“How are you doing that?” asked Prominence after another tunnel opened under Gem’s touch, and light of Prominence’s horn penetrated the darkness inside.
“Told you, it’s a changeling thing,” whispered Gem.
“I understand that, but how does it work?”
“It’s simple, for a changeling I mean. In the same way we can shape our goo into material using vibrations of our chitin similar to what happens while we shapeshift, certain frequencies can cause this material, which is a mix of natural rock and said goo, to act more like a membrane than solid wall,” she kept whispering.
“Why are you so quiet?” asked Harriet in a hushed tone. She didn’t see any need to do so, but Gem’s caution was infectious.
They’d been walking through Gem-made tunnels for some ten minutes, and Harriet hadn’t heard anything other than their own squelching hoofsteps. Well, her and Prominence’s. Walking Gem wasn’t making any noise whatsoever. It looked like the ancient changeling base had a natural warning system of its own.
“I don’t know...” Gem frowned, “I feel like there’s something , just on the edge of hearing. The soft tunnels dampen noise really well, but this feels… as if it was coming from all around.”
“Can’t hear a thing,” Prominence shrugged, “Feels as if I had my head under a pillow.”
“That’s because you’re not a changeling. There is something in here with us, I just can’t tell where exactly,” frowned Gem, putting her hoof on the wall ahead, “Anyway, the throne room should be straight ahead.”
“Maybe Desert Shade sent someone to have a look inside,” Harriet offered an idea, mostly just to keep the conversation going. This place really was silent, but strangely so. She couldn’t put a claw on how.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Gem walked into a freshly made short tunnel with a dead end. Once standing by the wall, her ears turned from side to side, and she gave the wall a puzzled look, “I can hear it. It’s coming from the throne room. Frantic hoofsteps.”
Harriet grabbed her frying pan, much to the amused grin of Prominence, who nodded and said:
“Let’s go!”
Taking a deep breath, Gem transformed the second, much shorter part of the tunnel, which opened into a cavern filled with white light which by all mean shouldn’t be there. The new hole also let in noises of grunting and, just like Gem had said, running hoofsteps.
The changeling immediately turned invisible, leaving only her pair of smaller saddlebags and the remaining chest belt of vials in sight. Prominence didn’t wait for anything, and quickly tiphooved into the throne room, followed by Harriet.
“Oh no!” whispered the dragonpony whose jaw dropped immediately at the sight ahead. Nothing about the scene made sense.
First, the throne room was a huge cavern filled with holes presumably leading to other parts of the hive, that wouldn’t be a problem. What was the problem were electric lights and cables scattered all around, but mostly above a strange, tall, black rock formation in the cave’s center which, if someone used a hefty dose of imagination, could be considered a throne… or more a couch, really. Griffon devices hummed, the advanced technology projecting several maps with red spots and writing which Harriet couldn’t identify from her current position. However, in that strange way when the mind just grabs one’s neck and screams ‘LOOK AT THIS!’, she recognized at least the largest of the maps as well as one of the dots. It was the Griffon Empire flipped from her point of view, and the smallest red dot on the bottom left, which had to be the location of Windy.
And second, there were three figures under the throne, one which Harriet recognized instantly, and two that took a moment. The dark blue equine made of corrupted, twisted tentacle-y mess wearing a silvery mask with two glowing azure eyes was Flow. The other two, Harriet was growing certain with each passing second, had to be the two guard-looking ponies who had originally chased the hippogriff in Manehattan. The heavily armored unicorn mare’s platemail was stained with blood which she was trailing over the floor, and by the looks of it that had been going on for some time already.
“Bladedancer? What the hay?” Prominence charged in, flames enveloping her, “They need help, come on!”
***
Through blood rushing in her ears, and her own heavy breathing, Bladedancer heard the call, and allowed herself only the quickest glimpse backwards. Normally, the sight of Prominence, some vaguely familiar dragonpony, and a backpack floating in the air would be a good time to sit down and chat, but this situation was as far from normal as possible.
However, that fraction of a second was enough for Flow to notice and dart forward. Starry, though, saw this as his chance, and did something no experienced fighter in any clear state of mind would do - he screamed as jumped ahead, horseshoe blades ready to stab the enemy. First, the freezing sensation biting deep into his chest gave him a microscopic moment of satisfaction, and with his rapidly draining strength he pushed himself backwards before collapsing on the floor, bleeding and twitching.
Bladedancer knew instantly that had Starry not done that, it would have been her on the floor, nearly sliced in half, and without the added benefit of probably having another vision as planned.
Then she finally realized what Starry’s plan had been all along.
“Celestia-damn idiot!” she cursed to herself before screaming, “GET HIM OUT!”
She couldn’t use her swords nor any magic, and she knew she should have realized that Starry wanted to come here to neutralize the emergency stasis spell as soon as they’d entered the anti-magic zone. There would be enough time to yell at herself in the mirror later, now it was up to her to make sure there was any later.
Prominence charged past her like a fireball, and to Bladedancer’s surprise, her punches followed by shockwaves of fire actually made Flow back off for a second. Unfortunately, the element of surprise didn’t last against an enemy who could protect himself from anything.
Bladedancer quickly limped to Starry, and thanked all stars that the dragonpony mare wasn’t completely paralyzed from the sight of the open wound, only shaking.
“You must get him out and make sure he lives!” hissed Bladedancer.
“But I-” the dragonpony whimpered.
“Listen! He’s our only chance of figuring out how to stop that thing!” the paladin interrupted her immediately, “There has to be something first aid-related in that backpack of yours, so get to bandaging!”
The floating backpack arrived, and Bladedancer realized she was looking at somepony invisible even in this situation, which meant a changeling. The good part was that a vial with something chemical-smelling quickly emptied itself into Starry’s wound, and a fresh set of bandages started treating the wound.
Those few seconds Prominence was buying them were critical, but as Bladedancer heard a ‘thud!’, she knew they were over. The ‘unicorn’ mare fell on the floor like a sack of potatoes, clutching a gaping hole in her neck into which the fire enveloping her was disappearing in an attempt to cauterize the unnatural wound.
She didn’t know what Starry was seeing, but Bladedancer suddenly saw her future with absolute clarity. Prominence had to survive.
Blade knew this was the end of the road. She had served Equestria for many years, and her country had never before faced a threat of this magnitude. It was clear that this time she wouldn’t be a single protector against evil. At best, if in the end the others succeeded, she would be only a single cobblestone laid down on the road to survival.
“I’ll buy you as much time as I can. Get Prominence and Starry out, and RUN!” gathering her strength, she circled around Flow, dragging his attention away from the others by darting back and forth into the field of death surrounding him.
By now, she knew his reach and ability. Those weird unstoppable attacks were tiring him out, but he was at least partially a Corrupted, which gave him the stamina and regeneration beyond anything she could beat without magic or weapons. Who was she kidding? She couldn’t overcome that even if she was sitting inside one of those griffon tanks.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Prominence on the dragonpony’s back, and Starry floating in the air, lying atop the invisible changeling. All they had to do now was to get out, and return to Canterlot with Starry’s information. Unless Flow could simply walk through the anomalies outside…
...which would be pretty crappy, admittedly.
Thankfully, his full attention was on her when the surprise visitors started slinking away.
***
“Nope!” Harriet heard the voice of Desert Shade cut through the air as she aimed a taser on the invisible Gem, and pulled the trigger. The batpony on Gem’s back went down on the floor immediately along with her, followed by a cloud of pink dust thrown by an arriving unicorn revealing the form of the previously see-through changeling.
“Wha-” Harriet opened her mouth, the wall in front of her opened up, and a brown earthpony mare clocked her so hard she dropped like a log.
Des’ griffon and pegasus companions pushed Pack Rat and Magpie inside through the hole by which Des had arrived. The earthpony’s muzzle was bleeding, and he was limping with his left foreleg. Magpie was in a significantly worse state, clearly having put up a fight before, judging by several bleeding gashes on his head and fresh bruises all over.
“No...” the armored unicorn fighting flow breathed out, despair washing over her.
Desert Shade grinned as she quickly reached into groaning Harriet’s backpack and pulled out the Soulstealer, flourishing it in her talons.
“Thanks for the delivery. I knew I could trust you.”
So it was her… I should have been more careful. I should have told Gem and the others. I should have… something…
The hippogriff’s following chuckle got drowned out by the loud noise of metal hitting stone. Through teary eyes, Harriet saw the paladin’s decapitated head roll on the floor, and her body gradually collapse as well.
Slowly, the world came to a grinding halt.
Blue glow hesitantly left the unicorn’s dead body, forming her ethereal shape in front of Flow one more time while struggling against invisible chains pulling her towards him, but there was nothing she could do anymore. She stopped, stared into the eyes of the masked pony for a while which nonetheless felt like eternity, then she gave one final look to the batpony getting colder with each passing second.
With a flash, she turned into a blue spark which circled around Flow, and then got absorbed into his dark blue coat. A strange hole appeared, hanging in the air in front of Flow, he walked into it and disappeared completely.
“Alright, everyone,” Desert Shade raised her voice, “Knock them out!”
Harriet smelled something incredibly sharp and minty for a moment before her world went black.
***
When she woke up, she found herself on some sort of moving wood, possibly swaying back and forth. She had no clue how long it took, but judging by her still completely numb limbs and bad taste in her mouth, it had to have been at least a day or two. The area was lit only with a single oil lamp, and in the gloom she could see a cage with Gem still covered by pink glitter, either sleeping or unconscious.
Harriet curled up, and couldn’t help covering her head with her forelegs to hide the tears gathering in her eyes.
“I just want to go home...”