought, then punched him.

Well, that wasn’t entirely unexpected. That was the kind of furor he’d anticipated, Mykerion thought, as his head rang from where it had collided with the floor. But hadn’t she just said that it wasn’t his fault? What was that for then?! He tried to stand up, but his legs just went out from under him. Yeah, that… having watched her fighting Dethyn really didn’t prepare him for that. Incelidus had been right.

A blurry shape loomed over him, which bent down and slapped his face a couple of times to knock his senses back into him. “That,” said Captain Viune, “was for letting yourself get spiked.”

“Spiked?” was what Mykerion tried to say. It probably came out a little less coherently.

But Viune wasn’t talking to him any more. “You!” she pointed somewhere he couldn’t see, and guessed she had to be pointing at one of her drones. “Go and get Captain Titus. He is going to come here and he is going to come here immediately.” A pause, followed by some muttering, presumably from the drone. “I don’t care! If you don’t come back with him I’ll just have to use you as a substitute!”

Dimly, Mykerion became aware of the noise of the forge door opening and shutting, but he remained on the floor. The punch had hurt much more than he had been expecting it to, even after the earlier cross she’d given him. He was just going to stay there for a while. It didn’t feel like he was in the way of anything, and at this point, staying out of the way seemed like the best idea he’d come up with today.

“Spiked,” Viune repeated, once Mykerion felt he’d recovered and risked sitting up and asking about it. She’d returned to standing on a table and tinkering with Rhio’s cannon, which was aimed solidly on the door. “I shouldn’t have to tell you about this, nor do I want to, but unless Rhio decides he’s going to speak I’m going to have to.” Rhio, for his part, rolled his eyes but otherwise didn’t respond. “Figures. You were sent a concentrated burst of pure rage over the hive-mind which knocked you out.” There was no enthusiasm to her explanation, as if she was repeating something she’d said many, many times before. Mykerion found it pretty interesting, though. “Incelidus can’t do it, so I’m guessing Titus did it so I’d beat you up.”

“You beat me up anyway, sir.”

“I punched you twice, mainly for falling for it like a chump. And now I’m going to shoot him with a cannon. See how this works?” She flashed him a manic grin, and the junior captain found himself involuntarily scooting backwards. Oh no, she was enjoying this. “Either him, or that drone I sent to find him, or if neither of them turn up it’ll be you and I’ll deal with them later. Somebody’s going to get shot. Don’t even think about it, Rhio. I built the thing I can use it all I want.” There came a series of clicks as she spun the barrel idly. Again, nauseating dread welled up in Mykerion’s throat, and he tried to swallow it back down. Being shot point-blank by the cannon while he was unarmored was going to hurt, a lot.

One part of him felt satisfied, that Titus had tried to get him punished and now he was getting his comeuppance. Another part was simply relieved that he’d gone into the forge expecting the worst and got off lightly, at least for the moment. A third part was occupied with worrying how Captain Titus was going to retaliate, as he inevitably would.

And one more tiny part of him, the part that had been acting up ever since the Invasion and giving him mental breakdowns, asked Why can’t we all just get along?

Something was wrong with him, he was sure of it. Changelings didn’t think like that. They always took, they never gave. They worked together for the sake of the hive, but take that out of the equation and they’d abandon each other. That was the way it was supposed to be. …wasn’t it? But it just didn’t make sense that to eat, they had to leave the source emotionally drained afterwards and consequently incapable of providing any more love. If they were to share it, wouldn’t it last a lot longer? Given everything, though, he didn’t dare voice the suggestion out loud. It would be practically blasphemous. They did as the Queen told them and nothing else.

Mykerion didn’t want to be banished.

Before he could muse any more on the topic, the sound of the wheel on the forge door squealing brought him back to the real world. This was probably going to end badly.

The door took only moments to open. The first to enter was the drone, who stepped in, saw the cannon, panicked, and shot under a nearby table. Stomping right behind it was Captain Titus, sans helmet, who also stepped in, and made the mistake of immediately turning to close the door. “Viune, this had better be good!” he grumbled.

It started as a small ticking noise, which quickly grew into a loud whine as the barrel ran up to speed. Beneath the cannon, Rhio splayed his hooves to prevent the jitter. Somewhere in there secretions from the-Queen-knew-where were being sucked around like fluids in a centrifuge. Then—

“SPIKE THIS, YOU F—!”

Viune’s cry was swallowed up under the rapid-fire WUMPHs that issued from the cannon’s barrel. Titus barely had time to turn back around before the first glob hit him in the face, knocking him back against the door, and the followup shots that plastered him to the portal so completely that from the right angle it wouldn’t even look like he was there at all. All the while Viune was shouting obscenities at the top of her lungs, while Rhio was steady as a rock beneath the weapon. Oh, and it was hot too, wasn’t it… Mykerion had been in there so long he’d almost forgotten the heat. That stuff was going to stick to Titus for days, and stink like… like… like something very smelly. Mouldy cheese? The junior captain hadn’t actually encountered any cheese yet so didn’t know if it was smelly or not. Either way before his mood was taken into account Titus would be a very unpleasant Changeling to be around.

After about thirty seconds of sustained fire which had felt like several hours, the fire stopped, the whine faded away, and for a moment the crackling of the forge’s fires was the only thing audible. Then, with a loud schlup sound, Titus fell off the wall. It was almost comical. Mykerion was on the verge of laughing when he remembered that this was his superior he was looking at.

But apparently the ordeal wasn’t over. Immediately Viune was crossing the floor, her huge hammer in her magical grip, now yelling incoherently. Yowch. Now Mykerion was really glad he wasn’t on the receiving end. Watching the Viune/Dethyn fight would have in no way whatsoever prepared him for this. He would have been hopelessly outmatched. That hammer had to be at least two thirds her size.

What followed was… he wasn’t sure. The first swing of the hammer had missed, as despite his handicap Titus was able to squelch out of the way. Somehow in the ensuing fight they’d managed to open the door and disappear into the depths of the hive, shouting and screaming all of the way, leaving a trail of goo behind them. Chancing it, Mykerion peered around the edge of the threshold.

There was nobody there.

Then he turned his head to see Rhio immediately behind him and nearly fainted with fright.

When— how— In the seconds he hadn’t been in Mykerion’s vision, he’d disconnected all of the straps holding the cannon on and covered the distance up to the door without making a sound! Given the senior captain’s… well, generous size, that should have been impossible!

“S-sir!”

Rhio said nothing but stared off down the tunnel. Mykerion looked back. It was deathly silent out there.

“They must have gotten far…”

Silence.

“Remind me never to stand in front of that thing.”

A pause, then Rhio looked at him.

“Right. Shouldn’t be in front of you in the field. Sorry, sir.”

More silence. The staring was starting to get a little uncomfortable.

“We should… we should probably go, right?”

Rhio’s gaze returned to the tunnel.

“I… right, I should go. You were here first.”

With the big guy’s stare almost drilling into his back, Mykerion ran for it.

Disgust

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Incelidus put his head in his hooves. “How did we get into this mess?”

“Cheer up, silly,” said Mimix, giving him a playful bump on the shoulder. “It could be worse.”

“Really?”

She considered this for a moment. “Nah, ‘cause you’re stupid, Uncle Greenie.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome!”

Plan: Simple. Infiltrate posh pony do, gather intel, don’t draw attention, leave. Simplest thing in the world. A drone could have done it. The Queen, however, wanted two of her captains to do it, and so, here they were. So far, they’d learned zip about pony guard movements, Incelidus had learned that he hated posh ponies even more than he thought he did, and Mimix had learned not to let Incelidus talk. Incelidus was good at talking. Incelidus was so good at talking he’d managed to get them both seated at a table, gotten them acquainted with the couple on the next table over, and ordered some food.

The teeny tiny problem being that pony food was disgusting and Incelidus couldn’t properly digest it.

It wasn’t like he could pass it off on other ponies. The do invitation had been specifically tailored to one pony in particular - a rich unicorn landowner by the name of Green Belt, whose original was safely incarcerated back at his mansion - and with his plus one High Jinx, his bubbly pegasus niece, it would be particularly noticable if a) either of them disappeared or b) any ponies suddenly appeared in the building without a proper invitation. Replacing any of the other diners was a no go; for one, neither of the Captains had studied up on them, and the venue was small enough that anypony incapacitated would be found almost instantly.

Truth be told, Incelidus had actually been looking forward to this, because it was a big job and maybe finally he’d redeem himself in the eyes of the Queen. Now he was questioning whether it was worth having a major gastrointestinal dysfunction afterwards.

“The tomatoes are very good,” said Mimix around a mouthful of food, earning herself a look of disgust from another nearby couple. “You should try ‘em.”

All that was a sham, of course. Sure, she might be able to taste the tomatoes, but she wasn’t getting any nourishment from it. It was difficult to tell, but she probably wasn’t grabbing at the scraps of emotion from the room at large either. Actually feeding was a big no-no. If any of the guests started showing emotion fatigue the jig would be up immediately, and the last thing they wanted was to be captured and taken for interrogation. Incelidus had been there; he’d only managed escape through dumb luck and the ignorance of his interrogator, and that was a mistake they wouldn’t be making again.

He prodded at one of the tomatoes with his fork. Defective. That was the word that sprang to mind. He was defective. Big mouth, big stomach, bad digestive system. Not to say he was the only one - compared to the other captains, Mimix herself was tiny - but still… Maybe that was why he never seemed to be able to get praise from the Queen. He’d be doing stuff right, and then one of the three things would kick in and everything would go banana shaped. Or any kind of fruit shaped, really.

Oh no. Wait staff alert.

The stallion practically oozed up to the table, and if Incelidus had actually been eating he was sure he’d choke on the raw smarm the pony was emitting. “And how are sir and madame finding zheir meal?”

“Fan—” Incelidus absent mindedly levitated a napkin in front of Mimix’s face to catch the spray “—tastic.” She swallowed. “Mom never makes stuff this good.”

The waiter bowed ridiculously low. “I will pass your compliment to zhe chef.” His Prench accent was annoying, and very, very fake. Even Captain Iaberus could have done better, and that would really be an achievement for a Changeling who thought an ‘accent’ was an intentional accident. “And you, sir?”

With the stallion’s attention now diverted away from her, Mimix had put on the evillest expression that High Jinx’s face could muster. She being an eleven year old, it was downright diabolical. A face like that could have matched up to the Queen for sheer evil. She knew he was going to have to make a decision. A simple glance would tell the waiter that none of the food had been eaten. He couldn’t bluff his way out of this one.

“Oh? Sorry, I’ve had things on my mind.” Inwardly sighing, Incelidus tried not to make his manipulation of the fork look hesitant. Any hiccup in his actions could end in discovery. With the eyes of the waiter and his fellow captain on him, he put one of the tomatoes in his mouth, making sure to swallow it before he spoke again. “My niece’s assessment of my sister’s cooking aside, I concur.” Already he could feel his gut churning in protest. “I’ll be sure to recommend it.”

“Oh, wonderful!” exclaimed the waiter, clapping his front hooves together. “Zhe chef will be most delighted to hear zhat. Is zhere anyzhing I can get for zhe two of you?”

“Sure!” Mimix seemed determined to play the cheeky niece card for all it was worth, and glugged down her remaining half-glass of water. “More water!”

Incelidus sighed. “Jinx, you promised your mother and I that you were going to be using your best manners.”

“Oh yeah.” There was an extended pause. Now she was just milking it. “More water, please?”

If that stallion bowed any lower he would fall over. “Certainly, madame. Anyzhing else?”

The pegasus’s eyes turned back towards Incelidus, who was resigned to eating some of the lettuce. “Hmmm… nah. You’ve done enough already,” Mimix said, giggling. And there it was. She knew exactly what she was doing, the little… rrgh.

Strike one.

“Sir?”

“No, thank you.”

As the waiter flounced away, Incelidus lowered his voice. “You did that on purpose.”

“Duh. I don’t have a problem with it.” To prove her point, Mimix bent down over her plate and came back up with a mouth stuffed with greens. “I can do this all day,” was what she probably meant to say, but all that came out was a rather muffled “mmmfl”. And the sad thing was this was all completely in-character for High Jinx. No matter who Mimix was tasked with disguising as, she always managed to behave as she always did without breaking character. Her annoying giggle seemed to fit every pony she ever impersonated. Her disguises were always flawless.

And what could Incelidus do? Zip. It’d taken him three attempts just to get the color of the eyes right.

So, what next? At this rate, they had about thirty minutes before his stomach started rejecting the pony food which he was still reluctantly eating. That left twenty minutes to find out whatever guard movements that they were supposed to be gathering the intelligence of, and ten minutes to reach a safe distance and secure hiding place so he could throw up. Who in the restaurant at that moment would even know anything about the guard movements, anyway? There were certainly no on-duty guards anywhere, nobody within earshot was even tangentially mentioning the military…

Incelidus was beginning to suspect that his Lead Captain had fabricated the situation just to punish him further for the conga line of failure during and after the Invasion.

He was also regretting not making his intentions clearer when he’d unsuccessfully signaled Mimix to swipe the guest list.

He could not fail this mission. He’d already made too many mistakes. Making another one… he shuddered at the thought. It was only by some miracle that he hadn’t received a more serious punishment already.

“Fillies and gentlecolts!” Oh, hello. There was the ringing of a spoon on a glass, and Incelidus followed the silence and the sudden glare of the waiter to the speaker, another unicorn, who— Incelidus blinked, and suddenly regretted everything. His companion, too, gave a flare of panic over the hive-mind. They both knew who he was, and his presence meant that if they put even one step off-track things were going to go horrifically wrong. But hey, at least they found their guy.

“Thank you for all taking the time to attend this little soiree of mine,” announced His Majesty Prince Blueblood.

This should have come up in the intelligence. Had it come up in the intelligence? Incelidus didn’t recall anything mentioning Prince Jerk of the Universe. Either way, a member of the royal family was hosting the party, and that meant a) undercover guards, and b) any threat - or any perceived threat - would bring down the wrath of the alicorn of the sun, which they certainly weren’t prepared for.

Two Changelings weren’t enough. They needed at least a dozen for something like this. They needed to have replaced the wait staff, a couple more guests, and have a distraction waiting outside in case things went south. They were totally unprepared for a royal encounter.

Strike two.

The Prince was making a long-winded speech, as he tended to do. Incelidus did his best to try and imprint the key parts of it on his memory, without all the vanity comments and self-promotion. Very important things were in motion, the Prince said. A new era in Vanhoover’s history. A key moment that would be remembered for generations to come. Nothing that the guy hadn’t said before and failed to deliver on.

Across the table, Mimix was fidgeting. Would she blow their cover? No. High Jinx was eleven. She wouldn’t be able to sit through a school lesson without getting bored, let alone an extended prattle from the biggest head in Canterlot. Even undisguised she had the attention span of an ice cube on a hot summer’s day. Maybe… they locked glances. In the absence of an external distraction, an internal one would have to do. It would be perfectly in-character of her to interrupt something so droll.

Okay, so they had an escape plan. The Prince’s speech was heading somewhere in the direction of the royal guard, so they were going to get their information. The only question was whether they’d be able to get it and get out before Incelidus’s stomach exploded.

This was taking forever.

And then came the magic words.

“…cold weather training ground…”

Finally, that was all they needed to know. Couldn’t have timed it better. Ignore the rest of the speech. They needed out of there. Mimix opened her mouth—

“…I’d like to thank my good friend Mr. Green Belt for providing the land.”

—and closed it again as all eyes fell upon Incelidus, who put on his best smile. Internally, he was screaming. It kept happening.

“Care to say a few words, Mr. Belt?”

Everything was ruined. There was no escape now. Green Belt never turned down any chance for public speaking. Despite the fact that Incelidus knew nothing about the deal, or the reasons behind it… gulp…

Three strikes, you’re out.

He had no time to stop and think about it. It was time to wing it. “Certainly,” he said, standing up, trying not to glance down at Mimix facehooving, and walking over to the Prince’s table. “Thank you, your highness.”

It took him only a moment to review everything he did know about Green Belt. Wealthy, through capitalistic business ventures and sensible spending. Didn’t turn down public opportunities. Careful, didn’t rush into deals that had the chance to backfire. Above all, a family stallion. Yeah, okay. He’d run with that. Play to the crowd.

“Fillies and gentlecolts, I can’t begin to describe how delighted I was when my friend, Prince Blueblood here, came to me with this proposal…”

Twenty minutes later, to a rousing round of applause, Incelidus gingerly ushered Mimix out of the room under the guise of getting home for High Jinx’s bedtime. He hasn’t meant it to last that long. But once his mouth was started, it just didn’t stop, and it was going down so well, what was stopping him from saying a little more… and now he hated himself. He hated himself almost as much as he hated his gut, which by this point was heading into tropical storm territory. By this point, finding a hiding place was no longer enough. Now all he could do was wait until they reached their carriage, which was crewed by a couple of his drones, and then wait as they had to head off in the direction of Green Belt’s mansion first to keep up the illusion… Oh no…

“A cold weather training ground?” The Queen rubbed her chin. “No doubt bolstering the support of the Crystal Empire. Acceptable work, Captain Mimix.”

Mimix giggled. “Thank you, my Queen!”

Now the Queen’s attention turned to Incelidus, who would have complained if he could get a word in between heaving. “Prince Blueblood’s involvement is troubling. He certainly kept that under wraps well. Sounds like it was quite a speech.” She smirked.

Incelidus held up a hoof to start an explanation but abandoned the idea in favour of making a disgusting gargling noise.

“The lengths you’ll go to amuse me. Not the brighest idea you’ve ever come up with, Incelidus. Ah well, it can’t be helped. Consider yourself out of the fire, but don’t for a second think that this gives you license to screw up again. Understand?”

In lieu of being able to voice his assent, Incelidus managed a nod. He may have dodged that arrow but he knew what was coming next. Out of the fire, into the inferno.

“Good. Now, as funny as it may be to leave you squirming, I need you functional. Dethyn!”

From the entryway, Dethyn snapped to attention. “My Queen?”

The Queen waved a hoof towards Incelidus. “Take Captain Incelidus down to Captain Zhoele so he can have his stomach pumped, and tell her no maiming this time. I want him back intact for a change.”

Violence

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“Who do you think’s winning?”

Viune glanced over at Iaberus, who was bouncing up and down giddily. “I don’t care as long as they don’t damage my armor.” She looked back towards the center of the cave, where Mimix was gnawing one of Rhio’s legs off, and put her hooves to her mouth. “Did you hear that, you morons?!”

“Shut up!”

The fight had been going for a few minutes already, as evidenced by the amount of drones who’d congregated to watch it. A couple of the bolder ones were taking bets - not really the wisest move, because they were Zhoele’s drones, and she abhored infighting unless she was participating - and the betting pool seemed fairly even. None of the three captains currently duking it out really had a record against each other. Sure, Titus had threatened Mimix a few times, and Rhio had punched both of them on occasion, but these three in particular hadn’t had a proper fight yet.

And, Viune had to admit, even though Iaberus was dense, she too was having trouble determining who was winning. Titus was down a leg and a wing, Rhio had lost his horn and nearly a leg, and Mimix was missing two legs and in danger of losing a eye. Mimix’s smaller stature was working against her, unfortunately, unlike her last fight with Incelidus where she was too quick for him to get a decent hit on. Against the two males, she was having a harder job than—

A ragged cheer went up through the drones as the female fighter pulled Rhio’s leg off and clubbed Titus over the head with it.

“Who started it?”

Captain Incelidus, fashionably late, as always… Viune glared at him. “Who cares? A fight’s a fight.”

“It was either Mimix, Rhio, or Titus,” Iaberus added in an unsuccessful attempt at being helpful.

Resisting the urge to start another fight with the idiot, Viune muttered some obscenities under her breath. There was no point attacking him now, especially if one of the others was about to dent their armor. Maybe later she’d glue him to the anvil and hit him with the hammer a few times, try to knock some sense into him. It wouldn’t work, of course not, but it’d make her feel better. Iaberus was a wuss anyway. Couldn’t put up a decent fight to save his—

CLANG.

The drones went deathly silent.

Viune’s eye twitched. “Incelidus?”

Said Captain shuffled away from her. “Yes?”

With slow, deliberate movements, and without breaking eye contact with the combatants, she lifted her helmet off. “Be a sweetie and hold this.”

Incelidus gulped, and took it from her. You did not argue with Viune once she used the s-word. Iaberus plugged his ears.

“CAPTAIN RHIO!” Viune bellowed. “YOU HAD YOUR WARNING!”

With a new challenger entering the fray - and one Tartarus-bent on severely crippling Captain Rhio to boot - all of the bets were off. Within ten seconds Viune had already removed Titus’s dented helmet, thrown it clear across the room, and spat in Rhio’s eyes, proving once again that she was better at fighting than all three of them. It seemed to the other Captains that at any given time, she would be either working or fighting another Changeling.

Incelidus gingerly set Viune’s helmet down and sat down next to Iaberus, who had resumed bouncing. “Lead Captain Dethyn already knows,” he commented, eyeing the assembled drones, the ones belonging to their armorer in particular. With Viune angry, it wouldn’t be long before her drones followed suit and started picking fights with the first Changeling they came across. “He went to fetch Captain Zhoele first.” When they arrived on the scene, the fight would be broken up, the combatants knocked unconscious for punishment and healing, and the crowd dispersed. With any luck, that would happen before anyone was killed, but after enough entertainment had been provided.

“I’ve always wondered,” said Iaberus, in a tone that suggested it was a topic he’d just that moment thought of, “What does ‘sweetie’ even mean?”

“It’s a pony word,” Incelidus explained. (Not that he’d known that at first. At first he’d thought Zhoele had made it up.) “I believe it’s short for… sweetheart.” He spat, trying to clear the affectionate term from his mouth. “I don’t think Captain Viune knows what it actually means.”

“Ew.”

Whatever meaning the ponies had for it, in the hive it took on an altogether different connotation; if either the smithing Captain or the nursing Captain used it, it meant that they were very very angry and likely to blow up if they received any argument. If the Queen started using it… they were all doomed. And as for the actual meaning of the word? Incelidus certainly wasn’t going to tell her what it really meant. That was a one-way ticket to dismemberment, and a subsequent second dismemberment once all the removed limbs had regenerated.

There weren’t any clear winners in the fight yet, but what was quickly becoming clear was that Captain Rhio was losing. While he, Titus and Mimix were going at anything they could reach, Viune was making a concentrated effort to target him and only him, either not noticing or not caring that Titus had latched onto and was in the process of sawing through her right hind leg. Titus probably didn’t know who the leg belonged to, in all fairness, just in the same way that Mimix probably couldn’t tell that it was Rhio she’d just stabbed with her horn. A brutal fight, is what outsiders would call it, those unaware of Changelings’ regeneration capacity.

And what about the bets? Incelidus wasn’t even sure what the drones were even betting with. Other creatures would put up valuable possessions, money, that sort of thing, stuff that Changelings had no need of. Yes, Rhio did have a trophy cabinet, and Mykerion - who was oddly absent from the proceedings - had a bunch of stolen shiny scientific instruments, but the drones?

“I’m going to find out what the pool is,” he muttered to Iaberus. “Don’t touch Viune’s helmet.”

“Take a life-belt,” Iaberus said sagely.

Ignoring the other Captain’s salute, which made a noise like a rusty spring, Incelidus ducked into the crowd of drones, navigating his way through towards the two drones of Zhoele’s that were taking the bets. It wasn’t too difficult to cross undetected; the vast majority of the drones were concentrating on the fight, not who in particular was trying to force his way between them. A couple of his drones recognised him, yes, but they fled in terror before they could get punished. A wise move considering the circumstances - even the combatants would get a shout in at their drones for slacking off, once they’d regained consciousness.

He wouldn’t like to be in the place of the bet-taking drones in a few minutes’ time, that was for sure.

All he needed to do was get within earshot, and he managed it by taking off and attaching himself to the cavern wall above their heads. The fury hit him almost instantaneously - he only just resisted the urge to start a new fight of his own - the drones were betting their work positions. Guard duty, patrols, hunting, excursions, everything was going in, and the winners got their choice of job. It would send any Captain into a rage just thinking about it. Zhoele was going to be even more annoyed now…

Another cheer rippled through the drones as Captain Rhio, now almost completely limbless, followed the way of Titus’s helmet and soared ungracefully into a wall. This quickly turned to groans as Captain Viune, who it seemed many of the drones expected to leave the fight once she’d dealt with the one responsible for her ire, now decided that Titus was the one to blame for it. This caused a flurry of activity among the bookmakers. The pool was swinging towards their armorer. Really, it shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise, Incelidus pondered, as he prepared to stealthily leave before he got caught in the vicinity. No matter who started the fights, if they were involved, it tended to be the older females that finished it, whether it be their armorer, or their… nurse…

None of the drones had spotted what Incelidus had spotted, that which was rapidly overwriting his fury towards the drones with catatonic fear. A few of his own drones were already looking fidgety under the sway of the overpowering emotion, but that didn’t save the bookmaker, who knew only of the new arrival when she tapped him on the shoulder to attract his attention.

“Hello, sweetie.”

Captain Zhoele’s first hit all but disintegrated the drone’s face. The follow-up sent it flying over and into the fight, where it sent all three remaining combatants sprawling to the ground. The third hit the second drone and practically wiped out half the crowd. For all her… ‘special’ qualities, it couldn’t be said that she didn’t have good aim. Three hits, two seconds, one dominating silence.

She wiped her hoof on another nearby drone’s wing. “A funny thing happened on the way to the throne room,” she commented, nonchalantly, probably well aware that all the other Changelings in the room were now petrified with fear. “‘Apparently,’ Lead Captain Dethyn told me, ‘there’s a fight going on.’ ‘Surely not,’ I said, ‘because I know that every Changeling in this hive knows the punishment for infighting.’ But I followed him anyway, and do you know what I found? I found not only a blatant disregard for my warnings, but on top of that, a wager. ‘Pinch me, I must be dreaming,’ I said to myself, ‘because what is happening in front of my eyes can’t possibly be really happening.’ But then I remembered something else. Care to hazard a guess? No? I remembered that Changelings don’t dream.”

Without even pausing she catapulted another of her drones across the cave, straight into Titus, who’d attempted to take advantage of the distraction. Drone and captain fell into a crumpled heap. “Obviously, that means everything I saw and heard must be true, and that must mean that my report to the Queen was interrupted by not, as I first surmised, Lead Captain Dethyn pulling a practical joke, but by four utter and complete imbeciles having a petty argument. Needless to say, I wasn’t very amused by the immature actions of Changeling Captains who ought to know better, and I was most definitely not pleased with the fact that drones seem to think wagering their duties is something they can get away with.

“Now, under normal circumstances, I might have been content with issuing a few more warnings, in case the first hundred hadn’t gotten through your thick exoskeletons. But no. Today, since you managed to time your squabble so poorly, which means I am now late for my report to the Queen, you get an extra special treat.”

Her eyes narrowed into slits. “You’re all dead.”

“What Captain Zhoele means,” interrupted Lead Captain Dethyn, placing a hoof on Zhoele’s shoulder having finally picked his moment to follow in, “is that all of you - and I will check - will be expected to explain yourselves to the Queen.” He took a moment to share a glance with her. “So, yeah, you’re all dead. All of you, throne room, now. Incelidus, get down from there and help us with the idiots.”

“CAN I HELP, TOO?” shouted Iaberus, waving from the other side of the cavern, as the now very nervous drones who hadn’t yet been maimed or knocked unconscious flocked to the exits.

“GO AND FIND MYKERION!” Zhoele shouted back, the fleeing drones giving her a wide berth. “BRING HIM HERE! NOW!” She moved her focus of attention to the tangled mess in the middle of the chamber. “TITUS, YOU BASTARD! YOU PROMISED ME!”

“Are you sure she’s…” started Incelidus, once Zhoele had left earshot, “…a Changeling? Not a dragon? Or something like part dragon, part shark?”

“Technically,” said Dethyn, “She’s a princess.”

“Is there any difference?”

The Lead Captain snorted. “Not really. Come on, if we leave her alone with those four she’s actually going to kill them this time.”

“About that… I may be stuck.”

“What? Wait, you didn’t— Incelidus!”

“Sorry, sir.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Thank y—”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

Euphoria

by Kinrah

Happiness

Dread

Disgust

Violence