//------------------------------//
// 9: Wait, it can go to hell even more? 
// Story: Changelings in Silver Sunlight 
// by Nameless Narrator 
//------------------------------//

“They killed fifteen of us, we can’t go on with the plan,” reports a griffon nomad, the doctor judging by his big bag of medicinal equipment, “The raid would have been tough as is, but we lost the guys who, let’s face it, were our front line.”

In my slowly rolling cage, I smirk. Unfortunately, that’s the only satisfaction I’m allowed right now. We’ve been plodding through the morning desert for several hours already, getting further and further away from our goal. If nothing else, Three is okay and bundled up in a white ball in a cage to the left. Cromach, though…

...I have no idea how he’s still breathing. The doctor pulled seventeen bullets out of him after they took him down. He was more red than white, and yet he’s not dead. None of those were fleshwounds either. Even right now, wrapped in bandages, he barely fits into the cage, his talons hanging limp between the bars.

“We can always recruit more griffons. This is only a short setback,” says the bandit chief, “Besides, you saw that white guy fight. We place few bets on him in the arena, we’ll have more money than by raiding some nameless hole filled with peasants. I assume we can squeeze something out of the unicorn too.”  

“And the colt?” the doctor nods lightly to Three.

“Someone will buy him, don’t worry about that,” the chief shrugs, “Young ponies have million uses in the south, and some aren’t even that bad.”

“I could find a use for him, especially since we lost almost half of our guys, and another ten are heavily wounded or crippled.”

“Sure, although when did I say we’d be taking care of cripples?”

“Chief?” the doctor looks taken aback.

“I’m not an unfair griffon,” the bandit leader raises his voice, “We have a lot of spare gear lying around, everyone! If you can’t move properly or hold a weapon anymore, you can leave. We have no use for you, and we’ll split gold of the dead guys with you in exchange for silence. That’s right, all I ask of you is to keep quiet about our hideout.”

I look around and see about eight griffons who previously had the misfortune to fight Cromach or me hesitate and split from the group.

“Doc, give them their share,” the chief pats the doctor’s shoulder. As the smaller griffon walks off to count the gold, the chief whispers something a big griffon by his side who in turn whispers into the ear of another one.

“Good luck,” I hear the doctor say after he’s done, and the griffons head off… northwest if I’m reading the long line of hoof and paw prints in the sand correctly.

The chief raises his talons.

Eight rifle shots disturb the silence of the desert, each sending one griffon down onto the sand.

“What?!” the doctor raises his voice, and goes deathly quiet when the chief puts a talon on his beak.

“We might not have succeeded in a raid, but we’ll be making profit some way or other. Besides, do you really think they would have kept quiet under Legion questioning?” when the doctor just sighs and looks down at the sand, the chief pats his head, “Good guy. It’s hard to find a griffon with common sense in this line of work.”

Five griffons are already looting the dead, and the group soon resumes moving. Presuming we’re headed to the bandit hideout, I observe the dynamics of the bandits. Sadly, there’s not much to see, as everyone is quiet with the chief and two huge, scarred griffons in the front and one in the back. The best I can do is figure out that we’re headed straight east.

In two more hours, we enter something I wasn’t expecting in the desert - an area of green vegetation growing around a small lake. Several griffons greet us, commenting on the brutally thinner ranks of the returning bandits, and receiving few non-committal answers regarding the three of us. What I presume to be the bandit camp opens before us after less than a minute of pushing through the wall of greenery - thirty or so tents of varying sizes scattered in a circle around a campfire. Speaking of Three, he wakes up as one griffons picks him up to move him into a larger cage in the back, this one without wheels. For a moment, I freeze, thinking they’ll split us up, but apparently there aren’t that many cages for captured prisoners, so I end up between Three and Cromach again.

Huuuh, I did notice two female griffons in the raiding group, but there are others here, chained by one hind leg to something inside the tents. Oh, and a mare as well. A slave now doing laundry for one of the bandits? Come to think of it, the longer I watch, the more servants I can see.

Soon, the doctor arrives to check up on Cromach, carrying several bottles of something with sharp, acrid scent, a bucket of boiling water, and fresh bandages. A female griffon arrives shortly after, her wings bound and hind legs connected via a chain, with more water, this time not steaming. As the doctor begins treating Cromach who only hisses from time to time, the chick lets Three out of his cage and starts cleaning him up.

It’s late afternoon by the time they’re finished with us.

“Thank you, nice lady,” Three, back in the cage, gives the chick a wide smile as she passes by to leave. She glances his way, giving him only a blank, exhausted look. That doesn’t discourage Three who only beams wider. Sadly, even this doesn’t cheer her up, which makes Three sigh and admit defeat… for now. Come to think of it, that might be the first time I’ve ever heard that particular little dejected squeak from him, “I don’t think she likes it here,” he concludes.

“Yeah, I wonder why...” Cromach croaks, trying to push himself up, hissing, and adding, “Okay, bad idea.”

He shouldn’t be awake by any means. On the other hole, he really shouldn’t be alive with those wounds. While I don’t know too much about him as a griffon, just a tiny bit about his background, I’m happy he’s getting better, even though he’s somehow breaking the laws of reality by it, I’m pretty sure.

“You shouldn’t be moving, mister Cromach,” says Three, “Only loveless changelings are supposed to have that many holes in them.”

“Hey,” he chuckles, “I’m a somewhat loveless griffon, does that count?”

“Boss, I really want to transform, get out of this cage, and hug him!” Three’s voice arrives inside my head.

“Don’t! I need you disguised for now,” I order.

“Okay, boss.”

“Hnnngh!”

In his cage, Three sits up on his haunches, nose scrunched with effort, and starts making weird wibbly motions with his forelegs towards Cromach who seems about as surprised as I am.

“What’s that supposed to be?” the griffon raises an eyebrow, slowly managing to push himself up and prop his back against the bars.

“Beats me,” I shrug.

“If I can’t… hug directly yet… I can send love… and hugs!” Three’s voice is quiet and strained.

“Uhhh...” Cromach is stumped.

“I mean, we can transfer love between changelings remotely if needed, but you can’t just hug someone so far-” I realize I’m talking to a changeling who reportedly cured several cancer patients already, made friends with a robot and an unholy murderous amalgamation of vengeful souls, and whose most heroic dream is to be my emergency ration if needed, “You know what? Nevermind. Keep trying.”  

“Hnnnnnnnghhh!” few green sparks burst out of Three’s forehead, a pair of glowing green legs appear by Cromach’s sides, and softly squeeze him, disappearing a second later. Three’s eyes cross, he wobbles and blinks, and smiles triumphantly, “Get hugged!”

Reality defying griffon, meet my own little cheater.

“I appreciate the thought, but please stop squeezing more blood out of me,” Cromach winces, “I’m kinda fragile right now.”

So, what have I managed to observe? It seems that the sudden loss of so many bandits means they have to rely on the cages to hold us, and not on someone keeping an eye on us at all times. Unfortunately, their plan is clearly to sell us, which most likely means splitting us up. I can’t allow that, at least for Three. I could part ways with Cromach, but that would be unwise as well, since without him it would take needlessly long to get out of the Griffon Empire.

What to do…? What to do…?

“Got any plans on how to get out of here?” I hiss at the griffon.

“I’ll be useful in a day or two,” Cromach squeezes his chest, “Ouch! Alright, three at most. I might not deflect bullets, but I sure have learned that I heal quickly. Then we get out, break few necks, grab some desert gear, free the slaves, and return to civilization.”

“I can’t wait three days!”

“Because…?”

“Because I’m supposed to be on the summit, making sure some idiot doesn’t decide that by rules of Equestria we’re supposed to obey Chrysalis, reveal where we live. or be inspected each month or something similarly stupid. I don’t know if you noticed, but even though there has been peace for years, we’re still being looked down at. I need to change that, or at least help make things better. On top of everything, damn Star Trail is running free around the castle, powerful enough to attack alicorns without repercussions, and that guy won’t stop until my changelings, and probably all changelings, are dead. If they even get to that point, because your crazy Vigil-slaying agents are hunting them. Is that enough of a reason to be a little impatient?!”

To my surprise, Cromach takes a deep breath, and raises a single talon.

“Are you so sure your guys are incapable of dealing with what’s going on themselves?”

“No, I just-” I realize I have nothing to say to that. In the end, all I can say is this, “I believe in them, I believe that they are smart enough to deal with the situation, but if I’m around, I can make it easier and less risky. I would run myself ragged to improve their chances of not getting seriously hurt by a single percent. You can understand that, I hope.”

Expecting another jab, it quite surprises me that Cromach breathes out and deflates.

“I… I used to,” he looks away.

Fine, I can take this sitting down, believe in my changelings, and patiently wait for an opportunity to deal with my current situation after Cromach recovers.

I know they can take down Star Trail on their own.

…

…

…

…

…

Fuck that! I’m getting us out.


***


Two drones and one infiltrator are standing around something weird. It looks like an elongated, see-through, green-tinted half-egg, which on its side could fit a big earthpony, set inside a black, stone-ish bedding connected to a ceiling via a thick, clear, rubber tube.

The changelings remaining in Brauheim were all secretly hoping that Five, Six, or Seven would have come back by now, but in their prolonged absence it’s up to them to continue with Five’s project. Granted, in theory the idea would open a lot of new avenues of feeding for the new changelings who still require help from above. In reality, though, it could really use the help of someone responsible for it.

If only because the new changelings have trouble remembering their numbers, since they don’t have any need for them among themselves, and they don’t interact with the dwarves enough to need an actual outwards identity. Pretty much the only thing they can remember clearly is that one-oh-one to one-oh-four are the warrior and infiltrator guys, and the rest to one-twenty are drones. Generally, when they’re called out, one steps up to do what’s required of them.

Still, there’s one thing the boss would appreciate, which is that they’re not going on with the orders out of fear of punishment, but out of genuine belief the his plans will make things better. The fact that they don’t understand those is only a minor inconvenience.

“Step one - finish the pod,” says the infiltrator, “I thought it would be a good idea to give the first one a test run before we make more in case something unforeseen goes wrong.”

The drones look at him silently. They don’t have anything to add, really.

“Step two,” continues the infiltrator, “Find a pony volunteer.”

“Well...” one drone scratches its head, “We did find one, but Five wanted a mare.”

“And since you needed someone quickly for this experiment,” adds the other drone, “The only willing pony not asleep right now was Two’s coltfriend Topaz.”

The infiltrator facehoofs.

“And where is he?”

“Here!” comes from a cave connected to the one with the ‘pod’, “They told me this was supposed to be the waiting room, whatever that is. And I’m quoting the drones here.”

“We thought we should check the whole process. That’s what Six would do,” says a drone.

The infiltrator has to admit that’s probably right.

“Good idea, come in, mister Topaz.”

The uncharacteristically unarmed and unarmored dwarf walks in, feeling very naked and uncertain. Not that he has any reason to be afraid of the changelings, but for the past fifteen minutes, he’s come to the conclusion that they have about the same idea about what’s supposed to happen as he does.

The infiltrator taps into the instructions inside the hive mind left behind by Five.

“So, you are supposed to lie down into the pod and...” the infiltrator pauses, “Umm… sleep.”

“I was just about to go to sleep anyway, although in my own bed,” mutters Topaz, but as his curiosity wins, he climbs into the egg-like pod. The gooey base perfectly shapes under his back, and he whistles in admiration. It’s like jello, but not sticky at all, “Hmmm, comfortable, actually. You could make good living selling goo mattresses. What now?”

“Alright, you drones are supposed to be able to operate this too,” the infiltrator nods, and a drone walks over, putting a hoof on the pod. Some focusing later, green membrane sprouts from the base, and completes the egg shape, encasing now slightly more nervous Topaz inside. The infiltrator senses his unease immediately.

“Don’t worry, mister Topaz. This is supposed to happen,” he turns to the drones, “Filling?”

“One-oh-something is in the cave above this one, ready.”

“Hey, pull the lever!” sounds through the hive mind. 

Some gurgling and bubbling later, the hose connecting the pod to the ceiling fills with viscous goo making its way down…

...straight on Topaz’s head.

“Umm, flaw one in the design?” a drone looks up at the infiltrator captivated by sputtering and thrashing Topaz doing his best to wipe the increasing amount of goo off of his face.

“Duly noted,” the infiltrator nods in sympathy, ”Let’s hook the next pod up by the legs, not the head.”

“Yep.”

Topaz has managed to move his head to the side to avoid the flowing goo which has now covered him up to his neck.

Unfortunately, the changelings seem to have forgotten about one more thing.

“MMMGH MMMPPHFF!” Topaz starts thrashing violently as the goo covers him completely. Thankfully, it takes only few seconds during which his struggle gradually weakens until it stops completely.

“Ummm… miss Five did say they would be able to breathe, right?” asks a drone.

“According to the hive mind instructions, ponies can breathe easily during the forced sleep.”

“Aaaaand before they fall asleep?” a drone raises an eyebrow, eyes fixated on Topaz’s face stuck in a grimace of utter terror.

“Design error number two,” says the other drone.

“Agreed,” the infiltrator nods, “Let’s...” he ponders how to fix this while examining the hive mind pod blueprints from all angles, “Maybe we should fill them up to the neck, then let them fall asleep, and fill the rest afterwards. Yes, that sounds like the next step.”

As they watch Topaz whose features gradually turn from deathly horror into something way more peaceful, they notice that his breathing has turned slow and steady.

“Good, he’s not dead,” comments a drone, “Two would kill us.”

“Eventually,” the infiltrator nods.

“Soo… since it’s supposed to be for mares, how long do we keep him in there?”

The infiltrator frowns. Executive decisions are hard.

“Let’s stick to the planned hour, and see what happens.”

And so they wait for an hour. A patrolling warrior passes by twice, other drones are busy on the night shift to pay off the digger, the other infiltrator returns from evening hunting for love, and the second warrior is guarding Brauheim castle. All in all, it’s shaping up to be a peaceful night.

Time’s up, so one of the two drones walks up to the pod, taps its side, and the goo enveloping Topaz joins the now stronger membrane, pops, and drains into the thickening bedding, leaving the dwarf clean as a whistle. The drone can feel the newfound love coursing through the goo.

It worked!

Topaz sits up, takes a deep breath, blinks, stretches his legs, and scowls at the trio of changelings.

“I thought I was going to die!”

“Thank you very much for the honest feedback,” says the infiltrator politely, “We will have that sorted by the next test.”

“Ummm...” a drone walks closer to the dwarf climbing out of the pod, “Maybe we overdid it a little?”

“Overdid what?” Topaz looks at his forelegs and gasps.

In the faint green light of the glowing love gems illuminating the cave, his coat is practically shining.

“I look like a gay crystal pony!” Topaz starts tugging his long, smooth, and now somewhat fluffy beard, “The whole squad will be laughing at me a whole week!”

“Did we do something wrong?” the changelings exchange glances, “This is supposed to happen, right?”

“Maybe we really should have found a mare?” asks a drone.

“YES!” Topaz grabs a strand of his slightly longer mane than an hour ago before going completely pale and twisting his neck down to look between his hind legs, “Oh thank Thorgar’s hammer! No change there.”

“It’s not supposed to turn you into a mare,” the infiltrator shakes his head, “According to the information Five left us, certain kind of our goo promotes hair growth, body recovery, and health, so she thought we could offer that to non-changelings.”

That makes Topaz calm down further, enough for him to stretch again and nod.

“You know, drowning until I fell unconscious aside, I feel as if I’ve slept a whole night,” he drops and does few push-ups, “I’m not even aching from the evening guard training. Plus, I had such a pleasant and vivid dream. Two and I were… umm, nevermind.”

“That’s all part of the experience,” the infiltrator nods, “It’s hypnotic solution to have you fall into deep sleep which helps the body recover and it induces happy dreams. We used the warm and happy batch of goo, not the lewd and sexy adventure batch. Five warned us it would be a bad idea for first time users.”

“Wait, so this is some sort of a spa?” Topaz waves his foreleg towards the pod, realizing something way more important, “And you’re saying you can give me wet dreams in there?”

“Right now, we’ve got two goo recipes, one for inducing love and one for lust.”

“It felt so real...” Topaz breathes out. A moment later he shakes his head and clops his hooves together, “Alright, I think that if you deal with the choking to death aspect, I can find few dwarves to give that thing another test run. How about that?”

The changelings look at each other…

...and smile.

“Yessss! Up top!” the drones do a high one.

“Do you need anything else?” Topaz heads towards the exit, “If not, I think I’ve got few ideas what to do with the time I save by not sleeping. Can one of you lead me out of here? If you want more customers or visitors, you really should mark the way.”

One drone joins him without a word and begins leading him through the maze of tunnels. 

Back in the spa cave, the remaining drone and the infiltrator stand in front of the pod, basking in the fresh love emanating from it.

“That’s a lot,” comments the drone, “If we could make more of these quickly and get more dwarves here, maybe nab a minotaur from the surface...”

The infiltrator grins widely.

“We might have enough love to work so hard that we could pay off the digger and do some real progress on the throne room!”


***


“Hey, wake up!” says a commanding voice which nonetheless drips with sexuality.

Six feels himself hit something soft. That’s enough for him to yawn, rub the bags under his eyes, ponder how they got there because he’s a changeling and not a pony, and look around.

He’s lying on a heart-shaped bed, it’s unpleasantly warm everywhere around, and in the distance he can hear faint screaming and groaning. Something did happen recently, but it’s all a blur, and he’s just so exhausted. The only thing he can recall clearly is that Seven is an idiot, his dizzy mind just can’t figure out why exactly.

Something grabs him under his forelegs, and pulls him upwards.

“Oh, now I remember...” Six curses inside the empty hive mind.

Six has seen enough minotaurs to understand how their body shape works, and to deduce that the pink mare… female… that’s holding him up with her hands could control entire clans with a simple jiggle of her voluptuous figure.

“Uh, hello?” Six waves his foreleg weakly.

“You will address me as your goddess, little changeling,” she presses him tightly into her bountiful, bare, and unbelievably soft breasts.

In the warm embrace of such magnificent pillows, Six yawns.

“So rude,” the succubus pouts, “But I know about your delicious, lust-devouring kind, and what you can do. Believe me, you will have lust to eat aplenty. You just need some training. When I’m done with you, you will be the perfect pet-”

At this point, the succubus realizes that Six is fast asleep, drooling into her cleavage, and snoring.

This has never happened to her before.


***


The morning is in full swing when the now visibly tired Hoof of Fate members, other than Bubbles of course, lead or in the case of Eleven carry the group of changelings into the Canterlot castle, which is significantly more guarded than when they left yesterday for some reason.

“I assume this is because of the attack on princess Luna,” Anvil frowns, eyeing the visible increase in security.

“If something happened to the boss, I’m gonna shove every single Royal Guard into Celestia’s ass one by one,” growls One inside the hive mind, “It might be just the suppressor, but I can’t sense him or Three anywhere.”

“I think I can feel Gem,” says Two, “but I can’t contact her with this damn thing on my horn.”

To mild surprise of everyone, the guards don’t pay the changelings much attention, and they can’t sense any hostility from the ponies, unlike when they escaped the prison.

Contradiction is walking in front, deeply in thought about how to progress. They need to keep the changelings restrained, and they need to inform Cromach. Putting them in prison again wouldn’t do any good, obviously. It would be way better to simply keep an eye on them in a public space. Like here, in the entry hallway of the castle. Servants and guards pass through often enough, so any conflict should get reported immediately.

“Bubbles, go find Cromach,” she orders, “We’ll wait here.”

The demonette gently lowers the Eleven sleeping on her back, and Connie scoops him to the bunch others she’s levitating above her.

“We need to contact the boss too,” says One, “These damn suppressors are a pain in the plot, really, and Eleven is out for the count.”

“Find king Beard as well,” adds Connie without turning her head. Bubbles shoots ahead, her sharp claws accidentally ripping the carpet of the hall.

“We could just wake Eleven up,” comments Two, “We have the love.”

“Let him rest. It doesn’t look like anyone is in any imminent danger, and Eleven has done more physical work in one go during the past day than at any point in his life. Let’s not use up any unnecessary love. It’s difficult to recharge here as is.”

They wait for some ten minutes, and to everyone’s suspicion, it’s not Cromach and boss coming to greet them, it’s Astray and Gem, both looking exhausted as well.

“Mom!” Gem rushes over and hugs One.

“Connie, take their suppressors off,” says Astray calmly, “Cromach’s orders.”

The carved steel rings float up from changeling horns, flooding their minds with information. A fraction of a second of shock is followed by horrible chill immediately creeping up One’s spine as she receives Gem’s knowledge of current events.

“What went wrong this time?” asks Connie.

“Princess Luna has been attacked-”

“Yeah, I know. Those little guys told us,” she gestures to the sleeping pile of Elevens, “Stopped us from beating the shit out of each other.”

“Did they also tell you about the attack on princess Cadance resulting in the death of a changeling paladin, and about Cromach and king Beard leaving together to hunt somepony called Magnus?” 

The gears in Connie’s head stop...

...at about the same time as One finally processes Gem’s knowledge about Ten’s death.

“FUCK CELESTIA AND THIS ENTIRE CITY WITH A NUCLEAR DILDO COVERED IN SAW BLADES!” she screams, fully aware that most of the higher technological details of her swear will be lost on non-dwarves.

Several guards rush through the castle gate, and few more appear from nearby hallways shortly after.

“I’m sorry, mom,” Gem hangs her head low, “I was asleep when it happened so I couldn’t save him, and Ten wasn’t proficient enough with mental control to hide inside me on his own like miss Comfort did. I’m really sorry...”

“We’ll make them pay,” One resumes hugging Gem, “If these ponies and ‘specialists’ are so incompetent that they let this happen in their own home, we’ll find the culprits and teach them what happens if they mess with us. This is personal now!”

“What’s going on here?” asks one approaching guard. One transforms her hoof into claws, grabs him under his neck, and pulls him up to her height.

“Where is the solar-powered asscunt?” she growls at him.

“I- huh- wha-?” the guard just croaks.

“I do believe she is talking about me,” replies a motherly voice which everyone can recognize, “Although I don’t appreciate the choice of words.”

“Those are the only parts of you worth something!” One turns towards Celestia with a furious expression which nonetheless softens from surprise when she sees the alicorn approaching side by side with Chrysalis and Bubbles. That surprise only lasts for a heartbeat, though, because using Chrysalis to calm One down is like using a mentos and coke to ease indigestion, “Great… incompetence comes in stereo now.” 

If either the alicorn or the changeling queen take this personally, they don’t let it show.

“Where did you send my king?” One bares her fangs at Celestia who only tilts her head before Astray clears his throat and looks at her.

“Sir Cromach took king Beard with him to look for the culprit responsible for the attacks, your Majesty. My orders were to protect miss Gem here in case Star Trail tried to kill her like he did with Three.”

“Come again?” Celestia rolls her eyes.

“I believe it would be a good idea to sit down and get everyone up to speed,” Astray looks around the room, “After everything that’s happened, we know that none of us here is responsible, and more than half of us are potential targets. Snapping at each other won’t help anything. Hmm?”

Gem nods and adds:

“We can talk about politics of using us to placate concerns of the other rulers later. Right now, boss and Three are gone with mister Cromach. Ten is dead, and Bright Star is resting in the castle infirmary. The good thing is that all of you are here and in one piece,” she glances Anvil’s way, “Mostly.”

Faced with Gem being the calm and collected one in this situation, One takes a deep breath to at least temporarily calm down.

I shouldn’t be the one in charge, I shouldn’t be the one in charge, I shouldn’t be the one in charge. I’m just a stupid warrior, Gem is a lot younger and she’s handling this correctly, or at least much better than me or Two.

“Lead the way,” says One in the end.

I am a warrior. My job is to know how to handle combat strategy, how to best utilize the strength of each unique fighter under me, not how to talk properly, how to balance fragile relationship on my back-

Hooold on a second, what was that part earlier?

To utilize each unique fighter in the best capacity. I’m being stupid about this again. It’s not just about battle, it’s about everything. I am a strategist, and all this is a battle for our survival against Star Trail and the world.

One smirks as her self-doubts shatter under her metaphorical stomping hooves. It’s all so clear now.

An hour or so of talking later, changelings, Silver Sun, and Celestia are sitting around a table, finally done with the full recap of events from all sides. At one point, Celestia disappeared and returned shortly after with the news that boss, Three, and Cromach weren’t at Zeph’s anymore, likely having left to pursue a completely wrong clue.

Eventually, there’s only the silence of everyone lost in thought. 

“There are three things to deal with here which don’t have to be entirely related,” Two speaks up, “One - our representation on the summit without dad. Two - the attacks on royalty. Three - Star Trail.”

“According to the witnesses, Star Trail was working with the attacker,” Celestia corrects her.

“Afterwards,” Two shakes her head, “If we account for the original attack on princess Cadance in the Crystal Empire being part of this, then Star Trail got involved only after we got imprisoned. I think that just like you used us, princess, the… lich who killed Ten is using Star Trail. Let’s say the deal could be… if Star Trail protects the lich while he needs to focus on the divinity draining magic, the lich will help Star Trail kill us eventually. Considering that neither the Crystal Empire palace nor Canterlot castle are safe, I don’t like the prospect. Speaking of which-”

“How the actual fu- hole, is your security so shi- insufficient?” One finishes Two’s thought with some admirable restraint.
 
“An expert from the united orders of wizardry will be coming today to examine the castle wards for any flaws and possible lack of power. However, my assumption is that Star Trail, as an ex-paladin knows how to use magic within the castle walls. The Crystal palace is significantly less protected, since they’re still working on stripping the power of some stranger kinds of king Sombra’s magic.”

“During my preparations for the, ehm, invasion,” Chrysalis nods, “I had to catch several high-ranking Royal Guards in order to have them divulge the process of spellcasting in here. Of course, there weren’t any changeling wards around at the time, so it was rather easy.”

“Can I be frank, mom?” asks Two after hearing this.

“Yes?”

“They’re both completely discounting the original attack where Star Trail wasn’t involved. Either neither of them has any clue how this could have happened, or they’re both involved, and even I don’t believe the latter.”

“How do you explain the first attack on Novo inside this castle?” says One out loud straight up, “Star Trail wasn’t there.”

“Judging by Bright Star’s testimony, the lich was extremely powerful. That’s why we’re asking for an expert to examine the power levels of the wards today,” explains Celestia.

“Do we know enough about magic to see a hole in that?” asks One.

“No, I’m sorry,” Two sighs internally, “This is way above my level. Seven would know, theory of complex magic is exactly his cup of love.”

“Same here,” Gem chimes in, “I mean I could probably glean something from examining the wards, but nothing that a proper unicorn would miss.”

“I guess we’ll see how it goes,” replies One out loud, “I would also like to remain informed, since we’re a likely target.”

Celestia nods.

“And if you’re worried about the summit,” Chrysalis speaks up, “Most of the rulers already know me, so I can temporarily speak for you, if need be.”

“No, you stand for everything we don’t,” One shoots that idea down immediately, “Gem and I will be representing our hive.”

“You’re hereby promoted to the head diplomat, honey,” One informs Gem, “I’ll just be watching and correcting something if needed. Time for you to rise up from the supporting role. Your family needs you.”

“But I was just taking notes and advising dad until now,” objects Gem, uncertain.

“Honey, I realized something. I’m not a visionary like boss bug. I might not even be that good at figuring out a plan of getting through a war, and I certainly can’t properly perform any parts that don’t involve kicking plot. What I am good at is using limited resources in battle. You are my best diplomatic resource, I will be using you. Any objections?”

“No, mom.”

“Make me and dad proud, honey.”

“And what are we supposed to do, Astray?” asks Contradiction.

“We don’t have any direct orders,” says the satyr, “I mean I was supposed to be miss Gem’s bodyguard, but since everyone is back, I assume you’re back in charge until sir Cromach comes back.”

“Alright,” Connie nods, “We’ll take turns guarding other divine targets. Changelings will have to deal with the threat of Star Trail themselves. Of course, don’t be afraid to call on us if you need help,” she offers a foreleg to One who shakes it after a moment of hesitation.

“Good,” says One, “I might use Eleven for some instant communication within the castle. Right now, I think we all could use some rest before the next summit meeting starts. It wouldn’t be diplomatic to fall asleep during another argument between two windbags about regular shipments of corn while we’re being hunted down by an undead fanatic able to bypass any security.”


***


And so, the next day of the summit officially begins, leaving One more bored than usual, and Gem increasingly nervous as the delegates of various lands speak up. On one hole, there’s a set schedule for specific types of negotiations varying on daily basis, with some time to polish off previous day’s unfinished business. On the more boring hole, today’s topic is migration - limits, required documents, and anything else the bureaucrats can think of.

One yawns, her long and sharp teeth sending a wave of unease around the ballroom. Without the boss sitting by her side, a minotaur diplomat sitting next to her looks at her directly. She just whispers:

“Long night.”

That seems to placate the minotaur who replies with a knowing smirk:

“I know how you feel, queen. Long way from home, one has to pass time in this prudish city.”

“Certainly,” One admits to a night of debauchery that didn’t happen. She’d prefer if it did, but it didn’t. One sad.

Gem is busy making notes all the time, occasionally asking One about official Brauheim stances on various subjects she barely faintly recalls. At least until…

“I would want to propose a vote to disallow migration into and out of king Beard’s changeling territory in the face of trouble his kind caused during this summit already. We can’t be sure of their intentions,” a dragon diplomat raises his voice when it’s Gem’s turn to discuss things. Dragon Lord Ember sitting next to him and looking equally bored as One only glances his way. 

“Good,” shrugs One in response, “We don’t want visitors anyway. Besides, it’s not as if most of you could survive more than a day or two in the frozen tundra between Rift and Crystal Empire.”

What happens next makes her realize that divulging the exact location of her hive was a bad idea, to say the least.

“As a representative of Stalliongrad, I hereby submit my official request for increased Royal Guard presence in our province, now that we know a hostile hive is close to us,” a white, blond-maned unicorn slams his hoof against the table.

“Yak no feel safe north. Yakyakistan refuse to continue any debate when besieged by changelings,” prince Rutherford stands up too.

“That was a long word for a concussed ball of fur,” comments One internally.

“As a member of the north guard of the great Griffon Empire, I must object to the possibility of changelings crossing to the Empire over the polar region-” a griffon diplomat pauses when Vargaz sitting next to him clears his throat and shakes his head, “Nevermind, I will discuss this further before rendering final judgement. Complaint withdrawn,” he sits back down.

“While we agree with the olive branch offered by her Highness Celestia,” a pony with long blue coat and heavy accent adds his two bits, “in light of the recent attacks inside this castle, Vanhoover would like to register a formal complaint, and also request increased Royal Guard presence.”

“We didn’t do anything!” Gem raises her voice.

“Likely story!” the Stalliongrad representative glares at her.

“ENOUGH!” It’s Darkhorn himself who slams his fist into the table this time, and when a minotaur fists a table, it stays fisted. The warlord stands up, and looks at Celestia, “May I have a word?”

“Me first, warlord,” the solar princess clears her throat, “Let me clear something up. Neither king Beard nor his changelings are behind any of the attacks, and before you start more conspiracy theories, same goes for queen Chrysalis. It turns out that one of the attackers was an ex-paladin, which explains how they got into the castle. We have an expert on magical protections examining the castle grounds as we speak,” Celestia looks at everyone in the suddenly quiet ballroom, and then nods to Darkhorn, “The floor is yours, warlord.”

“Thank you, your Highness,” the minotaur smiles at her, but his smile fades as soon as he lays his eyes on the Stalliongrad representative, “The united tribes in Rift reside the closest to king Beard’s hive, and we haven’t had any problems with them during our two years of contact. Of course, to be completely honest with you, we have noted several infiltration attempts, but our observation always showed those were only temporary and examinatory in essence. No minotaurs were harmed by the changelings. In fact, one of my best diplomats was saved by them, as well as them having been instrumental in quicker freeing of several mining crews from cave-ins. While I am a suspicious old minotaur, which means I will always advise keeping an eye on any intruders, the northern changelings have earned my gratitude. Considering our recent history, possibly more than Equestria itself. That is all,” Darkhorn sits down.

“I have to agree with the warlord in that respect,” a weak, strained voice grows louder along with princess Cadance rising up with the help of Shining Armor, “and I would like to reiterate that king Beard’s changelings have saved me and my husband from a similar attack to the one which occurred in this castle even before the summit started. I don’t know if your information services brought this up with you, but the attacker targeted us again tonight, and king Beard’s changeling paladin died in the line of duty whine protecting me,” she’s shaking from exhaustion, but her voice grows steadier with each word. Chrysalis looks as if she wants to say something, but opts against it, “Yes, we might have had our misunderstandings, but I can attest to the friendly, albeit sometimes quick-to-act nature of the northern hive. And damn, if I of all ponies am standing on their side, then none of you have the right to question their motives. Maybe with the exception of the griffon delegates.”

“The Griffon Empire will reserve judgement on the northern hive for now. Our sources don’t consider them a hostile entity,” is all Vargaz says.

Those few words have weight, though. Most of the diplomats here know the history of the world, and if even the griffons aren’t certain whether or not to smite changelings with righteous fury, then there is something to think about.

“And I know most of you don’t care about my judgement,” Chrysalis chimes in, “But when I was evil and spiteful, these guys wanted nothing to do with me, so there’s your sanity check for them.”

“...a changeling defending changelings, what a shocker...” mumbles the Stalliongrad representative. 

“If I may say something?” Gem raises her hoof.

“Go on, miss Gem,” Celestia nods.

“My queen here was correct in saying that we don’t exactly want visitors, much less open migration to our territory. I also apologize for trying to keep our precise whereabouts secret until now, because due to our experiences with ponies we are equally as worried about you coming to us as you are about us coming to you.”

“Not really...” mumbles One in the hive mind, “Free food is free food.”

“Shush, mom.”

“In short, we have no intention of spreading around, we just want to explore the surface world,” Gem continues, “without the fear of a mob with torches and pitchforks. That’s all, really.”

“Thank you all for raising potential concerns and to you, miss Gem, for clearing them up,” Celestia speaks up again, “For now, I deny the Vanhoover and Stalliongrad requests for additional forces, but I will send several seasoned unicorns to teach your guards to spot changelings better including the use of magic developed after the invasion of Canterlot. I, of course, cannot single-hoovedly deny the migration request of the dragon and yak delegations, but I would ask you to take what princess Cadance and warlord Darkhorn said to heart.”

“Neat, sunny buns finally realizes she fu- messed up,” One raises an eyebrow, “I declare this an official changeling holiday.”

“I’m just happy everyone is talking among themselves again. I’m not used to so many eyes on me,” Gem lets out a quiet sigh of relief as the diplomats resume negotiations.

“Don’t get too comfy,” says One, “Do you really think Celestia’s unicorn wizard will figure something out to protect the castle?” 

“Yes? I mean, now that they know about Star Trail’s access and the enemy being a lich, they’re adding some further undead detection.”

“Point one - I’ll be damned if this is the first time Sunbutt has to deal with undead attacking her castle. That, at least to me, means the castle already had magical protections and they were useless. Point two… nope, that’s about it. We’re the only ones able to resist the sleeping spell, and there are a few of divine targets still around. From what I figured out, Luna hasn’t been drained completely, and her bat guards are leagues above the Royal Guard numbskulls. We need to take things into our hooves if we want to prevent the next attack.”

“You don’t think one successfully drained alicorn will be enough?”

“I might not be smart, Gem, but I’m paranoid like the best of the best,” One smirks and raises her mental voice, “Two, you heard all this, right?”

“I totally wasn’t eavesdropping, but I heard everything,” admits Two, “What do you need me to do, mom?”

“I must sit here like an idiot, and so does Gem, although with much less vacant staring and drooling. That means you, Cryo, and Eleven will provide some ‘added security’ in secret. You will figure a way to keep an eye on Celestia whether she wants it or not.”

“Wait, I’m supposed to use CRYO for a stealth mission?” Two facehoofs.

“Hello, I heard my name,” the ancient queen in question joins the hive mind conversation.

“Good, there’s nothing wrong with your ears, both of you,” says One, “HOW you use Cryo is up to you, Two, I just want to prevent the inevitable attack on Celestia or Luna. Eleven and Cryo are your resources, and you are a better infiltrator than I am. Do it.” 

“Yes, mom.”

One sighs in the real world. The board is set, time for the pieces to figure out how to do what they’re told.

One doesn’t understand the point of chess, she just likes the part where a pawn can change into anything eventually.


***


As One’s hive link cuts off, Two sits up in her bed, fully awake.

“Okay, okay, okay...” she jumps off, starting to pace back and forth, “Protect Celestia… how do we do that? I could make Cryo stand in front of her door. If she falls asleep, no one is moving her out of the way. The thing is… judging by their previous attacks, they aren’t moving around the castle. The just teleport where they want to. So if they attack- no, when they attack her, they will get directly into her room at night while using a mass sleep spell. That means we need a way to keep an eye on her first,” she rubs her chin, and mentally calls out, “Eleven, get three- no, four of you over here.”

Four sleepy little changelings enter Two’s guest room a moment later.

“What do you need, miss Two?” asks Eleven, “And why only four? Being this separated feels a little weird.”

“All eleven would be too noticeable and clumsy. I’ll need the others for something else anyway. How far away can you control your bodies?”

“Umm… I think I can split up around the castle. Maybe a little bit outside,” Eleven looks down on the floor, “I’ll try to practice more.”

“You’ll get enough real world experience right now. Celestia is attending the summit. I need you to get into her room and stay hidden there.”

Eleven nods.

“What if she finds me?”

“I expect either her or the guards to find you. What we must do is avoid them finding all of you. One, you’re small and not threatening, so the guards won’t get violent when they find you. Two, you’ve already been seen climbing around the castle before the attack on Novo, which was used to blame us and proved wrong. That gives you the ability to do that again without too much suspicion. Three, I think I know where I triggered the changeling alarms during my first scouting, and my best guess is that those are set up on doors and windows. Besides, if the alarms were on whole rooms, they would be incredibly distracting to any unicorns on watch during any private meeting. Seven taught me how those work. Four, if the attackers use the sleep spell again, your bodies will have to stay awake using the hive mind screaming trick and alarm us. And finally, you can turn invisible.”

That’s step one.

“So you want me to get four of me inside through the outside window, turn invisible, and let at most two of me get caught to assure the guards that they found everything.”

“Exactly. I’ll help you get inside. You focus on climbing, I’ll open the window.”

Soon, five invisible changelings are around the window of princess Celestia’s suite, four hanging from two decorative unicorn head busts, and one hovering in the air, transforming her hoof into knife-thin talons in order to unlatch the window from the outside. Not even two minutes later, the window clicks, and Elevens jump inside. 

Two guards, a unicorn and a pegasus, rush inside the suite, eyes narrowed and spears ready. Their careful examination reveals one visible Eleven staring at them with both forelegs raised above his head and a scared expression. The expected second sweep reveals another Eleven faking surprise after sniffing some sweet-smelling bottle in the bathroom.

With two sheepish Elevens now being led away by a different pair of guards, and the two original ones resuming their watch by the princess’ door, two remaining invisible Elevens hide away safely, not touching or examining anything in case of more alarms.

Step two.

“Eleven, leave two bodies with Cryo, and send the rest to one of our empty rooms,” orders Two.

“What’s going on? Why are mini-beards leaving?” Cryo looks around as she feels the pile of bodies on the straining bed around her stand up without a noise and leave.

“You can have two for communication, or to juggle them if you want. I need the rest,” replies Two.

“You heard little beard,” Two hears Cryo speak to Eleven, “Hop on.”

“Wheeeee!” Eleven’s dizzy voices join the chorus of the hive mind.

Two didn’t mean it literally, but as long as they don’t get hurt, it’s okay. And why is it that juggling is the only thing where Cryo’s hoof-eye coordination is on point?

“Okay, now I need four of you. Each one will find one of those Silver Sun specialists and STAY with them at all times. If they need to sleep, turn invisible.”

“Umm, miss Two?”

“Yes?”

“I… I can’t split up and shapeshift this much… I think.”

“Alright,” Two isn’t going to argue or overtax Eleven, “Keep the ones in Celestia’s suite invisible, the rest can stay normal. Now go and find them. Nothing suspicious, just ask around. Tell them you’ll be with them in case we need to communicate. You can practice control without rushing right now, use the time.”

“Yes, miss,” Eleven’s voice is weak, “I feel dizzy...”

“Now, leave the rest of your bodies in the room and focus on the ones you’re using. That should make things a little easier.”

“Y-s, m--m,” Eleven only mumbles now. Better to let him focus on himself.

Two closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath. It is rough on Eleven, but he’s her best asset right now. Unfortunately, the rough part for her comes now. Nightguards crawling all over infirmary or not, she has to keep an eye on Luna as well. After all, Cadance was attacked twice, which means someone might want to finish Luna off.

“Cryo?”

“Yes? My juggling balls fell asleep.”

“Good, let him rest until you need him. I’ve got a mission for you.”

“The frozen hive stands firm!”

“I’ll take that as agreement,” Two smirks. You can never be sure with Cryo, but her heart is in the right place, even if her mind takes trips beyond the borders of time and space, “I need you to find the guards now leading two Elevens from Celestia’s suite, and bring them back on the pile without harming anyone. Be diplomatic.”

Loud thudding from the hall outside signals that Cryo has rushed off. That means it’s time for Two to do her part.

Luna…

Turning invisible again, Two heads off to the infirmary, only to find a curious lack of guards, night or otherwise. She does find still unconscious Bright Star, fluffs his pillow, and leaves. 

So, either something terrible happened without anyone noticing, or the lunar princess returned to her own suite. 

Royal Guards are standing at attention on the top floor of the castle, dimmer than the rest even during the day. While it does cement Two’s idea that Luna is back at her place, it also makes approach from the front impossible. A quick check of the outside windows reveals heavy, black curtains completely blocking all daylight from getting in. The good part is that Luna is most likely asleep, the bad part is that Two can’t see inside at all.

“Eleven? The one in Celestia’s suite?” whispers Two, flying up on the roof.

“Miss Two?” Eleven’s voice is clearer again as he’s getting used to controlling his bodies in situations in which they have vastly different directions.

“Tell me, is there a fireplace in there?”

“Yes, there is. Do you need me to do anything with it?”

“No. Just stay hidden and alert.”

Up on the roof, Two finds the chimney most likely corresponding to Luna’s place. Hopefully, the castle is built at least somewhat evenly. She doesn’t dare turn into a bird, a bug, or anything equally vulnerable, so a moment later there’s a hoof-sized, invisible changeling floating down a black tunnel smelling of burned wood.

Thankfully, it’s another scorching summer day, so the fireplace isn’t lit, and even in the pitch darkness of the room, Two can see an alicorn-sized body in a big bed, its chest slowly and regularly rising up and down. It seems her intrusion went unnoticed, which makes her smirk to herself, but also curse the lack of security of this place yet again. Transforming into her full-size invisible self not to burn love on maintaining the imbalance of her mass, she silently moves into the corner of the room, and sits down.

All they have to do now is wait and remain watchful.  

The darkness of Luna’s bedroom feels oppressive. Even her changeling eyes can’t make out much other than the faintest lines, and Two soon realizes she can’t hear anything from the outside. Soon, Luna’s breathing becomes her only connection to reality.

It’s just a silence spell, otherwise the princess of the night would never get a good day’s sleep.

*Clip clop.*

Hoofsteps... behind her?

Wait, her back was against the wall just a second ago. Why can’t she feel the stones anymore?

Two turns her head, and realizes she’s looking into the infinite blackness, only occasionally dotted with bright lights of distant stars.

“Eleven, can you hear me?” she reaches out with her mind, and finds nothing. No open connection, no distant but familiar presence of minds going about their business, nothing. She’s completely alone.

Okay, this is magic. What did Seven teach me about magic? Infinite space hints either at pocket dimension, or an illusion. Illusions not specifically crafted for changelings don’t work on changelings due to the hive connections. There wasn’t any pocket dimension during the attack on Novo, was there?

As if materializing from the blackness itself, a tall, slender figure walks forward. An alicorn taller than Luna, pitch black with bright blue mane dotted with sparkles… like blue midday sky, but with stars overlaid over it. She isn’t wearing anything which would identify her as some sort of secret guard, only a smooth, blue helmet and a decorative chest piece of the same color bearing a small ornament of the moon. The alicorn looks down at Two, and bares her sharp teeth.

Tall, black, no robe. Not an undead, though. Any asshole ex-paladin around? No.

“What are you doing here, little changeling?” asks the alicorn in a booming, haughty tone lower than princess Luna’s voice.

“Keeping an eye on princess Luna in case of another attacker, which I think includes you!” Two sees no reason to lie, if only to measure the intruder’s reaction.

“And what makes you think you’d be able to stop me?” the alicorn chuckles.

“Nothing, really,” Two shrugs carelessly, “Not exactly the p-”

Without finishing the sentence, Two sends a bolt of lightning straight at the alicorn’s nose while teleporting backwards to Luna’s bed.

“Princess, I’m gonna need you to wake up ASAP!” she kicks backwards to shove Luna or the bed...

...which isn’t there.

“What?” Two is alone in empty blackness. Then, right in front of her, bright white eyes open, look straight into hers, and-

Two finds herself gasping for breath in the corner of Luna’s room now slightly lit by the window curtains cracked open. The lunar princess is standing over her, staring right at her despite her invisibility.

“Two, was it?” asks Luna. When Two nods, she continues, “What brings you here?”

“I… I...”

“Take a moment to breathe first,” Luna puts a hoof on Two’s head.

“One sent me to keep an eye on you. She doesn’t believe upgrading the castle magical protection is going to help, and we’ve proved resistant to the castle-wide sleep spell already.”

Luna’s eyes are staring directly into her soul. After a moment, the princess smiles and ruffles Two’s short mane.

“Truth, but not the whole truth. I suppose that’s the nature of your secretive kind.”

Two takes a deep breath, bites her lip, and takes a huge risk.

“We’re also keeping an eye on princess Celestia, just in case. Eleven is good at hiding.”

“Eleven… ah, that strange mind controlling many bodies.”

“Yeah, eleven of them.”

“I… see. A fitting name then. Now tell me, what can you do to protect me when you got scared by a little nightmare?” Luna chuckles.

“That was your doing?” Two leans backwards, finally opting to drop her useless invisible disguise, “But… I heard you were weak from the attack, and this was… this was absolute control over reality. Seven said magic like that was near impossible.”

“Last time, I was attacked outside on watch where I must rely on my personal protections or the castle’s. In here, in my room… things are vastly different. Even as exhausted as I am, I could take the attackers head on again. As for magic… these days I am number two in the world, and I intend to keep my position until young Twilight grows up.”

“That’s the purple alicorn, right? Small, nervous, smells of parchment and dust.”

“Indeed. When did you have time to see her?”

“She was here the first day before the summit. I haven’t seen her since.”

“I see. You are an observant one.”

“I’m not too strong nor too magical, so the best advice I got early on in my life was that if I can’t win a fight, I have to make sure it doesn’t happen in the first place.”

“Very useful advice.”

“Speaking of useful advice,” Two nods to the bed, “I’m sorry I woke you up, but you should go to bed again. Mom- One thinks another attack is inevitable, and since most of what I can do is not fall asleep like everyone, and call for help, I would like someone well-rested within reach. I’ll just hide here in the corner again if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t, actually. However, there’s one more thing I want to show you,” Luna points at a full-body mirror on the opposite wall, “That mirror is connected with one in my sister’s suite. Going through it won’t trip any alarms. Use it if you need to get there or to help get my sister here in case of trouble.”

“Thank you,” Two turns invisible again, and sits down into her corner again, carefully poking the wall behind her first.

“No, thank you. If you need to wake me up, just call out.”

“Will do, your Highness.”

“Luna will suffice, Two.”

“Will do, Luna,” Two salutes as the blue princess curls up under her blanket again.

“Hey, mom,” Two reports via the hive link, sending her and Eleven’s locations on the castle map, “Look where Eleven and I are!”

Back in the ballroom, One’s eyes bulge at the completely unprecedented success.

“What the fu- hole?!” 


***


Day four of the summit.

One takes a deep breath, and enters the ballroom where yet another late morning mingler is taking place. Negotiations will resume later in the afternoon, so this is just an informal and much less populated event for everyone to have a little more private conversations. Sort of a brunch, really.

There are only a few diplomats around, and the mood feels fairly relaxed, at least until she enters. Most of the eyes in the room lock on her at least for few seconds as the guests gradually notice her, and while several gazes are downright hostile, most are either indifferent or curious.

“I’m not sure if being here benefits us in any way,” Gem, walking by her side, ponders the situation.

“We’re here to be seen,” replies One, “To create the image that we aren’t some monsters hiding in the shadows. I think that in light of what happened since the summit started, it would be a good idea to just relax.”

“Being seen?” snickers Gem, “Well that won’t be difficult, will it now?”

In the real world, she looks to the second looming shadow following One. 

“I am the BEST at being visible,” agrees Cryo.

“Then let’s clear our heads and take it easy. We handled things well yesterday. No need to push anything right now,” One conjures up a semi-genuine relieved smile, nods at Celestia currently eating a slice of cake whose spoon waves back, and the three changelings split up.

Sadly, Eleven couldn’t make it. The separation is taking a lot out of him, but he did reassure One that he’s getting better, and that he should be able to properly send another body out soon. As for the two Elevens who got caught inside Celestia’s quarters yesterday, they were sent back with only a warning to stop exploring private rooms. Celestia was obviously doubtful about it being just Eleven’s fun trip, but she examined her suite personally and didn’t find anything suspicious, so she didn’t push it. Of course, that did require one Eleven to hide inside the toilet and the other one to crawl into the fireplace, but they did manage to remain unnoticed, which was quite a feat.

After some time, Gem finds herself being cautiously observed by someone. Pretending to examine a particularly delicate canape gives her cover to figure out why her instincts are warning her, and finds the griffon leader wearing only an unofficial white shirt for once watching her. As a very experienced infiltrator, Gem has to appreciate his subtlety, but there’s difference between being trained to be a spy, and being literally born to be one. 

Of course, a changeling being carefully watched by a griffon isn’t a surprising thing by any measure, but Gem can’t sense hostility from him, mostly just curiosity.

Vargaz, the griffon spymaster. Should I ignore or confront him?

Allowing herself a smirk, she decides to listen to the few genes she got after her mother, and sits down on a chair next to Vargaz.

“I couldn’t help noticing you staring at me,” she says in a friendly tone.

“And here was me thinking I was being inconspicuous,” the immeasurably tiny moment of surprise in Vargaz may as well be a signed admission for someone like Gem. However, the griffon recovers instantly, and smiles back at her, “I might take this as a sign that I’m too old for this whole diplomacy thing.” 

“Now now, don’t fault yourself for losing a contest against the best of the best,” Gem takes a sip of something bubbly smelling faintly of wine, “Still, I’m curious what piqued your interest specifically in myself. My general experience with griffons is that if one is looking at me for too long, they’re aiming.”

“Yes, the mistrust between our races,” Vargaz sips his drink too, “That’s not something several years and a written proclamation can fix. Although after the few days here I’m certainly regretting I don’t have anyone like you in my ranks, miss Gem.”

“I am no one special. In fact, the diplomatic duties fell to me only because boss had to leave, and One isn’t overly comfortable in this kind of setting.”

Vargaz’s smile only grows.

“If I lost a spying contest with no one special who also claimed to be the best of the best, then I should truly be horrified by the capabilities of your hive.”

Gem realizes she screwed up.

“I can assure you that our intentions are to be left alone, mostly. We’re new, we’re slowly getting used to business contacts plus all this diplomacy stuff, and close scrutiny like this isn’t exactly comfortable.”

“I understand you completely,” Vargaz nods, “ I know how it feels to work from the shadows for the good of the country, or hive in your case,” he looks around, and lowers his voice, “Which is why I would like to talk to you in private at some point.”

“What about?” Gem raises an eyebrow.

“A little followup to the migration discussion from yesterday. I would like to employ someone of your caliber,” he raises his talon when Gem opens her mouth to object, “I don’t mean you specifically, if that is a problem. However, I have a lot of influence within the Empire, and I can offer you a lot of information as well as easing access to the changelings who might want to live in the Empire. Surely, there must be some of your kind curious enough to take up my offer in the same way they did for princess Celestia and her paladins. My condolences about your unfortunate loss.”

What to do? 

Decline? Promise something I can’t? And that mention of Ten was an entirely unnecessary attempt at a power move.

So… play his game better than him? 

“Oh my,” Gem chuckles, putting a hoof over her mouth in a gesture of innocence, “You are quite confident that you aren’t employing one of us already, are you? As they say, overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer, dear spymaster. However, when my king returns, I will present your idea to him to make our involvement official. I don’t mind the idea of a private meeting, though. It’s difficult enough getting some love under these circumstances already. I promise I don’t bite,” with a courteous bow of her head, Gem finishes her glass, and leaves somewhat stunned Vargaz alone.

Cryo doesn’t feel at home here, especially without Two to keep her company, but she understands that it’s important to keep up the appearance of power and that’s why One needs her attendance. On the other hole, she’s quickly running out of things to pretend to care about. On hole number three, there are sausages, and this time she knows about their devious nature. She carefully pulls at one on top of the stack on a corner table, the only one with meat products on it, since processed flesh of semi-sentient species makes ponies of all kinds understandably wary.

The sausage is tied to the next as expected. This time, though, Cryo is ready, and licks its bottom. The partly acidic saliva does away with the string, but the queen didn’t account for the size of her tongue, which means that along with it, half of the sausage is gone… as well as part of the next one.

She drops the gooey and still melting end of the sausage rope, or whatever its called, back on the pile where it starts melting everything around. In horror, she looks at the blue-ish goop making its way down through the hissing pile of meat. Cryo’s eye twitches. With a quiet growl at the meat not behaving the way it’s supposed to, the queen decides on drastic measures. In a way, this is all she wanted all along.

With a quick look around to see if anyone important is looking straight at her, Cryo grabs the whole pile of sausages, and stuffs it in her mouth, leaving only a silver tray with some of her spittle harmless to metal.

However, her deed doesn’t remain unnoticed.

“Yak no eat meat, but yak like to see mare with appetite!” says a cheerful voice from below.

“Mmmmphmh?!” Cryo looks down at the hairy, brown blob that’s prince Rutherford.

“Changeling no rush, Rutherford want appreciate big, strong mare.”

“Mhmmph?” Cryo points at herself, her mental processes stuck at the moment.

“The strong and silent type? Yak like. Of course yak mean you, big, beautiful lady of few words.”

Cryo tries to smile, and a sausage slips out, hanging by an unmelted string stuck between her teeth.

“Yak want apologize, yak wrong about changeling threat.”

Cryo nods vigorously, the stuck sausage flies off, she tries to catch it with one leg, misses, and punts the sausage into the ceiling where it bounces off, and impales itself on a random Royal Guard’s spear.

“Mmmmmm...” Cryo lets out a depressed groan.

“Big ling no worry,” Rutherford taps on her hoof with his, “Yak often break things and look silly. Yak proud of it, though. Smashing things yak tradition!”

Cryo breathes out in relief, which wheezes through the sausage blockage. Diplomatic accident averted successfully. Rutherford looks up into her slightly crossed eyes, and after some hesitation adds:

“Yak also want smash strong ling lady.”

Cryo makes the mistake of breathing in to scream “WHAT?!”, which only makes the pile of sausages go the wrong way, and the queen starts choking. Of course, as a warrior, she’s way experienced with losing vital organs, and on instinct a blow hole opens in her back. She still can’t speak, but at least she won’t choke to death.

Rutherford, however, mistakes her inability to react for hesitation, and smacks his face with his foreleg.

“Yak apologize! Of course even a strong ling mare is delicate flower and need romance first,” Rutherford sits down, takes Cryo’s foreleg into his own, and grunts when trying to push it up. Seeing him struggle, Cryo raises it herself, currently blue-screening on the inside completely, “Follow yak! Yak show proper courting.”

Cryo shrugs, finally deciphering the situation and feeling in way more familiar depth. She was a little hungry after all that’s happened.

The only remaining question is how to finally swallow these damn sausages.


***


The two Elevens in Celestia’s suite haven’t moved for hours, which isn’t the most comfortable thing for a changeling used to either sleeping or running around with a bunch of bodies. Still, considering the protective carapace, changelings are naturally resistant to sleeping legs and other problems the squishies have.

Shortly after getting inside, Eleven sent one body to look around and examine the layout of the place. The suite consists of two rooms - the bedroom slash living room and the bathroom. For complete oversight, one Eleven climbed on a wardrobe in the bedroom, and the other one sat down in the corner of the bathroom.

Eleven’s ears perk up when the door opens and princess Celestia comes in. It’s early afternoon at most, so the big daily meeting can’t have started yet. The princess drops all her decorative jewellery unceremoniously on the floor, although she does take care to put her light dress away into the wardrobe on which Eleven is lying, his head hanging down over the edge. If this was, let’s say, Ten, this could be considered creepy, but Eleven watching Celestia’s every step is more like a curious ceiling lamp.

Celestia lies down on the bed, rubs her temples, and closes her eyes.

“At least everypony was civil today...” she mutters, “Every time, this reminds me how much I prefer bickering of my own nobles during day court. At least those ponies can’t mess things up too much.”

She turns on her belly, buries her head between the pillows, and in few minutes, Eleven can hear her breathing slow down. Her nap lasts for some half an hour, after which she sits up, stretches, and heads off to the bathroom. The other Eleven holds his breath, but when the princess doesn’t show any signs of noticing him, he resumes his observation. She steps into the circular bathtub, and turns on the shower built into the ceiling.

Being the well-behaved changeling Eleven is, he covers his eyes. Being completely see-through, that doesn’t help. Decency fights his sense of duty and loses. In the end, Eleven decides to keep watching the soaping-up princess now, and feel bad about it later. Maybe apologizing once all this is over will help? Maybe. 

Close to an hour later, a maid arrives with a tray of food, and leaves it on a table by the door. Once Celestia is finally finished with her shower, not waiting to dry but simply glowing with warm light for few seconds, and then walking back to the main room with steam still rising from her. Seeing that her pre-summit snack has arrived, Celestia digs in.

At that point, bedroom Eleven starts feeling a little weird. It takes him a short while to figure out why, before he notices that the hive links inside his head are strangely weak, everyone is quiet, and even his other bodies are difficult to sense, other than the bathroom Eleven, that is.

“Miss One?” Eleven cries out to the empty hive mind, “Boss? Two? Anyone?” 

“-ven… El-en… -‘s -ing on?” Two’s mental voice is barely audible.

“EVERYTHING IS WEIRD, I CAN’T SENSE ANYONE!” he yells back.

“Sta- put!” Two’s voice grows even fainter, “-right -re. I’ll just-” it fades completely.

“Miss Two? MISS TWO?!” Eleven gives it one more shot, and receives no answer.

He blinks, and when he opens his eyes, the walls of the suite are gone, revealing only a flat, grey plane stretching to infinity. Chill runs down his spine when he sees Celestia standing at attention, gold light forming a plate armor around her, and a halo above her head. Thankfully for Eleven’s already freaked out state of mind, she’s not looking at him. What does make him bite his hoof to stifle a whimper is the approach of two figures, one wearing a now familiar robe and one… Eleven tilts his head in confusion.

The pony must be Star Trail, undead like before, although Eleven is struggling to understand the proper descriptive terms without access to hive mind. The ex-paladin is bigger, almost as tall as the lich, and broader, although his greying coat is criss-crossed with scars and patches of hair. Contrary to expectations, there isn’t any sign that Ten had cleaved him in half before. Even his horn is patched with a piece of blue crystal screwed to the bone with bronze, harness-like construction. On his back hangs a long, unremarkable sword with angular symbols carved into the blade. Eleven thinks he’d seen something similar before, but can’t put a hoof on where.

Celestia doesn’t wait, and charges at them like a comet, her abrupt stop in front of Star Trail sending out a golden shockwave which makes him back off.

“Miss Two! The baddies are here, the princess is fighting!” Eleven strains his mental power to reach someone. Only silence answers his call. He wants to help, but his orders are to stay put. On top of that… is there really anything he can do in such situation?

The lich teleports a short distance away behind Star Trail, and red wisps of light swirl around his horn, gradually gaining strength. Nothing happens yet, though.

Out of nowhere, a halberd appears above Celestia, already hacking at Star Trail while she aims her horn at him, and lets out a beam of burning light. Star Trail’s sword flies up in response to block the halberd, taking the heavy, magic-fueled blow and vibrating for no reason apparent to Eleven. He manages to avoid the beam of light as well by lowering and twisting his strangely flexible neck in an angle no one should survive. 

Celestia apparently expected a lot, but not Star Trail opening his mouth full of sharp, non-pony teeth, and biting her neck straight above her magical platemail. She stumbles backwards, and a simple burst of light makes the wound disappear. Curiously, Star Trail isn’t pressing his momentary advantage, instead opting for a swing with his sword easily avoidable by a simple step backwards. What hits Celestia instead is a black beam sticking to her horn and connecting her to the lich. It seems completely ethereal, not hindering the movement of either of the two.

The princess growls, suspicious that this is a much more complex version of the divinity draining spell the lich won’t need to focus so hard on. Unfortunately for her, the new Star Trail is in the way and too strong to just ignore.

For now... 

The lich doesn’t understand who he’s playing with.


***


“Eleven, ELEVEN!” Two, sitting inside Luna’s suite, tries to break through the wall of silence when the little voice dissipates. She curses to herself, “Head Eleven!”

“I feel super weird, miss Two...” even Eleven’s voice conveys his dizzy uncertainty, “Ughhh...” 

“Focus!” she raises her voice, jumping up and rushing to Luna’s bed, “Eleven, listen. Tell your bodies, or however it works with you, to get those Silver Sun ponies to Celestia’s suite. I think she’s being attacked right now.”

“I’ll… I’ll try...” whimpers Eleven, cold creeping through his mind as if he was bleeding out from an artery after the loss of a limb. 

Two doesn’t push him further. She knows he will do his best. The question is - what can she do?

She shakes sleeping Luna who groggily opens her eyes.

“W-What’s going-? No...” Luna breathes out, realizing why Two must be waking her up.

“Yes, I lost contact with Eleven keeping an eye on your sister. Something might be up.”

“Mom, I need you here!” Two calls out again when Luna closes her eyes to focus.

“Trouble?” replies One instantly, and unlike during Two’s communication with Eleven, the time stops inside the hive mind.

“Possibly. Elevens guarding Celestia are out of reach. I called on the Silver Sun guys, and I’m going in with Luna in a second.”

“Through the front door?”

“No, Luna has a secret passage through the mirror which leads to her sister’s suite. Use that if front entrance doesn’t work or leads elsewhere. Just walks through it.”

“I’ll be there in few seconds,” says One.

“Should I come too?” asks Gem.

“No,” orders One, “I don’t know where we’ll end up. Take care of Eleven, and if it takes too long, deal with the summit. Cryo is resisting my mental contact, which is the first time-” 

“I’m busy right now. Yak diplomacy,” Cryo replies quickly, and disconnects.

“-and she might not be required. If we group up, we’ll have two alicorns, Two, me, and those Silver Sun guys who, even I must admit, are no pushovers. You cover the diplomatic side of the issue, I’ll do the punching.”

At this point, One is running up to the third floor already, and Two’s hive link disappears.


***

As Two follows Luna into the mirror, it’s as if a switch flipped in her mind, blocking her access to One and others, and allowing her to feel the fear of two Elevens lost on this side of reality. She can immediately see, invisibility or not, that one Eleven is on top of a wardrobe, his lip quivering and eyes watering as soon as he notices Two enter.

“Twooooooooooooooo!” it’s a little strange hearing Eleven whom she heard only a moment before sound as if she was gone for years.

“Stay where you are, both of you!” barks Two, “Help is on the way.”

Luna, wearing her real purple armor, materializes by Star Trail’s side, and the blade of her halberd bites into his side. Small tendrils of fleshy mass sprout from the wound and grab the weapon which Luna rips out with a meaty squelch.

“A flesh-crafted revenant,” she spits on the floor, “And to think you used to be a paladin.”

“The usurper and traitor DARES SPEAK TO ME?!” Star Trail’s defensive style of combat when facing only Celestia changes completely as the crystal tip of his horn flares, and his flying sword attacks in a flurry of powerful blows Luna has to block.

Celestia takes the moment of respite to rush past him at the lich. The ground shifts under her hooves, forming a pit which the princess simply wants to jump over. About halfway there, though, wall forms out of nowhere, giving Celestia barely a fraction of a second to cross her forelegs before ramming straight into it and dropping like a rock.

Following that, a column of gold and pink fire from above makes the lich look up and conjure up a blue barrier to protect himself. He teleports, still scanning the strange, black sky which despite hosting no sun or light source makes everyone inside this pocket dimension clearly visible. Soon, his horn flashes, and a hail of icicles bursting from the ground aims up to hit a bird made or fire who deftly dodges between them, giving Celestia time to get out of the hole, seemingly fighting against some powerful pull.

Luna is on the defensive. Star Trail hasn’t stopped his onslaught for even a second to catch a breath, and outside of her suite she once again feels exhausted from the original attack. A small ball of fire lands on Star Trail who wants to shake it off. It stays on him, revealing itself to be Two raising both her forelegs and bashing Star Trail over the head repeatedly.

She doesn’t expect the pony to turn his head one-eighty degrees and begin snapping his jaws at her. She is faster, and dodges few bites, but that forces her off of his back. Thanking her mother’s warrior heritage, she notices Star Trail’s hind leg about to kick her, and successfully twists mid-air to avoid it.

That gives Luna the moment she needed. The butt of her halberd hits Star Trail’s new horn. There isn’t enough strength behind that blow to shatter the crystal or knock the bronze harness off, but it weakens his grip on the flying sword, and finally allows Luna a proper strike.

Star Trail rushes at her like bull seeing blood, and Luna realizes too late he is way faster than last time. The impact sends her tumbling backwards, and Star Trail rears above her, about to stomp her to paste. Suddenly, he loses balance, and his stomp breaks the floor next to Luna. Behind Star Trail, Two kicks his severed hind fetlock away, and does her lightning bolt teleport away this time as his sword cleaves the air where she was.

Star Trail’s telekinesis brings the chopped off limb to him, and the flesh on his leg knits together, rejoining the fetlock to his leg. Star Trail laughs at her.

“Try again, bug!”

“Yeah yeah yeah, I’d love to hear you repeat that when One gets here,” mutters Two. Louder, she calls out ot Luna, “Where the hole is everyone?!”

“Time moves differently in pocket dimensions!” the princess is back on all fours, flourishing her weapon, “The more Philomena and Celestia occupy the lich, the less he can focus on making this place work in the way he wants. Just don’t give up, they’re coming!”

Star Trail faces Luna.

“There will be nothing of you to find when I’m done-”

His head leaves his body mid-sentence.

“DYNAMIC ENTRYYYYYYY, MOTHERFUCKERS!” screams One, then she looks at Star Trail’s skull impaled on her hoof, and crushes it underneath, “Ewww, I stepped into someone.”


 ***


Anvil pushes against the door leading to Celestia’s suite. Her muscles bulge, fighting against the clearly unlocked but immobile door, and in the end she has to give up. Contradiction, standing by her side, tries as well, but to her telekinesis it’s as if the door wasn’t even there, and blasting a hole in the entire castle doesn’t seem like a good idea.

“Hey, Eleven, you said your guys were coming too, right?” Astray pats the back of the limp changeling he’s carrying.

“Went in… already...” mumbles Eleven.

“How? The door is stuck.”

Part of Eleven’s numbness can be attributed to him having to parse last few seconds of everyone’s hive memories and keeping himself from, he doesn’t exactly know what’s going on but the best term would be… fragmenting, maybe?

“Moon princess… mirror,” he clutches his head.

“Luna’s suite!” says Astray, and rushes down the hallway to the stairs without looking back, knowing that the others will be right behind him.

Luna’s room isn’t locked, thankfully, although Connie can feel several alarms going off. 

“Can’t.. go...” Eleven whimpers, “My head… heads...”

They each put their Eleven on the big bed, Anvil touches the glass of the mirror, and disappears. Bubbles jumps in instantly after her.


***


Star Trail’s sword practically vibrating with magic slashes at One from behind as his headless body jumps backwards, ethereal image of his head forming on top of the hole in his neck. However, when fighting a changeling like One, rules of surprise don’t work like with ponies. Sparks fly as she blocks the sword with her foreleg glowing green with love. Star Trail tries to retract the sword, but One’s reaction as she transforms her hoof into claws and grabs the sword by its edge makes even the undead gasp.

One drags the sword down and stops on it, breaking it in half.

“You...” Star Trail growls, his eyes darting from a hole in space opening and the incoming Silver Sun members to One.

“An enemy who doesn’t die when I go full out?” One’s mouth spreads in a completely insane grin, “Is it my hatchday?”

Star Trail wasn’t able to deal with Two’s semi-magical speed before, and he sure as hell can’t even track One’s movements as her claws dig into his neck and rip it in half. Of course, that doesn’t exactly stop him, which only serves to spur One laughing like mad to smash and rip chunks off of him further.

Two breathes out, and stumbles over to Luna now watching the butchery.

“You know… had we met in our old castle with her like this, history could have been vastly different,” the princess shudders.

“Mom’s tons stronger than she used to be from the stories I heard,” Two chuckles.

The lich has noticed that his front line protection is currently being literally torn to pieces as well, and growls.

A black rift seemingly absorbing all light even in this unnatural landscape opens mid-air, letting in slithering shadow creatures Connie recognizes instantly from Manehattan. Within a second, there are three already here, and more are pushing through with each breath.

“Cover me,” says Luna quickly to Two, “We need to stop this before it gets out of hoof,” without waiting for an answer, she sits down, cross-legged, and closes her eyes.

Two shadows fly up and grind against each other until they disappear. Connie’s horn flashes as she grabs another one and simply twists it. It vanishes as well.

“Good, they’re exactly the same things we fought in the pocket dimension in Manehattan,” she says, “Standard tactic, fan out and push them back to the rift!”

Astray pulls out a pistol, and starts shooting while pushing forward. Bubbles jumps at the nearest shadow and bites its head off. Anvil measures the influx of enemies, grabs her mace, and punts one back into the rift like a golf ball where it slams into a bunch more trying to push through.

Celestia feels her divinity leave her through the link between her and the lich. He’s clearly using the power he stole from Cadance to rob her of her own, but he is new to this, that is clear. While Cadance has the potential to grow into one of the most powerful alicorns in existence, she’s nowhere there yet, and with Celestia’s power finally decreasing to levels manageable by this world, just like One, she can, metaphorically, stretch her wings.

Normally, the alicorn of the Sun going full out even for several seconds would turn Canterlot to ashes. Now all that diminished power has only one target. Her eyes turn into painful white like the center of the sun, Philomena stops occupying the lich who now has the opportunity to focus on Celestia fully and realize his mistake.

A beam of scorching heat instantly turning the air into plasma blasts the lich who has to mobilize all Cadance’s power and his own knowledge of magic to conjure a barrier able to stop it.

The area distorts and the air wobbles as the pocket dimension’s stability lowers drastically. While that means a step towards the freedom of everyone inside, it also means more rifts opening everywhere.

Connie is now grinding shadows by the dozens while Anvil swings her mace in wild abandon, crushing several with each swing. However, as the artificial world around them gradually shatters, it’s only a matter of time until they’re unable to destroy the shadows fast enough.

“This is why we really need to hire a proper unicorn maaaaaaaaaaaage!” screams the mare in frustration.

A pulse of deafening silence cuts her off. Luna is standing on all fours again above Two exhausted from protecting her, pointing her horn at rifts one by one and making them close.

“The pocket dimension is mine now, just give me few more seconds to fix the holes,” she announces.

One skewers two shadows at once with Star Trail’s ripped off leg, only grinning as the now fully ethereal ex-paladin can’t do anything but watch.   

And finally, Celestia’s beam of raw fusion shatters the lich’s barrier where, however, it hits some sort of a prism. For a fraction of a second, everything around burns, forcing Celestia to stop her divine attack in fear of incinerating everyone in the vicinity, although it does clear the area of shadows rather well.

A white rift opens behind the lich.

“Noyoudon’t!” undead or not, he has no reaction time for One. As he steps through, One flies right behind him. Connie telekinetically propels herself like a bullet, flying through as well. Bubbles, being the fastest remaining creature here manages to jump through the wobbling portal as well. Finally, Astray, as the one originally closest to the lich due to trying to flank him and shoot him from behind, runs through. In the next instant, everything is white and freezing.

Seeing her teammates disappear, Anvil runs and jumps as well, but only hits the floor and rolls as the portal closes in front of her.

“DAMN IT!” the minotaur curses.

And then the surrounding darkness fades, all remaining shadows disappear, and everyone finds themselves in now rather crowded Celestia’s bedroom.

Two sobbing little Elevens turn visible, one crashing into Two and sending them both tumbling, and the other one suddenly hanging around Luna’s neck, all four legs clamped around it.

Through the now unstuck door, Royal Guards rush in and point spears at the remaining changelings who are quite obviously the least threatening creatures in the room.

Two sighs. This is only going to cause more rumors and make the summit even more difficult.


***

 
“We heard what happened!” the representative from Stalliongrad stomps towards Gem who rubs her temples. As Celestia walks into the ballroom, he immediately turns around and kneels, kiss-ass that he is, “Are you okay, your Highness?”

The summit meeting, postponed due to the attack, was about to finally start, and just as expected, some of the guards witnessing the scene must have blabbed. Gem arrived first to put her papers in order and re-read the more pressing dwarf material offers now that she would be alone here, and as such had the misfortune to see the burning stares of everyone entering one by one.

“I am just fine, representative,” says Celestia with a warm smile which Gem easily categorizes as completely fake and revealing how much the princess dislikes this particular unicorn, “Thank you for asking.”

“And you,” he turns back to Gem, “How are we supposed to believe your changelings aren’t involved when you are present during everything terrible that threatens this peace summit?”

“Maybe because I was there and I know that king Beard’s changelings did their best to save me from the attackers?” Celestia raises her voice to drown out the whispering of the dimploats all around.

“Your Highness, I don’t mean to question your wisdom, but this could all just be a changeling ruse just like in the Castle of Two Sisters years ago!”

“And how did you hear about that, representative?” Celestia lowers her head to look him straight in the eyes.

“I-” his outrage falters when he can physically feel the heat now emanating from Celestia, “One… one of my staff told me that he heard a rumor- everypony knows!” he yelps, looking around. In general, the diplomats nod.

“I see,” Celestia takes a deep breath, “Then-”

“Yak no believe changeling evil!” prince Rutherford’s loud voice interrupts Celestia, drawing surprised glances at his one-eighty since earlier, “Changeling strong and protective of territory, but changeling not scheming or evil. Beard changelings, yak mean. Yak cannot speak for Badlands changelings and Chrysalis.”

“We certainly are scheming, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say evil anymore, as my gracious hosts know,” Chrysalis joins the conversation, “And while I don’t exactly agree with king Beard’s… management style, I believe you ponies would find his approach much more agreeable than mine.”

“Weird,” Gem mutters into the hive mind, knowing that everyone tapped into her as soon as they registered the raised voices, “I expected Chrysalis to speak up, if only because ponies attacking us would be a problem for her too, but such vehement defense from Rutherford all of a sudden, especially after yesterday?”

And that’s when Two, attuned to Cryo’s mind barely readable by anyone else, senses a strange mix of embarrassment and pride from the ancient queen.

“What did you do?” she whispers privately to her, attempting to hide the conversation from Gem, at least for now.

“I, umm, think beard loaf likes big, strong, and mature mares… and boss beard didn’t let us eat properly since we arrived… and little glowing lunch box is gone too. Did I make trouble for drug beard?”

“Leave this to me,” Two giggles to herself, resting in her room. She raises her hive mind voice for Gem to hear, “Hey, Gem? You wanna know why yaks are on our side?”

“Now that mom and dad are who knows where, I need to know EVERYTHING!” Gem is trying to keep it together, although things are a lot calmer now with all the support shown for boss’ hive.

“Then it’s like this - Cryo fucked prince Rutherford.”

The stack of spare note papers under Gem’s hoof bursts into flames.


***


Vargaz breathes out, looking at the night sky. While the ruler summit has been eventful to say the least, in essence what happened was rather simple - likely non-political assassins wanted to kill or harm royalty and possibly blame it on the changelings. Ponies… they wouldn’t last a month in Griffon Empire politics where an assassination attempt was considered a greeting and a sign that you’re still relevant and doing something right.

Contrary to his image of this “all-powerful” shadowy figure ruling the Griffon Empire, he genuinely likes spending time in Equestria. The country is strangely innocent in its way, and peaceful moments like this one, as he’s sitting in the silence of the Canterlot castle garden maze, are always a rare and pleasant surprise. 

The question is, should he get involved in the investigation of the attacks, or should his agents remain only as observers? Considering how much magic has been involved until now, the latter would be a better choice, at least until he gets a better idea of the situation.

A spike of sharp pain from his neck almost paralyzes him, and only gets worse as he looks down and sees a black hoof with a blade jutting from it buried in his neck. The hoof digs deeper, and then slashes his neck open, drenching the ground and the griffon leader in blood. As his vision grows darker, he doesn’t reach for his neck, but rather to a strange dagger on his belt.

Vargaz breathes out, looking at the night sky. While the ruler summit has been eventful to say the least, in essence what happened was rather simple - likely non-political assassins wanted to kill or harm royalty and possibly blame it on the changelings. Ponies… they wouldn’t last a month in Griffon Empire politics where an assassination attempt was considered a greeting and a sign that you’re still relevant and doing something right.

He grins, and counts under his breath.

“Two… one...”

He jumps forward just as something misses his neck by a hair, already pulling out a rapier sheathed on his belt. Turning around, he sees…

...an undisguised changeling with blades on his or her… probably her forelegs.

She vaults over the bench he was resting on, slashing at him wildly. Vargaz immediately knows she’s faster and more agile than him, and by a lot. Still, a rapier is a weapon for a skilled fighter who wants to waste as little energy and time on attacks as possible, and a flurry of quick stabs from him forces the changeling to back off.

Call for help or not? It would either summon a horde of other changelings, or the guards. 

Sometimes, one can’t know until they try.

“GUARDS! GUARDS!” he calls out.

The changeling uses that breath and heartbeat to get closer and slash at him with her leg blades again while standing upright on her hind legs. This time Vargaz dodges by taking a step forward and headbutting the smaller creature straight up.

She learns fast. Not trying the same maneuver twice was a good idea. I suppose it’s time to stop playing around then. She’s dangerous.

With a lunge, Vargaz stabs at the stumbling changeling’s eye, but misjudges the height as she quickly drops to her knees-

With a lunge, Vargaz stabs at the stumbling changeling’s eye, perfectly predicting her dodge downwards, ramming the sharp blade straight through the blue orb and into her skull.

He pulls his sword out of the dead changeling, and wipes the gunk on the green wall of the hedge maze.

Few seconds later, he can see griffons, pegasi, and batponies landing around him, few rushing forward to examine the corpse.

“Dead,” one of the examiners says flatly.

Would bother me if she wasn’t, although you can’t count anything out with changelings.

A different changeling lands in the clearing, greeted by spears aimed at… him? Yes, him.

He looks at the dead body with surprise, furrows his brows for a second which Vargaz recognizes as an attempt at their hive mind communication thing.

“This is- was queen Chrysalis’ number Four,” says the changeling, “She wants to see you,” he looks at Vargaz who still isn’t experienced enough to read changeling expressions. It’s the damn segmented chitin, “And congratulate you that you are still alive.”