This is no longer my hive.
“In the name of the true queen, we demand your surrender,” came the scout’s insidious voice. “If you step out now, you will be permitted to retain whatever love you have left in reserve. However, if these fine soldiers here have to exert themselves... Well, they might just be authorized to replenish the energy expended on your capture before returning to the hive’s feeding pool.”
Yeah, that is not my queen’s modus operandi. Serosa would never allow feeding on another changeling, especially not a returning infiltrator.
I forced myself to set aside any ‘what-ifs’ floating about in my mind and focus on the situation. There would be time enough to worry about something that has already happened later.
Work now, brood later.
I knew there was no chance of fighting my way out of that ravine. The alternative—surrendering myself to a hostile hive—would only be acceptable if I were tired of life. Which, for the record, I was not.
The scout had, quite accurately, guessed that my reserves must be nearly depleted. I had enough love left to create one short-range fire portal, perhaps medium-range if I were willing to abandon Miss Time.
A quick scan of my immediate surroundings told me that the only moisture in the cracked soil around me had been a result of my unfortunate landing. There was very little vegetation that I could use to conceal myself. If I were to step away from this boulder, any critter I might disguise myself as would be thoroughly scrutinized. I had already declared myself an infiltrator after all.
I knew that the hive was still an hour or so away, even as the crow flies. Hence, it was unlikely that the various caverns scattered among the cliffs on either side were directly connected to it, meaning reinforcements would be unlikely to arrive quickly. If these drones were merely a semi-permanent perimeter defense team, they would likely keep the cocoon with them to feed on without having to replenish love crystals from the hive.
I could leave her here, fire-portal to Colton to feed, then come back in a few days to reclaim her. Except, that is the textbook response to this situation. They’d assuredly watch the nearby settlements, waiting for me.
Alternatively, I could...
“Tempting,” I called back between labored breaths, “but I have a counter-proposal.”
Amusement. Suspicion.
Perfect.
I overcharged my horn with as much magic as I could still produce and formed the emerald ring of a fire portal around Double Time’s cocoon. It was challenging to see through those flames, thanks to the amount of power I threw at it.
Next, I lunged from my hiding place and dove toward the portal as the cocoon began to sink into the ground. As I passed into and then beyond the blinding aura of magic, I assumed a new disguise. I gambled on the fact that my audience was hopefully too far away and at least partially shielding their eyes to notice.
I cracked one eye open and silently watched the young mare slip into the ground and disappear as I slid to a stop on the far side of the fading portal. From my new position, I waited for their reactions.
I wasn’t overly concerned about the soldiers. I knew enough about their training regiment to know that they were unlikely to see through my ploy. It was the scout on the ridge above me that had me worried. She was the one I would have to deceive.
In a perfect world, the changelings around me wouldn’t notice the inclusion of one more rock among the former riverbed. And, if all went according to plan, Miss Time would be comfortably resting among the treeline just beyond the badlands, back the way we had come.
There was no movement.
Even after an hour of sitting there, locked in place as an inanimate object, not a single soldier or scout approached my hiding place, nor did anyling pass through my limited field of vision.
One hour became two, and the effort to suppress my emotions gradually became a strain that I was destined to lose. If even one of them had remained nearby and reasonably alert, they’d have soon detected my subterfuge.
I need to be quick and act before it gets any darker. It is already late enough in the day to make the flash from disguise magic visible against the shadows in the ravine. Every minute I waste at this point makes it less and less likely that I will escape notice.
I decided to change into a small indigenous rodent known as a gorge pika, which resembled a mixture of squirrel and rabbit. They were exceedingly abundant vermin that scurried among the rocks in these ravines like starving rats. They were small, with stone-grey fur on their backs, tan on their face and sides, and cream-colored fur on their bellies. They were challenging to spot against the rocky terrain and were far more prolific than any other animal in the badlands.
Even if the transformation was recognized, I should have enough time to vacate the immediate area before anyling could effectively pursue me. Once I made it to the ravine cliff edge, I would be all but invisible.
Unfortunately—though unsurprisingly—my suspicions turned out to be accurate. Even as I was melting into my new disguise, multiple magical darts blasted rock chips into the air, scorching the ground around me.
I raced toward the cliff wall as fast as my diminutive little legs would take me, doing all that I could to ignore the renewed agony in my chest.
Emerald death rained down around me as I ran. Amplified by my relative size, the otherwise ordinary combat spell seemed all the more intimidating. Thankfully, that same matter of scale worked both ways. The soldiers had a difficult time hitting such a small, moving target.
Twice during my mad dash, I was forced to abruptly change direction and dive for cover among the scrub brush or behind a rock, but to remain in those impromptu hiding places would mean capture.
I kept moving from cover to cover in what I hoped would be unpredictably varied direction and speed until I eventually made it to the rocky face, which was absolutely pock-marked with small burrows, bird nests, and rodent dens.
After a few quickly chittered words with the understandably irate owner of the refuge within which I invaded, I allowed myself a moment to catch my breath. A few minutes later—and amongst the sounds of changeling energy blasts impacting the rock around my hiding place—I wreathed myself in flames once more, slipped into the ground, and left that ravine behind, possibly forever, even though I really didn’t want to think about that yet.
I managed to dig a shallow burrow for myself, where I exited the fire-portal. I no longer had enough magic to travel directly to where I sent Double Time’s cocoon, so I was forced to walk for the better part of the following day.
I reserved just enough energy to assume the appearance of the hostile scout I had observed. If she crossed my path, I would be in trouble, but at least this way, I could avoid any other changelings who might be looking for me.
My wing was still broken, and the puncture in my carapace remained a significant concern, but the disguise allowed me to mitigate the trauma to an extent. I couldn’t ignore the pain entirely, and I had precious little energy left to devote to healing myself. The best I could hope for was to subdue it and make it manageable while focusing on more immediate issues.
By late afternoon on the second day, I finally found myself staring hungrily at Miss Time’s cocoon. I had been deeply worried that the hostiles would locate it before I could limp my way back to where I sent her, so the relief that washed over me to find the chrysalis undamaged was palpable.
I clambered up on top of Double Time’s mobile prison and opened my jaw as wide as I was physically able. I fed on all the love I could wrench out of her, greedily yanking out surface-level emotions as well as deeper subconscious feelings that even she may not have been aware of having.
My gluttony was so great that the raw emotions I was forcefully consuming were actually visible as they passed from her eyes and mouth, through the cocoon’s membrane, and down my throat. At first, the energy appeared as pale minty green wisps that resembled smoke but quickly coalesced into a single nearly-opaque flow... the color of her natural coat.
Her natural coat? Her natural coat!
Feeding off the surface thoughts and outwardly projected love that ponies have such an abundance of doesn’t hurt them. Even when a pony dreams, which is usually the case with cocooned ponies, it is safe to siphon off the feelings that those dreams produce.
However, it is possible to continue feeding even after those surface emotions are depleted. Doing so is akin to murder, however.
You see, ponies are inherently magical creatures. Magic makes up a significant portion of their physical essence—one of the primary reasons they are our prey of choice. Their emotional energy replenishes itself very quickly because of this magical nature. Once the available supply of love dries up, the magic that restores that potential works overtime to do so and ends up being drained just like the emotions themselves.
When that happens, the coat and mane colors fade into shades of grey. Their eyes lose their luster, and eventually, even their cutiemarks become transparent and slowly vanish...
Which is precisely what I had nearly done to Double Time.
I snapped my jaw shut, literally severing the flow of energy between our bodies. In my ravenous attempt to restore my strength, I hadn’t limited my indulgence, resulting in the consumption of some of the mare’s core magical reserves.
Oh no, I thought in a panic. How much did I take from her? If I fed too thoroughly...
What? She’d be hurt? I’d have to find a new source of love to feed on? She’s just a pony like any other. Hoofington or Colton could provide me a dozen more just like her.
Well... not just like her...
Shaking my head in a vain attempt to refocus my thoughts, I resumed the internal process of converting love into healing, sighing slightly as I felt my wounds begin to stitch themselves back together once more. It would be many days before I would be back in combat-ready form, but at least progress was being made again.
I gazed down upon the sleeping face within the cocoon. Gone was the soft smile that had been there through the induced dreams, replaced by a grimace of pain.
While it made me uncomfortable to see her like that, I had to put that aside for the moment and face a new reality. Now that I had recovered the young mare, I was faced with the problem of transporting her.
I couldn’t fly yet, and I certainly couldn’t carry her. And while it may be possible to roll the cocoon, I would almost definitely be seen, either by the hive—which had to be looking for me—or by some hapless pony that I’d be forced to deal with.
Staying there was also out of the question. I had no way of knowing if the hostiles also used this route to infiltrate Colton. If they did, a whole class of young trainees, as well as their instructor and guardians, could pass by at any minute. Even uneducated grubs would notice a feeding cocoon laying in the undergrowth as they approached the forest, so it was unreasonable to expect it to go unmolested.
My best bet is to release Miss Time. She’s incapacitated right now, so I should be able to herd her... wherever it is we are going.
And that’s when it hit me... I had nowhere else to go.
For the first time since encountering the scout and her ravine ambush, I had both the time and the clarity of mind to examine my current situation.
All right, remain calm. Sit rep.
The hive has been defeated, somehow. I doubt that they simply starved in the time that I was away. Food was tight, and my mission was absolutely vital, but the hive should have been able to survive another year or more on the reserves stored in the feeding pit.
The Crystal Empire is unsafe. Either Sombra repelled the ponies and tightened his grip on the city, or the ponies have retaken the empire. Either way, I can’t just take the mare back there and find a new safehouse, nor can I deliver her to Warden and say: ‘whoops, sorry about ponynapping your goddaughter.’
The pony tribes have obviously reconciled to some extent. Their level of technology seems to have exploded since my last assignment in Unicornia. I doubt that’s natural... is Discord involved somehow?
Why would the lord of chaos help ponies, though, unless there was something in it for him? He’s insensitive, but I wouldn’t exactly call him cruel. I fail to see any entertainment to be found in earth pony slavery... assuming, of course, that all three tribes weren’t already enthralled.
No, that doesn’t make any sense. Those unicorn and pegasus soldiers I saw in town would be wearing chicken feathers or polka dots if he was involved, not polished brass. Also, nothing seems to be floating upside-down in the sky or has been turned inside-out... so, there’s that.
Shaking my head to clear the absurdity from my thoughts, I came to the only conclusion that my situation permitted—I would have to camouflage the cocoon somehow and nurse my wounds before I would be able to move her again.
The forest provided ample resources to do just that. It wasn’t difficult to dig away enough soil to partially conceal Miss Time once I managed to roll her into the narrow ditch. From that point, it was a simple matter of covering the brighter green shades of the cocoon with the darker green of leafy tree branches and some of the dirt I had exhumed in the process of carving out her current resting place.
I had left a small window of her prison uncovered. I told myself it was so I could feed once her strength returned, but I found myself checking her face far more often than was strictly necessary. It would be days before it was safe to drain her again.
Over the next several days, the love I had taken from her had begun to restore my strength and gradually seal the puncture wound in my chest chitin. It wasn’t going to be a quick recovery, but at least I could move without excruciating pain.
When I was healed enough to do so, I made my way back into pony lands and headed toward one of the farms which border and supply Colton.
Several hours past sunset, I approached one of the larger barns with a hayloft. Serenaded by the protest of squeaking hinges, which seemed much louder due to the prevailing silence of the night, I coaxed the large wooden door open and stepped inside.
Thankfully, it was a storage building rather than one meant for livestock. What I came for was quickly found and just as easily removed. Within minutes, I had unloaded the majority of the contents that occupied the bed of a two-wheeled cart, stole a rather large blanket I found draped across several bales of hay, and began pulling my acquisitions down the road behind me.
Once I had returned to my makeshift camp, I exhumed Double Time’s cocoon and attempted to place it in the cart. Unfortunately, I came to another one of those annoying revelations which had been cropping up so frequently—it wasn’t going to work the way I had hoped.
The plan was to simply roll the cocoon up a pair of branches onto the cart, cover it with the blanket, and ease my traveling burden by pulling rather than lifting the unwieldy thing.
You see, feeding cocoons are roughly egg-shaped. Without going into the technical—or magical—details of their formation, suffice it to say that they have to be approximately three times larger than the creature they encase to avoid permanent damage to the prisoner.
Thankfully, Miss Time was not a large pony, but her prison was still too insecure on the back of that cart to move at a reasonable pace without fear of losing my precious cargo. Regardless of orientation, it rested on the side rails rather than down in the bed, causing it to want to roll back whenever the cart began to move forward.
Several design modifications came to mind, but I didn’t consider myself very skilled at engineering. While I could have carved out sections of the cart to serve my purpose, I couldn’t afford to draw attention to myself by pulling a personalized vehicle with such a uniquely shaped mystery under blankets in the bed. I needed to maintain some degree of stealth, and in this case, that meant hiding in plain sight. Anything that stood out as unusual could spell disaster.
Sighing to myself, I fell back on plan b.
My horn glowed steadily as I leeched the energy out of the feeding cocoon. The bright green skin covering the chrysalis began to shrivel up like a raisin. Small cracks appeared in the creases while the glossy surface slowly became dull and lusterless. Slimy liquid oozed out of the various breaches that soon formed, and finally, the once-taut membrane split open like a grape, exposing Double Time to fresh air.
Her natural breathing resumed almost immediately, though it remained slow and weak in her unconscious state. If it weren’t for the tiny air bubbles her exhaled breath created in the ooze-like fluid... well, let’s just say I was relieved to see them.
I used a bit more of my magic to lift her out, clean her off, wrap her in the blanket, and place her into the cart. She had been encased and aggressively fed upon for quite a while, so I wasn’t expecting her to wake up any time soon. There was thankfully no need to bind her.
Due to the reduced weight, the trip back into pony lands was less exhausting than I had planned for, though not any quicker. For obvious reasons, I chose to bypass Colton entirely, forcing me to take less-traveled and more poorly maintained paths through the woods. Most of the trails I followed weren’t even roads; they were made by wildlife rather than ponies and not really intended for carts.
A day after leaving the woods behind us, we came upon a small pony community that I didn’t remember from our flight south. It was just as primitive as I had expected it to be; there were perhaps a dozen small buildings facing each other across what was presumably the only road. There was even a small fruit orchard of some sort on the northern side of town. It looked like a typical frontier town, except for one detail. What really stood out to me was the set of metal rails that came to an end in front of an unusually long building with a raised platform behind it.
There was no doubt that these were the same sort of rails upon which that horrifying troop mover I encountered had traveled along. Could this town be a defensive outpost in the making? Were the ponies now aware of the hostile changeling hive on their southern border? It was possible, I supposed, but something about that idea didn’t sit well with me. There were no soldiers in the street.
I needed more information, and this little town seemed perfect for a bit of reconnaissance.
I unhitched myself from the cart and hid it behind a rocky outcropping. Then, with a flash of emerald flame and an enjoyable tingle running up my spine, I disguised myself as an earth pony.
I needed to speak with a few ponies, sure, but I had no desire to make those conversations personal in nature, so I will admit that my temporary identity was rather rudimentary; I would become Bale Flake. Stallion. Brown fur. Two-toned yellow and tan mane cropped short. Green eyes. A cutie mark of two stacked hay bales. It would be sufficient for what I had in mind.
I approached the settlement with feigned confidence while scanning the road and the gaps between buildings for threats. I couldn’t feel any malice or suspicion, so after a few minutes of wandering around and looking in windows, I approached a colt who was loitering in the street.
I learned that this place was called Dodge Junction and was supposedly famous for the cherries that grew in a nearby ranch. The metal rails were indeed a road intended for the boxy vehicle, which I now knew was called a train, and that it was not a troop mover but rather a civilian service that connected all of Equestria.
His words were difficult to believe, and I spent more than a little effort trying to coax him into a lie that I could detect through his emotions. Rather than guilt, smugness, or pride, all I felt directed toward me was his annoyance at answering so many questions.
My questions must be considered common knowledge for him to react this way. Obviously, more has happened to these ponies than their alliance against Sombra.
They’ve formed an entirely new empire, this Equestria as he called it, in the time it took me to infiltrate the Crystal Empire. That shouldn’t be possible. The logistics of currency, infrastructure, even simple information distribution, and civilian acceptance... it’s just not possible in such a short time.
As I stood there working through the issue, a loud whistling sound broke my concentration. When I looked up, the sight of a so-called train greeted me as it gradually slowed and came to a stop behind the long building. At least that saved me from asking yet another question I was now sure I was expected to already know.
I thanked the colt for humoring me and made my way closer to the iron behemoth. I watched as ponies entered and exited the boxy passenger sections, as well as official-looking ponies who were busy removing cargo and luggage from flat areas with no walls.
I also saw ponies exchange small gold coins with each other as they transitioned onto the train. I made a mental note of it and reasoned that pony money must have also changed since Equestria was formed... yet another indication that more time had passed than I felt possible.
Needing to distance Miss Time and me from my former hive, I decided to take advantage of this new vehicle while I had the chance. Quickly returning to the outcropping which hid the cart, I lifted the still-comatose mare in my magic and projected a fire portal beneath us.
We emerged behind a stack of luggage on the flat train car. It took very little time to adjust a few boxes to eliminate any line of sight to our hiding place, and within minutes the train began to move.
It was unnerving at first to have the ground beneath my hooves rocking from side to side, and the sense of rapid motion without effort was disorienting. Every time I looked down at Miss Time’s sleeping form, I grew ever so slightly more jealous that she didn’t seem to care about the situation at all.
Thankfully, after just a few hours, the train once again blew its whistle and began to slow down. Faintly, coming from one of the passenger compartments further forward in the train, I could hear one of the official-looking ponies call out:
“Now arriving at Ponyville station!”