//------------------------------// // Chapter 8 // Story: Complications // by Hiver //------------------------------// Days turned into a week. Several times a day changelings came to drain our emotions. Sometimes the same, sometimes different. I looked around the dream realm at the portals around me. A new one popped up next to me and I idly popped it again, forcing the owner to wake up again. Pincer visited a few days ago to gloat again. She seemed a little frazzled though, almost like she had not been sleeping well. Strange. Wonder why. Looking out over the portals, I could see the ones I had talked to and reached into the dreams of. I had talked and affected the dreams of nine different changelings. But there were fifteen different dreams right now before me that had changed and were currently dreaming about friendly ponies. Come on. Just a little bit more. I know this will work. As I watched, another silvery portal rippled and shifted and I moved over to it, touching my horn to it. Changeling infiltrator dreaming about a stallion she met on her last mission, a bartender in the bar where she had worked. I had never talked to her. The Changeling carrier wave was working. It wasn’t a hivemind, not really. But they were connected in a way ponies weren't. The Queen was the center of it, but she was not the connection point, just the largest node. They were all interconnected. Pincers portal popped back up and I zapped it out of existence before I spread my wings and rose above the city, “Come on. Come on guys. You can do it. Come on!” Pop. Another one changed. Pop. One more. Pop. Pop. Pop. It was spreading. The more of them dreamed about it, the further it spread among them. I couldn’t help but smile as I floated higher, seeing the entire swarm having changed into new dreams, not of safe dark tunnels, but of not being hungry and friendly ponies. Now, this would be tricky. Gathering my power, I bent the dream realm around me and let my power flow into them, each and every one of them. I didn’t dare attach firmly, a single changeling might overwhelm me if I did, their minds were just so alien. But all they needed was a small nudge and… Nightmares. Nightmares rippling across the entire swarm, nightmares about the Hive starving, the hive being crushed from attacking the ponies, nightmares about Queen Pincer having lost her mind and leading the Hive to it’s doom. Memories. Memories of mistakes she'd made in the past. Keeping hundreds of dream connections going, even relatively light ones like this made me grit my teeth in effort, I could feel the dreams, all of them. I had to hold them. Just a little longer. Just a little longer! The connection snapped and the next thing I knew was me hitting the not-ground gasping for not-air. My horn burned. It felt like it was glowing red. Bloody hell. I’m not doing that again. Ow. Groaning, I rolled onto my stomach and zapped Pincers dream out of existence once more. I really, really hoped this would work or I would have messed with those Changeling's heads for nothing. In all honesty, using the dream Realm like this felt wrong. I was meant to guard it, to keep ponies and other creatures safe, not… terrorize them. But I really did think it would end up better for them in the end if this worked. Opening my eyes, I looked at the chamber we were still stuck in, “D-dawn, you doing okay?” “I-I’m fine,” she answered softly, “Just… don’t worry about me. D-don’t know the plan, sir. But… get out of here.” I looked to her. She really wasn’t looking too good. I had seen that image before… in myself after I kicked Chrysalis out of her ‘oh woe is me’ phase and she ate me. She was close to her limit. “Dawn, look at me,” I said and she turned to me, “Just hang in there, okay? We’ll get out of here. I promise you that. Just… hang on a little longer.” “...I’ll try.” “That’s not what we say. What do we say, Dawn?” She managed a small grin, “Do. Do or do not.” “That’s right.”