By some tall pine trees in the final hours of night—for, in the horizon, stretched the color pink, signalling the inevitable morning—a circle of changelings had gathered around a bonfire and were now feeding off Cheerilee’s love, that mare holding on to a trunk to stay upright but with her nerves failing and her sight fading….
The only changeling who was not feasting on this fresh early breakfast was Ocellus. She sat on a log, caressing the sleeping grub with her hoof. She adopted a cutesy voice to say, “There, there. It’s OK. You’re safe with us, back with your family.”
The baby stirred, turned around in its blanket, and yawned, extending its tiny little legs to the air. His eyes fluttered, half open at first and then fully so, beholding the face of his caretaker and rescuer.
Ocellus smiled. “Aww, who’s the nicest little larva in the hive? You are! Yes, you are!” She poked him gently on the head, ready to laugh along with him.
She was not ready to hear him stick his tongue out and hiss at her.
Ocellus shook her head, though making a smile out of her frown. “What’s wrong, little one? Was I too loud?” She turned aside. “It’s probably the milk.”
One of the feeding changelings raised his ear and flew away from his meal. He landed beside Ocellus and sat beside her.
The baby remained in her hooves. “Empis, have you checked the contents of the milk yet? She may have tried to hurt the grub.”
The other changeling shook his head. “I’ve sampled it from another bottle, if that would provide the needed data.”
Ocellus leaned closer, looking over his face. “Did it taste funny?”
“No. Tastes like normal milk.”
And the baby hissed again, flailing its legs against Ocellus but to no avail since they were too short to reach her neck.
“This is not normal,” Ocellus commented, sounding deflated. She kept the grub a good distance away from her yet still held him with both hooves. “If it’s not the milk...have you checked the food?”
“Just baby mash,” Empis answered nonchalantly with a shrug. “None of it’s been opened, though.”
Ocellus slouched on her log. “If it's not the milk and if it's not the food...it’s not physical. You checked the contents of her bag?”
Empis nodded. “We found some interesting stuff inside. We got a kind of…container of a compressed substance with a warning label about not spraying at the eyes—“
Ocellus gasped. “Don’t open it! That’s probably pesticide!”
Empis was silent and surprised. His swinging head betrayed second thoughts.
“Anything else?” Ocellus asked, afraid. “Anything unusual?”
Empis looked up to the brightening sky. “We found some flowers. I don’t know what they are...could be tulips.”
“No magical plants?”
Empis thought about it for a while. “No magical plants.”
Ocellus frowned. “And...?”
Empis caught his breath. “There was this book. I skimmed it and it was like a list of instructions about making sure the pony has a well-behaved foal.”
Ocellus stood up, growling and making a fist out of her hoof. “Burn it! It’s corrupting the mind of this grub!”
Empis gulped. “R-Really?!”
“Didn't you see how he greeted me when he woke up?!” she shouted, smacking the log with her hoof and hovering over it. “They’re willing to make our own grubs fight us! They have no idea what they’re doing!”
Empis nodded, spreading his wings open already. “I’ll burn the book right away!”
He was off.
It was a bright morning, the sun shining upon the fields of grass as the Gorm River surged by. Sitting on a picnic mat beside it was Wildwood Flower, donning her hat and eating her breakfast with Ocellus, both feeling the warm shine.
“You’re consistent with your excellent work,” Ocellus said, calm with her compliment. “If only you were a real changeling, then Chrysalis would promptly give you a better job in the hive. As you are now, be grateful you could do what you’re doing while being fed and paid for it.”
Wildwood smiled, ripped a bite off of her dry bread loaf. “My pleasure.”
Ocellus nodded. “Make no mistake, however. Since you are still a pony and have not shown any signs of being an actual changeling, the rest of the hive will still look down on you. Don’t worry about that for long, though; the reports I make about you are positive and, hopefully, that would help bring in more pony turncoats to our side.”
Wildwood laughed. “I don’t think myself as a turncoat, really.”
“Oh?” The changeling inspected her features. “Then what do you think are?”
Wildwood took off her hat*, letting her mane flow. “That’s easy. I’m a pony who’s OK with someone else ruling Equestria. I’ve had my time with Celestia and I still need her—she raises the sun and all. But, Equestria’s always been too quiet. It’s big, but it’s not moving anywhere. Thanks to you, I’ve got something to look forward to.”
Ocellus arched her brow. “That’s strange. You did not tell me that when we first met.”
"You might've suspected me if I said that right then.”
Ocellus put down her barely-bitten cookie. “Nevermind. You’re becoming more honest with us and that’s good.”
The pony took a tomato and took a bite off of it. “But, what will Chrysalis think of me when it’s over?”
“She’ll have to give you compensation,” replied Ocellus. “We can’t have you begging around for food in our prosperous empire.”
“Yeah….”
Silence as they finished a part of their breakfast, the river's clear water rushing by.
“So, do I have new missions or can I take this time to rest?” Wildwood asked. The pony rubbed her mane, fixing it.
“Actually, you do have a new mission,” answered Ocellus. “I just received word that there’s an enchanted relic in the Dwillig Forest past the river. It's said that if you have the relic, you’ll always win. That would be valuable, but even if it doesn’t work, it surely would be something nice to have. Also, and more importantly, there might be a pony hideout in the forest, and you’ve proven yourself to be a skilled actor.”
Wildwood laughed again, quieter this time . “Comes with the territory. Who’ll recognize a pony they’ve never seen before?”
“That’s the kind of thinking a changeling should have all the time,” remarked Ocellus, pointing at her with a cheerful smile. “We really should make you an honorary changeling at some point.”
The both of them laughed at that bit of absurdity, forgetting their prisoner at work.
Not so far from the picnic was Cheerilee who was not living up to her name right now because she was busy performing the drudgery known as gathering random rocks and piling them up only for the changeling at the top to overturn it and make those stones fall down. It was a nonsensical ordeal, to say the least, since she was told to pick the rocks back up and form the pile again.
“You better work harder!” yelled the changeling on her left. “Faster!”
Cheerilee whimpered, riddled with scars on her body. “Wh-Where’s the baby?!”
“It’s not your baby!” screamed the changeling. “It’s ours!”
Head aching and hurting, she stopped to catch a breath.
Kicked on the side by another changeling beside her. “Don’t rest! Every second is valuable!”
She heaved, about to lose her grip on the rocks she was carrying, pain shooting back in her veins.
Half a day later and, mid-afternoon, Wildwood Flower was journeying through the Dwillig Forest. However, it was not much of a forest if one were to think of forests as trees crowded around together and blocking out the sky with so much shade and so many shadows. This forest was rather sparse with its vegetation, carrying fewer trees than expected.
Wildwood sneaked from tree to tree, crouching and crawling her way to each location with ease and quiet. Although she could see nobody around her, she felt her blood pressure rising, her heart pumping and beating fast.
She cooled down, took in a deep breath, and exhaled. “Like she said, don’t worry. It’s going to be worth it.”
An hour later of such sneaking and pausing, she found something rising in the distance. A circular figure like a dome. With the temple being so close, she did not want to risk detection. She continued sneaking by the trees, creating as little noise as possible.
Then, she saw some tents and some modest shelters over there right before the tall steps to the entrance which was an enormous archway leading inside.
Wildwood leaped, landed with no crashes. After a few more leaps, she reached the camp.
What she saw was not encouraging. Trampled tents, stamped campfire, toppled supplies and spilled food; hoofprints were plenty, hard and deep into the soil. She inhaled the burnt odor and walked her way through the mess, careful with her steps so as to not make any sound.
She turned her head to the temple before her. A massive work of ancient art, made more beautiful by the fact that whoever had built it was limited to stones, bricks, mortar, and good memory. There were cracks especially near the bottom of the structure, but it had stood the test of time. Towers integrated into its design, sheer size towering the tallest trees within the vicinity, overgrowth only adding to its aging style—here was a temple of not just good taste but of something greater.
And she could hear rumbling from inside the temple.
“Huh?”
She jumped out, hid underneath one of the fallen tents, and waited.
The rumbles continued. Now, she could hear voices.
“You’re not taking the Sphere from me!”
“We’ve had an agreement!”
Cling! Swish!
Bzow!
“Agh!”
An evil chuckle. “You would be mad to do that when I have it. I...I could see it’s not just a legend. No, it exceeds the legend!”
“You’ve got to give it back! You promised!”
Another chuckle. “Really? You’re a pirate, Celaeno, and you expect promises to be fulfilled? You must be dreaming. You, of all creatures, should know better than to throw trust around like a pony.”
“But you’re a pony!”
Bzow!
Silence.
Thud.
Wildwood shivered underneath the tent.
“Come, Fresh Coat,” said the other pony’s voice. “We’re going to have more than success with this Sphere.”
Wildwood peeked half of her head out of the tent, seeing who they could be.
At the bottom of the humongous staircase lay the fallen corpse of Celaeno. Her sword, holstered in Fresh Coat’s bag. The mare’s companion, Tempest Shadow herself, was holding a silver sphere with jewels on it, shining in brilliant colors under the sunlight. Her horn, now complete and whole, glowed a fierce blue, its glare unstable like contained electricity.
Her eyes glittered under the glow.
“W-Will you—” Coat coughed. “Will you defeat…the changelings? Every one of them?”
“As long as I don’t lose the sphere,” Tempest said, “but why save them? Why save Equestria?”
Coat did a double take. “Because...it’s your home?”
“Pfft!” Tempest shook her head. “How naive you are. It was the ponies of my ‘home’ that shunned me, that rejected me for being different, for being hit by mere circumstances.”
“So...you won’t save Equestria?”
“Mm-hmm.”
The two of them stared at the abandoned camp before them. They could feel the wind breezing over it, letting the tents flap about and drifting the campfire's smoke away.
“What will you do?” Coat asked innocently.
“I’ll tell you what I’ll do: see if I could become queen of Mount Aris and Seaquestria. That way, I’d have many subjects who’ll serve under me. They’ll fend off the changelings while I go back to Equestria to exact revenge.”
Coat cocked her head. “Who?”
“The ponies who ruined my horn in the first place!” she roared, that horn glowing and crackling with its glow.
“Isn’t that a bad idea?” Coat asked, close to stuttering.
“Without the help of this Sphere—“ she held it up, letting it glisten in the air, in her grasp “—I would’ve perished at the claw of this pathetic pirate.”
“What if they’re ca—“
“Then I’ll destroy the hive with them!” she said, planting a hoof on the ground. “I will let them know that I am not only alive, but that they should’ve never, ever, left me.”
Then, a cough.
Both ponies looked towards the camp again.
Tempest pushed Coat to the side, shoved her to the dirt, saying, “I know a sitting duck when I see one.” She let her horn crackle again, magical lightning beams striking out of it as she approached the only blue tent at the campsite.