The attack on the changeling hive would happen the next day. There was no point in going too early, in case the weapon was still being moved, and it had only been a little more than twelve hours since Discord had made his presence known.
Scootaloo excused herself to go find food. Sweetie Belle offered to come along, but was turned down. She probably wanted some time alone to think about what she’d gotten into, Spike thought. He waited until Scootaloo had walked away before speaking. “She seemed pretty sure about Wind Rider.”
“She’s probably just nervous about everything going on,” Sweetie Belle said.
“He seems fine to me,” Thistleroot said.
“Yeah, Ah think she’s makin’ a mountain out of a molehill,” Apple Bloom added.
“Yeah,” Spike watched as she turned a corner. “Uh, but we’re still going to make sure, right?”
“Well, duh.”
“Oh, absolutely.”
“O’ course.”
“Okay, good. Hmm, it looks like he already took off. I guess we should split up. Anypony who finds him follow him?”
“Sound’s like a plan,” Apple Bloom said. “I’ll go with Sweetie Belle.”
“There is absolutely no way this can go wrong,” Thistleroot said dryly. “Guess that’s me and you, Spike.”
“Alright, we’ll go this way.”
The two of them followed the road to the edge of camp, finding no trace of Wind Rider. After that, and with no real information about him, they began zig zagging through the tents, keeping a somewhat consistent search pattern and hoping they got lucky. After almost forty-five minutes of searching they’d yet to find anything.
“Look, all I’m saying is that if you want to play a full spellcaster, there’s better options, like wizards. Or sorcerers. Or wizards. You know, classes that don’t sing their enemies to death.”
“But bards are so cool.”
“Please, bards are like, the least cool class in the game.”
“You know what, if we live through tomorrow, I’m going to have to prove you wrong sometime.”
“Fine. I actually have a campaign written that I’ve been wanting to run. Maybe we can get the girls and—” Spike threw up an arm, stopping Thistleroot. “There he is.”
Spike and Thistleroot both took a step back, looked left, then right, and dived into a nearby bush.
Wind Rider stood at the edge of camp, behind a line of tents, his back to a tree. What was more interesting was who he was talking to.
“What’s Discord doing out here?” Spike asked.
“I don’t know. Shh, listen.”
“So, we’ve reached an understanding then?” Discord was asking. The pegasus nodded. “Now, now, Wind Rider, I want to hear you say it.”
“We have an understanding,” Wind Rider said, face an angry scowl. “We want the same thing, after all. Can I go now?”
Discord held an arm out toward the camp and bowed. Wind Rider cast him one final glare and stomped back toward the tents.
Spike and Thistleroot waited until Discord had vanished in a flash before saying anything.
“You know, maybe Scootaloo was onto something.”
“Yeah. What are those two working together for? Wind Rider joined us before Discord was even freed,” Spike said.
“Well, they didn’t technically say anything incriminating. Just that they have an understanding, and that they want the same thing. At the edge of camp. With nopony else around. Okay, yeah, they’re definitely up to something.”
“Let’s find Sweetie Belle and Apple Bloom,” Spike said. “They’ll want to know about this.”
*****
“Ah should have known we couldn’t trust Discord,” Apple Bloom said.
“Discord’s a problem for later,” Thistleroot said. “Right now we need to worry about Wind Rider. He’s going with the group to the hives, and who knows what he’s planning.”
“Can’t we just tell everypony about what we heard?” Spike asked.
“But they didn’t actually say anything incriminating,” Thistleroot reminded him.
“And if we accuse him of being evil because of his talk with Discord, it might force Discord to betray us early,” Sweetie Belle added. “And we don’t know what to do about that yet.”
“Right now, our biggest advantage is that we know more than they know we know. We know he’s up to something, so if we’re ready for it, we might be able to take care of it without tipping our hoof to Discord,” Thistleroot said.
“But none of us are on the third team,” Sweetie Belle said. “Do you think we should tell Scootaloo? What if she doesn’t believe us about Discord?”
“Nuh-uh, we ain’t lyin’,” Apple Bloom said. “Scootaloo’s our friend, and we’ve gotta be honest with her. I know she wants Discord to be good, but even if she doesn’t believe us, she’ll at least listen to us. We’ve got to trust her with this one.”
“Plus, even if she’s not sure about Discord, she already distrusts Wind Rider,” Spike said. “I just wish one of us could be there to give her back-up.”
“Hey, what about that spell that gives ponies wings. The one Twilight used on your sister that one time. Do ya think ya could pull it off?”
Sweetie Belle shook her head. “We don’t even have the book she learned it from.”
“Actually, I had an idea about that,” Thistleroot said. “Shining Armor said that there wasn’t anything we could do for this mission that a pegasus couldn’t do better. Do you think he’d let one of us go if he was wrong about that? Even without wings?”
*****
“I want to be on the third team,” Thistleroot said as he entered the Royal Guard mess tent.
Shining Armor sighed without looking up from his dinner. Two other Royal Guards eating with him looked up. One rolled her eyes. “Thistleroot, wasn’t it?” Shining Armor asked.
“Yep.”
“If I turn around, are you going to have magically sprouted wings?”
“Nope.”
“Then you can’t be on the—”
“I can shut down the antimagic field, though.” Maybe, Thistleroot added with a mental asterisk.
Shining Armor turned toward him. “How? We don’t even know what it is.”
“I know we were never formally introduced, and I know that I don’t look like much,” Thistleroot said. “I’m not a hero type like you or your sister or my friends. I’m an egghead, to use Scootaloo’s terminology. I’m a graduate and master’s student from Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Ponies. My thesis for my magical frequencies course focused on the changeling dampening field around Canterlot.
“Let me go with the third team. If we find the source of the anti-magic field before finding the weapon, we can shut it down.”
Shining Armor didn’t answer right away. Thistleroot held his breath as the Captain of the Royal Guard considered his words, a small victory already.
Before Shining Armor could answer, another voiced spoke up from the next table over. “Let the kid come.”
Thistleroot and Shining Armor both looked up. Thistleroot leaned back to get a view of the speaker, and saw between two other guards the back half of a burly grey pegasus. His cutie mark was a simple image of a square building and a landing strip. It was a cutie mark Thistleroot had seen before, but where?
“He’s not a pegasus. He’ll slow the rest of you down.”
“I’ll see to it that he doesn’t,” the pegasus said. “I’ll carry him up and back down myself.” The pegasus pushed away from the table and turned toward them. Thistleroot’s eyes widened as he saw the guard’s face.
“Biggs!”
“Long time, kid.”
“Major Biggs,” Shining Armor said. “Are you sure about this?”
He nodded. “He’s a good kid. The princess seemed to trust him. I’m willing to take responsibility for him if it’ll improve our chances against the changelings.”
Shining Armor considered it in silence for another few seconds, and then nodded. “I trust your judgement, Major. I guess you’re in, Thistleroot.”
“Thank you,” Thistleroot said, nodding to both of them. Oh, Celestia, what have I done?
*****
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Wind Rider said. “Not only are we going on the most dangerous part of this whole thing, but we’re taking,” he paused, giving Thistleroot another look, “this?”
“You could have ended that sentence with ‘him’,” Thistleroot said dryly. “They’d still have gotten the message.”
The Canterlot Royal Militia had been teleported by Discord near the changelings hives and were preparing their attack. The third group had gathered with Shining Armor and Discord one last time before departing on their own.
“I didn’t sign up to play foalsitter.”
“If you want out, feel free to say so,” Scootaloo said. Wind Rider shot her a dirty look, and she returned it. Finally, he rolled his eyes and stepped back. Of course it was too much to hope he’d actually quit, now that they were sure he was up to something.
“Sending a unicorn with knowledge about anti-magic fields opens up additional avenues of success for your mission, something we sorely need, given the odds stacked against us. Your mission,” Shining Armor said, emphasising the word ‘your’, “hasn’t changed. If Thistleroot is able to direct you to whatever is generating the field, you destroy it and keep moving. If not, get in, find the stone tablet, and get out.”
“Okay, but how does destroying it help us? We won’t have any real unicorns with us.”
“Hey!”
“And everypony will be busy defending themselves against the changelings. You won’t even know the field is down,” Wind Rider shook his head. “It’s too risky. We should stick to the primary goal and leave the nerd behind.”
Yeah, I bet, Scootaloo thought. Don’t want your queens getting mad at you for smashing their defenses.
“If you manage to bring it down,” Discord said, snapping his fingers, “I’ll be the one coming in to help while the rest of the ponies begin retreating.”
Scootaloo frowned. The flipside of her suspicions about Wind Rider was the conversation he’d been having with Discord. As much as she’d wanted to believe he was on their side, she couldn’t deny that it was suspicious. “As for how I’ll know.” A saddlebag appeared in his hands and he tossed it to Thistleroot. Thistleroot caught it with his magic. “Once it’s down, get outside and set one of those off.”
“Flares?” Scootaloo asked.
“Fireworks. I borrowed them from Pinkie Pie’s Party Cave, and added my own touch.”
“Uh, what kind of touch?”
“Just some changes to make the booms bigger. Big enough for us to see even from here.”
“Are these normal fireworks, or are we going to have something silly, like a giant dancing Pinkie Pie over the changeling hives.”
Discord shrugged. “I have no idea, but I’m excited to find out.”
“Great,” Scootaloo said, making a mental note to be far away before the fireworks went off.
“Maybe we should concentrate on getting in and out, and less on how we’re going to signal you once we’re done,” Wind Rider said. “You know, the dangerous part. Nopony here knows much about changelings, so we have no idea what kind of guards we’ll have to deal with.”
“The hive will probably be guarded by members of the soldier caste,” Thistleroot said.
Everypony looked at him. Wind Rider arched an eyebrow.
“What? I spent four days with nopony but a changeling for company. You think I didn’t ask questions?”
“See,” Scootaloo said, turning to Wind Rider. “He’s already useful.”
Wind Rider rolled his eyes. “Okay, what can you tell us?”
Thistleroot grinned. “It started as questions about her, and then about what being a gatherer meant, and then about functions in general.
“Soldiers train specifically for their function once its chosen for them as children. They’re the main fighting force and guards of the hive. They’re also supposed to be really, really, breathtakingly stupid, but she might have just been being mean.”
Thistleroot furrowed his brow, trying to remember. “Soldier changelings are some of the higher ranked ones. They would be trusted to guard important things and places, and the queens themselves. They wouldn’t leave whatever they’ve been assigned to, even if the hive were attacked, I don’t think.”
“Oh, that’s just great,” Wind Rider said. “Have fun fighting the florists and mane-stylists out here, the seven of us will just take on the trained fighters.”
“Nopony is making you go,” Scootaloo reminded him.
“It sounds like only the stationed guards will stay behind,” Biggs said. “I imagine any of these soldier changelings not currently on duty will fly out to meet the threat to the hive. Will the other castes come out as well?”
Thistleroot nodded. “Our fri— the changeling we knew was a gatherer, one of the lowest castes, and she was still pretty good in a fight. There are some that probably wouldn’t come out, the higher castes that oversee the hive under the queen, and caretakers of the young, but gatherers, builders, infiltrators, all of them should be there.”
“Anything else?” Shining Armor asked.
Thistleroot thought for a moment and shook his head. “Nothing that would be useful for today, I don’t think. After castes we moved on to changing itself, but she mostly just kept saying ‘it doesn’t work like that’ and getting frustrated. Oh, I know they can’t turn into mantis shrimp.”
Shining Armor blinked. “Okay. Anyway, you guys need to get into position. Remember, don’t move until you see our signal. You can’t risk entering the hives until Rosalia is occupied. Stay low and unseen until then. As of now, Major Biggs is in command.”
“Understood, sir,” Biggs said, snapping a salute.
“Good luck, Biggs,” Shining Armor said.
“To you too,” Biggs answered. He turned back to the group. “You heard the captain. Let’s move out.”