//------------------------------// // 24: Into danger alone! // Story: An Exercise In Management // by Nameless Narrator //------------------------------// NOT ENSLAVING YOUR INFILTRATOR WAS FOOLISH! I twitch as the booming voice in my head comes out of nowhere, my gold armor clanking. Thankfully, I look like a normal Royal Guard now, and the early morning streets of lower Canterlot are mostly empty. Also, shut up, hive pile, or at least lower the volume. My head already hurts from trying to come up with a solution to un-piss off Eight, keep us alive, and spot some patterns in Royal Guard behaviour without approaching them. We are unsure whether to be proud of you or get rid of you. You spread, you got close to the heart of the enemy, and yet you let a valuable resource go. Ten kept his part of the deal. I kept mine. And you lost an infiltrator in the process, endangering more of the hive’s tools. Damn it, you’re talking like Eight. We told you before - she knows what she’s talking about. She’s wrong in this case. Ten was happy and shared his experiences with me which I can freely copy to anyone I want. You could have easily ripped his mind out of his body, and in case you lost him simply put his copy into a fresh shell. No reason to waste time making a drone integrate its own and someone else’s memories. Well, what’s done is done, and I don’t intend to do things your way, so bite me. Then a punishment is in order. We need more energy, we need sustenance, YOU need sustenance. I’m full- I stop myself, realizing what’s about to happen, and quickly hide into a nearby alley. My legs go weak immediately. Stumbling, I collapse behind a dumpster. The pull, the freezing black hole inside me grows, but this time I can feel my strength dissipate gradually rather than being emptied within an instant. Is it because I have far more energy? Damn, I should have left more love stored inside Eight. As soon as I think of Eight, I can FEEL her stir and gasp in her sleep. The pull ripping raw love out of me weakens a little. It’s draining Eight through ME?! No no no no no! Don’t think about- Craaaaaap! While the pressure put on me shrinks a bit again, I can clearly feel Three and Four losing their vitality. ”Everyone wake up and cut yourselves off, NOW!” I hope my mental scream reaches them. I hope there IS actually a way to cut themselves off of me. I hope- The pull slows down. What is this?! An image of Eight barking orders at Three and Four flashes in my head, the horns of all three glowing. Smart one, that changeling. She should have been the new Queen. What’s going on? She threatens us, she DARES to threaten us?! CRUSH HER! The collective voices of the hive mind grow more disorganized and chaotic. She’s threatening to burn all her power in the process of stopping us from draining it from her. She’ll kill all of you rather than feed us. We’ll keep what we took for now, but don’t try this again. Next time we will just kill all of you if you resist. We CAN find a new connection, changelings. You are not vital, you are only the most convenient. Now go, steal more love to feed yourselves and us, grow and avenge our species… or die. All mental links cut off. Everything is quiet. I’m all alone, trembling, and gasping for breath. Thanks ot Eight’s intervention, though, I have enough strength to at least walk. I didn’t make it far out of our hideout, so at least it doesn’t take long to get back. ”Three, open the door.” Nothing. ”Three?” Silence. Nothing moves behind the dark windows. ”Four, are you there?” The door opens, revealing Eight. I squeeze inside as fast as I can, dropping the shapeshifting armor. It feels good to be back. “If you didn’t let Ten go, I could have used him to stop them from stealing more love. With only Three and Four at my disposal, I barely did something,” she states coldly, “Now we’re back to near zero.” I sit down, resting my back against the wall. “Where’s Three?” “After your screw-up I sent him out to map the mine tunnels. We need a way to upper Canterlot. I might not be an infiltrator, but even I know that hunting for too long in one place is dangerous. We need to waylay suspicion.” “You sent him alone into the haunted mines?!” “Inside the hive, everyone has their purpose. Three is suited for this. As a drone, his underground sense of direction is the best, and if he gets caught then we have a better chance of survival than he without us-” “I KNOW WHAT DRONES DO BEST! I also know how little high ranks care about us!” “Three was the best tool for the job. I’m doing my best to keep you alive. It’s better if HE meets some deadly abomination than we do.” “Alright, alright,” I breathe out, trying to calm down but still shaking, ”Can we drain the captured guard for now?” “Four implanted a pretty good cover story into his head and led him away. Something about three drunk earthponies knocking him out and stealing his armor because they thought it was real gold,” she sighs, “You could have told me Ten shared a part of his mind with you. That amount of infiltration experience would have made things a little easier.” Consolidation of power. We really should have made her the Queen while we still had the chance. On the other hole, after you’re gone, she’ll suffice. “You are a warrior,” I growl, “A tool, as you like to say,  to defend us. I decided Four would be our infiltrator, our specialist. You do your job, I’ll do mine, Three will do his best to do his, and Four will not fail at hers.” Eight grinds her teeth, then she closes her eyes and opens them again. “I await your orders, King.” “You and Four will go out to gather love, separately. I barely dragged myself here, so I don’t have much choice but to go to sleep in the cellar... again.” I turn towards the smaller changeling looking through the window, “Four, you’ve been digging through Ten’s knowledge in detail, do you think you’ve got enough to go outside blindly and, more importantly, come back?” Four looks around, clearly uncertain. “I’m n- not sure, but it’s better than the grinder...” “Uhh, grinder?” “The grinder,” Eight walks around me, fangs showing, “I suppose it makes sense for an ex-drone not to know, your minds aren’t important enough to keep, after all-” I nearly choke on my spit. “-the grinder means destroying one changeling’s personality and body, draining their love completely, but keeping the refined experiences for later use. It’s usually reserved for useful but crippled changelings who can’t serve the hive properly anymore. We can’t keep making new changelings and losing them while they’re learning on their own. Not everything can be stored inside the hive mind, otherwise it would suck up all the hive’s love fairly soon-” she clamps her hoof over her mouth. I see, so they need us to gather love for them. They aren’t “alive” anymore, but they still exist, and they are powerful. They are… memories which cling to life and drag the whole hive along with them. Black depression hits me when I realize the gravity of what Eight unwillingly uncovered. Chrysalis, the evil, tough, heartless queen. Chrysalis had power I can’t even dream of, she had tens of thousands of changelings, yet she couldn’t stop the decline of the changeling race into a hoofful of starved and hunted individuals whose only chance was a suicide attack. What chance do I have? Pretending not to catch Eight’s blunder, I slowly get up and head down to the cellar. There, I hide behind the small wall of backpacks, and fall asleep, or what constitutes for sleep these days. Within a moment, I’m behind Four’s eyes, listening to Eight’s instructions. “You need to be taller, and… rounder. Lust is our best bet, and with this body you won’t catch the eyes of anypony. When you’re in a bar, your plot needs to be bigger than the stool.” “But according to Ten’s experience I should influence others more by body language and general behaviour than flat out looks,” objects Four, gently answering my mental intrusion by an internal poke. “Look,” Eight sighs, “if we had time, or if the city wasn’t on high alert I would agree with you, but right now it’s gonna be extremely difficult to gather real love. Lust, on the other hole, is easy. Damn, walking with a gait means nothing if your swishing tail doesn’t reveal a good piece of meat now and then for interested stallions. Now grow that butt and make those teats hang, at least a bit. When ponies suckle, they are more vulnerable for some reason. Oh, and blond mane, long.” Huh? A confused touch comes through the mental link from Four to me. Can she use the connection the other way? That’s new. Okay, time to be the arbiter in this case. ”Accept Eight’s transformation, Four. When you’re outside, make it a bit more modest, but she’s right in the need to be a bit rounder. I’ve been with her during her last feeding session, and I’ve seen what stallions go for. As far as overall behaviour goes, trust Ten’s experiences the most. He was scouting this city out before the invasion and knows his ponies.” Four gives me a mental nod, then proceeds to shapeshift according to Eight’s instructions. In the end, she barely resembles her instinctive disguise, and is bound to attract a mob of drooling stallions as soon as she closes the door. Thankfully, Eight goes off to hunt soon enough. Four, after waiting few minutes, drops the blond mane, shrinks her hips, albeit just a little, and does few minor adjustments of lipstick and eye shadow. “Better?” she asks the empty room, then walks outside and checks herself against a window, “Hmm, maybe.” ”If I was a pony, I’d be stalking you already.” Four giggles. ”I’ll be hanging inside you today just in case. Don’t take it the wrong way, but you’re the weak link at the moment.” “Will you please check up on Three, King?” CRAP! With all the new drama between Eight and me, I completely forgot about him. Damn Eight, sending Three into the mines after what Ten said... ”Definitely.” I tap into Three. There’s only cold, damp darkness.