Eight opens her eyes.
There’s no yawning, no existential uncertainty, no moment of sleepiness, only a warrior ready to serve her hive and owner.
She rolls over.
*Thud!*
The suddenly very annoyed warrior lying on the floor of her suite under her bed scowls.
“Right… I’m still in the sausage version. It looks like Three did a good job feeding me, though,” taking a deep breath to concentrate, Eight’s torso bursts out in green flames, and as seconds pass, the best warrior of the hive pushes herself back onto all quickly regrowing fours, sits down on her haunches, and kisses both her forelegs.
“Ahhh, good old punchers. I missed you. Welcome back, ‘total genital annihilation’. Welcome back, ‘eventual inevitable genocide’,” when that is done, she looks at her hind legs, “I really should name you two as well, but for now I’ll go with ‘kicky’ and ‘kicky 2: the kickening’.”
Now, a picture of Eight rolling on her back and kissing her hind hooves one by one would be something any potential photographer would want to auction off for a life’s worth of money, but the drawback would be said quickly shortened lifetime spent by trying to escape one very embarrassed changeling.
“Sooo… how are things?”
Boss? Still impossible to contact over the wall of agony. So, somehow still alive.
Two? Completely… gone? What?
Three? Sleepy time!
Five? Unconscious, recovering from some crazy injury.
Six? Hibernating, completely drained of love.
Seven? Exactly the same thing.
Eight? Getting angrier with every unreachable changeling.
Nine? Sadly, still dead.
Eight comes to the very same conclusion that Seven did.
“WHAT THE HOLE DID I MISS?!”
This needs some mental intrusions to solve. Eight digs into Three’s mind, and growls to herself when she learns about Three’s and Six’s trip to the dark priest enclave, and Two’s and Five’s fate. Afterwards, there isn’t too much to find anymore, as Three has spent majority of his time either by Eight’s, Five’s, or boss’ side. However, there are some very subtle mental blocks inside Three’s head which she can’t get through about some recent events, and with surprise she finds those in her own head as well. What’s worse, they are surrounding the assassination attempt on her by the old queen’s monologuing son.
Someone saved her, but she can’t recall who, and the mental blocks are the work of a master infiltrator.
Alright, first things first - while things are rather strange, the only unexplained state of a changeling is Seven in hibernation. That means…
“I gotta get a report from Granite, and then see what’s going on in the library,” Eight decides on the course of action, “No offense to Seven, but in that exact order.”
With a clear goal in mind, she rushes to the council room which is empty. Some questions about time later, she finds the loremaster overseeing the afternoon guard practices.
“YOUR HIGHNESS!” Granite calls out when she enters a wide open room of the training grounds filled with clanking of weapons and humming of ventilation, and the relief in his voice genuinely takes Eight aback.
Granite salutes, and when Eight stops in front of him she repeats his gesture as well as she can.
“Granite, I need a report of what happened since I encountered the Vigil. Immediately.”
“Who or what is this Vigil? I know very little other than that Three returned with you in shape incompatible with life on his back, and few days later he did the same with Five. I haven’t seen any other changelings than Three for quite some time. The council have been doing their best to keep things going and prevent anyone finding out that you and the king were… indisposed,” he claps his hooves together, “Wait, no! Seven asked the same thing recently. I thought you could share information in some way,” Granite raises an eyebrow, “I’m sure the king could- can.”
Step one - failed.
“That’s the thing, Granite. We can, but everyone I try to connect to is either unconscious or completely gone, so you can understand my FREAKING PANIC!” she bares her teeth, but her voice is more frustrated than threatening, and Granite gets that.
“Understood, queen,” Granite nods, and leads Eight away to a quiet place nearby which is the armory where Granite’s story is interrupted only by dwarves occasionally unloading boxes of training equipment. Most of it is alright, but Three presenting someone called Gem to Granite for… some reason who wanted an access to a top-tier dwarven chemistry lab… for some reason is certainly something to worry about.
“Granite, I need to get inside your head.”
“Uh, what do you mean?”
“You’re not bothered by not remembering who this Gem is, how she looked, or why Three brought her here?”
“I… I… now that you mention it...” Granite hits his head with his hoof, “Am I going senile?”
“No, you’re not,” Eight pats his head, “I found the same block in my head regarding someone saving me from an assassination attempt, and inside Three’s head. I think this Gem worked her… influence on you as well.”
“Am I under some sort of mind control?” Granite furrows his brows.
“In a way, yes, but it’s extremely subtle and unless we’re all sleeping agents of someone, I think it’s harmless. My best guess is that this Gem is covering her tracks extremely well, and does it to anyone she comes into contact with. I just need to make sure that’s the case.”
“Alright,” Granite takes a deep breath to gather courage, “For Brauheim! Well, what do I do?”
Eight sticks her tongue out, and lets a big drop of green slime fall on the frog of her raised hoof. The goo hardens, forming sort of a coin.
“Eat it.”
Granite takes it and takes a sniff of the minty scent.
“It’s a bit sweet, actually,” says Eight, “Go on. I’m not too good at mental stuff, so I won’t be able to just go through your memory minute by minute, but I’m good enough to see if the same blocks which are inside me and Three are inside you as well, and maybe get some details.”
The loremaster swallows the thin wafer, and in few seconds he feels slightly light-headed.
“What now-”
“Blank,” says Eight in a firm voice which makes Granite just stand and stare at Eight’s chest. She puts her horn to Granite’s forehead, and concentrates.
She gets faint glimpses of the dwarf’s conversation with Seven, the chaos after Three dragged her out of the depths, discussions of the dwarven council, and…
...yep, here they are. Details of certain recent memories locked behind mental barriers which Eight could easily believe might belong to One herself. Eight gets ready to withdraw from Granite’s head when she feels a draw of a different, strong set of memories and experiences, ones about much younger Granite in the company of many brown robed, bald, and bearded dark priests in place which she can identify based on Three’s memories - the underground dark priest enclave which Scream identified as a possible ancient Silversmith prison.
Curiosity wins, and Eight delves deeper.
***
Young Granite is sitting in a comfortable armchair, watching a floating picture created by rays coming from the top of a disc lying on the table. The recording shows a battle, clearly, from the point of view of someone.
“Old dwarves, or even the ancestors themselves?” Granite mumbles, scribbling notes into an open book on the table next to the projector disc, “Maybe the next section will show more,” he taps the disc twice, and the picture starts moving again.
It’s chaotic to say the least. Energy weapons on which the current dark priest technology is based fire salvo after salvo against every shadow moving through the tunnels. The recording soldier turns his head from side to side, revealing that there is something like… a mechanical pony on each of his sides?
“These things are everywhere,” Granite leans closer to the paused recording to see any previously unnoticed detail about the metal ponies, “I don’t think they are just mechanical servants or combat drones. They move… too fluid for that.”
Few more notes later, he resumes the recording again, this time straining his eyes to see the targets of the soldier’s projectiles.
They look like black ponies, but some have additional pairs of spider legs, blades of the praying mantis, some have mandibles or tentacles and a lot of teeth. They move in a jerky, jumpy fashion, but they can clear large stretches of the tunnel with long leaps, and don’t seem too bothered by parts of their bodies getting blown off. Despite the incinerating effect of the beam weapons, there are simply far too many enemies, and their sheer mass is pushing over the corpses, devouring them as they go.
“No… they’re not just reabsorbing their fallen...” Granite pales, “They’re using the biomass to grow more of themselves mid-battle.”
A long, sharp leg eventually pierces the pony robot on the left, and before the panicking soldier can react, the attacking monster jumps from the ceiling and rips the robot in half. The recording suddenly blurs as if the soldier was thrown, and then it ends.
“Hmm...”
He rewinds the recording, listening for voices and orders while consulting his book and pausing frequently.
“Back, forth, orders… Twisted advancing. Need reinforcements. Almost at the door,” he mumbles, “Can’t understand everything, but this feels like standard soldier talk. Alright, next recording,” he taps the disc in a different spot, the picture disappears, and as Granite turns around, Eight can see through his eyes shelf after shelf full of the same discs.
Smirking to himself, Granite mutters:
“Let others worry about weapons, technology, and rituals. If we want to salvage some of the miracles we’ve got here in the enclave, we need to understand our own language first.”
Armed with his homemade ancestor dictionary, Granite requests the assistance of a dark guard who follows him outside the enclave. As a neophyte, he’s not allowed to go back to Brauheim, but he can explore the nearby tunnels with proper company. It doesn’t take long to find a massive closed gateway made from bedrock and covered in carvings.
Granite examines the carvings and opens his book.
“This is where some of the soldiers wanted to get to, so...”
He runs around under the dark guard’s patient gaze, flipping the pages of his dictionary, and his frustration grows until he stops and grumbles:
“Nothing. Is this really just… a picture?”
The depicted scene is clearly happening on the surface where several small ponies, changelings, and some more creatures are fighting bigger equines partially covered with tentacles all over a large pyramid. On its top, a unicorn wearing an emerald amulet is facing a big griffon. Four massive stone pillars with crystals on top are forming a square surrounding the pyramid, energy arcing upwards. All that is happening under a giant scar tearing the sky apart under which something… something which even in the picture feels alive, a mass of twisted tentacles surrounding an eyeball blotting out the sun is clearly battling a solitary alicorn absolutely tiny in comparison.
“Is that Scream?” Eight mutters to herself, watching the memory, ”No, that’s a stallion.”.
As Granite explores the depicted scene further, Eight notices the corner of the picture through his eyes, and does find Scream. The alicorn lies dead on the ground, forgotten by everyone, but with a smile on her muzzle.
Granite shakes his head.
“No description or anything. Could this be just a picture from some vision or something? Or maybe even… just art?” he nods towards the guard, “Let’s go back. I’ve got another idea where to get some information.”
With his dictionary back in his saddlebag, Granite enters the dark priest museum. Pieces of ancestral technology are lying around on pedestals with plaques explaining what the exhibits are. The descriptions are vague at best, and often they just say that it wasn’t possible to salvage any useful technology from the piece or discern what it was used for. Granite, though, heads straight to a headless torso of the same mechanical pony he saw in the recording. Well, very likely not EXACTLY the same one, but it looks very similar.
“The head was removed during research of optical technology and extraction of the data disc,” Granite reads. He’s been in the museum multiple times, but this time his dictionary has improved to a point where he might be able to translate the hair-thin writing on the robot’s chest.
“Names and numbers… Deep Dig, Circuit, Dusty...” Granite shakes his head, “Those could be normal dwarven names. Why are they written on a robot? Numbers… it could be date and time, only the year makes no sense. Although our calendar starts rather recently. If this is an ancestor machine, it could be vastly different. Huh, could it be a date when this thing was created? Nothing like a serial number, though, just the names. And some symbols which could, if I squint enough, resemble our soldier ranks. This would be a private. Why, though?”
He scribbles the rank symbol into his dictionary along with the private theory and few question marks. Maybe he’ll find something to compare with later. With his inspiration temporarily running out, Granite returns to the library, and picks the next data disc in a row.
As another combat view starts playing, Granite bites his lip. Why? He’s been in the enclave for months, and in the hundreds of the data discs, there hasn’t been a single one regarding family life, culture, anything other than these damn combat logs.
This time, however, the log doesn’t end with the recording soldier’s death, but with a long text which Granite knows will probably take him days to translate. Date, name, rank are now fairly simple to decipher, but the vast majority of the text are symbols and expressions he can’t understand. He puts the disc away for later use, and grabs the next one.
“Yessss!” he punches the air. Finally, the name on top of the screen coincides with the last one, but the rank symbol is more complex. This is the first time he’s been able to find two recordings by the same soldier, and this one actually begins with text one word of which Granite CAN understand.
“Briefing,” he breathes out, “Did the soldier survive the mission and get promoted immediately? Did they have no idea what they were doing until they survived first deployment?”
That doesn’t sound like smart military strategy, more like pure desperation. Give somepony basic training and a gun and hope for the best.
It takes Granite the whole afternoon and most of the night to translate some terms from the briefing thanks to the random assortment of words and his best guesstimates in his dictionary, and in the end he’s more confused than when he started.
The area of the enclave and the mines in this part of the world are often referred to as the “final site” for something called “project Living End”. The briefing mentions “prison” and “laboratory underneath” as well as “test subjects”. What he does get is the reference to “the Twisted” as the enemy who clearly are the monstrous creatures inhabiting the tunnels.
“Weapon research as well...” Granite mumbles, trying to put things together in his head, “The great weapon, or big weapon… depends on the interpretation. This sheds no light on the disappearance of our ancestors, but it’s clear that there was something big going on either here or nearby that would stop the Twisted.”
He yawns, and looks at the clock above the door.
“Oh my...” smiling at his discovery, he picks up his book and borrows the data disc, signing off at the librarian’s desk, “Working while tired will only cause mistakes.”
Back on the upper floors, Granite keels over into his bed. His roommate is fast asleep, but thankfully, the dark priests aren’t too strict on time schedule down here which is a big difference to how they present themselves in Brauheim.
When he opens his eyes again, he finds himself lying on a stone slab. Has it been decided that he would undergo the secret ritual to become a dark priest?
He sits up, giddiness growing with each passing second, and reaching its peak as he notices a circle of dark priests surrounding him and…
...a second stone slab on which there is…
“Father?” Granite tilts his head. The old and skinny dwarf doesn’t react.
A dark priest comes closer and puts a dagger on a pedestal between the stone altars.
“Your father is unconscious,” he says, “We know what brought you to us in the first place. We have scoured through your past, and we appreciate your unparalleled lust for knowledge. Your translation effort with neophyte resources is genuinely admirable, and we want you to imagine how much more you could do with real dark priest privileges. However, as I stated, we also know that your original goal was to find a cure for your father, a cure we possess.”
“You do?” Granite brightens up.
“Dark priest service, though, stems from the ability to watch over lesser dwarves, to guide them without regard for your own personal issues, which is where this test comes in. We will not allow you to cure your father, as certain… comforts of life belong only to our hooves. In fact, you must get rid of this burden, you must sever this tie to your being a lesser dwarf, and ascend,” he nods towards the dagger, “Your father will die within two months anyway, but the knowledge you stand to gain is more than a lifetime’s worth.”
Granite glares at the surrounding dwarves. As they correctly said, his father would die soon, and they wouldn’t grant him access to the cure anyway. On the other hoof, in the months here inside the enclave, he’s only scratched the surface of what could be the saving grace of dwarves, what could catapult them into the future and improve the lives of tens of thousands.
“Fuck you, monsters,” he growls.
Darkness takes him quickly, and Eight decides to stop spying on the dwarf’s past.
***
Real Granite shakes his head, coming out of the daze caused by Eight’s venom, completely unaware of what the queen saw.
“Thank you for your trust and information,” Eight steadies him as he stumbles while raising his foreleg, “You’ll feel dizzy for few minutes, so I suggest you to sit down and wait it out.”
“Did- did you find what you were looking for?” he asks.
“Yes, I did. One thing doesn’t fit, though, and that is Seven being out cold. I’m going to the library.”
“Do you need guards?”
“No,” Eight grins, “They’d only get in the way.”
After lowering Granite on the floor, she trots out of the training grounds.
Contrary to Eight’s paranoia, opening the door to the library doesn’t reveal the sight of a gruesome massacre. That is the good part. The bad part is that it quickly reveals completely drained Seven lying halfway over some sort of complicated chalk dust drawing on the carpet, as well as…
“Six?” Eight trots over, “What are YOU doing here?” of course, she gets no answer, “Did Seven get you out of the tunnel where Three left you? How?” she smacks her forehead, “Teleportation magic, riiight… I really should try learning at least that. It could be useful.”
She walks around the smooshed magic circle, sniffing the air.
“But what was he trying to do with this?”
As Eight’s nose picks up a scent which she can’t categorize, she freezes. The scent left a trail. Something or someone else was here as well. Considering that both changelings are alive, only hibernating, said someone didn’t see the need to get rid of them permanently.
Eight stretches her forelegs, and grins.
“I might not be much good for all that mental stuff, but I’m one hole of a bloodhound.”
Soon enough, she can pick the completely unique scent against the background of the castle, shapeshifts her hooves into pads for quiet walking, and gallops outside. It only takes minutes before the scent grows stronger, but Eight meets only few surprised and relieved dwarf guards who salute to her. However, when she eventually opens a door on which the scent is the strongest, it leads to one of the many castle warehouses, this one for laundry.
Or at least it should be laundry, but it’s completely empty. An open room with a heavy door that can be locked only from the outside. Eight realizes she’s been led here. Into this…
...arena.
“Alright, show yourself,” she says with complete calm, shifting her legs back into the implements of destruction they are supposed to be, “You wanted me here, and I know you’re here too.”
A quick burst of pink fire from ahead makes Eight twitch, but her movement stops when she instantly realizes that it’s not a projectile of some sort headed her way. Instead, the fire reveals a deviously smiling red mare with brown mane and wings Eight has seen before only on batponies from Canterlot. The mare licks her lips decorated in golden lipstick, and her eyes of the same color lock on Eight. She isn’t much smaller than the warrior herself, but the difference in physical build is like night and day.
“Snooping around, doggy? Mmmm, you’re making me reevaluate my preference for stallions,” the mare gives Eight a seductive wink.
“Who are you, and what did you do to Seven?” Eight is laser focused on the enemy, ready to pounce or dodge instantly if need be.
“Oh,” the mare waves her hoof dismissively, “I just took back the lust that poor excuse for an infiltrator absorbed from me on accident.”
“I’m not fond of anyone draining my changelings.”
“He’s yours?” the mare laughs, covering her mouth with her hoof, “Explains why he was such a trash infiltrator. You should stick to making warriors, really.”
Eight cracks her neck, quickly tired of the mare’s theatrics.
“I’ve been in bed for too long, and I could use some rehabilitation. You’ll do.”
Her words are followed with Eight’s straight punch at the mare’s head. The enemy dodges backwards, clearly having been ready for it as well. Eight quickly rams her previously punching hoof against the floor, and spins around on it, leaving the strange mare facing two hind legs kicking with such force which could demolish a chunk of the castle wall.
That’s not the shocking part, though. Eight’s strength and speed isn’t anything new. What IS the surprise, is that the enemy doesn’t use teleportation or anything unnatural, she’s simply fast enough to get out of the way.
The quick exchange has left the two in switched places, and Eight looks at her foreleg, then stomps it against the floor.
“Alright, basic movements are okay, albeit not a hundred percent yet. Let’s kick it up a notch.”
The mare chuckles.
“Awww, little filly just wants to kick- WHOAH!” this time the mare vanishes in a burst of fire to avoid Eight’s significantly faster roundhouse kick which would otherwise knock her head clean off, and likely make it bounce around the room like a marble in a pinball machine.
Eight’s following right hook doesn’t reach the mare, but the shockwave of air does, making her stumble and pushing her backwards. Using the second of distraction, Eight closes the distance between them, rears on her hind legs, and twists away, because-
-a spike of pink fire grows from the mare’s foreleg in an instant, which she uses like a weightless sword to score a deep scar into the chiting of Eight’s barrel. Come to think about it, the attack was very similar to the boss’ love blade.
Leaving her chitin as it is to conserve her already limited energy, Eight feels an intrusion into her mind, and in the same instant she’s assaulted by images of rutting, her boning the boss in a whirlwind of pure lust, serving the entire dwarf city as a pleasure toy, and how amazing it would all feel if she would give in to her changeling urge to feed.
Of course, the tempting vision’s mistake is to show the boss in the first place, and a specter of boss’ death makes Eight simply ignore the mental attack, and her fury-powered punch finally connects.
The other mare’s spine snaps at the force, her neck bending back into an L shape. With a burst of flames, the mare’s body evaporates, and reforms into her original shape a short distance away with a slightly annoyed pout. Flicking her head as if she had a horn, she conjures a whirlwind of fire aimed at Eight who simply pounces through it, about to stomp the mare.
Pink, fiery tentacles sprout from the floor, each grabbing Eight by one leg and one by her torso. They raise the warrior up into the air. Two more grow behind her, and start slapping Eight’s buttcheeks like a pair of bongos.
“I gotta keep few of those around,” Eight flexes her muscles, ripping the binding tentacles out of the ground, and making them disappear. However, before she drops on the ground, another fiery blade created by the mare spears her neck clean through a tiny slit between her chitin plates.
With a twitch of her neck, Eight breaks the magical weapon, and kicks herself off of the floor with her hind legs so fast that the enemy can’t react when Eight lands on her, finding herself in a bear hug squeezing all air from her lungs.
After a quick and fruitless struggle to escape, the mare’s eyes go wide when Eight nuzzles her nose.
“Ahhh, that was a nice stretch,” Eight smiles, “Now let’s stop fucking around, One. I’ll tell you what’s going on. Then you have to tell me how you survived Las Pegasus, and why you picked this edgy recolor.”
One stares at Eight still not letting her move, and then she shakes her head, genuine smile growing on her muzzle.
“Only if I get a turn with the boss afterwards.”
Eight lets One go and stands back up, her smile fading quickly.
“Yeeeah, that won’t be so simple. Boss is… in trouble. Also, you looked waaaay better as a changeling.”
One gets back on all fours, and sparks of pink and green fire transform her coat into black changeling chitin, and her mane changes from long and brown into a much shorter one and pastel yellow. In the end, her leathery wings burn away, leaving only a pair of changeling, fly-like ones.
The master infiltrator daintily taps her hoof against the stone floor of the storeroom, leaving a burning hoofmark.
“Why am I getting the feeling that I’m going to have to use my new demonic powers on someone?”