“Crumble, come with us, will you?” I stand up, much to the questioning looks of others around the table, “I apologize for having to leave so abruptly, but there’s something that requires my immediate attention. Granite, you’re a smart dwarf. Have a quick break, and then keep the discussion going, and tell me the reasonable suggestions when I come back. Everypony, I want to do this more often, so if you hear any ideas that aren’t complete nonsense which could make life in Brauheim better, don’t hesitate to present them to me in the future.”
“Open or concealed carry of more than five axes or hammers at once, both for mares and stallions-” Iron Rose raises her voice.
“Military-related business. Granite,” I just nod the dwarf’s way, and follow the guard outside with Crumble in tow.
As I follow the dwarves to the “prison”, the jitters in my stomach only grow stronger.
What to do? What to do? The good parts - Two is alive, despite the heavy wounds she sustained, and Six is okay, being escorted back here by Three. The bad parts - I can’t think of anything that would stop me from having to reveal myself to the dwarves, Five will report to whomever is behind the attack that other changelings are involved, and she or someone else will be back for Six. The thing is, as much as I suspect Eight is involved, a fact which a powerful warrior on our backs supports, she wouldn’t send someone to kill a basically innocent drone. The block inside Six’ mind is enough to stop him from talking already.
Can I prevent any of the bad things? Dwarves won’t catch Five at this point, so that’s a no go. And speaking of the dwarves…
Only the two prison guards know about Two. I could just bite them and try to fumble with their heads, although I don’t really know how. Damn my lack of instincts and information in the hive mind. I can’t even use Two’s newborn instincts, because she doesn’t have much mental capabilities either right now. Forcing things too much would more likely leave me with two braindead dwarves and questions from Granite about what happened to his guards. He’s the one dwarf I can’t afford to make an enemy of at the moment.
I can’t believe I’m thinking this. What would Chrysalis do?
She would tell everyone to shut up and do what they’re told or it’s the grinder for them.
Well… I AM the king, or queen.
Hmmm…
”Scream?”
Silence. On the other hole, that might be a good thing, taking into account her disposition for getting me in trouble.
The vault door opens, and the guard accompanying Two stands up, saluting.
“Queen, we discovered this-”
“BY MURADIN’S BEARD!” calls out Crumble as she peeks out from behind me, pushing inside immediately, “My poor little filly!”
I shake my head when the dwarf guard tries to stop the mare as she darts forward and cradles Two’s broken body.
“Ughh...” Two groans at the not exactly careful treatment, but relaxes as Crumble’s love starts flowing into her. The worst of the open cracks in her chitin seal up quickly, leaving deep scars still covered by dried up green goop. However, I can sense that this time healing won’t be so easy. Two might be filling up with love, but she’s too young to be physically developed. Her body can’t use all the love Crumble is giving her at the moment. If someone like One got access to this amount of raw love, she could likely fully regenerate herself from just a hoof within seconds, but Two will need rest to recuperate, no way around it. Her body has to naturally convert the love into healing.
“What happened?” I ask, just to keep up appearances. Both guards salute again.
“We were on watch, I was by the main entrance and Topaz there by the small changeling’s cell. Out of nowhere, I saw a bigger changeling knock Topaz out, and I went to help. I severely underestimated how fast the changeling was, and after a quick fight it got behind me, and then when I woke up, the wounded one you see here was fighting the big one and getting crushed-”
“...I almost got her...” groans Two defensively. The reporting dwarf shoots her a quick glance, and continues.
“-getting crushed, so Topaz and I helped. Without the element of surprise, the big changeling had to escape. Unfortunately, we didn’t see what happened with the imprisoned one. I apologize, queen, and am willing to bear any consequences of my failure.”
“Me too,” adds Topaz.
How to play this out?
“No word to anypony about this,” I look at the dwarves firmly, “I will inform Granite myself, and we’ll think about what to do next. Let Crumble stay here with… Two,” I narrow my eyes at the guards who give me surprised looks, realizing what I just said, “She is free to go and stay as she pleases. If you see any other changeling than Two or Three, detain them immediately. Keep your mouths shut, and you’re off the hook for this failure. Blab to someone, and Granite will hear about your performance as well as MY opinion on it. Clear?”
“Yes, your Majesty!” they salute.
Maybe there IS something to Chrysalis’ approach to ruling.
Striding as meaningfully as I can, I leave the prison and return to the royal tavern where the dwarven representatives are back at the table, keeping the lively discussion going.
“Alright, alright, I concede,” grumbles Granite, “Armor decorations won’t be gender specific, but there need to be some distinction between military members more than just the amount of spikes on our pauldrons which civilians aren’t allowed to use.”
I sit down next to Steelback, ignoring his raised eyebrow. Maybe there’s a happy medium between going full Chrysalis and letting everyone do what they want.
I’ve got power, and I need to figure out how to use it.
***
As the meeting drags on and everyone argues about tiny details no one in their right mind should bother with, I find myself looking out of Three’s eyes. He and Six are slowly leaving the unbelievably vast network of mine tunnels, curiously enough, still unspotted. It must be that time of day when every dwarf is busy with their work, leaving the outer streets next to empty. As their hoofsteps echo through the halls, Six whimpers again, saying:
“I tried to run. The big changeling disguised as a dwarf who helped me heal myself said that if I ran, he’d have to send someone after me, that I’ll be an enemy.”
“Aww, don’t worry about that,” Three smiles at him, “Boss sent me to find you, and I won’t do anything bad to you. It’s a big, scary world, and us drones have to stand together. The boss used to be a drone too, so he understands even now that he’s a real big boss.”
“To be honest, I’m less afraid of you and your ‘boss’ than of Five. She’s a hunter, she won’t stop until her mission is finished, and right now her mission is to get rid of me so that I can’t talk in case you somehow break the block in my head.”
“What’s with the block thing anyway?” asks Three.
“It’s something that hides me from the dwarf alarms, but I can’t communicate with… with...” his eyes glaze over, “I can’t say. It also stops me from saying, or even thinking about it. I just have to get… somewhere… after my mission... and then I’ll be contacted by...” Six stops, rubbing his temples and sighing, “I can’t even connect to anyone, I’m alone. Wait, no. Someone got into my head before. Your boss? I think.”
“Dunno, probably,” Three shrugs, “What were you doing anyway?”
“Oh, I just had to walk around, see how’s the situation in the dwarven king’s part of Brauheim. If they’re preparing for war or something, what’s the security like and so on. To be honest, I’m pretty sure the reason I was sent here first and not Five or Seven was because I’m kinda… expendable.”
“Don’t say that,” Three rubs his muzzle against Six’ neck, a gesture made much less effective thanks to his helmet, but the thought was there, “Boss cares about all changelings, and just wants us to be happy.”
Suddenly, Six freezes, staring forward.
“I… don’t think I’ll be there to see it...” he whispers. Three turns his head. There’s a solitary dwarf mare heading towards the two who isn’t wearing any sort of armor. Even Three’s drone nose is enough to pick on the scent of venom quickly, and I don’t need any more signs of trouble to immediately react.
I lean to the dwarf sitting next to me, lowering my voice.
“Granite, I must leave again. Royal business,” I smile at everyone, “You’re doing a good job here, but I don’t think we have to sort everything out in one day. How about we leave something for, say, tomorrow?”
With the first surprised nods at my sudden need to go away, I quickly stride out of the tavern, pour love into my hooves, and bolt.
”Three-”
”I’m on the way already,” Two interrupts me. She’s exhausted, still in pain, but she’s been buzzing towards Three as soon as the two drones noticed disguised Five.
”You’re in no shape to fight, Two!”
”Good, that means neither is Five.”
No, it doesn’t! Too cocky, Scream was right. That’s stupid. I SHOULD force her to stop, but she’s faster than I am, and she’s a minute, minute and a half ahead.
Three lunges at Five charging at Six who kicks him away mid-jump.
I hate to say it, but they’ll need all the help they can get before I arrive. And from how quickly Five moves around, punching panicking Six, likely even afterwards.
”Be careful, Two. I can see that as far as technique goes, Five is a really good warrior.”
”Yeah, stop punching things!” Scream suddenly appears by my side, teleporting forward to keep up with my love-enhanced gallop, ”Anyway, what did I miss?” she blinks out for a moment, ”Heeeey, why is smart bug’s chitin in pieces?”
”A changeling called Five appeared, hunting Six down. Two stopped her, revealed who she is to the dwarves, got really badly hurt, Six ran off, Three found him, and now Five found the two again. Currently, they’re trying to run away from her and towards us.”
I ping a location on our hive mind map - a small plaza which Two is approaching. It should be empty-ish, and there should be enough space to surround Five if we need to. Despite Six being scared out of his mind, I feel a faint ‘okay’ reply from him as well.
”Oooh, I gotta see that!” she summons a bag of popcorn, and vanishes.
”Damn it, Scream! Why don’t you ever help when we need you to?”
”Pff, how boring would that be?” she just laughs, nowhere to be seen, ”Owww, I almost felt that one. Poor drone.”
Five just punched Six so hard his already fractured chitin cracked, green droplets flying through the air. If there’s a good thing about it, it’s that she sent him the right way.
Yep, we’ll definitely need to surround her.
Three jumps on Five from behind, clamping his legs around her hind leg like a weight. That slows Five down as she tries to kick him off. Unsuccessful, she shoots fleeing Six a glance before dropping her dwarven disguise, her transformation back into the bigger changeling forcing Three to let go. With the added weight out of the way, she quickly catches up to Six, grabs him by his hind leg, and pulls.
“Aaaaah!” Six twists in her grip, managing to turn around and cross his forelegs in front of him just in time slow down a stab of Five’s claws which would otherwise impale him to the floor. Instead, she ‘only’ knocks the wind out of him, cocking her other other foreleg to finish the job.
A burning green bullet blazes through the air, leaving a trail behind it, and creating small shockwave as it hits Five straight in the snout, sending her tumbling away from Six.
Two, as the projectile reveals itself to be, shakes her head, getting off the ground near Five now bleeding from all over her face again.
“Youuuu...” the warrior growls.
“Got some unfinished bus-” Two’s eyes bulge as her world explodes in agony, Five’s clenched fist rammed straight into her neck.
Damn it! Now’s not the time for badass one-liners, Two.
“It wasn’t my job to kill you before,” growls Five, “but you’re getting annoying, always standing between me and my target.”
Two can’t speak, completely out of breath and barely seeing through the haze of new pain.
Five grabs Two by the neck and her foreleg, and twists, ripping the leg off with ease. Shock takes Two completely, making her tremble all over as she bleeds freely from her shoulder.
Scream, sitting nearby on a deck chair and drinking something from a glass through a bendy straw, sighs:
”You tell her again and again, yet she never learns. You DON’T ram your head into the wall, if your head is your most precious resource.”
”HELP HER, PLEASE!”
”Nope. She caused this one out of her sheer stupidity. Remember how I said that someone would have to beat it out of her? Yeah, that.”
”SHE’LL DIE!”
”A lesson she won’t forget until the end of her life, I’d say,” Scream waves her hoof dismissively.
Five swats Three away as he ineffectively punches her barrel from the side, pulling now delirious Two up by her neck, and squeezing. Her chitin can’t handle the pressure of Five’s claws anymore, giving in with sickening crunch after crunch.
”Scream, if you don’t help her, I will never do anything you want me to again, no matter what it is.”
”Are you forgetting I can turn chatterbug’s body off again, hmm?”
”Then I will keep him safe inside the hive mind, and I will make him a proper changeling body as soon as I shove an egg into a mare or something, but I will NEVER listen to a word you say!”
”Gee, you’re getting really annoying, you know that?” she frowns.
Two’s eyes glow bright green in tune with her horn, and I feel her love storage ignite. Lightning crackles from the barely conscious changeling, grounding through Five who lets go, dropping on the floor and smoldering. Two’s love reserves are almost gone with that single spell, and despite her involuntary shaking, Five is already trying to get back up, racking repeated failed attempts.
”Meh, forgot you bugs aren’t too conductive. Should have gone with acid instead. Anyway, she can’t handle anything more I could try, so it’s up to her. Oopsie...” Scream adds as Two crawls over to her separated leg, and groans in pain when she presses it against her stump, green fire re-attaching it, albeit more as a stiff prosthesis than a functional limb.
Three jumps on Five’s back this time, as she’s having trouble getting up. Fire rushes through his body, making him many times heavier and tougher, although completely immobile as he locks all four his legs around Five’s barrel. To my horror, Five eventually pushes up with a groan, walking towards Two, limping slightly due to the added weight but recovering quickly from Scream’s spell cast through Two.
”Stop!”
One. Two. Three. Four.
Two bought herself four seconds with that mental command, barely enough to get one more failed attempt at standing up in. As she crashes back on the floor, blacking out for a moment, Six rushes between her and Five.
“Look, Five,” he hangs his head low, “I give up. They were just trying to help me, and I only watched them fight while cowering like the coward I am. Even Three is doing his best, and he’s a drone like me. Let them go. I won’t run or resist anymore.”
“They know too much,” growls Five.
”Three, get off of Five, will you?”
”Okay, boss!” he shapeshifts back from the changeling brick he is, jumpin down from Five who looks around. Her eyes go wide-
-as she braces against my impact, forelegs crossed in front of her to block by accelerated punch.
Alright, so I’m not much a fighter either, but I’m massively pissed off, mostly at Scream and Two, but it still counts.
She spins around, leading with a wide, powerful swing which could easily knock the head clean off of any of my changelings, but compared to Eight she’s so slow, and I spent a lot of time inside both Eight’s mind and body.
A burning emerald blade of pure love bursts from my foreleg as I slash at Five, chopping her approaching leg clean off. In one fluid motion, I land back on said foreleg, the love-fueled weapon disappearing and reforming from my other forehoof with which I pierce Five’s chest through with next to no resistance.
Finally, whatever willpower was pushing Five forward gives out, and the warrior drops on the floor, motionless and bleeding.
“Holy hole, boss, where did you learn THAT?!” Three’s staring at me, eyes and mouth open as if he was looking at a new coloring book just for him. Six is staring at me too, but with much less awe and drastically more fear, as he sees me in my real form for the first time.
”That was quite the light show,” Scream claps her hooves together, ”Now let’s get out and see what the dwarves think about all the green blood around.”
A quick peek into the mind of Five now accessible to me proves she’s completely out of it, exhausted and genuinely too hurt to continue.
“Three, Six,” the drones salute as I look at them, shapeshifting back to queen Brick, “Take Five. Carefully. We can’t leave her here or the dwarves will ask questions. And one of you grab her leg too.”
They nod and start sorting out the logistics of carrying a bigger changeling as a pair while I put trembling Two on my back. I think Three’s faint, persistent love aura will keep Five alive without healing her much.
“...sorry..” she croaks through her broken muzzle and teeth, “...I lost...”
“I’m really mad at you right now, Two,” despite my words, I carefully start channeling love into her. She’s in such bad shape she can barely process it, “I’m horrified at what could have happened to you, and I think I’ll start crying if I stop being so pissed off.”
Right now, I need to show strength, I need to think clearly to get us home. We’ll hug it out when we’re safe.
***
To my surprise and a neverending stream of thanks to the great hole in the sky, we return back to the prison undisturbed, although definitely not unnoticed. Rumors about more and more changelings are sure to be spreading in the next days, but I’ll have to deal with that problem when it returns to me.
Topaz and the other guard are still standing on watch, although their helmets tilt when they see all the changelings return in absolutely horrendous shape.
“AAAAH!” screams Two out of nowhere, “DON’T COME CLOSER! DON’T TOUCH ME!” a quick mental prod shows that she’s asleep, and I gently put the thrashing changeling on the floor before she falls, “GOT YOU! GOT YOU, YOU BRUTE! DON’T FUCKING MOVE OR I’LL RIP ALL YOUR LEGS OFF!” blood starts pouring from her devastated muzzle and throat.
Crumble trots out of the cell, clearly still annoyed at Two’s earlier rush to help Three and Six. Her expression turns to grimace of pure horror as she sees me cradling the moaning and wailing changeling against my barrel. Two weakly bites my chest over and over, but with her fangs knocked out by Five she barely scratches me.
“What-” Crumble opens her mouth.
“Later,” I say.
“But my daught-” it’s obvious how much Crumble wants to be in my place, hugging Two.
“MY changeling,” I bare my teeth at her. My dwarven mouth is far less scary than if I was a changeling, but she gets the message.
Two slowly, very slowly calms down under both my physical and mental touch.
”Ouch, that’s gonna leave a mental scar she deserves,” Scream observes out pitiful state, ”Hopefully. Physical one too.”
I want to bark out that she should shove that up her glorious jiggly ass, but even in my carefully contained anger, I know she’s right. Two did this to herself. She ran off to prove herself, not to help Three or Six, and she paid for it. Scream did help as well. Now it not time to be emotional, as I said before.
When Two goes quiet and tears stop flowing from her eyes, I pat her head one final time and nod to Crumble who gently takes her back with her into the cell.
“Topaz, and...” I realize I didn’t ask the second dwarf guard his name.
“Siegbrau, queen,” he salutes.
“Alright, Topaz and Siegbrau, I’ll ask Granite to station the two of you here for a little longer, because you know what to expect at this point. The changeling who attacked you is Five,” I point to Three and Six who have been left unnoticed due to Two’s traumatic nightmare, “I took care of her. She’s in no shape to do anything. I’m not even sure she will survive, but I would like her to, if only for questioning. However, in case I’m wrong, I need you to be split up like before and guard her and Six. You know what we’re dealing with-”
“Which is something we’d also like to know,” I hear Granite’s voice. The dwarf guards salute as he enters.
Unfortunately, he’s not alone. Three and Six drop Five, then Six also drops Five’s leg from his mouth, and starts shaking. A group of six dwarf guards quickly follow Granite, cutting off the escape path, and Iron Rose pushes through behind them as well as Hard Hat, Geode, and the last two dwarves whom Crumble brought to the table.
The worst part comes when the final, bald and cloaked figure enters, glaring at me with burning scorn. Did everyone lose their balls and side with the dark priest in the end?
“Looks like we’ve got an infestation on our hooves,” says the dark priest victoriously, “Destroy them!”
The cold, artificial rage I’ve been trying hard to maintain suddenly feels a lot more real and close. Infestation. As if we were nothing but annoying vermin.
Three was so happy to be back and alive. Six was so happy to still be alive. Two’s a little ball of pride with potential to be the next queen.
And this is still how they see us.
Infestation.
“Say that word again, dwarf,” I growl, dropping my disguise and towering above the suddenly much smaller dwarves as I bare my fangs, “I dare you!”
Just give me an excuse.