Hearing was the first of my senses to return this time. It wasn’t surprising, since the argument going on nearby was loud enough to wake the dead.
“Why’d you let him die?!”
“Listen, dweeb, I moved as fast as I could! The debris hadn’t even all hit the ground yet!”
“You should have been ready! Should’ve been out the door before they even hit the building!”
“Yeah, sure, and I should have let myself get pasted when they crashed that crazy contraption! Or maybe let myself get swarmed by ghosts when it didn’t work! And then where would you be, huh?”
“Stop it!” Posey shrieked, and both Raindrops and Gilda went silent at the outburst. “Raindrops, I feel just as bad about Rivet as you do, but it’s not Gilda’s fault!”
“You’re taking her side—?”
“Ha! See what I—”
“And Gilda, you shut your beak!” Posey’s voice was still shrill, and silenced the hen once more. “You’re right. But you’re being a real jerk about it, and we’ve just lost another one of our friends. Stop twisting the knife.”
Gilda huffed, but only responded a moment later, after she seemed sure that Posey wasn’t gonna shriek at her again. “Ruttin’ sue me. I get to take credit for killing an entire city, which was really cool, but I guess you’re the wrong beings to brag about that with. Typical ponies.” I heard her claws scrape across gravel as she stood, and moved closer to me.
As Gilda stepped away, Posey’s voice grew quiet. “Raindrops. Don’t. You’re not mad at her.”
“Rutting try it, feather duster!” Gilda cackled.
“Go nest in an outhouse!” Raindrops shot back, but she stayed put. “I dunno, Posey, I’m pretty mad at her specifically.”
Gilda apparently decided to join me, instead; I felt her presence more than anything else, because she moved so quietly that I couldn’t hear her over the rain. After a moment, she gave my shoulder a shake. “You’re still dead, huh?”
I let out a low whine. My back still burned, and I didn’t really wanna get up just yet. There was still plenty of gravel to lie in uncomfortably. But it seemed to be enough for Gilda to stop shaking me. “Oh cool, guess you’re back already. I tried to get that bottle out of your bag again in case that’d help, but I couldn’t find it. Sorry.”
“...s’fine...lemme st-stay here...hurts…”
“Yeah, will do for a while. That junked contraption pretty much pinned you to the street, and it took some doing to get you untangled from it, but I guess it must’ve looked worse than it was.”
“...great…”
“I’m gonna sit here, by the way. You look a little less likely to start shouting at me.”
“...s’fine...”
“Cool.” Gilda paced around my body a few times, patting down the gravel with her claws and paws, before she settled down beside me.
Now that she was still, I could hear the conversation a short distance away again. Raindrops was talking, and she sounded nervous. “—still watching the rooftops, though. I don’t believe that was really all of them, and even if it was, the Banshee herself is still out there. We gave her a black eye, but that’s a long way from killing her outright.”
“That’s good. Focus on that, instead of shouting at Gilda. All that does is attract attention anyways.”
There was silence for a long few moments, aside from the sounds of the rain above. It still didn’t sound like it had progressed properly to a storm, but I could hear the insistent pattering of rain all around me. It spattered the gravel, and rattled the tin rooftops that seemed to be all around us. It wasn’t striking me directly, so wherever they’d carried me to was outside, but dry, and safe from the rain.
Raindrops spoke, eventually. “I hate that we left him like that. Him and Star Bright.”
“We did what we could. He’s not wandering around outside, so he shouldn’t hurt anypony else, including ourselves.”
“But still, locking him up like that…” Raindrops trailed off, and her voice trembled. “Should we have at least blocked them into the same room? So they had each other for company?”
Posey’s voice was soft. I could barely hear her above the rain. “I don’t think they would have understood that. They’d just keep fighting each other forever, trying to take the last little scrap they have left, that can never be taken. Better to leave them separate, so they can rest.”
“I guess...I just...augh.”
“Besides, that would have been dangerous. Maud and Ocellus put a lot of work into barricading Star Bright in—we would have had to disassemble that, kill him again, then block it all up again. We could have lost others doing that.”
Raindrops was silent again, for a while. “How many more do you think we’ll lose?”
“We shouldn’t be asking that.”
“Do you think any of us are going to make it back to Ponyville?”
“Raindrops.”
“Sorry. I just...I should’ve gone with him, instead of Holly.”
“What would you have done better?”
“...I don’t know. But I feel awful. I had to have been able to do something.”
“At least Holly didn’t get drained too. They could have both gone Hollow.”
“Stars and Moon, we should have had a better plan than that…” Raindrops started to mumble to herself, and she quickly grew inaudible as she tried to work out any better way to accomplish what we’d done, long after the time for planning had passed.
After a short while, my back pain settled down to a low roar, and I heard more hoofsteps approach. Maud, Roma, and Ocellus presumably, though that guess was confirmed but moments later by Maud’s own voice as she spoke to Raindrops. “Ocellus has finished placing her pheromone trails. She would like us to hurry.”
“Yes. Scent-m-markers…loud smell! But sisters cover, when f-find scent wrong. Little time.”
Raindrops sighed, and started to get up. “Maud. You’re sure you trust Ocellus?”
“With my life.” There was no hesitation. No worry. Maud spoke with conviction, as she always did, and even then...her words had a weight to them. If she was wrong, then those words would have stood strong, like a boulder in a river, until reality changed itself around them.
“Alright. Then let’s do this.” Raindrops raised her voice a bit, as she turned to us. “Gilda! We’re going. Can you carry Holly? We need to put her corpse somewhere safe while we do this.”
“Don’t need to, she’s already back!” Gilda gave me another shake to wake me up, and I forced my eyes open, as much as I didn’t want to start moving just yet.
“What?” Raindrops asked incredulously, and she hopped into a quick glide that terminated in a scattering of gravel when she landed. “Holly? That was fast, you’ve been dead for...a few hours, at most. The scouting team couldn’t have taken longer than that.”
“Hey, she’s a tough mare!” Gilda cackled, as she slapped my shoulder. “Kinda groggy though. Let’s go double-check everyone’s gear while she gets her hooves under her.”
Raindrops hesitantly nodded, before she turned back to the others. Gilda dropped low, and whispered through her beak. “Need you up and moving, Holly. Neck some more of that potion, I’ll keep their eyes off you.” Then she stood up, and fluttered her wings as she stepped out into the rain, towards the others.
The liquid sunlight really wasn’t as big a deal as Gilda was making of it; she seemed to think it was some sort of secret that I was keeping from the others, when really it just hadn’t come up. If it would have saved anypony who’d gone Hollow, I would’ve been happy to let them drink the whole bottle. But so far, I hadn’t been in any position to rescue them, mostly because I was too busy fighting for myself.
Still, the fact that Gilda was happy to keep my secret, such as she was, to put so much unnecessary effort into keeping that secret...I’d earned Gilda’s friendship, even if I wasn’t entirely sure how. That made me wary, especially after what I’d gone through with Trixie, but so far it seemed like the other horseshoe hadn’t dropped yet. For now, I was happy to have the support, and I’d just need to be wary about what exactly I agreed to do for Gilda going forward.
While Gilda kept the others distracted, I reached back into the cold darkness of the bottomless bag, and withdrew the flask once more. The sunlight within had yet to refill past half, but it would be enough for a quick swig, at the very least. I brushed the fine white powder off the glass, uncorked the bottle, and felt liquid fire spread through my body once more.
It was over too soon; I needed to save some for whatever fight came next, and I could feel my very soul yearning for more of the fire as I tilted the bottle vertical once more, and re-corked the flask. The liquid I’d already drunk flowed through me, and my back burned hot for a few moments as the last of the pins-and-needles sensation in my hinds began to fade.
I’d left myself maybe a quarter of the flask’s contents, and it still felt like I’d taken too much. I felt confident that I could move normally again, at least. I stowed the bottle back in the bag, and stood on shaking hooves, before I moved to rejoin the others.
I’d woken up in...what seemed to be an industrial area? I saw smokestacks and tin-roofed warehouses all around us, and we seemed to be in a storage lot behind a factory. The ground beyond angled sharply into a steep hill, forming one border of the lot, and an ancient rusting train sat atop the hill, presumably on a track that ran the length of the ridge. A large underground access tunnel, part of Baltimare’s own infrastructure, had been built into the hill itself, and the rest of the group was standing in front of that.
But the biggest surprise, as I looked around us at Baltimare, was how clearly I could see all of it. The fog that had filled the city was almost totally gone now, and I could see the mountains and the rest of the city clearly for once, despite the stormy clouds above. Ever since we’d arrived here, the city had been like the rest of the wilds outside of Ponyville, drenched in fog so thick you could hardly see more than fifty body-lengths, unless you could get above the fog layer. But now it was more akin to Ponyville itself, with how shockingly clear the air was.
I soon found my eyes drawn to the factory buildings themselves, however. They were clearly hollow shells of what they had once had been, since it appeared a fire had raged through this district of the city at some point. It was too large for a bucket brigade or pegasus weather crew to have even tried to extinguish it, or maybe they’d been too busy. Maybe the Changelings had attacked the buildings, or the ponies had been trying to attack this entrance to the hive, and the buildings were the result of collateral damage? Or had the ghosts been attacking the ponies within, or had it just been a skirmish between the specters and the Changelings inside of a great, dead city?
No matter the cause, the buildings themselves were the only clues left now, and all that was left of them were the brick smokestacks, steel girders that had once held up the walls, and slumping catwalks. It must have been an incredible blaze to warp the steel itself; I wasn’t surprised to spot a distant steel mill, just as ruined as the others.
Everypony else seemed a little surprised to see me up and moving again, but nothing else was really made of it. I noticed that Ocellus was no longer wearing her Princess Twilight disguise, presumably to move amongst her sisters within the Hive. They were all focused on Maud, who was giving an explanation of the area. As she spoke, she indicated the large gated entrance, and the smaller access door set into the grate. “—marked on the map which entrances were locked, unlocked, and blocked off. The changelings spent weeks gathering rubble and detritus to funnel all incursions into a few specific tunnels, but most of them still connect to a series of cisterns. We’ll stop in cistern 12-West, while Ocellus and another being continue deeper into the Hive.”
“I thought you fillies didn’t like tunnels anymore.” Gilda chuckled.
“That specific tunnel had something...wrong with it. Like the knife. That same sort of dark magic,” Roma explained with a shudder. “We won’t be going back through that tunnel, but this one should be fine.”
Maud nodded. “Ocellus told me they’ve left the emergency lights on, and we all have miner’s headlamps now. We should have more than enough light. Any other questions?”
“How bad is it gonna smell?” Raindrops asked tiredly.
“It won’t.” Maud stated. “This is a storm drain, not a sewer. It redirects rainwater from the mountains under the city and into the harbor, so the streets themselves don’t flood.”
Several ponies all looked up at the storm that had been lazily showering us with rain since we’d arrived in Baltimare. Somepony, maybe multiple someponies, made a noise similar to “Uhhh.”
Maud must’ve expected the question. “Changelings don’t like being flooded out any more than ponies do. They’ve kept the actual active parts of the tunnels from being blocked, but sealed off the redundant flow chambers. Eventually the weathering will cause the concrete in that single tunnel to erode, but that will take several centuries. Any more questions?”
“Who’s going with Ocellus into the Hive itself?” Raindrops asked.
“That hasn’t been decided yet. It was the next major point of discussion.”
Gilda shrugged. “I don’t have any other questions. Unless someone else does?”
There was a quiet chorus of “no”s from around the group.
“Then we might as well work that out now. We’ve got a bait team and the rescue team, right?”
Maud nodded at the gryphon hen. “Correct. The ‘rescue team’ will be Ocellus and one other being. Everyone else will be part of the ‘bait team.’ It’s ultimately up to her, but I strongly suggested you, Gilda.”
“What?” Gilda balked, and tilted her head. “Why? You trying to get rid of me, now?”
“No. You’re exceptionally skilled at moving quickly and quietly, as well as being a competent fighter. The rescue team is likely to encounter patrols along the way. I’d go with her, but Avalanche needs clearance to be swung, and I’d be more useful as a distraction.”
Ocellus spoke up. “Not Gil’da. Don’t...trust.”
Gilda cackled at that. “Hah! Then we’re in agreement, bug. Besides, I don’t do cramped tunnels like that, I’m already disliking the cisterns you mentioned before.”
Raindrops nodded. “I understand that. But it limits our options a bit. I can do cramped tunnels, but I can’t fight in them, I need space for charging and bucking. Roma?”
Roma shook her head. “Same, plus I don’t do quiet very well, and Posey doesn’t fight. Holly?”
Everyone looked at me, and after a moment, I shrugged. “O-okay. I can do cramped tunnels, as long as w-we’re quick, and I can f-fight.”
Roma nodded. “She’s got some earth pony in her too; she can haul Trixie out on her back. You alright with that, Ocellus?”
The changeling in question examined me, and I was struck with an immense feeling of guilt as I peered into her eyes. They were just like that poor changeling from before, the one I’d killed in the library. One of her sisters. And I think she remembered that too; she seemed hesitant, maybe because I hadn't really done anything to earn her trust personally. Eventually she looked at Maud."You...trust, yes?"
Maud nodded. "Holly's shown herself to be both competent and reliable, as well as extremely resilient in combat. But she does get confused easily, and she may panic if overwhelmed."
"You sure you're not directly related to that honest apple pony?" Gilda grumbled, as she rolled her eyes. "Holly, bug, you'll be fine. Keep yourself focused, stay low, and take things slow. Once you get past the perimeter patrols, the bugs inside the hive itself won't be expecting intruders, so sneaking past them will be a breeze. Gryphon sapper teams used to do it all the time, to clear out infestations."
Ocellus still looked unsure. "Need sneak past Ken...Ken a' Kens, royal nurse caste too. Steal f-food, own hive...great danger. Treason."
"So don't get caught. Simple as that." Gilda said with a shrug, and turned back to Raindrops. "Are we gonna get moving, or are we just gonna stand around and squawk while the bugs work out the bad scent-marks?"
Raindrops and Maud looked at each other, and Raindrops sighed. "Yeah. Let's get moving, and hope for the best. Ocellus, you know the tunnels, so split off when you need to."
Ocellus looked me over one last time, and I tried to look as non-panicky as I could. After once glance back at the group, she nodded. "Hol'lee. Will trust. Walk with...need pr-practice, move silent."
I nodded, and did my best to follow behind the others as Ocellus watched my hooves, and started to give me helpful tips in broken Equuish.
* * *
Maud and Ocellus' description of the storm drains had been detailed, and extremely accurate. The tunnels were wide enough that the seven of us could almost walk abreast, and they were decently well-lit. The emergency lighting itself was spotty along our route, with most of the little lights having burned out long ago with nopony left to replace them, but those pools of light were supplemented by plenty of light from above. Access hatches and gutter drains allowed dim, spotty sunlight to shine down into the tunnels. We also had headlamps, though I left mine off, since I still had the little lightgem given to me by Dinky.
Unfortunately, the one thing they hadn't mentioned as how wet everything was. We were mostly following the tunnels that ran directly below the streets on the surface, as opposed to the deep tunnels below, which were supposedly being flooded with rainwater. But that same rainwater had to pass through this surface section to flow down to those levels, and that meant that every gutter and grille we passed under was gushing filthy rainwater right on top of us.
We avoided it where we could; often we could step around the gushing cascades, and only get spattered by the edge of the torrent. But several times, the tunnel narrowed, and we had to push directly underneath the ice-cold flow as it soaked our armor and fur pelts underneath. If that wasn't enough, the water was almost constantly rushing around our hooves, and sometimes it rose up to the knees. When it did, it was hard to push past the pressure of the flowing water, but Posey and I only slipped once or twice. We recovered quickly enough when we did, though Gilda did start to jokingly worry that our chattering teeth might attract the attention of the changelings.
If nothing else, she added, the flowing water would make us nearly impossible to track by scent or hoofprint. Ocellus did warn us briefly that the walls in the tunnels had ears, but even she admitted a few minutes later that Gilda was probably correct.
Raindrops and Gilda were still debating combat positions, based off of Maud's description of the cistern's layout, when we broke away from the group. Posey noticed us moving to a dark side tunnel, and she gave us a worried wave as we left, which I returned. From how it sounded, they shouldn't be in any major danger; since the large, loud group was staying put and not advancing directly towards the hive, the Changelings shouldn't attack them, or so Ocellus had claimed.
But the changelings weren't handling this calamity any better than we ourselves were. If anything, it sounded as if they had it even worse than us Hollowed Undead did, somehow. That kind of desperation, that futile struggle for survival, could drive any creature to fear, panic, and even madness.
The side tunnel itself was much darker than the main tunnel; the emergency lights in here looked as though they'd been intentionally smashed, and since it seemed to be a maintenance hallway, there were no gutters or grates above to let in natural light. But that also meant the tunnel was blissfully dry, or at least it was just uncomfortably clammy, instead of being filled knee-deep with running water. Compared to the main storm drains, this was a relief, though it quickly became nerve-wracking in its own way.
Without the light from the other headlamps, we were both relying almost entirely on the dim pool of light that my necklace provided. While I'm sure that it would have been worse with a bright, directed beam of light, I couldn't keep myself from getting jumpy whenever the shadows shifted. Soon, every discarded toolbox or broken pipe became a changeling lurking in the dark, waiting for us to look away so they could tackle us from behind.
But Ocellus seemed more confident in the dark; she could probably see through the gloom a lot better than I could, and now that it was just the two of us in the darkness, she didn't seem quite so nervous.
That meant that, when we came across a gloomy intersection and her head suddenly snapped to the side in alarm, I froze. I hadn't even begun to consider moving, before Ocellus spun, grabbed my lightgem in her hoof, and shoved it back under my armor. We were plunged into darkness, and I felt Ocellus pull me down one of the other passages before she held me still. Even if she didn't keep a hoof over my muzzle, I wouldn't have said anything—I was sure she had her reasons, and I had no intention of blowing our stealth by doing a stupid thing like asking about them right this second.
We laid still in the darkness together for a long few moments. Long enough that I started to notice how surprisingly warm her chitin was. I thought it would be cold, like my own hooves, but the hard, dry insectoid surface was warm to the touch. It was smooth, too; for some reason I thought the edges of the overlapping plates would be sharp, but they didn't even catch my fur in between them, as I was afraid they would.
Then I heard the buzzing, distant and echoing, and that became all I could focus on. Something pony-sized, and fast, buzzed past us at the speed of a galloping pony. It was followed by several others, all flying down the tunnel in single file, and they whizzed by fast enough that I couldn't have counted them if I tried. They felt, and sounded, like a single buzzing mass. They were moving too fast to dodge, and they would have caught us for sure had Ocellus not yanked us into hiding.
The buzzing faded slowly, but Ocellus didn't move. A moment later, I understood why—one last straggler passed by our hiding place, hidden by the buzzing of the main group, and moving just a bit slower. I remained as still as I could, not even breathing, and that seemed to be enough. The last changeling disappeared down the tunnel in the direction we'd come from, and soon the tunnel was silent once more.
Ocellus waited another minute to be sure, and then fumbled with the neckline of my armor. She exposed my lightgem just enough that I could see her fanged, black-chitin muzzle in the dark, and her own hoof before it; a warning to stay quiet. "W-walls. Ears. F-follow, yes?"
I nodded in understanding, and Ocellus began to lead me through the darkness blindly.
* * *
That happened twice more, but by the third time it did, Ocellus hardly had to do anything. I heard the distant buzz, and was already halfway to dropping to the side of the corridor. I did knock over a discarded beer bottle, but it only rattled once before I clapped my hooves over it to hold it still. If the changeling patrol heard the rattling glass, they gave no indication, and passed by us without slowing down.
I’d also quickly worked out that, while I couldn’t see, I could still sense Ocellus’ fire, and the fire of the other changelings on patrol. So long as I stuck to her closely, and moved carefully, then I could maneuver the tunnels blind just fine. But that was only because I had her guidance. Still, it gave me a small bit of insight into the changeling patrols themselves.
I had come to be fairly sure that the patrols moved in groups of six. There was the lead, a mass of four, and then a rearguard that seemed to be watching for anyone trying to get around their patrol pattern. Now that I knew she was there as part of their formation, she was easy enough to avoid...but then, that trick only had to work for the changelings once. I tried not to think about how many beings had learned about the rearguard the loud, sudden way.
Once they were long gone, we started moving again, and I found my attention drawn to the floor under my hooves. The bare concrete had begun to change slightly, as the ambient moisture in the tunnels turned into an actual film of...something. It wasn’t liquid, but it wasn’t solid, either. My hooves slipped easily into faint hoof-shaped grooves, pressed into whatever the soft, fluid material was. Those grooves were too old to be from Ocellus, since the material was still stiff enough to retain its shape for a while.
I was reminded unnervingly of a wasp nest, and the wax such hives were built from. Wasps mostly used plant material, layered with their own secretions, but there was no fibrous texture under my hooves. It felt more like a layer of grit, like river silt, mixed with thick snot. And the further into the tunnels we ventured, the thicker it had been layered over the floor. Already, I could no longer feel the concrete under my hooves. I tried not to think about whatever sort of residue it must have been leaving on my armor whenever we dodged the patrols.
Eventually there was a distant glow of light from the end of the tunnel, dim and green. As we approached, I mimicked Ocellus’ crouched movement, as we slowly crawled forward. I couldn’t recognize this tunnel as being part of Baltimare’s infrastructure any more; they’d completely coated the tunnel with whatever changeling resin I was seeing now. It was hard to tell in the dim green light, but it looked like the resin was naturally black—or perhaps a green so dark as to be close to black?—almost like they’d wallpapered the tunnel with their own chitin.
Ocellus motioned to the left side of the glowing entrance, and I followed behind her as we stuck to the wall, trying to stay undetected as we entered the room. For once, I could almost see clearly despite having spent so long in the darkness, since the dim green glow wasn’t bright enough to blind me. Together, we entered the changeling hive, and I tried to take it all in while remaining as small and hidden as I could.
The grand cistern was undeniably pony-made, and I could still see bare concrete on the ceiling and near the tops of the support pillars. But everything lower than that had been coated in slick black changeling resin, applied in layers that were pulled downwards by gravity like glaciers made of goo instead of ice. They seemed to have taken offense with the level floor of the cistern, and the new structures in which they’d covered the room sloped upwards into hills, which were then riddled with hundreds of tunnels bored through the resin.
Princess Celestia could have comfortably walked through the tallest of the tunnels, while others were merely large enough for a pony to crawl into, and some were even smaller than that, barely large enough to poke the tip of a quill into. A great many of them were occupied, filled with the dark forms of sleeping—or dead—changelings. Others were filled with piles of trash they must have dragged down from the surface and bound together in bright green webbing, like spiders that had picked up hoarding. I saw tools, clothing, toys, and even some small furniture, all packed away in storage for purposes unknown, maybe even to the changelings themselves.
And there were a great deal of changelings themselves, beyond those inside the holes. Too many to count buzzed through the hive like honeybees, or clambered over the resin to check the edges. I saw a few of them hacking up some foul liquid and smearing it on as a fresh layer, but sometimes I saw it steam as it touched the hardened resin that was already there, and they began carving new holes in the melting material. Others did nothing but buzz their wings, circulating air through the holes and the hive overall to keep it from overheating. A few even checked the dim green bioluminescent blobs that lit the rooms, and the lighting flickered occasionally as a changeling eclipsed the strange organic lamps.
Ocellus stuck to the shadows as we moved through it all, and I followed her as closely and as quietly as I could. Though she could likely walk amongst her sisters normally, I would be on my own if she needed to do so, and so her stealthy movements were more for my benefit than her own. Occasionally, we’d pause as she peeked around a resin curve, or the rare exposed concrete wall, and then nod as we moved forward once more.
It was impossible to know if we stayed in that one singular cistern, or if we moved into a series of similar cisterns that had been completely overtaken by the changelings. We entered the tunnels, and we only grew more wary creeping past the sleeping and the still. At one point Ocellus shoved me into one of the sleeping-holes, and I panicked for a moment—it had been occupied, or so I thought.
As Ocellus covered my hiding place with her body, my hoof brushed the changeling I lay alongside, and the empty husk wavered in the breeze that blew through the hive. Though it was hard to see for sure, it seemed to be nothing more than a hollow exoskeleton; the changeling it had once belonged to must have died, or shed their skin in some way. And so it had just been...left here. How many others must have been like this, all around me?
I didn’t like touching the discarded chitin. It felt disrespectful, somehow. I was relieved when Ocellus stepped away from the hole, and helped me crawl out so we could continue forwards.
Eventually, our smaller side tunnel joined a very large tunnel, and Ocellus was visibly nervous as we moved through it. The holes in the sides grew fewer and fewer, and soon, smooth solid resin surrounded us entirely. Eventually, the tunnel opened out into another large cistern, but one with a large, open area in the center that seemed to be well-lit by the green lighting overhead. Dozens of changelings buzzed around the edges, and their transparent bellies glowed a bright green as they disappeared and reappeared from small side tunnels.
We were halfway through the room when a loud hiss echoed through the chamber, and every creature within froze. There was a large opening at the far end of the room, undeniably our destination, and just above that, a smaller opening, like a guard tower that had been dug into the resin itself. From within, a large, dark form crawled out, eyes glowing as they looked directly at the two of us.
“Och’alis. What’s the meaning of this? Bringing a p-pony in here, awake and armed. That’s not safe for us...especially since you seem to be leading her into the deepest p-parts of our Ken’s hive...” The voice sounded male, to my surprise. Ocellus had described the other changelings as her sisters...though, I supposed, gender was more of a preference when used to describe a race of shapeshifters.
As the other changelings in the room fled to the ceiling, and their searching, blinking eyes found the two of us, Ocellus shuddered in terror. “Tor’inx! Wait, can, can explain!”
“I’m eager to hear this ex-explanation, then. I would like to know how you can p-possibly justify this b-betrayal.” This male changeling was larger than the others by about a head, if not more, and the buzzing of his wings as he descended into the light before us made the air whistle through the holes that riddled the walls. His fangs were bared, and I dare not move, because Ocellus might still be able to keep things peaceful.
“Remember p-pony princess, yes? Ken Ti’lit, and Harm-monic Elements. P-pony captured, not long p-past, had element. Need take, p-pony too. Dangerous. B-but important, to p-ponies.”
“You need to take them?” The changeling—Tor’inx—repeated to me, in the form of a question. I nodded slowly, and he hissed again. “I remember the p-pony princesses. Enemies. Old enemies. And to take a p-pony from the hive...no. No, cannot. Cannot weaken ourselves b-before the enemy.”
“Not eme-ene-enemy!” Ocellus protested. “Important! Keep w-world safe, f-fix the sun, they th-think!”
“I don’t think so,” hissed Tor’inx. “I’ve seen the w-world above, Och’alis. Can’t be f-fixed. Not anymore. The Ken a’ Kens dealt a deadly blow to the p-ponies, just like she p-promised. Soon, won’t be any p-ponies left. Just need to wait for them to die out.”
Tor’inx then narrowed his glowing eyes at me. “So...w-why would we help them try to f-fix this? Go against the w-will of our Ken a’ Kens? Defy her, so openly?”
“Can’t kill,” Ocellus whimpered, as she withered under his gaze. “Can’t kill. Changelings...parasites. Host dies...hive dies.”
“I trust our Ken, unlike you, Och’alis. You’re helping the enemy...led them into our hive, seek to steal our f-food for yourself.” Tor’inx hissed again, and it sounded like a sword being dragged across a whetstone. The changelings above receded back into their holes in the walls, but I could still see their eyes glittering in the dim light as they watched, like an audience. “Traitor. Selfish, hungering traitor...Ken would have you killed, both of you. M-make an example out of you, so other sisters know not to challenge her orders.”
Ocellus stepped back, trembling in fear, and Tor’inx began to buzz his wings as he advanced on us. All I could do was draw my sword, and step in front of Ocellus, because any semblance of stealth we had carried with us so far was gone. This changeling wouldn’t allow us any further, nor would he allow us to leave. If I didn’t fight, then our journey was going to end here, in this dark, damp changeling hive deep underneath Baltimare.
Only one thought filled my head, as Ocellus shrieked and ducked, and Tor’inx leapt towards us. “I don’t want to die in here.”