//------------------------------// // The Objective // Story: Blood Thicker Than Venom // by theOwtcast //------------------------------// We arrived at the Crystal Empire in the late afternoon. Most of the passengers had gotten off the train before then, and the few that remained were paying little attention to us. They were all crystal ponies, and must have assumed we were tourists or something like that, even if we were arriving at a pretty late hour for sightseeing. And I had to admit that the sight was impressive, even if I wouldn’t choose to live in such a place permanently: crystal homes interspersed between flawlessly-maintained trees and shrubs, and benches and flowerpots placed here and there, and a network of streets polished to perfection. The sun’s reflection shimmered on every surface, and for a moment, I wondered if the crystal ponies had built their city in such a way in an attempt to blind any incoming enemies. Probably not, I decided. They must have just wanted the town to look pretty. Had they overdone it? Maybe, but I wasn’t one to know; I’d never cared much for aesthetics beyond what was the bare minimum needed to achieve visual accuracy of whatever disguise I happened to be using. One thing here, though, I did care very much about: the city was so insanely overpacked with love, the whole hive could easily feed on it for decades and it still wouldn’t run dry! I’d known to expect a strong aura, but this… this was more than I could have imagined in my wildest dreams! If I hadn’t sensed it myself, I would have never thought it possible! I fought the urge to drop my disguise right there in the streets and start gorging myself till exploding. The rest of my team were having the same problem, judging by their wide eyes and the tongues that were almost hanging out their mouths. And how wouldn’t they? “Control yourselves!” I hissed at them quietly, having made sure no ponies were close enough to overhear. “Are you trying to blow the mission? You’ll have plenty of time to eat later!” I got groans and mutters in reply, but at least they weren’t on the verge of revealing themselves anymore, if only for the time being. I looked ahead at the towering spire in front of us. This would be our ultimate destination, the Crystal Castle where our targets lived, and the place we were going to attack around midnight. An aura of love radiated from within, much stronger than the one from the rest of the city, if it was even possible, and I was pretty sure I could guess the source of it. I wanted to relish this feeling, this anticipation of victory over the one who had defeated us in the past, this glorious and bountiful future nearly ours for the taking, but that ominous whisper in the back of my mind wasn’t letting me, growing ever-so-stronger with every passing moment. Was something telling me we would fail? Impossible! I was going to do whatever it takes to fulfill the mission! Even if I ended up having to do it on my own, I would! This was going to be the one thing Chrysalis wouldn’t be able to accuse me of failing! Why, then, was I sensing disaster? I pushed it out of my mind again, determined not to dwell on it until I got some solid reason to worry, something I could put my hoof on and figure out what to do about it. I didn’t need instinct to tell me to be careful; I knew better than to allow myself to be reckless even if my instinct told me that everything would turn out perfectly! We passed close to the castle and kept going. Our support team was waiting for us in a cave on the outskirts of the city, and though we’d been told the approximate direction where to go, we still had to find the entrance. Eventually we did, and once we were inside, three crystal ponies approached us. “Princess Mi Amore Cadenza requests clearance codes!” I spoke the password. The crystal ponies dropped their disguises, and we followed suit. I glanced around. The cave was bigger than I’d expected it to be and had plenty of nooks where our team could stash their gear away from the eyes of anypony who might wander in by mistake, and there was a deep crevice that ran along the rough midline of the cavern; pretty ordinary, really, except for a peculiar collection of glowing crystals piled up against the far wall. Oh well, probably not much to them, either, I decided; the team must have found them scattered throughout the cave and decided this was the best they could do in order to create some shadows to utilize against intruders. Why they hadn’t thought to simply drop all or most of them in the crevice, I didn’t know, but it was hardly important by now. Unless they had dropped the majority of the glowing crystals they’d found into the crevice and these were the leftovers they’d decided to keep for the purpose of basic illumination? I decided to stop letting myself get distracted by such trivialities, and instead focused my attention on the support team. “Right on time, Sir,” Phantom said. “Any last-minute complications?” “No, everything’s been going smoothly so far,” I replied, deciding that telling him about my gut feeling wasn’t going to be of any help. “I take it you three are ready?” “We’re ready, Sir, and we’d better be. You seen the storm clouds on your way in?” “Yes, and I intend to have the ponies cocooned up in time for you to take them away before the storm hits.” “Good to know,” he nodded. “So, it’s just waiting for nightfall now, right?” “Yes. Eat, rest, do whatever you need, but be ready to move out near midnight!” “Yes, Sir!” My instinct screamed its warning steadily as we flew through the cold night, disguised as a flock of birds. Having failed to decipher it so far, I tried to tune it out so it wouldn’t distract me from the mission, but only with marginal success. Maybe it would be easier once things started actually happening, I kept telling myself. Maybe, once we succeeded, the annoying whisper in the back of my mind would finally go silent! Or, at the very least, maybe I would find out what it was warning me about. The silhouette of the Crystal Castle loomed steadily closer in the darkness, the reflections of magical ripples in the sky dancing on its surface. “Hey Phantom, how do we get inside that thing?” Raptor broke the silence. “There’s an observatory at the top,” he replied. “Viscera has been keeping an eye on the door that leads to the stairwell, and so far, it’s never been locked.” “And if it is locked tonight?” “Then you can transform into a lockpick.” “Very funny!” “Is that door our only option?” I interjected. “We could also try the entrances at the ground level, but there are guards patrolling close enough that I don’t think we’ll all be able to sneak past them, so we’ll need a pretty good excuse if we want to be let in without causing suspicion. There are windows, too, but I doubt anypony would sleep with an open window in this cold.” “Right, I get it, we’ll try the observatory.” Luck was on our side: the door was unlocked, and nopony, guard or otherwise, was in sight. I took the risk of getting noticed while dropping my disguise - one of us had to if we were going to open that door - and once the rest of the team, observing the sky and the streets below from the balustrade, were satisfied that nopony seemed to have noticed the flash of my magic, I let them inside, where we all took forms of the Royal Guards. “Okay, where to now?” I asked the supports. “I scouted the castle,” Scar stepped forward. “Follow me.” We did, careful to avoid crossing paths with any real Royal Guards; I doubted that even ponies would be so careless to leave their guards unaware of the others’ patrol routes, and even if they were, how oblivious would they have to be to fail to notice that there were too many of us in the same place? But then again, would I really be surprised to find out that they were? Our caution was almost unnecessary; we’d only had to evade one patrolling guard by the time Scar motioned for us to wait and went to investigate a hallway. He was back sooner than I’d expected, never even having left my sight. “Yes, this is it,” he reported. “Right down that hallway! It’s the big double doors!” “Everyling ready?” I asked. They nodded. “Then let’s go! And remember, not a sound!” Creeping silently, we approached the said doors. I pushed them open slowly and carefully, relieved that they hadn’t creaked or scraped against the floor. We all got in, Plague pushed the door closed, and we gathered around the bed faintly visible in the moonlight that shone through the window and the incoming storm clouds, where two of our three targets slept peacefully, unaware of the fate about to befall them. We dropped our disguises. At that moment, our plan went to pieces. Cadance and Shining Armor both woke up instantly, recoiling at the sight of our bared fangs that we were in the motion of sinking into them. I’d considered the possibility that it might happen - our transformation spells were bound to make a sound and a flash, after all - but seeing them so blissfully asleep had made me forget it for a moment. Stupid, I scolded myself. Stupid, stupid, stupid! How could I have allowed myself to be so careless? I might as well have marched in shouting ‘rise and shine, your new changeling invasion is here, you don’t wanna miss it’! And best of all, if my instinct hadn’t tried to warn me about it… But not all was lost, as Raptor and Viscera were quick enough to grasp the ponies’ mouths to keep them from calling for help. This only bought us a moment, though; just as I pounced on Shining Armor in order to bite him, he erected his shield, trapping both Raptor and me inside. In the corner of my eye, I saw Plague and Viscera wrestle with Cadance, Plague having succeeded somehow in putting a pillow over the princess’ face while Viscera struggled to score a bite of her own; but none of that was stopping Cadance from grabbing objects at random in her magic and flinging them around. What was she trying to do? To randomly hit one of us? To make noise that would attract the ponies’ attention? Either way, it wasn’t working: she clearly didn’t know for sure where any of us were, except for the two on top of her, and the rest were finding it easy enough to catch the airborne objects and drop them gently and soundlessly onto whichever spot on the floor was nearest. Shining Armor realized pretty soon that his shield had done nothing, and he dropped it and unleashed a burst of magic, but Raptor ducked and the spell hit a torch on the wall, igniting it harmlessly. This distracted the unicorn enough to allow me to sink my fangs in his flesh and unload a good dose of venom into him. A moment later, Viscera succeeded in doing the same to Cadance, and both ponies succumbed to unconsciousness within seconds. “Where’s the foal?” I asked Scar, not wasting another minute. “That room there.” He pointed to a connecting door on one of the walls. “Phantom, you deal with her! The rest of you cocoon these two before somepony sees us!” In the meantime, I went to survey the room. It was pretty much what one would expect from a bedroom of two married ponies, if only somewhat more decorated than an average one. Curiously, I could find no protective spells cast anywhere. The supports had been right! If Shining Armor, the former Captain of the Royal Guard and one of the most battle-ready ponies if not the most battle-ready one, hadn’t bothered to booby-trap his own castle against intruders, why expect protective measures anywhere else in Equestria? Phantom returned with the unconscious foal in no time. The little brat was so spoiled that she hadn’t even noticed something going on in the next room! Such a thing would have been impossible with nymphs! Our future soldiers were notorious for hearing every unexpected murmur and waking up instantly in hissing fits! When the cocoons were finished, I ordered Phantom and Viscera to bring one of the spare communicators and then stick around in the cave in case of emergencies and delayed complications, and sent the others to carry the cocoons to the hive. Once they were gone, I closed the window behind them, transformed into my assigned role, and returned to surveying the room. Raptor and Plague finally took a moment to compose themselves. They stood in the midst of the mess, taking in their surroundings, letting the victory sink in. “Ugh, this is all too cute for my taste!” Raptor groaned eventually, kicking a pillow into an overturned nightstand. “How long are we supposed to be here, again?” “Yeah, it is unbearable,” Plague sneered, “but at least I have an excuse to wreak havoc whenever I want, which I can already see will be all day! It’s gonna be so fun watching those pathetic ponies try to handle me!” “Quiet, you two!” I hissed in Shining Armor’s voice, approaching them with a stern glare. “Or at least don’t use your own voices! Are you trying to attract the guards’ attention? There’s a reason we’re here, and I suggest you act accordingly!” They obeyed. A moment later, the false Cadance and Flurry Heart stood before me. “Good,” I nodded. “No funny business from now on - or else!” I returned my focus once again to surveying the room, and immediately noticed an oversight that sent chills down my disguised carapace. The door was ajar! Had anypony heard anything? I trotted out into the hallway and looked around. Nopony was in sight, but how could I be sure nopony had been close enough to see the fight a few minutes ago? They could have retreated and called for help by now! But even if it had happened, there was nothing I could do about it now, except prepare for another fight if the Royal Guards did come to assist their leaders. If they came, we would stash their cocoons in the supports’ cave until more drones arrived to carry them to the hive and to replace the missing guards so nopony would miss them. If not, well, all the better. Returning to the royal bedroom, I closed the door behind me and lay in wait for any guards. Regardless of how soon or how late the spare communicator would arrive, the report to Chrysalis could wait until I knew it was safe!