Afternoon of day two in Las Pegasus after a restful sleep definitely not disturbed by any loud nighttime activities. We ended up all well fed yesterday, but after the events at the castle, then having to constantly stay on edge on the train, and in the end moving around the city in plain sight, we were also mentally exhausted beyond any reasonable point.
Someone knocks on our door, and a quick scan of everyone’s status reveals it’s Nine, his dragonpony form looking extremely disheveled but happy. I wonder if such low rank warriors like him had access to anything like last night back in the hive. I doubt that, actually, but it appears he handled it well, because he’s practically glowing with absorbed lust.
He quickly walks inside to avoid anyone seeing a bunch of resting changelings.
“Candyyyy!” One wakes up, transforms, and jumps at him in the same second, waking dizzy Four in the process. Nine is physically taken aback by the ‘pegasus’ now licking his muzzle, but stays still in his good old stoic stance despite the lust draining from him with each touch of One’s tongue.
“One, stop eating my warriors,” I raise my head, careful not to disturb Eight.
“She can eat my ass whenever...” mumbles my living blanket.
One stops, clears her throat, and pats Nine’s head.
“Got a bit carried away there. I haven’t had much chance to enjoy something really delicious since Ponyville,” she licks her lips, “And by the looks of it, you had a lot of fun last night, first timer.”
“Thank you for the tips, miss One.”
Huh? Did something happen after we went to sleep? Nevermind, Nine’s happy and that’s all that matters.
“What’s the plan for today, King? Ah, damn it!” asks Ten, waking up and looking in horror at a green trail of drool now staining plush Celestia’s neck.
“I’d say the usual. I hide somewhere, Nine stands guard, the rest of you explore and gather information? We don’t know practically anything about this city despite yesterday, or maybe because we had no chance to spread out due to what happened. Any better ideas?”
“Yes,” says One. Who else, right? “A little improvement, if nothing else. I’ve got an idea, but I need Ten for it. By the way, you can go outside with Eight, Nine, and Four like yesterday, King. One can never have enough bits in this town.”
“Mind sharing your secret plan, One?”
“And spoil the surprise? Come on!” she smiles. After recent events, though, it annoys me far too much. We might have the royals on our backs any minute in case they managed to track us, and she’s still like this.
“One, hazarding with lives of everyone isn’t a game!” I stand up, staring her down, which is kinda hard since she’s taller, but I’m angry so I’m allowed to, “I need to at least have a general idea what you’re planning so that I can maybe think of something in case stuff goes wrong like last time when your Holy Blade story brought a griffon who sawed Eight’s leg off, and then the freaking princesses, the newlyweds whose wedding Chrysalis crashed, and a freaking Element of Harmony! I know you don’t trust me to think of anything useful, but I can’t keep working with instructions that are just ‘get to the throne room and survive until I think of a way to save the day’! It was your idea to scheme around taking control of Luna and blackmailing our way out instead of just fleeing,” a horrifying thought comes to mind, “And the changelings from Canterlot did say Luna was leading the trials because she knows if you’re telling the truth. What if the ponies think she’s compromised now and won’t allow more trials because they can’t trust Luna? What if what you did robbed us of any chance for eventual peace? Do you think Celestia will want to talk to us ever again after you joked about world domination and threatened you’ll have Luna kill her or the other way around?”
Everyone’s jaws and eyes are wide open, but none rivals One’s. She looks torn between being horrified and about to cry. I must have either hit a nerve about something she knew and hoped we wouldn’t think about, or something she herself hasn’t realized until now.
“I’m… sorry...” she sniffles, suddenly trembling.
I was expecting something along the lines of “I gave you a chance to save your lives so they’re mine to take away, ha ha ha haaa!” so all I can do in response to her choked out apology is walk over and prop my head against her neck.
“Look, I don’t want to be needlessly mean to anyone, One. I know we got where we are now thanks to everyone, but mostly you and Eight. Sorry, guys, but it’s true. The way you mess around can be grating, but all I’m asking is that you don’t do it when the only thing barely stable in our lives is this room, and we’ve got it rented just for few more hours.”
“If I personally screwed up something this big under Chrysalis, my rank wouldn’t have protected me against the grinder, King. It wouldn’t end in demotion, it would end in… end.”
“Calm down, One, or I’ll start calling you Two,” I boop her nose, her tongue flops out. She herself seems taken aback by that.
“Heh, maybe being One under Chrysalis isn’t enough for One under you,” she lowers her head.
“Look, I trust you. I know you know what’s right and you’ll do it in the end. I just don’t want to be afraid for everyone’s life all the time, or at least add you to the growing list of reasons.”
She closes her eyes, wipes them, then looks sterly at everyone as if saying “this didn’t happen”. What warms me up inside is that she doesn’t blow up when everyone else’s stares clearly convey the answer “yeah, it very much did, we all saw it, and we know you’re not gonna eat us anymore”.
“As much as I’d like to take credit for my idea, Ten’s groundwork made it even remotely possible. His dealings with Mayor Mare led him to trails of her real business. She’s as much the Mayor of a small town as a minor criminal businesspony with operations all over Equestria including Las Pegasus. That was one of the reasons I decided on this place, because I hoped we could use Ten’s knowledge about her shady dealings to our advantage. We’ve got the contents of her head, most passwords, contacts, risks, Ten did a great job. I want to use that knowledge to take over a small money laundering operation here. That way we’d get a place to stay, and if we do it correctly we could persuade Mayor Mare to cut her losses, and not look too hard into what happened. My plan for today was to sit down somewhere with Ten and talk things through. Keeping secrets about one’s knowledge and operations is a… survival trait. Being useful under Chrysalis meant staying alive.”
I nod.
“Alright, plan accepted. Four, Nine, explore Las Pegasus. Four’s in charge if you somehow get separated. Always stay linked up if possible in case of anything, we’ve got the love. Eight, there are foals to amuse outside. Let’s roll!”
Twenty minutes later, Eight is parading me on a leash through the main promenade as I fake attempts to shake off a colt who pretends he’s a Royal Guard slaying a monster. Eh, it’s not peace, but it’s a start. I feel hive mind protesting, wanting me to tear the pony apart in front of his crying parents, but screw them.
“I’m not sure I like this,” I point at the leash around my neck.
“Trust me, I’d be a lot happier if I was the one on the leash. Now try to look scary and imposing, that worried-and-want-to-be-nice look won’t cut it here,” she whispers back.
*HISSSSSSSSS!*
“Yaaaaaay!” cheer the foals waiting for their turn, “Now do the trick where you spit on the road and it melts!” calls out one.
I don’t know how to feel about that.
***
Yet another day of the hive mind screaming at me that I’m a disgrace to changeling species and trying to get inside my head… or out of my head, in whatever weird way it works, is over. Eight is leading me to a cafe which Ten picked out, ponies are looking at me as we pass by, because I’m not wearing any clothes today other than a cardboard sign around my neck reading ‘Totally real changeling ride closed!’, and we’re about to meet with everyone and discuss what One and Ten managed to plan out.
The cafe is a small corner establishment whose unicorn owner behind the counter drops a glass when she sees me come through the door.
“Wh- whuh- wha?”
Eight raises her wing.
“Two espressos, please!” and without batting an eyelid she walks over to the table where others are already sitting, immediately pulling a chair for me.
To the store owner’s credit, the two cups she brings over almost immediately are trembling only a little.
“Aaaah,” I stretch my legs, “damn, this costume is heavy. Can’t wait to go home and take it off.”
The cups stop shaking before they touch the table.
“That’s a very convincing costume, if you don’t mind me saying,” she winces when I look at her.
“Thanks,” I smile, “It took a while to make, but it’s paying off in the public tests.”
“Yeah,” Eight adds, “At first, I thought it would be too scary, but foals seem to love it. We’ve been giving rides today and yesterday.”
“Really?”
“Yeah-” One begins weaving a story about a group of street performers coming together to start a show in Las Pegasus, and use the element of changelings while it is still fresh in ponies’ minds.
The real conversation, however, is going on without words.
”Alright, One, Ten, what did you two come up with?”
”We checked out one of Mayor Mare’s fronts, this little haunted house she uses to store and move fake goods and apparently club scene drugs. To her credit, she knows how to make money without actually being a public threat. The official story is that it’s one of the side street businesses barely keeping themselves afloat in the big city, but in reality they barely get any customers, and can pay rent only thanks to Mayor Mare’s money. If we want to take it over without paperwork or the threat of the guards, we likely can. Ten?”
”Mayor Mare isn’t afraid of the local guards, and it’s easy to see why considering One was able to fool them into thinking the King is just a changeling costume. Granted, few bits on the side helped them not to investigate in any detail. That’s how Mayor Mare operates. HOWEVER, her main concern is to avoid being discovered by the EIS, commonly known as ‘eyes’.”
”ICE?”
”No, those chase down zebras in the south. They’re called like that because zeebs hate cold.”
”You lost me there, Ten, and judging by the confusion I can feel from everyone else, I’m not alone.”
One, still casually chatting with the shop owner along with others, explains:
”EIS - the Equestrian Intelligence Service is a special forces group investigating everything from national security to drug trafficking. They’re pretty secretive about their operations, and good at hiding their targets. Even Chrysalis managed to get only two infiltrators among them. That plays into our cards, because it’s extremely unlikely Mayor Mare has any contacts there, and that she’ll try to find out what happened after we storm the place disguised as EIS agents, especially if we help matters by catching one of the supervisors, and force him to write a report to the good old MM that EIS discovered the place and it would be a good idea she didn’t risk proving any connection to herself.”
”Sounds neat. It also sounds like we’ll have to fight some ponies.”
”It’s a bit worse than that, because there’s only few of us, and we’ll need everyone,” she looks at Four, ”and I mean EVERYONE but you, King.”
Spurred by more customers coming and at peace with me being in her shop, the owner returns back behind the counter. One nods to the backpack by her chair, opens it, and pulls out the griffon pistols as well as the shotgun. The lack of sag from the bag proves the griffon and paladin weapons are there as well.
”Only disguises won’t be enough, however. Well, they could be, but I don’t want to leave anything to chance. EIS agents do have access to advanced weaponry unknown to Equestria, which griffon pistols, especially those for the Imperial Guard, are. We’ve got paladin swords as well, the golden decorations are easy to see. Sadly, we can’t use Nine’s Imperial Guard armor. Everyone needs to be armed, and able to show it. That goes for you as well.”
One pistol floats over to Four who whimpers.
”I… I… I can’t miss One. Not even for you or for the boss… I’m sorry,” Four shakes her head, pushing the gun back to One, ”I don’t want to have more blood on my hooves. I don’t believe being like that is a good idea, and I can’t forget what I did… I’m sorry...”
”Calm down, I know you, you little idiot. It’s not loaded. Four, these ponies are thugs. Don’t be afraid to rough them up. I know I’ve been teaching you to talk, shapeshift, plan, and control your way out of things, but a lady needs to know how to throw a punch when necessary. You’ll have to use your horn. As long as you don’t kill or cripple anyone, go nuts.”
”Miss One, I killed a TRAINED GUARD on accident. If these ponies are just some guys hired to look strong, then I might end up… you know what...”
”As long as you stick to punching and kicking, that won’t repeat itself. Nothing sharp, no offensive magic, no killer mind control. Consider this a lesson in restraint, Four. You will need to defend yourself at some point. This will be a good practice on how not to do it fatally.”
”Boss, please?”
Her pleading eyes hurt my heart, but I agree with One, at least on the latter point.
”Four, One is right about the need to protect yourself in case you can’t talk your way out of things. You know some stunning tricks, and mind control which isn’t deadly like One’s, don’t you? Then you’ll just have to wave the pistol around for effect. Think of it like this, One trusts you not to screw up, and she wouldn’t be asking you to come if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.”
”Exactly!” One nods, ”The problem is that EIS aren’t known for giving warnings. or being sloppy. We need to cover almost every escape route. Thankfully, we had a ‘chat’ with few of the ‘employees’ and we know all the ways out they do. We just need to leave one and only one open so that we look diligent, but not perfect.”
She sends us plans of the building showing where everyone should enter, then the disguises we have to use, me excluded of course. She ends with:
”Any questions?”
Not really, the haunted house is a small, two-story building sandwiched between two more. Nine will have to enter through the front door, Four and Ten from the back window, One will take second floor back window, and Eight will take the second floor front one. Our goals is to force everyone to escape on the roof from which they’re going to spread out and either fly away or use the fire escapes of adjacent buildings to disappear.
Using Rarity’s cleaned outfit, not sure where or who took the time to do it, I hide in an alley near our target building while the others look around for any prying eyes, and then quickly shapeshift into bigger, stronger, and bulkier forms including black suits with gold and white E.I.S. sown on the sleeves. Eight and One are pegasi, which fits their normal type of disguise, Nine is a hippogriff, the kind with pony head so that he can use poisonous bites as well as the shotgun, and Ten as well as Four are unicorns so that they can freely use magic without sparking any suspicions about them possibly not being who they look like.
The operation is supposed to be a quick in and… well, not out but rather stay in, capture the target, a red unicorn stallion with the cutie mark of a bag of coins, play with his memories, and make him think he escaped. The longer it takes, the bigger chance of them recovering from panic and starting to fight, which is what we want to avoid.
Nine kicks the front door open.
“EIS. Don’t move!” he roars, rearing on his hind legs and pumping his weapon.
The pegasus receptionist’s “It’s closed” comes out on reflex before he kicks the desk over and makes it slide towards Nine who punches it in half.
“IT’S THE COPS!” screams the pegasus still not believing his own eyes.
The sounds of shattering windows come from all over the house, making him click his teeth and immediately gallop away. Nine breaks the nearest door open, revealing an empty bathroom.
”One target running up the stairs.”
”Good job, Nine, keep searching the ground floor and meet up with Four and Ten,” I quickly check what the duo in question are doing.
“EIS, don’t move!” the two ‘agents’ break out of what One’s mental link identifies as a laundry room, Four immediately facing an earthpony hoof going her way.
-Freeze!-
Four’s reaction is instant, and while I don’t feel any effect on myself like I normally do from One’s, the pony’s blow doesn’t connect, and Four’s floating gun smacks him in the face. Unfortunately, there’s a second pony in the bigger room behind the door who charges at Four as well.
He stops when faced with the barrel of Ten’s floating pistol. The trigger moves, the gun roars, and a piece of the opposite wall shatters.
“Up against the wall and spread ‘em before I blow your head off!” growls Ten. The threat lacks the desired effect, as the now terrified pony screams and gallops off while his companion flips a switch on the wall, plunging the room into complete darkness. My changelings don’t care, but it’s important they can now slow down and give the ponies time to clear out without raising suspicion that it’s our real goal.
Upstairs, Eight has just ‘randomly’ kicked a pony so hard he flew halfway across the hall, landing totally on accident near the small door leading to the stairs on the roof. He coughs up blood, scrambling to the floor.
”We don’t want a corpse on our hooves.”
”They’re not the smartest, so I gave that guy a hard clue. Don’t worry, these thugs are tough.”
She rams the nearest door open, checking the empty room to give those escaping from downstairs time to clear out.
By that time, One’s already raising her mouth from a confused red unicorn’s muzzle, his eyes glowing green.
“Now be a good colt and write quickly. You already know how you managed to escape the EIS raid.”
He immediately scribbles several hurried and smudged words on the paper, and presents it to One.
“Stamped, coded, just leave it at the post office."
“Good colt, now prove to your friends you’re a real hero and get out!”
He shoves One away, vaulting over the table and darting through the hallway. He yelps when he notices Eight coming out of an empty room, and with all the speed he can muster uses the roof stairs just like all his cronies before.
Twenty minutes later, after we’ve checked out the whole place once again, this time without thrashing it, the haunted house is empty, and Nine in his previous dragon pony form is doing his best to fix the front door with Ten’s instructions.
To my complete surprise, when Nine looks up from unscrewing a partially kicked out hinge, he finds himself facing a filly and her mother.
“See, mom? It is the big scaly pony with the changeling! What are you doing here, mister pony? Are you fixing this haunted house?” she purses her lips, “Are you a ghost?” a tiny hoof pokes Nine’s nose, “Nope, all real!”
“Sorry for bothering you,” the filly’s mother steps closer when Nine looks up from the small pony to the slightly less small pony, “We met yesterday on the changeling ride.”
“Nice to meet you,” Nine shakes her hoof, then pats the filly’s head, “Can I help you? We’ve recently purchased this house, and we want to… make it work here in the big city.”
“Then I wish you the best of luck, and...” she leans in to Nine’s ear, “Cereal Spot, my daughter, loved the changeling disguise, and said that she’d come ride again and again if you could make a changeling versions of a princess, with a dress and everything.”
”King?”
”Exactly, KING, not QUEEN. I’m not wearing frilly stuff, Eight and One are already making fun of me thanks to Rarity’s outfit.”
“Changeling princess, eh?” Nine smiles at the mare, then winks at the filly, “We’ll think about that. First, we have a lot to work on here, this place is in horrible shape.”
“Then we’ll leave you to it. Good luck! Say goodbye to the nice pony, Spotty.”
“Bye, mister big!”
“Goodbye,” expending a little love, Nine readjusts the bent hinge with his forelegs and checks it against the holes in the door frame, “Hmm… could work.”
”Changeling princess, eh?” I feel Ten’s snicker.
”Ten, I’ll make you transform into me and give you to One to play with.”
”Considering I actually DO know what some of the things she wants to do to you mean, I think I’ll drop the suggestions now. Being around nobility for so long gives me good insight into less common… practices.”
”Eeep!”
”Eeep indeed, King. Eeep indeed.”