Hmmm, no hostilities yet…
1988 quietly follows the pony carrying 9999 through the forest. So far, it seems that the ponies working around here haven’t received the news about the changeling invasion of Canterlot, nor the following takeover of Riverside.
*Rustle rustle*
As an infiltrator, albeit one of a rather low rank, 1988 has enough self-control to barely twitch his ear at the noise, and he keeps following the duo, carefully stepping over branches and using the soft grass to mask his hoofsteps.
*Rustle*
Whoever or whatever is following him is far from being as stealthy, but openly looking around would certainly lead to the situation escalating and, no matter what anyone might say, without a good supply of love, infiltrators aren’t that much better at fighting than drones, mostly due to being even more fragile.
Following the trampled path leading north, 9999 keeps riding on the axe pony’s back and turning its head like a lighthouse.
“Oooh! Why is that tree white and striped?”
“It’s a zebra tree,” replies the pony.
“Neeeeat!” 9999 grins.
In the safe distance, 1988 facehoofs.
“Hey, that tree tripped and fell over!” 9999 points ahead into the distance as loud rumbling cuts through the otherwise quiet forest.
“Good eyes,” the axe pony nods.
“Thanks, I hatched with those!”
The pony takes a deep breath, prepping to say something before simply shaking his head and breathing out.
“So what were you doing back there with your friend?” asks 9999.
“Getting the felled trees ready for transport,” replies the axe pony, “We cut down the trees, chop the branches off, and drag them to the camp.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean ‘why’?”
“Do the trees… taste good?” 9999’s eyes go wide as he adds with suspicion, “Has 36658 been right all along?”
“Uhhh, we don’t eat wood, we make stuff from it. Houses, furniture, too many things to name.”
“Really? Those I saw in that city on the side of the mountain were made of this weird rock-non-rock.”
“Side of the… do you mean Canterlot?”
Hearing that, 1988’s eyes go wide as he forces open a hive link into 9999’s head and screams mentally:
“DON’T TELL THEM WE ATTACKED THEIR CAPITAL CITY, YOU IDIOT!”
He definitely wasn’t expecting the following bout of nausea that sends him to his knees and then on the forest floor. Too little love for too long.
9999 bolts upright from his casual lounging position on the axe pony’s back, quickly thinking of solutions.
“N-Nooo...” he says carefully, “It wasn’t that, it was… umm… Can-umm-little, yeah Canumlittle. And everything there wasn’t from gold and those weird fake rocks I wasn’t just talking about.”
Yesss, saved!
“So...” the axe pony slows down, “What were you doing in that Can- not-Canterlot?”
“Oh? We flew in, landed on a roof, crawled through a hole leading into this house thing, we came out completely covered in black stuff. 55648 even found a singing box! Oh! And I found a button that made a ball shiny, that was awesome! We could look at it for hours but those spiky ponies were coming so we had to crawl back out through the hole to the roof.”
“Spiky ponies?”
“Yeah, they were wearing shiny gold carapaces and had a pointy pokey thing each.”
“Royal Guards?” the axe pony slows down even more, turning his head and giving 9999 a narrow-eyed look.
“I dunno,” the drone shrugs, “I didn’t stop to ask who they guarded,” it scratches its head, “Wait, royal, do you have a queen too? Our is kinda...” it lowers its voice, “umm, mean,” it quickly looks around and breathes out in the absence of any immediate punishment.
“We have a princess- well, we had a princess, now we have two.”
“Do you like them?”
“They’re alright,” the axe pony shrugs, “Celestia has been around for a long time and things have never been too bad, and while I don’t know much about her sister Luna but I haven’t heard anything really bad.”
“Yay, then the princess has been doubled!” 9999 exclaims.
“So, about not-Canterlot...” he nods to 9999.
“Oh yeah,” its eyes light up in excitement again, “Did you know there were these shiny things in the streets that are filled with tiny glowing bugs?”
“You mean the firefly street lamps?”
“Do I? I dunno, they just go flitterflutterflitterflutter all around and I could watch those forever! Shiny inside-ball was neat but these were… something else.”
The axe pony sighs.
“Yes, you do mean those. What I was asking, though, was what you were doing in Canter- uhh, not.”
“Oh yeah,” 9999 chuckles, “Well, after we escaped the spiky ponies, we snuck into this huuuuge house filled with bubbling, colorful stuff. We had to be super sneaky because there were magic ponies outside controlling this massive granite pony that kept stomping and kicking the high ranks around. 23119 drank something smoking from a bottle and started spitting fire. It said that with the ability to do something like that, it would beat the high score for sure, buuut… then its holes started smoking,” 9999 presents the holes in his legs, “And then its everything started smoking, and then it hiccuped and everything went white and hurty. Not sure what happened to it, because when I woke up, everything was dark and I had to dig myself out from the rubble. The magic ponies were gone, the house was in ruins, and everything was on fire.”
“You… set fire to Cant- not-Canterlot?”
“Not me, 23119 did that and it was an accident,” 9999 raises its forelegs defensively.
“Alright, I understand,” the pony simply keeps looking at the drone instead of moving ahead, “And what did you do next?”
“I got orders to fly to the castle and help. There was a group of those spiky ponies whom the warriors couldn’t deal with, so they needed us drones to push through their defense. I didn’t even have the time to get some love from the gooped ponies in the streets,” 9999 pouts, “Then I saw it from the sky. There was this orange horny pony with floating swords just hacking away. Cool as hole, really!”
“Wait, you know what a sword is but you call a spear ‘the pointy stick’?”
“Eheheh,” 9999 scratches his head nervously, “47773 found one in the streets but a warrior told him what it was and it wanted it… and 47773 said no, that it found it and that it was shiny and that it wanted to take it home and trade it for 22997’s old helmet because it was supposed to be digging a new hatchery in an unstable area,” 9999 sighs, “Didn’t end well...”
“Sorry to hear that.”
9999 shrugs.
“It happens. We drones can’t do much about it. Anyway, I didn’t even get to join the others fighting the horny pony and his group because everything went pink and we were all sent rocketing away,” it wistfully looks backwards, “The Canlittle-not was so pretty… I wish I could see it again.”
“Uh huh...” the axe pony frowns, processing the creature’s statements, “So… why did you go to not-Canterlot?”
“We were hungry back home all the time and the queen said that ponies are super loving creatures and that we would have all the love we could eat.”
No problem. Didn’t say a word about us attacking the city. This infiltration stuff is easy!
“Wait, you eat love? How does one eat an emotion?”
“Umm, you have to ask that one of the high ranks. We drones just dig and carry stuff around and… and… we...” it clutches its head, suddenly drawing blanks where pony words used to be, “No… bad… back. Nothing. Empty,” gritting its teeth, 9999 starts frantically pointing backwards, “Back. Must. Back. Empty.”
“What?”
“Back! Axe. Pony. Walk.”
Despite confusion and paranoia mounting, the pony turns around and follows the trail back. So far, several things are clear. One - the creature isn’t alone, or wasn’t. Likely isn’t, because it said it was supposed to show itself to them. Two - it was in Canterlot, and recently, and probably caused some trouble. Three - it’s not that smart and right now it seems equally as confused by the turn of events as he is.
9999 suddenly jumps off of the axe pony’s back and bolts into the undergrowth.
“Hey!” the axe pony calls out, stomping after it.
A moment later, he finds the creature near a second one lying on the ground the size and rough shape of an adult mare, nudging her with its muzzle and trying to shake her awake to no avail.
As the pony approaches, the small creature growls at him and bares its fangs.
“I don’t know what’s going on but I’m not going to hurt either of you, okay?” he says.
“Bad. Help.” 9999 is grasping for words it can still recall, growing angry at itself for failing to convey any coherent message. It leans down to 1988’s muzzle and starts licking it.
Axe pony leans close as well, puts his ear to the mouth of the possibly adult and female version of the critter, and frowns when he feels no breath tickle him. If this is connected to the small one’s sudden loss of speech, whatever happened here must have happened recently.
“Okay, okay. Resuscitation it is then,” he pushes the small one away, “Stay clear, keep an eye out on any danger,” he says, hoping it can still at least understand him.
9999 starts to chitter and buzz as it sees the axe pony sit on 1988’s barrel and start repeatedly pressing down with his forelegs so hard 1988’s carapace cracks. It gets ready to bite the pony to at least convey the message that this is wrong, opens its mouth…
...and then the pony leans down and kisses 1988.
9999 pauses.
More pushing down, cracking, and visible hurting.
Another kiss.
Over and over and over.
9999 has no clue what to make of it.
Until, that is, 1988’s eyes bulge and he starts gasping for breath and coughing.
The axe pony stands up, looks at the small one, and can’t dodge the buggy bullet as the now crying critter launches itself at his neck and starts hugging and nuzzling every place it can reach, smearing green snot all over his coat. He sits down and pats its head, not letting his eyes leave the adult one staring ahead with her eyes wide open.
“There there...”
As the adult one manages to shakily sit up, she looks around in clear panic before her eyes settle on the pony.
“What… where is it…?” she whispers.
“Where’s what?” asks the pony.
“The… the thing that jumped me. It looked like a changeling but… but...” her thousand-yard stare returns, “It wasn’t one.”
“Miss, I have no idea what you saw but you can thank the little one for bringing me to you immediately. You weren’t breathing and your heart stopped.”
“I...” 1988 reaches for his chest and touches the deep spider web of cracks there, “Why did you help me?” he asks.
“I couldn’t just leave a lady lying dead in the middle of nowhere. What sort of a question is that?” the axe pony furrows his brows.
1988 tries to make sense of the situation. It’s just him and 9999, the others are who-knows-where by now. He could go find them and warn them about the… thing but that would either mean he would have to lead the pony to them or that he would have to walk through the forest… alone.
He shudders.
No, we’re here, we have a mission, and I sure as hole am not walking around on my own in case there are more of the damn creatures.
So… the pony didn’t slit my throat with that forester knife on his belt. 9999 is shaken but unhurt. 156 and 387 were right, the logging camp must be behind on the news about Canterlot.
Taking a deep breath to steady himself, 1988 offers a hoof for the pony to shake.
“I’m 1988, that’s 9999, in case it didn’t tell you already.”
“Hacksmith,” replies the pony, “From Central Stalliongrad logging company. Miss, if you don’t mind me asking, why do you refer to yourself with numbers?”
“I’m a stallion,” 1988 scores a small victory as he sees the earth pony twitch. Another why-boner experience just like during the preparations in Canterlot, “Don’t worry, I get that a lot. As for the numbers, it’s just how our species works, that’s all. 9999, stop hanging around mister Hacksmith’s neck and slobbering all over him.”
“Sorry,” 9999 drops, “I was just so happy mister Hacksmith helped you get better. What happened, anyway? Why aren’t you with the others?”
“Others?” asks Hacksmith.
1988’s eye twitches.
Well done revealing that there are more of us the second you open your mouth...
“We’re not keen on pitchforks and torches on sight,” he says carefully, “Our occasional contact with other species rarely ended well,” he shows his fangs, sharper and longer than 9999’s, “9999 was sent here to see how you’d react to the sight of us.”
“I think he’s rather friendly.”
“It.”
“Hmm?”
“Drones are genderless,” 1988 corrects him.
“Why are you here, anyway, 1988?” asks 9999.
“Keeping an eye on you in case of trouble, obviously,” 1988 rolls his eyes, “And making sure you can still speak and understand ponish.”
“So he stopped being able to talk because you...” Hacksmith pauses, “What did happen to you, actually?”
1988 shivers.
“Can we talk about it somewhere… safer?”
“I was just bringing 99… 99?”
“Yup! Right on the first try!” the drone beams at him.
“To the main camp to see the foreman,” Hacksmith can’t help patting his head again. This drone creature just seems inherently huggable.
“Mind if I tag along?” asks 1988, “I could keep my distance, but… after what happened I’d rather not be alone around here anymore.”
“Anything specific we should keep an eye on?” asks 9999.
“It looked like a changeling but… hollow,” 1988 grits his teeth, “As if something was wearing a changeling carapace and you could see smaller things… squirming under it,” he looks around as the wind whispers through the canopy, “I don’t want to be out here in the open after dark,” to Hacksmith he adds, “Keep that knife ready.”