The next morning, as soon as Vinyl could focus enough to see the fillies were also awake, Chitter had walked up to them.
"We are walking all day, no more sleeping until tonight, and no talking." Chitter turned and walked off, leaving the ponies grabbing what they could to eat as their hooves ached to follow him.
Vinyl tried to talk, she opened her mouth and grunted, but couldn't make a distinctly word-like sound. The fillies were now "bigger" still, and no amount of self-deluding could hope to convince her that this was really what was happening. She was short, her legs felt smaller, and she knew her horn was shrinking too. 'We must be going close to a town or something.'
The day ended much as the previous, with them ducking into a cave stocked with food. All of them had sore legs, not that they could complain. Vinyl looked at the three fillies, their torsos now bereft of fur, showing hardening black plate underneath. Walking to each, Vinyl gave them a nuzzle and a hug, her eyes almost wet with tears. Silently, they curled up together.
Stirring first, Vinyl felt certain there was something she should be remembering from her dreams, something important. "You girls awake?" She was careful sliding free of them, each of the fillies now looking to be the same size as her. "Let me get the food."
Apple Bloom opened her eyes and gave a fraction of a nod, when she saw Vinyl, however, the tiredness quickly fled. "Are you alright?"
Vinyl turned from her task and looked at Apple Bloom, and froze in shock. The filly had lost all the fur around her head, her mane was scraggly, and she had a pair of protruding fangs. Poking her tongue forward, Vinyl felt two large projections from her top gum.
"Ah guess that answer that. Ah'm the same?" Apple Bloom looked back at herself, her torso now bereft of all fur, but showing some brighter markings of a carapace.
"Yeah. Missing almost all your fur, some of your mane, and tail. The fangs…" Vinyl trailed off as she saw something else. "Hold on." She approached Apple Bloom, her hooves moving the filly's head so she could look down on it. "You are growing a horn!"
The unguarded exclamation got Chitter's attention. "What's going on back there? Keep it down."
"Ah'm getting' a horn?" Apple Bloom's surprised question didn't need a full answer, and all she got from Vinyl was a nod. "That's… wow."
"I feel really strange." Sweetie Belle approached the two, then did a bit of a double-take with Vinyl. "You're a filly…"
Sweetie Belle's fur was all gone, her mane was almost all lost to where she slept, and the only tail the filly had left was the little fin of a changeling. She bore fangs, a curved, black changeling horn, and she had a pair of swelling marks on her back. The most shocking change to the filly, however, was her eyes.
Vinyl forgot about the food and reached up to give Sweetie Belle a hug. "I don't know how, but I will make sure this turns out okay. We are going to get out of this."
Apple Bloom joined the hug, and a moment later a tired and confused Scootaloo joined as well. "What is the hugging for?" Scootaloo looked between her friends. "Oh, I know, the vampony just wants to get us close, to steal all our wubs."
"Really?" Vinyl's groan got a giggle from all three of the fillies. "Well, let's get some food before old Buzzy-bossy-pants realizes we just hugging." She felt all three squeeze her a little tighter.
"Crusader meeting." Apple Bloom looked to her friends. "I vote we accept Vinyl Scratch as the first vampony member of the Cutie Mark Crusaders."
"Probationary member." Scootaloo narrowed her eyes at Vinyl. "If she gets too bitey, we are going to have to review her membership."
"All in favor?" Apple Bloom looked at her two best friends, waited for them both to nod. "And those against?" She gave a brief pause, for the sake of keeping everything legal. "Then I pronounce Vinyl Scratch a probationary Cutie Mark Crusader."
"Hold on… uh, I have a…" A chill ran through Vinyl. She didn't want to look at her side, but a glance at the fillies showed that if things were progressing the same, she shouldn't have any fur on her flanks. She couldn't pull out of the hug, the three fillies she had tried to save wouldn't let her.
"You are a Crusader now." Scootaloo looked in Vinyl's eyes. "That means we all work together to make things right."
"Yup." Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom chimed in just after Scootaloo.
Vinyl couldn't help but squeeze them tighter. "Thanks."
"Quiet, we are walking again. Grab some food and follow me." Chitter's words stung each filly's ears, but they all let go, got as much grain as they could down, and followed their captor back out into the world.
~~~~~+++++~~~~~
Trudging along, Vinyl felt as if she were going to be walking for the rest of her life. She wasn't sure when they had left the cooler grasslands behind, but her black hooves now marched the dead soil of the Badlands. From time to time she would check on the others, giving each a nuzzle to see if they were still thinking.
It was while she was checking on Sweetie Belle, that Vinyl saw the huge edifice. She froze, her eyes widening at what looked like a big termite nest.
"That's your new home. That is our hive." Chitter smiled brightly at his home, in the distance. "When we get there I will take you to the latest batch of nymphs."
Vinyl blinked and focused more on the changeling than the nest of them. 'He sounds happy, relaxed.' She tried to put together what was happening with her captor, but soon was led forward again, their rest over.
"Aren't going to ask me about it? About life in the hive?" Chitter was practically prancing now; he looked back at the four captives and realized his problem. "You can talk now."
"Well, thank you." Vinyl used critically dangerous levels of sarcasm. "What is it with you? One moment you are cruel to us, the next you seem happy and positively dancing."
Chitter blinked a few times at the question. "I was commanded to bring you here, if anything happens that stops that, I… I… it isn't nice." He shook his head. "Your turn." He pointed at one of the other ponies.
"Uh…" Apple Bloom pondered what to ask. "How many o' you are there inside?" As they walked, the structure just got bigger and bigger.
"There are a lot here, nearly six hundred last time I heard anyling count." Chitter gave a chirping chuckle. "A lot more of us in the main hive."
"Main hive?" Vinyl blanched at the thought. "H-How many hives are there?"
"We build a hive whenever we are going to take something." Chitter was in such bright spirits he didn't care what he said. "Our wonderful Queen wants something in Equestria… besides more drones."
Vinyl's blood ran cold, she felt her heart thumping away in her chest as if it were fit to burst. Her throat was so dry she couldn't even try to ask for more information, not that she could get free.
"Why don't you just ask? Princess Celestia said we could visit the royal gardens when we asked." Sweetie Belle saw Vinyl slow a little, and moved up to her side to help guide her along. "Are you okay?"
"N-Not really. We need to get away and warn somepony. This is… hundreds…" Vinyl shook a little, felt the fillies close in around her protectively. "I should be protecting you…"
"What?" Scootaloo, and the rest of the Crusaders, were ignoring Chitter, focused on their newest—probationary—member. "You were taken just like us, it isn't like you are part of the Royal Guard or anything."
When Vinyl slumped a little between them, Apple Bloom leaned in to the filly-sized mare. "You were in the Guard?" When Vinyl nodded, she gasped.
"Please don't tell them, I was… actually, I was hunting for them, not that I realized it then." Vinyl kept her voice down low and safe from being overheard, easy to do with Chitter walking ahead. "If any of you can ever get away, go back to… go to Canterlot, go to the castle, tell them you… you need to see Princess Cadance, that Vinyl sent you." It hurt to have to abbreviate things, cut stuff out for the fillies.
"If we make a break for it, we're takin' you with us." Apple Bloom gave a little laugh. "No Crusader gets left behind!"
"What are you talking about?" Chitter turned at the excited filly's exclamation. "Come on, hurry up!" He broke into a trot.
The four fillies picked up their pace, keeping close as they moved into the shadow of the changeling hive. When two big changelings stepped out of a tunnel nearby, they couldn't even slow their hooves.
"Good haul, Chit. Take 'em in." The two changeling guards fell back into the cave once one had spoken.
Almost on cue, a hole in the side of the hive opened up right before Chitter. "Come on, inside." Of course the little ponies ran through the portal, they couldn't refuse him. "Welcome to your home. You will enjoy it here."
Vinyl almost snarled at the changeling, but her emotion bled away by the drugs in her system. Her memory stirred, a sensation of somepony apologizing for everything seemed… real. Nonetheless, the four kept following the changeling deeper into the hive. "What are you going to do to us here?"
"You are going to learn. We have a school for you and everything." Chitter gestured to a blank wall, that opened a moment later. "In you go, and go to sleep."
It was a command, and none of the ponies could fight it. Walking through the open wall revealed a cozy chamber, and no other exit. Turning, and giving a yawn, Vinyl was about to say something snide when the wall closed. "You… you bug-butt." The giggle of the other three fillies reminded Vinyl that she wasn't alone.
"My sister doesn't like it when a pony swears, but I think she would be okay if you said something worse." Sweetie Belle looked at Vinyl, a little grin on her black features.
The room wasn't dark, there was a soft green glow seeming to come from all over, but none of them could fight the command and soon, all of them were curled up in a little bundle, ignoring their empty bellies as sleep claimed them.
~~~~~+++++~~~~~
"Shining Armor!" Vinyl raced up to Shining in his sleep. "I don't like this place… it… it's scary." They were in a perfect replica of the hive, and before Vinyl—the parasite living inside Shining—could say another word, a big pair of forelegs wrapped around her.
"I don't like it either, it is… horrible. Everything keeps changing, and I don't think we are going to like the teaching." Shining wrapped tighter around Vinyl, memories of all the time he spent being the big tough stallion so she could be free.
"They will want to teach us how our new bodies are going to work, probably magic for the fillies who didn't have horns, flying for those who didn't have wings." Vinyl Scratch sank her snout into Shining's fuzzy neck-ruff, inhaling deeply, relaxing.
"You are all of me, right?" The moment Shining asked, the mare he was hugging was suddenly replaced by a big stallion, too. "Whoa… okay, and I am still—" The change in perspective was sudden, and Vinyl found herself looking up at Shining. "This might take some getting used to. How about we both be Vinyl, I just want to cuddle."
Shining Armor shrank down, becoming a perfect copy of the other mare. "Yeah, a cuddle sounds good now." The changeling had urges, feelings that she had to do things to the nice pony she was part of. Cuddling up with her. "I'm scared, Vinyl." She nuzzled in against her twin.
"It's okay, we can fight this." Vinyl rested her snout on the changeling's cheek.