This is ridiculous, I thought as I caught my breath on the floor of the schoolhouse hideout. My lungs burned more than my muscles did, being the more overlooked detail of my current form.
As soon as I have a moment to myself, better lung capacity is at the top of my alterations list.
That’s not to say that getting winded was my only issue with the training regimen I was now undergoing. It certainly didn’t take long to realize that the fleshy, soft body of my disguise was too weak to become the proper soldier Warden wanted to shape me into.
His training was logical, for a pony, but no amount of exercise would build up muscle faster than simply reforming the disguise itself. I just couldn’t take it seriously, knowing that I had a much simpler solution available to me.
Of course, I lamented, to take advantage of that solution would take just as long as doing it the hard way. I’m going to have to make disguise adjustments over time. It’s going to cost me a lot of energy... thankfully, having the filly around should offset the energy requirement significantly.
I turned my head to observe Double Time as my breathing slowed to a more manageable level. Over the past few weeks, she had steadily grown more accustomed to having me around. She no longer stuttered when she spoke to me, and I could feel her confidence battling with her embarrassment every time we’d make eye contact.
“Are you done already?” she asked from her perch on the former teacher’s desk. It had been pushed against the rear wall, opposite the main entrance, where its surface would have likely collected chalk dust if lessons had been ongoing. It provided both a raised platform for her to sit on as well as a source of reasonable cover should she choose to duck beneath it. The Empire-issued desk was made of a material that would be far too thin to protect against an assault of any kind. Still, it may have proven useful for avoiding detection if the school was assaulted thanks to the front panel—designed to keep colts from staring at the more exciting portions of their teacher during class, no doubt.
She was watching me train again today, as she did most days. I figured she had read the few books in their refuge already, some more than once. It came as no great surprise that she’d find the exercises Warden left for me to complete to be more interesting than the various textbooks collecting dust within the desks scattered around the room.
Show me a colt or filly who voluntarily opened a school book, and I will show you a poorly trained changeling trying to pass themselves off as a real infiltrator.
“Yeah,” I replied, “but I won’t tell Warden if you don’t.”
I rolled my shoulder a few times as I sat upright. I reached out and soaked up the fleeting mirth my comment elicited from my audience of one. The half-hearted training wasn’t especially draining, but there was no real reason to pass up the offering. That would be wasteful.
Double Time hopped down from her overwatch position with a thump, albeit one that resonated with a faint cracking sound. It reminded me of a frozen pond spider-webbing underhoof, preparing to end your days, though no matter how many times she’d done it, there was never any actual damage to the floor.
I will never get used to crystalline architecture.
“Tell me what?” came Warden’s voice as the front door slid open just enough for the old guard to slip inside, closing it again behind him.
He was a good soldier, I had learned that the first day I met him. He carried himself well, was more than merely proficient with that spear, and he had a keen sense of perception and tactical awareness that always forced me into cautious vigilance, lest I give myself away.
The one trait he possessed that I didn’t approve of was predictability. He had spent his entire life in the service of the royal family. Every minute of every day was structured and scheduled.
Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate that. Any self-respecting hive is the living embodiment of structure and order among chaos and evolution. I completely approve… I am just saying, I could have set a watch if I had one, based solely on Warden’s afternoon return to the schoolhouse and only be a few seconds off.
Then again, maybe that was beneficial out there, I thought. Everypony beyond those doors functions like clockwork. Perhaps Warden is actually accounting for that… yet another example of tactical awareness?
It was something I would have to evaluate further.
Double Time laughed softly as she raced toward her surrogate father, launching herself into the air and forcefully hugging him.
“Oh, Headway was just skipping leg day again. He said we didn’t have to tell you about it, but that’d be cheating, right, Warden?”
Snitch.
“Is that so?” Warden said, allowing a bit of amusement to creep into his words as he pried the young mare off of his neck and set her down in front of him. “Well, I am sure we can all keep a secret this one time,” he continued as he smirked and made eye contact with me.
Cheesy, but a clever social deception for foals. Doubtlessly used as humor to provoke a response. From the pained expression on Miss Time’s face, I could tell that she shared my assessment.
His expression shifted to a more serious one after a moment.
“The neighborhood has been picked clean. I am going to need your help starting tomorrow, Headway. We have to cross one of the busier streets to gather supplies moving forward. I’d feel better having you out there with me.”
I should have guessed this is what he meant, I thought to myself as I sat between two buildings, staring down the road watching for any ‘affected’ movement. So far, I had seen numerous emotionless zombies hustling up and down the main road a few hundred hooves away, but nopony had deviated from their paths to come down the side streets.
My patience was tested after a quarter of an hour.
After another quarter-hour of staring at nothing, I slipped away and backtracked to a blind corner that I had made a note of on our way here. Green flames rapidly swept over my body, hugging me in an emerald embrace before departing just as quickly. Outwardly I didn’t look any different, but I knew I’d appreciate the internal tweaks to my musculature and respiratory systems, which I’d just made.
Half an hour after I resumed my watch on the roadside, Warden appeared in a storefront display window across the street. I crept from my hiding place, alert for the sounds of ponies nearby, and scanned the road in both directions before motioning to the former guard that it was clear to return.
Once the two of us were safely away from the road, he set his saddlebags down with a muffled metallic clang and opened the top flap, revealing his haul and proceeded to underwhelm me with the details.
“I was able to grab a dozen cans of various fruits, mostly blueberries, it seems. Not too bad for one trip. How were things here? Any trouble?”
I shook my head and scoffed. “Nothing. I am not sure why you were concerned about crossing this road, nopony even glanced this way. Those soulless mockeries out there may as well be wearing blinders.”
“Well, you shouldn’t make assumptions just yet,” he said. “We may have gotten lucky with our timing today, but I can assure you that they do traverse these connecting streets often enough to be a concern. Don’t let your guard down.
“Oh, and incidentally, I wish you wouldn’t call them such things. These are good ponies who are simply not strong enough to resist evil magic.”
My fur bristled at the reprimand—a feeling I was sure I’d never get used to—but I chose to remain silent. The effort expended to hold my tongue would have been taxing in years past, but experience had taught me to pick my battles.
“Right, sorry.”
“It’s all right. Come on, we should be able to clear a few more houses before heading back. You’re right though, this street seems to be emptier than I had expected. It should be safe enough for us both to cross.”
Once again, we walked out into the street at that unusually brisk pace, just shy of a full trot. It wasn’t taxing by any means, but it was uncomfortable to maintain. Thankfully, as soon as we had crossed the road and started down another residential side-street, we were able to slow down to a more comfortable gait, knowing there wouldn’t be anypony around to see us.
Densely packed homes forming cul-de-sacs along these side-streets seemed to be the norm in the Empire. It made hiding remarkably easy, and I was honestly surprised that the city fell as quickly as it did.
Silly ponies. Couldn’t any of you have found a basement or attic to hide in until after the hypno-squad passed through your neighborhood? Warden can’t seriously be the only source of intelligence among the crystal tribe. Right?
I was shaken from my silent disapproval when the previously mentioned pony stopped in front of a pair of houses set back from the road slightly farther than the rest of their neighbors.
“Go ahead and search these two. Grab any boxed or canned food you can find. If you run across any lantern oil or, better yet, a magic-powered lamp, by all means, snag those too. Just don’t get your hopes up, we aren’t likely to find such luxuries so far from the affluent parts of town. Unicorn lamps are too valuable for the working class to justify unless absolutely necessary.”
He gestured toward the opposite side of the cul-de-sac, adding, “I am going to start on the far end and work my way back toward you. Four or five homes worth of supplies should last the three of us quite a while. At least, hopefully. Our current rations didn’t take into consideration adding another mouth to feed, so we should stock up a bit. Happy hunting, and see you in a bit. If anything goes wrong, make your way back to our side of the main road and meet me behind the first house on the left, the big green one.”
I nodded once before turning toward the first of the two homes and walked up to the front door. I was just about to buck it open when it dawned on me to check the knob.
The door swung open effortlessly.
Of course, I thought, ponies are too trusting. I bet there aren’t more than a dozen locked doors in this entire city.
Stepping inside, I was assaulted by a nauseating smell. I knew that the mind-controlled ponies were sent home at sunset from wherever they were ordered to go during the day. Apparently, that was the extent of their evening programming. They were forced to maintain a sleep and meal schedule in order to continue functioning as living beings, but Sombra either neglected to include bathroom breaks, or they simply didn’t align with this particular family’s biological schedule.
Considering his penchant for misery, I was convinced it was the former scenario. Even if their nightmare ended, they’d be horrified all over again upon returning home to the accumulated filth. Honestly, I was somewhat surprised more of the afflicted didn’t develop respiratory diseases—or maybe they did, and were simply unable to physically react to the symptoms.
Was it possible to deny coughing fits through brainwashing? Did Sombra’s power supersede autonomic responses?
At least the sofa and mattress merchants will have a booming business for a while, I joked to myself, trying to make the most of my situation.
After dry heaving a few times during my sack of the kitchen, I abandoned the search for food—I now understood why Warden was only collecting sealed containers—long enough to make my way to their restroom. As I suspected, it was, in fact, the cleanest room in the house. I wasted no time in pulling down one of the towels from the rack, wetting it in the sink, and then binding it securely around my muzzle.
Once sufficiently buffered from the stench, I resumed the search for non-perishables. The kitchen was neatly ordered with everything exactly where you would expect them to be. While it made finding what I was looking for incredibly simple, I sneered at the homeowner’s lack of imagination.
Anypony that is this stereotypical deserves their current fate, they were zombies long before they were affected.
After cleaning out the pantry, I realized my saddlebags wouldn’t hold everything, and there was no way I was emptying it of its contents. My queen would peel my carapace off if I lost the love crystals.
So, I made my way back down the hallway and stepped inside one of the bedrooms. My goal was to acquire a bed sheet to bundle up my haul, but I discounted the bedding already in place, for aromatic reasons.
Instead, I opened the closet door and began rummaging around for their linen. I found the homeowner’s collection of blankets and grabbed the topmost one, yanking it unceremoniously out of the closet.
I would have simply made my way back to the kitchen had it not been for the slight thud I heard as I did so. Turning my attention back to the closet, I noticed that a small jewelry box had been hidden under the blanket I had just removed, and the violence with which I had snatched it up caused the little black box to hit the floor.
I don’t usually put much stock in pony finery beyond what is necessary for my disguise, but I realized such a thing might be a useful tool for earning Double Time’s affections.
Picking it up, I flipped the lid open and looked at my prize. It was a silver link necklace with a pathetically small sapphire clasped in a nondescript setting.
I may not care for such accessories, but even I knew that this was barely more than costume jewelry. Disappointed in my find, I snapped the lid shut and shoved it into my saddlebags before exiting the room.
If this is the best these ponies can afford, it might be a disservice to free them. Why bother hiding it though... it’s obvious at least two ponies are living here, aren’t they already married?
Curiosity got the better of me, so I spent the next few minutes quickly exploring the rest of the house. The only other room I hadn’t seen yet was a foal’s bedroom, reinforcing my observation about the cohabitating ponies of this house, but at least I found a half-full bottle of lantern oil in a hall closet.
Looking at the bulging blanket now sitting by the front door, I didn’t think there was any real need to loot the second house, but as I wasn’t due to meet up with Warden for probably another quarter-hour or so, I figured I should at least peek inside.
As before, the door wasn’t locked, so I let myself in.
While the smell was the same as in the previous home, the decor was just about as different as it could get. There was garbage all over the floor, chairs overturned, and large tears in the back of the living room sofa. Curtains were shredded or hanging uselessly to the side of the windows from rods attached to only one point on the wall. The place looked like it had already been ransacked once.
It was hard to tell how long ago this might have happened, or even whether it happened before or after Sombra’s take-over. Had Warden not directed me to loot this home specifically, I would have probably just assumed he’d been the one to do this during the weeks following the affliction.
That meant that somepony else had done it, and possibly quite recently at that. I scanned the entryway and living room briefly and picked up a hefty-looking drinking glass with a thick weighted base. Not the most ideal weapon, but it would do in a pinch. I didn’t expect to run into whoever had been here before me, but it would have been foolish not to prepare for the possibility.
The funny thing about expectations, however, is that they are so seldom accurate.
The only warning I had was a faint sense of fear, which was curiously more potent than I’d come to associate with the afflicted.
I ducked in time to avoid a brass bedpost being hurled at my face.
The offending piece of jagged metal clattered across the floor behind me as my attacker silently charged at me from his hiding place behind the kitchen island counter, eyes glowing that familiar shade of green.
My opponent was a crystal pony. Male. Pale yellow coat, silvery-blue mane. Reasonably well-built, possibly worked as a construction pony before Sombra dominated him. Cutiemark obscured by filth.
I braced my rear legs in place, dipped my left shoulder just as he came within striking distance. I then hurled my body up underneath his barrel with as much force as my forelegs could muster.
His movements were likely a bit more sluggish than he would have been capable of under his own direction. Still, he was surprisingly healthy and quite a bit heavier than I anticipated. He slid over my back rather than be shoved away, biting my tail as he passed and yanking on it hard.
He managed to pull me off my feet as he crashed down behind me. I was barely able to swing my right hoof around to slam the base of my weapon of opportunity against the side of his head, staggering him long enough to regain my hooves before he could.
I swung the glass at him a second time, only to have it knocked out of my grasp as he threw his hoof up to block it. He lunged at me in return, wrapping both front hooves around my neck as he tried to bite me like some sort of savage animal.
This time I deliberately threw my rear hooves forward, converting my body into dead weight and dragging him off balance as I slid across the garbage on the floor beneath him, bucking him in a somewhat tender spot as I did so.
“Ahh,” he screamed with tears forming in his eyes, stumbling backward away from me and cradling his injured pride with one hoof. His eyes were magenta for just a moment, his face—and more importantly, his emotions—were filled with a mix of shock, confusion, and panic before they vanished into the background once more. I watched as his eyes lost focus and resumed their green glow.
Now that was interesting. A decent shock to the system, or perhaps pure pain, could potentially snap a pony out of the tyrant’s control, if only briefly.
I would have to experiment with that discovery a bit further at a later date.
He reached down and grabbed the bedpost he’d thrown at me earlier, swinging it at my side with all the force of a mad pony. Momentarily distracted as I was, the impact knocked the wind out of me. The broken hunk of metal tore a crimson line along my ribs, just behind my left front leg.
This fight was full of surprises. I was no stranger to a pony’s form, but I’d never actually been injured while disguised as one before. I was suddenly reminded that a blow that would have bounced right off my carapace was a legitimate threat when wearing flesh.
I slumped to the side, favoring my injury as I scanned the room for other improvised weapons. My attention was divided, however, as the pony-shaped puppet pressed the attack. Another swipe at my sides was narrowly dodged, followed by a third. He was swinging wildly, throwing everything he had into each swing. An average pony would be holding back just a little to avoid overexerting or even damaging themselves, but he wasn’t controlling his actions and wasn’t able to care about self-preservation—only victory.
Between my injury and his disregard for fundamental security, he had a clear combat advantage.
Realizing there was nothing of significance I could use against him close to hoof, I waiting for his next swing and leaped back, avoiding the attack and placing myself in the hallway leading toward what I assumed was a bedroom and bathroom.
I ran down the hall with his rapid hoofsteps following close behind me until I reached the first door. The bathroom. I wasted no time in turning and bucking the drainpipe off the bottom of the sink. Snatching the corroded pipe off the floor, I brought it up just in time to meet the pony’s bedpost, clanging together and reverberating in each of our hooves.
I rushed forward and slammed the top of my head into the bottom of his muzzle. I could feel his teeth crashing together and could only imagine how much damage that would probably do to the poor stallion’s future family photos. I followed up my attack by bringing the drainpipe down on his left rear leg, just above the fetlock with a sickening crunch.
I was preparing to do it again when I felt the serrated edge of his broken bedpost bite into my belly. It didn’t sink very deeply—thank the queen—due to his angle, but he made it clear that there was plenty of fight left in him.
He landed several more shallow hits on my barrel and legs as we grappled in the hallway, all the while snapping at my face or ears, trying to bite me. My own attacks were proving just as ineffective, focusing on his rear legs. I figured they were a primary target, as an opponent who can’t effectively chase you—but is programmed to do just that—is all but defeated and can be finished at your leisure.
I was glad that I had so recently altered my disguise to improve my muscle mass a bit, but now I really wished I had gone even further. My endurance was failing, and I knew I couldn’t win through simple hoofticuffs.
When he finally managed to grab my ear and grind it between his teeth, I screamed and jumped back, releasing the grapple. His vacant face as he began chewing brought my attention to the severity of the injury he’d just delivered. Only after I saw the top third of my right ear slip from between his still-moving lips and patter against the floor did I really feel it, a throbbing pain coursing through my head, keeping time with my now-elevated heartbeat.
His indifference enraged me, and with a flash of brilliant green, I dropped my disguise and immediately launched a barrage of emerald bolts at the vile creature.
Each magical projectile slammed into him, pushing him backward and leaving darkened, furless patches of skin behind. I must have fired dozens of emerald bolts before it dawned on me that the new sound in the room was his whimpering.
Eventually, I relented, though that was mostly because I had expended far too much love energy in assuring my victory—even if it was cathartic. I watched him through a pair of glowing eyes of my own as he cried like a foal on the floor. I reached up to my ear, finding it wet and sticky even in my natural form.
“Thank you, little pony, you’ve taught me something valuable,” I said mockingly as I slowly advanced on his prone form with my horn alight with emerald superiority. “I see you are awake, so it is possible to force somepony out of the afflicted state. Good to know, but that brings us to a new problem. You’ve seen me, and you’ve hurt me, so I suppose that makes two problems. Thankfully, there is a remedy for them both.”
“Wha-”
His confused response was interrupted by another emerald missile slamming into his chest. This time the glow surrounded him and remained in place, seeming to paralyze his wracking sobs.
“Don’t worry, this isn’t going to hurt. You won’t feel anything at all. In fact, you might even find your peace.”
For the first time in months, I fed, ravenously, and without concern for the wellbeing of my prey. I placed my mouth next to the immobilized pony’s face and inhaled deeply, pulling vast quantities of love right out of his gaping maw and channeling it into repairing my wounds.
His love wasn’t enough, though, having spent so long in the clutches of pure fear, so I begrudgingly took one of the love crystals out of my saddlebags and drained it as well.
Down to three, I mentally took note, replacing the now-dull gem in the bag next to the other two I had already used on my way to the Empire. It’s a shame that I got hurt. It would have been nice to use his love to refill one of these rather than drain another.
Magical healing is possible for changelings, but it drains our love reserves very rapidly. I took everything I could from that unnamed stallion and left him useless on the floor. My ear was reattached as the gashes in my belly and side were sealed up. I would recover, but everything would be tender for several days, all the while draining my internal stores of love to finish the healing process.
Thankfully, my disguise for this mission had no means of using magic, and therefore no reason to have spent any, so I had an abundance of reserve energy to draw from.
With one final magical dart to the chest, the pony’s waking nightmare ended. Before the poor stallion could slump to the floor, however, I could have sworn that his eyes changed again, only this time within the dim green glow, his irises were blood red, and his pupils were slit like a cat’s.
For some reason, my blood chilled, but when I rolled him over to double-check, only his natural magenta eyes stared up at me.
I called up a spell that all infiltrators are taught relatively early in their training and burned the remains to a fine ash, incinerated in glorious green flames to remove the evidence of our encounter. Generally reserved for the cremation of fallen changelings to preserve the secrecy of the hive, in this case, it had been necessary to hide his presence from Warden.
I scattered the ashes around the living room and placed bits of newspaper and a few rotting vegetables I found sitting on the kitchen counter over the charred spot on the floor. With the volume of garbage and filth already present, any remaining ash could easily pass as dust and be entirely unnoticed.
Satisfied with the result, I bathed in the comforting flames of transformation once more and resumed my role as Headway. I picked up the blanket from my previous haul and headed for the meeting place to await Warden’s return.
“We’re back, Miss Time,” Warden called out as we stepped into the schoolhouse.
A moment later, a pale green blur launched itself toward us and wrapped her hooves around the old soldier’s neck. It was a daily ritual that I usually found enjoyable if only for the emotional snack I could intercept between them. Today, however, I simply stepped around the pair and made my way into the large open room to deposit my blanket-wrapped spoils into the pile of collected resources to the side of the teacher’s desk.
I didn’t really need the top-off since I had been forced to drain another love crystal. I was entrusted with six charged crystals for my mission. I used two on my journey to the Empire, which meant I had to save two for the return trip. If I was successful in acquiring the Crystal Heart, I could probably siphon some love out of it in a pinch, but I wasn’t sure if my queen would approve of such a tactic. That left two for emergencies, of which one was now dark. I would have to be more careful in the future.
“Headway?” I heard the young mare inquire. “Are you okay? You look… different.”
I performed a quick once-over of myself. It would have been a problem if I had left a detail out of this iteration of my disguise. Satisfied that I had not, I looked up at Double Time and smiled faintly.
“Yeah, I am all right. I just wasn’t anticipating the smell involved in scavenging for food. Just give me a bit to unwind, I’ll be right as rain. Promise.”
She beamed at my answer, overflowing with relief and sympathy. This time I opened myself up and absorbed some of what she was offering.
There is something to be said for pure emotions. The energy stored in a crystal is condensed, potent, but for lack of a better term, tasteless. It is usually a mixture of many different emotions and often from several various sources. They blend together and become difficult to separate into ‘love’ or ‘gratitude’ or ‘pride.’ It just… is.
A pure emotion—one that you absorb directly from its source and is directed at or intended for you—is entirely different. To an empath, that difference is like comparing freshly picked apples to an expired can of applesauce. They are technically the same thing, but one just tastes better and brightens your mood just a bit more.
“Oh, Miss Time. I almost forgot. I found this today and couldn’t see myself taking advantage of it. I don’t have the complexion for it, you understand. Maybe you’d like it.”
I fished out the little jewelry box I’d found hidden in the first home I’d ransacked and placed it on the floor next to my discarded saddlebags.
Curious, she approached it as if it were a snake that I told her was really a fashionable scarf. She picked it up and slowly flipped the lid up, gasping as she looked upon the tiny sapphire necklace within.
“Headway, it’s amazing! Thank you so much!” she exclaimed, throwing her hooves around my neck the same way she was accustomed to doing with Warden.
It took us both a moment to recover our collective composure.
She quickly disengaged and scooted away from me, flooding my senses with gratitude, joy, and a healthy dose of embarrassment that renewed itself and doubled down every time she looked up at my face.
I, on the other hoof, was not expecting such a physical reaction coupled with the deluge of emotions and had to limit what I consumed. It wouldn’t do to encourage her affections only to drain them away so quickly.
Every crop takes time to grow. If you rush things, you might only get one harvest.
A chuckle from across the room caused us both to look away. Warden, who had just turned his back on the scene before him, made a show of examining the bar as he slid it into place across the front door.
I could tell he muttered something to himself, and the sense of mirth he was giving off informed me that he was reading into my actions deeper than I would have liked at this stage.
Thankfully, he didn’t have all of the facts and misinterpreted the exchange as a pair of young ponies flirting rather than a changeling setting up her prey.
I cleared my throat and looked back at Double Time.
“I would say ‘you are welcome,’ but I didn’t do all that much. It’s not like I paid for it or anything. The previous owner doesn’t need it right now, and I am sure they won’t even notice it’s missing after all of this blows over. Making you smile now is well worth the risk of paying reparations later.”
Again she absolutely gushed with gratitude and embarrassment, but it was slowly becoming tinted with a much more delicate flavor. One that I honestly thought would take longer than a few weeks to cultivate, even considering the age of my target.
Food source: secure.
