//------------------------------// // To Invade the Invaders // Story: Winds of Change // by theOwtcast //------------------------------// I woke up to the sight of Trixie and Discord sitting at opposite ends of the impossibly-colored room, each facing their own wall. Discord had moved the disco ball to his side, together with the vapor clouds and the goldfish, and Trixie had covered the tiles in front of her with her cape and hat. On the cushion levitating equidistantly between them slept Starlight, horn alight in her sleep. I was puzzled about what she could be doing with it until I turned around and saw the Fluttershy flower-statue, still singing, enclosed in a soundproof bubble. I hope you aren’t also levitating something above ground, I thought. I gave her a nudge. She stirred and opened her eyes, then sprang up and let out a piercing shriek. “Hey, relax, it’s me!” “Huh…” She took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. “Next time you decide to wake me, please do it with a pony face!” “Okay,” I grinned sheepishly, then pointed to our friends. “What’s up with them?” “They started arguing again while you were asleep. I kept you in a bubble of silence so they wouldn’t disturb you, but let’s skip the details and say they’re no closer to acting normally than they were earlier.” “Anything I can do about it?” “Not unless you can reprogram their minds, I’m afraid.” “Trixie will not have her mind reprogrammed!” “And even if either of you could reprogram my mind, I could easily snap it back to the way it was before!” Discord floated out of his corner and wrapped Starlight and me in a hug. “But friends don’t do that kind of thing, do they?” He winked at Starlight. “I think I’ll go back to digging,” I said, pulling myself out of his grasp. I transformed into the same oversized mole as the day before and grabbed a headlamp, then went into the tunnel. Somehow the room had spun just right to let me walk onto the floor of the tunnel rather than the ceiling or one of the walls. Starlight joined me, having grabbed another headlamp and a dirt cart. The others stayed in the room. “How come did they both stay there?” I asked Starlight. “I maaaaay have threatened them that I’d surrender them both to the first changeling we come across in the hive if they did one more thing to upset me,” she said. “Not that that would have stopped them. But honestly, I think they’re actually enjoying all that arguing!” “So you decided to just let them while they can.” “Something like that.” We spent the rest of the walk talking about our other friends and about things that had happened since our previous encounter in the Crystal Empire, most of which we’d already covered in letters, but it helped us divert attention from the recent troubles and brighten the mood. The conversation continued through digging and loading the dirt into Starlight’s cart, and I enjoyed that fragment of normality in an otherwise awful situation so much that I’d almost missed something I would have noticed long ago if I’d been alone! As soon as I had registered it, however, I stopped what I was doing and moved closer to the far end of the tunnel I’d been digging up until a moment before, so close I could almost rub my face against it. “Thorax? What’s happening?” Starlight asked in a hushed voice, as if expecting trouble. “I can sense love from up ahead,” I explained, turning around. “We’re almost there.” “How ‘almost’?” “Best guess, I could probably break through with one good punch.” “Then we better get the others!” I nodded. Soon we were back in Discord’s impossible room, relaying the news. “So this is it, huh? We can finally leave this joke house and get to business?” Trixie asked. “If you don’t like it here, why didn’t you join these two in digging?” Discord leaned in to her, offering a bucket of shovels and pick-axes. She pushed him away with a frown. “Yes,” I confirmed. “This is it. And for the record, though I’m not really thrilled about what this room looks like either, I think you’ll start to miss it pretty soon. The hive can be… unnerving.” “Well, finally somepony appreciates my efforts!” Discord sent balloons and confetti flying all over us. “And I hope you’ve had your fun,” Starlight reminded him, “because you won’t have another chance until we get out of there!” “Or until we destroy the throne!” he winked. “I’d love to think that we could do it, but I can’t figure out how! I know a number of spells powerful enough to destroy half the hive in a single hit, but that’s no use if my horn won’t fire them! Thorax, do you have any ideas?” I shook my head. “Come on, you lived here! You’ve got to know something that can help!” “I’m sorry, I just can’t think of anything! Maybe some of the higher-ranking drones would know of any weaknesses we could exploit, but I never did anything to earn Chrysalis’ trust so to be allowed to know anything useful! And even if I had, they would have modified their security protocols after my escape!” “You make it sound like you’ll be useless to us,” Trixie said dryly. “I hate to admit it,” I hung my head, “but I’ve been wondering all along if that would turn out to be the case.” Starlight put her hoof on my shoulder. “Even if a lot did change in your absence, you know the hive better than any of us. If any one of us can find a way through this, it’s you, even if you won’t let yourself believe it!” “Thank you,” I smiled weakly. “Can we get going already?” Discord exclaimed. “All this fuzziness is making me itchy!” “That’s what we’ve been trying to do!” Starlight rolled her eyes. “Wait!” Trixie waved her hooves at us. “This is all great and heroic of us, go team and all that… but what if we get separated in there? How is Trixie supposed to be sure the three of you aren’t impostors when we reunite?” “Good point,” Starlight said. “When I was leaving Crystal Empire, Sunburst and I set up a password to help us overcome that problem once I return with Princess Twilight,” I offered. “Obviously this was before I knew she’d been captured, but maybe the four of us can use that password ourselves? Or make up a different one if you think you won’t remember this one?” “Sounds easy enough,” Starlight agreed. “What was the password?” I told them, along with the explanation of what it meant. Trixie chuckled, and Discord tied himself into a knot and turned himself upside-down laughing. “Oh, that’s priceless!” he said between bursts of laughter. “Do it again!” “How about later?” Starlight poked him. “We have more important things to do!” “Of course, of course,” Discord calmed down. “Let’s get Fluttershy!” Starlight and Trixie collected their saddlebags and we finally got underway, no one bothering to point out that Fluttershy wasn’t the only pony that needed saving. Back at the far end of the tunnel, my three comrades gathered around me, waiting for the last stretch of dirt to be cleared out of the way. My forelegs were in full swing, grabbing lump after lump of dirt, throwing them carelessly behind us, until I finally felt hardly any resistance. I stopped immediately and peered through a tiny hole that had formed where I’d last struck. I waited a bit, but there was no movement on the other side. “Okay, I think it’s safe. Ready?” I got hesitant nods in return. I expanded the hole enough for us to pass through, then reverted to my natural form. One more glance around, and we stepped through the newly-formed gate. The cavern was large, but not the largest I’d ever seen in the hive. It was of a roughly circular shape, somewhat elongated. The ceiling was uneven in height, forming dome-like recesses of varying depths. A number of irregularly-shaped pillars rose up from the floor, and innumerable holes in all surfaces led to other parts of the hive. Clusters of rocks were scattered about randomly. And, most notably, dozens of cocoons hung from the ceiling, randomly distributed at first glance, but those in charge of maintaining them would know that the empty spots had at some point been occupied by other cocoons, now drained beyond further use and discarded to make room for new ones that would be brought in eventually. Starlight let out a gasp upon seeing them. Discord stared in silence, eyes moving steadily from one cocoon to another, undoubtedly searching for the one mare he’d talked about ever since joining our unlikely team. Trixie clasped both forehooves over her mouth to stifle a scream. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I should have warned you that they might be here! I guess I assumed you were expecting to see this!” “It’s- well, it’s not okay,” Starlight answered, “But we don’t blame you. You’re right, we should have expected to see this! Now that I think of it, how come aren’t there more?” “Because this isn’t the only storage area”, I explained. “There’s a lot more of them throughout the hive. I expect we’ll pass through several others on our way up, and maybe through some other specialized areas too… that is, unless we get captured first.” “Don’t say that!” Trixie shushed me. “Can we free them?” Starlight pondered. “We could in theory, but it wouldn’t be any good. Most of them would be too weak to even get out of here on their own, let alone to help us free more ponies or to fight the guards, and anyway, their absence would get noticed sooner or later and put the hive on alert. Not to mention that, in the long run, it would only result in more abductions to replenish the food supplies… uh, excuse the expression.” “I’d like to think we can come back for them if we destroy the throne!” Starlight wasn’t giving up yet. “Shouldn’t we at least hide that hole we made?” Trixie asked. As if on cue, the said hole shrunk and disappeared. Trixie recoiled with a yelp. “The hive just did it for us,” I said. “But… but how?” “The hive’s natural state is to shift and change on its own randomly, closing one passage and opening another, building and undoing walls, and so on. Didn’t I tell you that?” “You told me while we were digging,” Starlight reminded me. “Trixie had by then pulled off a wagon you’d loaded.” “Oh, right!” “If the hive is so unpredictable, how do you find your way around?” “I’ve never really thought much about it,” I admitted. “I guess we just do. Not all parts of the hive are equally prone to shifting, though, and we know the locations of certain dedicated areas in relation to one another, so I suppose we go where we need to go by following an approximate direction rather than a specific passage like we would in steady environments. But it has been known to turn into a process of trial and error if you run into a bad streak of gates closing in front of you.” “I bet Discord is loving this,” Trixie muttered. “Eh, it has potential, but it’s not quite the way I would have arranged it,” he shrugged. “That’s all great, but can we get moving?” Starlight urged us. I picked a gate at random and led the way deeper into the hive.