//------------------------------// // Chapter 17 - The Soldier // Story: Reflections in Black and Pink // by Krixwell //------------------------------// It was a normal day in the hive, and Cuticle was minding her own business, which wasn't much of note. Being the Queen's favorite soldier took hard work, great skill and total loyalty in battle, but in the times between battles? It could be pretty dull. All she had to do was train herself and train the rookies, and she had never been much good at that last part. She was a soldier, not a general or sergeant – she fought as she was told, she didn't tell others how to fight. But she could never disappoint the Queen, so she would do the best she could at any job she was given. Unfortunately that job included managing training logistics. If she had known that striving to be the Queen's favorite soldier would result in having to deal with mountains of paperwork that nopony in the hive actually cared about, she might not have bothered. And so she was carrying a stack of reports on rookie training progress that would immediately be filed away in the hive's "archive", which was practically a giant paper dumpster, when she heard a high-pitched sound. "aaaaaaaAAAAAA!!" Then something slammed into Cuticle from above, forcing her to the ground and sending papers flying everywhere. What's going on? Are we under attack? "Owww," said the something, and Cuticle realized the something had a set of pink hooves, the back pair of which were twitching slightly in front of Cuticle's face. "Whose idea was it to have this place make holes in the floor?" "Get off me, pony scum!" Cuticle said, transforming into a bear. The sudden change beneath her launched the pony up in the air, though nowhere near high enough to reach the tall ceiling she had presumably dropped down from. She landed with a thud. Cuticle rushed forwards and pinned her to the floor under a heavy bear paw, then got a good look at the intruder. It was an eye-searingly pink earth pony mare, wearing a purple coat and a matching hat that had miraculously stayed on her head. Cuticle hadn't seen the outfit before, but the mare's appearance was unmistakable and very alarming. "Pinkie Pie." "Wh-who's that?" the mare squeaked out. "Is this some kind of prank?" Cuticle demanded. She had hoped her rookies would have enough sense to not pull something like this as a joke, but she couldn't be certain. Maybe Pleon might? Maxilla would joke about it, but she had always been more buzz than sting. Hardly good soldier material. Ocellus, certainly, would be far too meek. "N-no? Oww, can you lift that paw a little? Falling never hurt this much before." This was serious. If one of the Element Bearers was in the hive, the others wouldn't be far behind, presumably executing a coordinated attack on the Queen. The paw stayed where it was. "Where are the other Bearers? How did you get into the hive?" "Um, in Canterlot, I think? I'm not a Bearer, though. I came with Clypeus and Mandible and–" "Likely story." She pressed the paw down a little harder. How did Pinkie Pie know the names of two changelings on the same squad? "Ow ow ow! It's true!" Pinkie Pie insisted. "I'm Proboscis!" "What?" Seriously? Of all the changeling names she could have claimed, she picked Proboscis? "I'm not Pinkie, I'm just stuck looking like her." "You're a really bad liar," Cuticle told her, then shifted her other front paw into a baton. She was proud of that ability – shifting just one part of one's body took immense skill, especially while maintaining a large non-basic form for the rest of it. It had helped earn her her place in the hive's elite. The pony eyed the baton, clearly aware of what was about to happen. "Please don't… We could be friends instead! What's your name?" Why would I give my name to somepony like— "Cuticle." "Can I call you Cutie?" the infernal mare said. With a growl, Cuticle brought the baton limb down hard against the pony's head, knocking her out cold. "Absolutely not." "What's taking her so long? The way around can't be that circuitous." Clypeus didn't say anything. Frons was right, but what he didn't know was that Party Popper didn't have the sense of where to go that any real changeling would have while inside the hive. The rest of the squad, when the wall had closed between them and Party Popper, had assumed that she would make her way to their destination by another path, like a real changeling would when something like that happened, and kept going. Now they were waiting for her to show up by the static main entrance to the throne room, guarded by two stoic and quiet changelings Clypeus had never learned the names of. Clypeus was less confident, but he could hardly go looking for her without giving her away. Maybe it would be for the better if she didn't show. Maybe she could even find a way out of the hive somehow. "You know what she's like, Frons," Mandible said, clearly annoyed. "She's probably forgotten all about us and the Queen and wandered off to gape at more larvae or something." "I don't think she'd do that," Clypeus said, frowning. Mandible eyed him, but instead of whatever he was about to say, he exclaimed, "Cuticle? What the–" Clypeus looked back and saw the newcomers that had just flown into the antechamber. Cuticle was one of the Queen's favorite soldiers in part because of her skill at changing parts of her body into different things, and often things that were hard to transform into in the first place. This time, her hooves had transformed into a multitude of iron bars and linked up at the bottom to form a cage just big enough to hold a pony. She had also made her wings larger to accommodate the extra weight. Inside the cage, Party Popper lay unmoving, aside from being tossed around by the inertia of Cuticle's flight. Her eyelids twitched slightly but remained shut. "Can't talk," Cuticle said. "I have to alert the Queen. The Bearers are attacking!" "Wait!" Clypeus exclaimed as Cuticle moved past them and into the throne room. She didn't stop, so Clypeus took off and flew after her, not caring whether the rest of the squad followed. Like it or not, it was time to face the Queen.