“I think it’s just up ahead of us,” Broad Sword shouted back down the path to the group, he himself having gone up ahead to look over the latest incline up the mountainous path.
Broad Sword waited patiently as the others caught up, stones being dislodged by their hooves and falling back down the steady incline. The mountains loomed above to both their left and their right; it would not be a good place for a claustrophobic. It had been a while since they had seen anything that was not a rock, the trees of the forest having been left far behind by this point. Even the discarded carts and equipment had long since been passed, leaving nothing but an empty and extremely lonely pathway for the group to follow.
“Not the most scenic of routes,” Vladimir muttered.
“Oh really? When did you notice?” Spike sarcastically said to the thestral. “Because I sure didn’t until you mentioned it.”
“Spike, now’s not the time,” the Queen scolded.
Spike sighed. “Sorry, Twilight. Just a little on edge.”
“We all are,” Broad Sword said as the group reached him. “But alas, here we are.”
The Captain of the Solar Guard gestured a hoof to what lay beyond, when the incline levelled out, before it started to decline back down the mountain. Looking at the end of the downward stretch, the mountains arched back, finally revealing what sat beyond it. The area ahead was like a bowl, mountains surrounding one flat area as a near impenetrable wall. A changeling hive sat right in the middle. The group where aware that most of it stretched far underground, but due its location being so far removed from other civilisations there were some buildings built on the surface. The hive had been built under what little fertile soil there was in the area outside of the nearby forest, and it was here that various farms had been set up where changelings would ordinarily be tending their fields, growing food for the hive and keeping animals for whatever purpose they may have for them. Normally.
Now though, everything was silent.
Twilight had suspected that might be the case, and despite some disappointment, she was also relived there wasn’t some feral army waiting for them. Still, there wasn’t any room for relaxation yet.
“Stay alert,” the Queen ordered. “You know what they say.”
“It’s quiet, too quiet?” Spike suggested.
“That’s the one,” Twilight confirmed. “There doesn’t seem to be anything about, but we never know what might be hiding in the shadows.”
“We’ll keep our eyes peeled,” Shining Armor assured. “We haven’t lived this long being careless.”
The group continued down what little was left of the pathway, shortly thereafter walking into the surface level of Queen Draco’s hive. They carefully strolled through the empty farmhouses and neglected fields. The animals now roamed free, doing whatever they pleased whenever they pleased. It truly was the definition of a ghost town.
The group began a thorough search of the farmhouses together, looking through them for any sign of a changeling that may have survived whatever happened to the hive. They searched every dark corner, under every bed and in every cupboard. They cast magic to dispel disguises, to detect any morphed changeling, and also came up short. No matter where they looked, there was simply nothing to find. The only thing of note was the very same thing that they had seen in both the forest and on the pathway to the hive; it seemed like the changeling just up and left, dropping what they were doing no matter what state that thing was in.
When the final farmhouse was searched, they all gathered right in the middle of the large patch of land where a fountain was idly spewing water as it always did.
“OK, definitely creeped out,” Vladimir stated. “There’s nothing up here.”
“We should search further, go down into the actual hive,” Broad Sword stated.
“What of the tomb?” Shining Armor enquired. “It’s the main lead we have.”
“We need to search both,” Twilight stated.
“So we split up?” Spike suggested. “One group go down into the hive, the other checks out this doorway Draco found?”
“Absolutely not!” Twilight exclaimed, appalled by the idea. “That’s just asking for trouble! No, we stay together. It may take longer, but it’s far safer.”
“Right…” Spike said sheepishly. “Strength in numbers and all that.”
“So where first?” Shining Armor asked.
“The hive,” Twilight responded. “For one thing, we need to raid any medical supplies they may have, Vladimir is still in a bad way.”
Vladimir shrugged. “Meh, I can handle it.”
“That’s not what you said earlier,” Broad Sword rebutted. “Don’t be awkward.”
“To the hive it is then!” Shining Armor proclaimed. “Does her majesty wish to take lead and unto glory?”
Twilight rolled her eyes and swatted her brother around the back of the head, but did take the lead anyway.
They quickly located one of the hive’s entrances, the doors already wide open with no guard protecting them. Nothing prevented them from simply walking in and descending down the hive’s most outer halls. The architecture of the hive was almost identical to that of the Equestria Hive, though with a bit more of a red motif than their blue. Expected, given the same goes for the armours the guards wear from the respective hives, always Red VS Blue some might have said. That is, if the two hives weren’t long-time allies anyway.
What could not have been said to be the same, however, was the layout. Or, to put it far more simply…
They got lost, and fast.
The group spent a good amount of time trying to navigate the hive, but all they really had to go off of was what Queen Draco had mentioned to Twilight during their conversations, along with whatever Chrysalis had told the Queen from some of the few times when she had visited her friend’s hive. If only such a visit would have occurred when Twilight was around. Eventually, however, blind luck did allow them to stumble across the bedroom of Queen Draco herself. This, of course, was a room Twilight had to stop and investigate.
On entering the room, it appeared to be quite modest. They large bed sat in one corner with a desk being placed directly central in the room. The only other defining feature was a few bookshelves lining the walls. It seemed Draco only ever used the room for sleep and work, and little else. If she did ever relax, she certainly didn’t do it there. Though, Twilight’s keen eye did spot a few romance novels among the other books lining the shelves. Books that, Twilight had a slight suspicion, were actually provided to Draco by Chrysalis when they were younger.
Either way, the room looked like it hadn’t been used in quite a while. Much like everything else.
Twilight sent the others to search the shelves and even the bed for anything useful to their investigation while Twilight herself searched the desk right in the very centre of the room. The desk had a few blank scrolls and dry quills scattered on top, but nothing of note. A quick rummage through the drawers didn’t do much either, though she did find a map of the hive tucked away in one of them.
“A map?” Shining asked, seeing Twilight unfold and examine it.
“Seems like it,” Twilight said in affirmation. “Look, there’s the throne room. And here… Yes! Here is the infirmary.”
“Alright, the infirmary is next on the list then.”
Shining Armor saw something else catch Twilight’s eye.
“Go on ahead,” the Queen stated. “I’ll catch up in a few minutes.”
“Why? What are you doing?”
Twilight showed off a small piece of paper she had extracted from the draw. “Seems that my friend had kept some personal notes on their discovery, I’m going to read them.”
“Alright, but don’t keep us waiting.”
“I won’t,” Twilight assured. “Just go get Vladimir some fresh bandages. I'll ping one of my changelings over the hive mind should I need you.”
Shining Armor nodded towards the others, and once he took the map from Twilight he began to lead them towards the infirmary. Luckily for Twilight, she had a good memory and so wouldn’t need the map now she had been given a chance to study it.
Not that it mattered right now.
When the others were gone, Twilight looked down on the notes Draco had left. They were mostly details about the doorway and how her changelings were progressing. However, there was one hastily written note right at the bottom that chilled Twilight to her core.
She’s inside my head! She-
She’s trying to take me again, and I can’t stop her. It’s this thing on my chest, it’s this thing! That damned tomb, I should have left it to- to-
I can hear her. Whoever finds this, Twilight if it’s you…
It’s too late for me.
Twilight stared at her friend’s writing. From the state of her writing, she had obviously been in excruciating pain when she wrote it. But it made sense, given what Twilight had gathered about the drones. And yet Draco had been resisting.
‘So she did find something in that tomb,’ Twilight thought to herself.
The Queen cast a spell on the floor, one that would allow her to cast an emergency portal back to that very location should she need a quick escape. She then cast a portal around herself and reappeared at another predetermined exit location she had prepared in case she and the group had needed to evacuate the hive. She cast another one of those spells to renew the one she had just used up, and then took to the skies. It didn’t take her long, with a bird’s eye view, to locate the two massive doors carved into one of the mountains. Draco’s hive had left a great amount of equipment around the doorway, but once again the changelings themselves were absent.
Much like with the hive, the two great doors were open, revealing an empty entrance hall with a single doorway at the end. Twilight wasted no time in flying directly into those inner doors, blasting down the extremely long hallway without ever even placing her hooves on the ground. As she flew down the halls she kept her eyes peeled for anything that might prove a threat. But as Draco once found, all that was ahead was a winding hallways with zero deviations at any point. Her rate of progress was extremely quick, however, and she managed to cross the entire length of the hallway in much less time than Queen Draco’s initial expedition. It was when her eyes spotted the light at the end of the hallway that she finally slowed, and came to land back on the ground. Her gossamer wings came to a rest and she let her hooves take over again as she cautiously walked into the chamber.
Much like everywhere else, the chamber was completely empty without even a sign of a struggle. A staircase led up to a raised platform, and Twilight couldn’t help but shiver as she realised this was undoubtedly where everything had gone so terribly wrong. As she finally stepped fully into the room and towards the stairs she made sure that her portal was at the ready, she didn’t exactly wish to share Draco’s fate.
One nervous step at a time she ascended the staircase, and when she finally reached the top she found… nothing. There was a podium where something was likely kept previously, but whatever that thing was wasn’t there anymore.
No, according to that note it was latched onto Draco’s chest.
The entire vast chamber was eerily silent, the air completely dead. On top of that, that feeling had returned. It was the same feeling she and the other Changeling Queens had felt back at the Council Hive, a pressure on the part of her brain that connected to the hive mind. Only here it felt more focused, and as Twilight gathered magic into her horn even that felt just… wrong. Disturbed, she cast the portal around herself and promptly sunk into it, arriving back in Queen Draco’s personal chambers.
The Queen could only give a sigh of relief as that pressure on her mind died away, and she took a few moments to compose herself.
She had left Draco’s note on the desk, and now the Queen once again picked it up and examined that very last entry. It was obvious that Draco had found something, something that she still had with her, wherever she was. But exactly what that thing was Twilight had no idea, but that wasn’t the most concerning thing.
She was more concerned about who the ‘she’ Draco talked about was. Whoever ‘she’ was, it appeared that they were forcing their way into her friend’s hive mind.
Queen Twilight Sparkle was beginning to get an idea as to what was going on. Sighing she turned and left the room, finally with some answers. Yet, there were still too many remaining questions for Twilight’s liking.
Before she could do anything else, she needed to meet up with the others and continue to search the hive. Once she was sure there were no more answers to be had then, considering that nothing had changed by that point, she had a clear path.
She would find the person responsible for what had happened, and she would stop her. Whether that was via the Elements of Harmony or death, she would put a stop to the madness either way.
And if at all possible, she would save her friend.