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A/N: Geography and Culture were not my best subjects. Viewer discretion is advised.
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Where Are the Crowds?
9:30 AM
Smatterday
Somewhere in Brooklyn
---(Cier's POV)
I'd have to ask my journal to forgive me later for the lack of specifics. It was kind of difficult to determine exactly where in the Brooklyn county we were. Also, there were an awful lot of cotton candy stands overseen by creepy, older men. I had heard a rumor that 'weird in New York is normal', but... I wasn't sure where the nugget of truth ended and where something actually bizarre started. A random lady swept me off my hooves, petted me behind the ears, set me back down, and then ran away screaming something like 'all of a hack bar'.
The phrase 'I don't even' was starting to look a little weak right then. Fifty-one was trying to explain to me how to use the hive mind naturally. I had already read some of his memory for that information earlier that day, but I think he was trying to give me something else to think about. It helped a little when I started hearing a slight 'ping' in the distance. The mental sound was coming from across the bridge. Ninety-nine confirmed that he could also hear it.
"There are fewer cars than I imagined there would be." Peter's yellow eyes glowed on Spirit's face.
Ninety-nine took one look at the combination of presences in that pony body and shook his head. "Nothing surprises me anymore."
"Still, traffic does seem kind of light for this area." Dad put his hands in his pockets.
"Maybe they're waiting around for the night life?" I looked up at him.
"Maybe..." Dad shrugged.
Mom's spine shivered as she came back. "You'd think having a furry hide would make me feel a lot warmer."
"Want me to carry you, Arl?" Dad held out his hands with the palms up.
"No thank you." She shook her head. "Spirit and I are both old enough to pull our own weight."
Dad smiled in surrender and put his hands back in his pockets. We continued our walk (easier to say than one walk and three trots) along the bridge's length. There were a few cars passing by on the road part, but there was a lot of space between the back of one car and the front of the next. It was very different from the 'less rush, more hour' traffic I had anticipated. I was starting to doubt my own suggestion from less than a minute ago.
Still, the semi-sweetness I smelled from Mom and Dad helped my internal tension to be slightly more bearable. The mental ping from the other side of the bridge was slowly growing louder. By the time we managed to cross the bridge completely, I was starting to hear something akin to radio static. Except, it was less annoying than that. Maybe I was biased, considering I was currently part bug and buzzing was something normal to my ears.
"We're getting closer." Ninety-nine looked at Mom and Dad when he said that.
"Yeah, roughly... that direction." I held my hoof up and out. "The pattern is more consistent."
"What pattern?" Mom tilted her head.
"We're pretty much following your two leads here." Dad glanced at Ninety-nine and me.
"The hive mind of our queen is very distinct," explained Ninety-nine, "and holds a pattern shared by all of her subjects."
"Uh-huh..." Dad slowly nodded.
I swiveled my hoof in a circular direction. "Think of it like... Morse Code for changelings."
"Hmm." Mom shook her head. "Is this something else that Discord shoved upon you?"
"Not at all," replied Ninety-nine. "It's actually one of the few things we have that's still mostly intact."
"Oh." She rubbed a hoof under her ear. "I thought nothing could get weirder than having ghosts invade my personal space, but this makes a close second."
"So, where does New York in general fit on that weirdness scale?" Dad looked down with a thin smile.
"Third," was the unanimous response from the rest of us.
Static-esque crackling gave way to a few syllables echoing against my mind. We were getting closer to the next potential hive mind. Control slipped to Fifty-one as he and Ninety-nine crawled up the bricks of an alley wall. Somehow, I had forgotten that was one of the things changelings could do. The signal started to sound like more fluent as the two stepped onto a fire escape platform.
Is someling out there?
We are here now, answered Ninety-nine in kind. Look outside the window.
Silence reigned for a few seconds. Blinds shifted slightly. A dark hoof appeared, followed by a solid eye of purple. A second later, the presence shoved the sliding window to the side. It mostly looked like a changeling, except his frill was red and he had purple eyes instead of blue. Fifty-one's memory revealed this changeling to be something the hive called a select few that were "free from the ranks".
Oh gosh... He exhaled as if relieved. I got scared when I thought I was the only one that had turned into this... thing.
Fifty-one and Ninety-nine blinked. Apparently, they weren't quite sure what to think of this changeling. The personality was very different from what they were expecting.
"That's probably his human mind thinking right now," I guessed. "Dig a little deeper and we should find the changeling you guys are more familiar with."
"Hmm, I suppose that would make sense." Ninety-nine shrugged.
Wait, were you guys... not people that transformed?
"Sort of... it's a little more complicated than that." I swiveled a hoof in place before tapping my chest. "My name is Cier, but the body you're seeing belongs to the Fifty-First Drone."
Our buddy nodded. "And I am the Ninety-Ninth, though my human personality is dormant for reasons I can't figure out."
The less restricted changeling nodded slowly. Okay... my name is Imannue. The voice in my head calls itself Pharynx.
"Out of curiosity, why do you not speak out loud, Imannue?" I asked.
Immanue cleared his throat. "Hear English. Okay. No say English. Bad, bad, bad." He shook his head.
"Ah, got it." I nodded. "Still, that was said pretty well for a non-native speaker."
Eh heh, thank you. He smiled sheepishly and scratched his frill. Had to figure out how to say the important things, right? He turned to the right. Want to come inside?
I smiled. "Sure, but I'd also like to get my parents up here if that's possible."
He leaned out the window and looked down to the left. Oh... I... see the family resemblance?
I laughed and sat down. "It's a long story. How about we get all of the parts up here and we can tell it together?"
Immanue the Pharynx flew down and triggered the ladder on the fire escape. With a little support on either side from Ninety-nine and myself, Dad lifted and carried Mom up the ladder. Dad joked about getting to carry her after all. She halfheartedly told him to shut up and planted a kiss on his cheek. Despite the otherwise dirty alley, the air tasted sweet for a few seconds. Once we were all inside Immanue's apartment room, we sat down at various spots on the floor.
I held my front hooves apart in front of me. "It all began on what seemed like a normal weekend..."
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10:25 AM
Smatterday
Immanue's Apartment - Somewhere in Brooklyn
"... and that lead us to here."
Immanue blinked. You got picked up by a random woman and then she ran away while shouting, "God is great!"?
"I don't know." I shrugged and my wings involuntarily buzzed. "It was too weird for me to remember the exact phrasing."
Okay... He rubbed the underside of his muzzle before holding his hoof to the side. One last question: How did you know about the parts you weren't there for?
"Because my mom told me her story back we reunited at our house." I idly rubbed a hoof against my frill. "Did I forget to mention that part?"
Uh, no. He shook his head. Sorry, I forgot. I was trying to listen to everything.
Mom turned to give a concerned look at Dad. "How is your shoulder doing by the way?"
"It still aches a little, but I can at least use it." Dad shifted weight from one leg to the other. "How about your ghost sense? Is that bothering you?"
She leaned against him. "Not as much. According to Peter, the local apparitions are too busy fighting amongst each other to notice a singular person they can overshadow."
"Well, I'm glad to hear that." Dad gently scratched Mom's mane behind her ears.
I returned my attention to our host. "So, what have you been up to?"
Immanue tilted his head. I've never heard of the show My Little Pony before. Why did I get shoved into one of their bodies when it's only supposed to affect the followers?
"That was the pattern about the initial victims." I held a hoof, flat-side up. "Since then, I guess Discord has been gradually altering his rule set. Knowing how a logic-defying powerhouse operates, the mind merging might extend to all of the two worlds' populations before the end of the week."
"But if your altered calendars are correct..." interrupted Ninety-nine, "... that would be equivalent to one year in your world's time."
I crossed my hooves and looked down. "Exactly."
If he is like a god in terms of power, is there even anything we can do to stop this? Immanue flicked his tongue out like a nervous snake.
"The heroes of Equestria and their close friends and family are all planning to meet up in New York." I smiled. "By the show's records, they face the magical forces of evil on a regular basis. If anyone can stop Discord's current scheme, it's them. Fifty-one's been tasked by Queen Chrysalis to gather as many members of the hive as he can. I have a hunch magical disruptions on this scale will need as many helping to restore harmony as possible."
Imannue's ears flopped. That sounds more like a hope than an actual plan.
"I still can't get used to Pharynx expressing like that," muttered Ninety-nine.
I trotted over and gave Immanue a pat on the back. "Trust me, hope tends to have physical substance to it when it comes to these little ponies. We just have to be ready to help it when it does."
He presses one hoof against the other on the floor. Pharynx says that sounds ridiculous... in less appropriate terms.
"Wait, you can hear him clearly?" wondered Ninety-nine. "Why can't we sense his mind at all?"
I hummed. "If Immanue's merge was recent, it's possible that the changeling's real mind hasn't had time to surface and regain dominance yet."
"That's how it was for Spirit and me," mentioned Mom.
"Same for 51 and myself." I nodded.
Immanue idly scratched one leg with the other. Should... I be worried? He's not exactly the nicest person... changeling... I've met.
Ninety-nine shook his head. "He should be relatively harmless, given all of our current circumstances. Just don't threaten his brother if we happen to find him."
I tilted my head. "Wait... I thought all of the changelings were brothers and/or sisters."
Fifty-one took over and cleared his throat. "While every drone in Chrysalis's hive is of the same blood, we consider hatchlings born in the same egg sac to be broodmates. That is what we term as 'brothers'."
I blinked. "Oh. Wait, why didn't you just relay that to me mentally?"
He deadpanned. "I figured it would be faster to explain it to everyone that didn't know all at once."
"Hmm." I slowly nodded. "Good point."
Immanue looked at me with wide eyes. Wh...What was that?
Ninety-nine held a hoof to his head. "Trust me, their ability to swap dominance so quickly disturbs me as well."
Spirit closed her eyes and sighed. "I'm afraid we'll have to get used to that. Weirdness is a usual factor when it comes to the mechanized schemes of Discord."
Immanue looked down at his hooves again. What have I gotten into?
"Heh." I smiled. "We didn't ask for this situation either. But we'll get through it somehow."
Alright. He slowly nodded. I don't know much about a lot of things, but I'll try to help anyway I can.
"But will he help?" wondered Ninety-nine.
Immanue put a hoof to his chest and closed his eyes for a bit. I couldn't help but lean in a bit from the anticipation.
He opened his eyes and looked at us. "Pharynx help, but no like."
...
Dad was the first to laugh. This was soon followed by Mom and me. Ninety-nine simply smiled and shook his head.
Did I... say my words wrong? wondered Immanue.
"Apparently, that's their rather human way of acceptance," commented Ninety-nine. "They're a little weird themselves, but they've been good company so far."
Okay... Immanue tilted his head.
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11:00 AM
Smatterday
Somewhere in Brooklyn
Ninety-nine explained how the hive mind worked to Immanue while the rest of us took a breather. Well, Dad took a rest. Mom started trotting in place for no reason. I decided to see if I could crawl along the wall without Fifty-one's input. I got up to the indent where the wall met the ceiling. That's when gravity chose to pull me back toward the floor. Upon impact, I instinctively hissed in pain.
"Urgh..." Fifty-one interjected through our mouth and he turned over. "How about next time, you practice crawling down instead of stalling in one place?"
"Or... maybe don't do that kind of thing at all?" Mom had stopped her one-spot walk.
"You going to be okay?" asked Dad after sitting up.
I rubbed a hoof against my back and along my wings. "I'll be fine. I think I was more shocked than hurt."
Dad nodded. "Alright, but take it easy for now."
"Will do." I stood up on all fours.
Wait... do you guys hear that? asked Immanue.
I perked my ears up and heard a pattern of pings. "It's a faint signal. Either it's really far away..."
"... or someling isn't doing so well," finished Ninety-nine.
"Guess we're heading out again." Dad grunted as he got up.
"Guess so..." Mom reluctantly reached up her front hooves so Dad could pick her up.
Fifty-one took dominance and he and Ninety-nine took point out the apartment's front door. Dad carried Mom and followed after us. Immanue managed to find a hole in his hoof for his room key and covered the rear of the group. I heard the buzzing of our changeling wings as we hurried along the street. We passed a random smoker and a beggar and a hot dog vendor that didn't even look twice at us.
As the pinging signal started to gain a little volume, I felt sort of surreal. This air was... heavy... and not just from pollution. Buildings blurred into each other. My center of gravity started feeling like it was going in all sorts of directions. Our flight felt like a spiral. Then suddenly, everything just clicked back into itself. The surrounding decorations and signs with foreign symbols indicated Chinatown.
That's when I saw the random mare crawling on the road. Her hide looked like a mix between black and purple. Yet, her mane resembled that of a frill. Ninety-nine and I crossed, yanking her to the opposite sidewalk before a yellow cab sped right down the center of the road. It honked its horn and the driver shouted something like he was driving here. I took a moment to catch my breath and got a better look at the mare.
She was a changeling in the same state as Fifty-one's body: a missing fang and an eye that looked more like that of a pony's. Though, her pony eye's iris was violet. As for the rest, her appearance seemed familiar somehow.
"So hungry..." she moaned.
Fifty-one cleared his throat. "Number Thirteen, I presume?"
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