//------------------------------// // 65536: 12 // Story: They're EVERYWHERE! // by Nameless Narrator //------------------------------// Darkness fell on the castle, the Nightguards left the barracks for their respective duties, and 65536 was left alone after being pried out of its glue and paper armor. Said armor would require some serious rebuilding because, before leaving, Pink Sunset got 65536 several cardboard boxes from the kitchen supply closet to supplant the original layered paper structure. After everyone had gone, 65536 decided that accidentally getting stuck to things with the remains of the glue was slowing its efforts down and it could take a shower like Steel Glimmer was doing when it arrived. “Scrub scrub scrub,” 65536 doesn’t have a sponge which for the hard carapace of a drone is absolutely unnecessary, so it simply works its best to scratch the remains of the dried up mix of glue and some paper off with the help of some borrowed soap. It looks directly up to the shower nozzle and opens its mouth. The hardened membrane protecting changeling eyes allows it to enjoy the simple warmth all over its body without any damage to its sight. “Blub blub blub.” A sudden moving rainbow reflection from its soaped up leg hole catches its attention and it blows into the hole.  “Bubblebubblebubble- stop! You still have work to do.” 65536 turns the shower off, spreads its wings, and starts buzzing them as hard as it can to dry itself off. Practice salute? Looking good. Leg glued to head? No? Perfect! Time to get to fixing the flat colors of the new cardboard parts of its armor. Within minutes, 65536 is lying on the ground, a crayon in its mouth and many more scattered around it within reach. “Grey, purple… no, darker purple,” it mumbles to itself, “Exactly like the armor Night Hunter showed me.” Some sort of a completely silent flash barely visible from the corner of its eye catches the drone’s attention and it looks up. A shimmering golden dot surrounded by a hoof-sized aura is floating through the barracks, darting from side to side and hovering momentarily over Nightguard beds as if searching for something. “Huh? A floating shiny?” 65536 stands up, narrowing its eyes. As if hearing the words, the shiny beelines towards 65536, trailing golden sparks, and starts circling over its head. “What could you be?” 65536 reaches out to touch it. The shiny deftly dodges to the side, stops, and starts shaking again. “Are ya laughing at me, shiny? I’ll get ya!” pumped-up by the taunt, 65536 pounces at it but, with unnatural accuracy, it passes through the holes of the drone’s legs, tickling a little. 65536 grins, rising from the ground to face it again. “This is the Nightguard base and Sharp said I was a horrible- no, honorable- no… honorary, right, Nightguard so I have to detain you!” The shiny shakes and makes a few circles in the air. “No, you’re not a Nightguard! You’re not wearing the right kind of helmet,” 65536 points to the cardboard one on the floor, “Like that one.” The floaty flies into the helmet and remains there, glowing. 65536 puts its muzzle on the floor and looks directly into the open front section of the armor piece. “Nice try, but Sharp has to say if you can be a horrorbabble Nightguard like myself-” With a small flash, the shiny fades into nothing as 65536 hears the barracks door click and swing open. The drone stifles a squeak of surprise, quickly darting under the closest bed. The door closes again but no one seems to have come inside. Puzzled, 65536 peeks out of his hiding spot. Nothing. Then the bed above it creaks as if something heavy, much heavier than a pony, stood on it. 65536 can feel the stare locked on the back of its head and it slowly turns around. Nothing. Nothing that suddenly shifts and reveals a bright smile. “Gotcha!” a female voice laughs. “Princess Sunbutt!” 65536 slides its whole body from under the bed and hugs the huge muzzle, “How did you find me?” it lets go and stands up on all fours properly. A small spark flies out of Celestia’s horn, gradually growing in brightness until it transforms into the dancing light from before. “Yay, floaty!” 65536 jumps at the dot, missing the agile trickster once again. “I was worried about you when I didn’t find you in my sister’s room, but then I found a little note about you being brought here and I used a little searching spell specifically tailored to avoid most of the magical alarms and barriers built into this castle. It’s not the quickest but it works.”  65536’s suddenly sober expression gives Celestia a pause. “Since Luna hasn’t come back yet and there was some angry guard searching her room, Sharp decided I would be safer here with other batponies.” “Angry guard?” Celestia narrows her eyes, “Tell me everything, will you?” “Mhm.” 65536 proceeds to tell her its version of events leading to it leaving the safety of Luna’s castle suite. In the end, Celestia is frowning at the wall while absent-mindedly stroking the drone’s head. “-and I like it here too. It’s not as cozy but the Nightguards helped me make my own armor and Sharp said I was a honor- honorary one, got it this time! But they’re all gone now,” finishes 65536. Celestia sighs. “Please, don’t think all Royal Guards are like that. Many guards resigned after the invasion so we’ve pulled reserves and guards from other cities whose loyalties lie more with the strictest interpretation of our laws rather than the merciful one.” “The Nightguards have all been super nice so far.” “Unlike unicorns, they and earth ponies know well how it feels to be treated like a second-rate citizen.” “I heard that before but I don’t understand why,” 65536 looks up into her eyes, “You ponies are all warm, soft, and fuzzy.” “Unicorns tend to think they’re superior to other species due to their magic while earth ponies can only do manual labor and pegasi weather manipulation can be done by magic as well. In the old days, unicorns even used ‘lesser races’ as slaves.” To her grim surprise, 65536 understands almost immediately now. “Oh, so it’s like with us drones and infiltrators. They can do all the mental and transforming tricks while we just dig holes and carry stuff.”  “I’ll have to take your word for it. The last time ponies dealt openly with changelings was a very long time ago.” “Huh? I thought you ponies never met us,” 65536 tilts its head, “Even Luna didn’t know what I was.” Celestia hugs the drone tighter. “Luna was gone for a millennium, little one, and… disappeared during a very tumultuous time. What happened to her fragmented her memories to a degree that might be beyond repair. Besides, I prefer she makes new, happier ones, something you seem to be helping with.” “I wish she came back...” “So do I, 65536. So do I. However, the best we can do is deal with the turmoil here in the real world. You saw what was happening, what Beacon had to save you from.” 65536 nods, puffs out its cheeks, and says: “I don’t really know what all that happened meant but I want to help.” Celestia smiles with pride. “You actually can, which is why I was looking for you.” “...awesomeawesomeawesomeawesome...” “I need help feeding the changelings we recovered from the tavern you visited with the Nightguards.” “I’m ready and buzzing with energy!” 65536 wrestles itself out of Celestia’s embrace, stands at attention, and salutes, “But I’m only a drone, if you moved all the changelings here there’s no way I have enough.” “I don’t expect you to be perfect, just do your best, honorary Nightguard,” Celestia salutes back, smiling, “But first, since you said you still couldn’t transform on demand, I have to mask you.” “I’m working on my armor,” 65536 points to the cardboard mess on the floor, “I almost got the helmet right and I totally scratched all the glue off this time so it doesn’t stick to my head anymore.” “I’ve got something better in mind,” Celestia’s horn lights up and a spark hits 65536’s chest before scattering all over its carapace with no visible effect. “That tickled,” the drone examines its forelegs, “but I don’t think it worked.” “It did. Any too aggressive spell would trigger the castle alarms, especially the ones in the dungeons. This is just a suggestion spell which causes anypony who doesn’t know exactly who you are to think you’re a Nightguard on duty.” “Can I-” “Yes, you can wear your helmet, it will only make the suggestion stronger.” “YESSSS!” 65536 darts past her and rams the purple and grey cardboard helmet on its head. “Now now, we’re not done yet,” Celestia raises her hoof, presenting a solar talisman, “You’re going to need this to get to the magically locked changeling cells as well as to pass unquestioned by the Royal Guards.” “Aren’t there Nightguards on duty now?” “Not in the dungeons, no. They’re out in the city or patrolling the less… critical parts of the castle. It would take too long to explain why, so let’s just say that I don’t have absolute say in how the security of Equestria is managed in day-to-day matters, and the council of nobles is heavily prejudiced against batponies.” “Maybe we’re not so different...” “Much less than you can imagine,” muses Celestia, “But that’s neither here nor there right now. Maybe I’ll tell you a story or two one day when things have calmed down.” “I like stories now that they don’t make my head hurt.” “You know what? I’ll tell you something interesting you don’t know as a reward for helping the changelings, okay?”  “Huh...” 65536 blinks, “Hey, there must be so many interesting things I don’t know!” “Well, do your job right and soon there will be one less.” *** 65536 on unsteady legs wobbles out of the last cell holding the rescued changelings, its vision swimming. As it stands there, gasping for breath, the talisman given to it by princess Sunbutt flashes and the door locks itself. The castle dungeons are empty at this time of night, manned only by a trio of Royal Guards stationed at the entrance, so 65536 can take its time to recover, as it should be able to hear any approaching patrol over the occasional angry banging or screaming from a random cell. As a drone, it really couldn’t do much more than give the hibernating changelings a few days of life. It couldn’t help them heal faster, it couldn’t help them feel better, and doing anything to actually help them return to their lives was completely beyond the tiny drop of love even a fully filled drone could hold. Still, a few more days could lead to another few days, and in time 65536 might not be in this on its own. With only one goal in mind now, 65536 stumbles into a different cell, this one empty and unlocked, and lies down under the plank of wood bolted to the wall serving as a bed. A pony wouldn’t fit in there but a changeling drone has no such problem. In fact, the familiar tight and cold space brings back some of the few pleasant memories of home. “It’s a bit of a squeeze. I wonder how I look with princess Sunbutt’s spell on me,” it mumbles and closes its eyes.  Said princess arrives within fifteen minutes, waking the drone slowly nodding off up, and magically locking the door behind herself.  “My apologies, Raven still needed to discuss some policy issues for tomorrow,” Celestia sits down on the bed creaking under her weight after 65536 crawls out and levitates it into her lap, “She’s an incurable workaholic. Now, I promised you a reward, didn’t I?” “Can I have a question first?” “Sure.” “Why couldn’t you feed the changelings? I can’t help them as much as they need but you’ve been filling me up no problem.” Celestia goes silent for a moment before saying: “Love… love is a strange thing, 65536, one that doesn’t come on command. Besides, as I told you before - I have eyes on me for many reasons. Even by this I’m risking tomorrow’s headlines being ‘Princess meets her new, secret Nightguard paramour’,” she shakes her head, “I don’t want anypony to dig deep into what’s in the magically protected cells. Grandmaster Beacon did his best to keep them safe during the process of moving them here and me visiting them would only draw attention. Anyway, I promised you something interesting plus-” she lowers her head and gives 65536 a peck on its forehead, revitalizing the drone a little, “a little frosting.” “Mmmmmmm...” it snuggles its back tighter against Celestia’s barrel. “Now, stories about old changelings as well as Luna’s past are fairly grim, so I think we could use something to brighten the day- well, night. How would you feel if I told you that there used to be a species of ponies that had wings just like yours?” “Whooooah! Did they have holes too?”  “They didn’t, not in their legs nor their wings. They did have antennae, though.”  She puts her forelegs to her ears and wobbles her fetlocks.  “What for?”  “They had innate talent for mental magic, a certain kind of it at least.”  “THAT’S LIKE US! I mean… the infiltrator us, not us drone us.”  “That’s a lot of us, but no. They existed before changelings, they couldn’t change shape, their mind magics weren’t about control, and they had pony coats, not an exoskeleton.”  65536 tenses up, looking around.  “Where?! Skeletons are spooky! You gotta be careful when you find one underground. That means something ate something else and we drones are pretty edible.”  Celestia taps on 65536’s chest: “I meant that they didn’t have a carapace.”  “Oh! Oof, you scared me for a moment. Did those ponies at least have a queen?”  “No, they had a king. A wonderful stallion and my companion for many, many decades of both peace and hardship. You see, unified Equestria is an old nation by the standards of the world but far from the first ones. Pony tribes had their own states, kingdoms, even short-lived empires on this continent for millennia before Equestria. Same is true for the griffons, minotaurs, or pony species on different continents. Civilisations rose and fell throughout my life, even we alicorns had a sprawling city state which lasted for ages,” Celestia sighs, “Back when there were more than the last few of us, I mean,” she shakes her head, “But I said I’d avoid the grim stories today, so let’s stick to the flutterponies.” “Fluffer ponies?” “I know your ears work just fine, little one,” she playfully taps the back of 65536’s head. “I made improvements! Carry spaces are cool but I think I like hugging coats more.” “Carapaces.” “Yeah, that!” “Well, I can’t argue with that,” Celestia chuckles, “Flutterponies were quite huggable indeed. Luckily for them, their life away from major settlements meant that ponies weren’t exactly lining up for surprise hugging.” “Why luckily? Why did they live far away? Were they scared of other ponies?” “They were natural empaths. They could easily sense the emotions of others, so living among creatures who didn’t possess the ability to shield themselves could get rather overwhelming to the point of pain. Among their kind, they could use telepathy to communicate.” “What’s teleporty?” “Telepathy and, once again, I know you heard me right,” says Celestia with just a hint of sternness in her voice. “I did… it’s just that sometimes similar things just get jumbled up when I need to think quickly. Drones aren’t made to be smart and I bopped my head pretty hard on top of that. Sorry...” “That’s okay, little one, I should have remembered,” she returns to stroking its head, “So, the fluffers could talk to each other without using their mouths- hmm, telepathy isn’t correct either,” she pauses, “They couldn’t talk using their minds, per se. They didn’t need language as we understand it. They just understood each other’s intentions with perfect clarity, so they couldn’t lie.” “We can talk in our heads too but it’s like real words. And we have images!” “Sounds interesting.” “It totally is. I wish I could show you!” “Unfortunately, there is no magic I know of that would allow a pony mind to connect with a changeling one,” Celestia hums. “Huh? Then how do the infiltrators do it? They can mess with pony heads.” “That’s different. I could alter the memories of a pony too, and I’m not exactly a great magician. In the same way, I could use magical telepathy to communicate with another pony but that still wouldn’t work like your natural ability. I’d have to become a changeling to communicate like that, and that’s impossible.” “Awwww...” “Life isn’t perfect,” Celestia smiles, “Oh shoot, I got distracted again. What was I talking about?” “Ponies with changeling wings who lived away from others, didn’t like hugs but not really, and were fluffy.” “Your ability to summarize the important parts astounds me.” “I’m learning all kinds of awesome things from you ponies!” “Well done, well done. Anyway, the story-” “Your Highness! Are you there, Your Highness?” someone bangs at the door, making 65536 immediately slink behind Celestia. “The door is held by my magic,” she whispers to the drone and points under the bed, “Hide there, I’ll see what it’s about and then we’ll continue, okay?” 65536 nods, hiding again as Celestia leaves the cell. A short, hushed conversation later, it hears hoofsteps gradually disappear. Minutes pass until quiet hoofsteps approach the cell and the door opens, letting in a blond, well-built unicorn wearing the garments 65536 associates with castle staff. The servant quickly looks around, his eyes stopping on the space under the bed. He leans down, cracks a smile, and gestures to 65536 to come over, closing the cell door with his telekinesis. The drone peeks outside and shimmies out from its hiding place. “Did princess Sunbutt send you?” it whispers. The servant puts a hoof to his mouth and nods.  65536 walks over, looks into the unicorn’s eyes and- -a sharp spike of pain from its side makes it yelp and stumble backwards. The serrated levitating knife rips its chitin apart as the unicorn grins and twirls the floating dagger in the air, splattering green blood and chunks of flesh around. His grin fades as the wound stops bleeding in front of his eyes, leaving only the hole in the chitin. 65536 immediately realizes several things. One, the pony can’t have been sent by princess Sunbutt. Two, it won’t be able to heal a second wound like that because while the princess fed it, its body didn’t have time to digest the love properly yet. And three, it has to get out no matter what. The princess said that not all Royal Guards were mean so maybe one of them at the dungeon entrance will help it. How can I get out if he’s standing in front of the door? 65536 darts under the bed again, watching its surroundings for the floating knife. It comes flying in but 65536 manages to catch it with its leg hook and pull it under itself. The unicorn growls and 65536 sees his legs approaching.  65536’s only warning comes as a flash of light and heat from above as the unicorn raises one foreleg. However, if anything, drones are used to sudden things. Sudden noises mean get out, sudden heat means get out, sudden movements mean get out. In fact, nearly all sudden things mean getting out of where a drone currently is, with the only difference being the amount of seconds the drone might have to examine the exact nature of danger, and all its senses are currently screaming negative five. It kicks itself off of the wall just as the blade of fire coming out of the unicorn’s foreleg slices the bed in half and scorches the stone floor. As the unicorn curses, 65536 charges forward to get between his legs but his reactions are quick enough to kick the drone away which is followed by a slash of the once again floating dagger. Without the moment of surprise, though, the wound is shallow and 65536 can barely feel more than a sting. The unicorn advances, making 65536 back off step after step until it realizes one thing - he’s been herding it into a corner. He grins again as 65536’s butt touches the wall and the drone can’t help turning its head backwards. 65536 yelps again as another slash of the dagger shreds a chunk of its chest carapace away in its moment of distraction. 65536 has no idea why any of this is happening but right now there’s only one thing to do. “I’m sorryyyy!” it calls out as it lunges itself under the unicorn again, and digs. The unicorn’s kicking leg meets 65536’s digging hoof, an interaction which can go only one way. The unicorn screams as his fetlock gets sheared clean off and he lands with his full weight on the stump. 65536 charges towards the door and rams into it as the handle fails to open. The drone looks backwards at the wheezing unicorn’s eyes bulging in agony. Despite that, though, his horn is glowing as he holds the door closed. What’s worse, the dagger starts shaking again as well. There’s no other way. 65536 digs through the door providing nearly no resistance to its shimmering forelegs and pushes half of its body through the hole before-  “AAAAAAAAAAH?!” its scream resonates through the dungeon hallways, immediately followed by stomping of armored hooves from the distant entrance. 65536 is now stuck due to the knife stabbed through its back up to the handle and sticking out of its belly. “Just die, you damn cockroach...” grunts the unicorn, limping towards 65536 while leaving a red trail on the floor. With the knife stuck inside it, 65536 backs off, widens the hole in one swing, and finally jumps through just as two Royal Guards round the corner and point at it. “A changeling, in the castle?!” 65536 doesn’t wait for anything and bolts. It doesn’t have a plan, it just knows it has to get away. It disappears behind the corner at the other end of the corridor thanks to the two guards stopping by the cell from where the unicorn servant limps out. “The damn thing did this time me,” he shows them his missing fetlock, “It’s dangerous.” “We’ll escort you-” “Don’t worry, I can limp my way to the castle infirmary on my own. Just make sure the changeling doesn’t do this to anypony else, please.” The leading guard taps a badge on his chest plate, saying: “Block the entrance and call in reinforcements to sweep the dungeons. There’s a changeling on the loose.” With that, the Royal Guards exchange glances and start galloping ahead, following the green trail of blood on the floor. *** “Council nonsense this late. They really should reconsider what constitutes business crucial to the security of Equestria,” grumbles Celestia as she descends the last few steps leading to the guard room by the only entrance to the castle dungeons.  There’s only one unexpectedly alert guard where there were three before she left who salutes and blocks her way, much to her surprise. “Your Highness, a changeling got into the castle and crippled one of the servant staff just a moment ago. It’s not safe in there until we-” It takes the guard a moment to realize why his backside suddenly feels to be sizzling, but it might have something to do with the rainbow mane of the princess whom he’d never before seen as anypony other than a motherly, peaceful figure turning for mere two seconds into a raging orange inferno.  She unceremoniously shoves the fully armored unicorn sideways with strength clearly relaying that even a female alicorn who doesn’t look ripped whatsoever could probably throw him over the entire castle, and she breaks into a run straight ahead through a door- Correction, through a square-shaped hole surrounded by the dripping remains of the molten frame. The door simply doesn’t exist anymore.  Celestia reaches the cell where she left 65536 within seconds, her thundering hoofsteps leaving behind burn marks in the floor. Her heart almost stops and her eyes tear up as she looks inside and sees the splatters of green blood all over and the burnt bed. However, that’s not all there is, and she quickly teleports a chunk of mangled gory mess which can’t belong to a changeling lying in a red pool away. “The intrusion into Luna’s quarters on the Council orders,” her mind races a mile a minute, “Nonsensical meeting about nothing this late. Somepony wanted to get 65536… and they did.” As she leaves the cell, her keen ears catch, among the stomping of the guards, a high-pitched yelp and… ...and a crunch. “No,” she breathes out, following the noise as well as the trail of green blood. The two Royal Guards are standing at a dead end, one looking up into the broken entrance to a ventilation shaft splattered with green blood and one examining a green-stained dagger with a jagged edge. On the wall, there’s a closed entrance into the dumbwaiter, although that one is without any blood marks. “Your Highness!” the guards notice her as she rips the dagger from the telekinetic grip of the one examining it and levitates it towards herself.  “Check the roof and begin the sweep of the ventilation system,” she orders immediately. “What about that?” the guard nods towards the dumbwaiter. “A changeling would use a route through which it can’t be followed, so scour the vents first. Just to be safe, though, order a patrol to be stationed on every floor by the dumbwaiter as well and lock this one,” she nods to the metal plate with a latch covering the dumbwaiter shaft and the padlock hanging on a hook next to it. The crunch she heard can’t have been from the ventilation grate… *** 65536 is lying on the bottom of the dumbwaiter shaft under the wreckage of the dumbwaiter itself. It doesn’t have the strength to heal its reopened wounds anymore after ripping the dagger out of itself, breaking the vent entrance, squeezing its blood all over the place, and temporarily stopping itself from bleeding out as it crawled into the dumbwaiter shaft and pulled the metal plate down behind itself. It tried to climb up with the help of its wings but must have accidentally dug through some critical part of the contraption because the next thing it knew was the whole thing barreling straight down on it and slamming straight into its back and crushing its wings under its weight as it took 65536 all the way to the bottom with it. I can’t stay here. They’re bound to look eventually. The vertical shaft is pitch black so that might give 65536 time before anyone notices the dumbwaiter is broken since, hopefully, it doesn’t get used too much during the night. Must… dig. A slow motion of its foreleg is accompanied by the softest of green glimmers as its hoof slides through the wreckage lying on it like a hot knife through butter. Again and again until the drone can push through. It has to get out of here and there seem to be only a few exits along the shaft. If it can reach at least the first one… Its hooves grow tiny spikes as its carapace loses all of its protective capability and transforms into a light membrane, and it begins crawling upwards, not knowing whether its energy would last. All 65536 knows is that if it drops in this state, it’ll pop like a balloon and die instantly. Can’t stay here. Can’t stay here. Can’t stay here. It keeps repeating the mantra. Staying in a dark hole means something will eventually find it. Weak and lonely drones who get discovered get eaten. There are only horrors in the dark, only enemies, only… 65536 doesn’t know how long the climbing took. All of its thinking processes have shut down, replaced only by survival instinct that keeps forcing it to put one leg above other and pulling itself up hoof by hoof until- -until the uneven stone surface gives way to something smoother - steel. The drone remains hanging there, listening for anything, but while it can faintly hear commotion through the noise of blood rushing in its ears, it doesn’t seem to be coming from the other side of the metal plate. The velcro-like mini hooks on the underside of its hoof allow it to slide the metal plate sideways and, with tears streaming from its eyes, pull itself through into a dark room, landing on the smooth, tiled floor of… somewhere. Hoofsteps. It opens its eyes but through the haze of absolute exhaustion and tears it can’t make anything out of the approaching silhouette. It doesn’t even flinch anymore as a telekinetic grip shoves it into a sack filled with remains of some sticky dust, and a male voice growls: “Be quiet and don’t move!” It just doesn’t have the strength to do anything other than pass out.