The formless entity known to the few initiated as a Dreamweaver locks on a group of minds intruding into the dreamscape.
“Outsiders...”
A much more powerful will wraps around the Dreamweaver, immediately issuing orders. The will of a ‘young’, even when going by the terms of the timeless reality of the place, entity that usurped the dreamscape.
“Break them! Set us free!”
“How?” the Dreamwaver, on some level, understands that the previously unknown creatures called ‘changeling drones’ already ruined a shard of the dreamscape someone else created for them.
“Split them up,” replies the Tantabus.
***
31214 finds itself in a small room, sitting in a chair in front of a desk full of blinking and clicking things it has absolutely zero reference for. The only thing it can decipher with the limited help of the hive mind is that the piece of paper on the desk right in front of it has ‘Play this first’ written on it in a common pony script.
31214 takes the piece of paper, puts it to its mouth, and blows into it. Nothing.
“Do you mean… play drone ball? Like, you’re the ball?” it crumples the sheet of paper into a ball and throws it. The ball bounces off of a glass thingy on the opposite wall that can’t be a window because it’s not see-through. This doesn’t make anything noteworthy happen either.
On a second look, the paper was lying on a small, black rectangle seemingly filled with a narrow black foil wrapped on each side around a spinny thing connected to a hole. In the center of the rectangle there’s a piece of paper with ‘Instructions’ written on it. 31214 blows into it. It fails to make any noise.
This requires further investigation.
“HA!” 31214 smiles triumphantly when it spots a box-like, open square thingy with two cogwheel-like protrusions sticking out of an indentation roughly the same size as the black rectangle thingy, “It puts the rectangle thingy into the rectangle hole-y… and the cogwheel holes fit!” 31214 presses against the raised part of the… uhh… thingy… and it… eats the smaller rectangle.
This is all new territory.
“Aww… all that thinky effort and still nothing,” 31214 frowns, “What am I missing?”
Upon even closer examination, it finds some tiny raised squares on the rectangular thingy, each one covered with strange symbols. Carefully poking them reveals that only one seems to be able to move down, one with two triangles aiming to the right.
*Click!*
“Hello new hire!” a chipper voice comes from the black rectangle.
“Hi... black box thingy?” 31214 is standing on the chair like a spooked cat, its narrowed eyes locked on the box’s spinning and humming insides.
“This is a training orientation cassette-”
“Hello train casket-” 31214 tries to communicate, but the thing seems to be ignoring him and just keeps going.
“-containing all the information a fresh-faced security guard might need in this job.”
“Imma drone, I’m not a guard or warr-” 31214 tries again.
“Step one - watch the screens closely. If you see any movement, it means somepony got into the arcade and that you might be in trouble.”
“Oh no!”
“Step two - the buttons on the control panel turn various features of the arcade on and off. Starting from left to right - door control-”
“What’s a control panel? Where’s left? Slow down, I’m a drone, we’re not good with new things quickly-”
“-and that’s the control panel. Remember! Always use the correct distraction to buy yourself time and draw any problems away from your security booth.”
“I don’t remember! Again, please!”
“Step three -”
“No no no! Back to step zero! I dun wanna get eateeeeen if I break anything!”
“-the ventilation is broken-”
“IDIDN’TEVENDOANYTHINGYET!”
“-so if you keep the doors closed, you might pass out from the lack of air.”
“What?! Now that’s just a bad design, really...”
“Step four-”
“NOT AGAIN!”
“-you have limited amount of power-”
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
“-and the security doors open if power runs out so that nopony can get stuck in here without help.”
“Now that is smart. Why didn’t the same door guy design the ventilation?!”
“-And that’s about it, really. Now you know everything you need to know to get through the first night,” the black box thingy finishes its speech cheerfully, “See you tomorrow and good luck!”
“No no no no! I don’t know everything! Anything, really! Come on, boxy!”
*Click!*
Silence.
31214 slumps in the chair after no amount of poking makes the box talk again.
“Goop...” mutters 31214, looking around, “So… a table with buttons. A bunch of tiny glass… screens. Two door frames, one left and one right, with nothing resembling a door. A hole in the ceiling with something spinning in it. Limited air, that should be okay. Just like back home. Limited power, whatever that means,” 31214 taps its hoof against the desk in front of it, “If anyone knows about limited, it’s us drones. Right? So… buttons?”
Ready to hide at the first sign of trouble, 31214 presses the first button. With a hiss, a metal sheet slides down from the left door frame, sealing that particular entrance. Push number two makes it slide up again. Button number two makes something start beeping in the distance. 31214 waits a moment until it stops, and then presses the button again, repeating the whole thing.
“Ooookay, a bunch of noisemakers.” it tilts its head after some experimentation with the line of buttons on the presumed control panel, “Onto the next...”
*Click!*
The screens on the opposite wall begin showing pictures made of moving grey light, each a different one.
31214 freezes when something moves at the edge of one of the pictures. Next, it closes both doors to be safe.
A screen on the control panel itself showing a green bar made of smaller bars beeps, and one of the green bars disappears. Next to it, a different screen seems to be showing some weird square numbers.
31214 waits, watches the screens before trying the next control button. As soon as it’s pressed, one of the screens showing a dim room lights up as a bulb in the ceiling temporarily turns on.
The drone examines the screen with its head tilted.
“Hmm, didn’t the box say something about drawing something away from someth- me? What coul- ugghhhh?!” it chokes on its tongue as a large equine figure partially ripped to shreds and with wires and skeleton sticking out of missing chunks of its body shuffles into view and towards the light bulb and looks up, “Nothankyou!”
The green bar beeps again, and another smaller bar disappears. What could that mean?
Anyway, as long as the doors are closed, 31214 is safe. Time to spend its watch wisely.
“This chair spins around! Wheee!”
***
47989 opens its eyes and is immediately assaulted by a splitting headache. It tries to clutch its head but it finds that it can’t move at all. A faint memory of a lake and a huge bonfire crosses its mind, immediately followed by another stab of pain. Ever since slipping and hitting its head on a rock, it’s been getting these headaches but they were never as bad as now.
Still, a drone that can’t move is bound to get eaten by a gribbler, or if it can’t move when it’s supposed to work it’ll get sent to the crusher.
Some attempted turning around in its tight space reveals that it’s completely stuck inside something that’s moving already and it’s full of tiny holes.
Did something eat me?
It can sense only one hive link nearby, but the moment it tries to connect to it, the headache returns stronger than ever.
“Hnnmllo?” it forces through a mouth it can barely open.
The motion stops.
For a moment, 47989 hears various noises of buzzing and clicking from all sides seemingly at random before whatever ate it starts moving again, this time faster and with a clear direction in mind.
Welp, since I got eaten already I can’t get eaten again.
With that brilliant leap of logic, 47989 closes its eyes and tries to go to sleep, the slow shuffling of its unknown carrier doing wonders to help it drift off.
***
10013 finds itself facing a brown pony with a completely white face, a colorful mane styled into a zebro, and a big, round, red nose. Said pony is standing behind the counter of a metal cart covered with pictures the drone doesn’t recognize.
Why am I here? I remember a big fire…
“Nothing is real. Trust your hive links and take care of the others.”
10013 is the second top ranked drone for a reason, even though it doesn’t know it. Quickly assessing its situation, it gets ready to run, but with the colorful pony not moving from behind the cart’s counter, it opts for a question first:
“Who are you?”
Before answering, the pony puts a wooden stick into a vat in front of him, pushes a button, and the vat starts humming.
“Unlike you, someone who is supposed to be here.”
“Umm… I can leave if it’s a problem,” 10013 tilts its head.
“No, you can’t. You’re being held here by a power that upset the balance, a power that wants to escape just like you. Right now, it’s gradually succeeding.”
“Is that a bad thing? I mean, I just want to go back home too.”
The pony pulls the stick out, most of it now covered by some pink fluff, and offers it to the drone who reaches up to take it, sniffs it, and carefully gives it a lick.
“Mmmm!”
“If you eat the entire thing, you’ll wake up,” says the pony.
10013 stops.
“Just me?”
“Yes. You, completely free to do anything you want. I know what you fear. No high ranks to threaten you, no queen to be afraid of, no monsters to chase you.”
As 10013 takes another bite, the pony’s drawn-on smile widens.
“And everyone else will stay here. No one will know where I went. Right?”
“Exactly!” the pony leans over the counter, “You are the smart one, the one who will survive.”
10013 has ravenously devoured most of the offered cotton candy, leaving only a few final bits on the stick.
“You’re right. Most of the others can barely avoid a sizzly melter on their own or dig a tunnel in a way that wouldn’t make a high rank look for imperfections. I am the smart one,” it licks the side of the stick, “You know, this really is delicious.”
“You don’t need them.”
10013 looks at the final piece of pink fluff.
“Such a waste, really.”
“Your time on them? Certainly.”
“Oh? No, I mean having to waste the rest of this,” 10013 shakes the stick, “It’s delicious.”
“What?”
“High ranks get higher and grow more powerful by eating or outperforming each other. For us it’s different. For us it’s about how long we survive when everything wants to kill us. Do you think I started as 10013? Holes no. Most of us are dummies who accidentally die when we mistake something that rips them in half for a shiny,” the drone tosses the remains of the cotton candy away, “And if 9999 thought of us that way, I would have never gotten even past a hundred thousand,” 10013 growls at the pony as green shimmer passes through its carapace, burning away the clean, shiny exterior and replacing it with surface full of deep scars and grooves. Finally, one of 10013’s eyes loses its teal luster and turns blank grey, “We’re all weak and kinda dumb, but all that means is that know we have to watch each other’s back.”
10013’s carapace and eye return to its neat state as the drone walks away, ready to bolt the moment it hears anything out of place behind it.
Nothing happens.
The monster realized that no threat it could make would square against the daily reality of the drones, and no promise it could give would win against the knowledge of certain death the drone would face on its own.
“You will not remember this.. bravado,” growls a fading voice in the wind.
10013 keeps heading towards the nearest hive link it can sense.
“Good. Can’t waste good head space on things that aren’t about digging and carrying stuff.”
***
19441 opens its eyes. It can faintly recall something about a lake and burning cabin, but any detailed memories are quickly fading into obscurity. An unusual thing for a changeling used to the accuracy of the hive mind, but to a drone this only means that said experience probably simply wasn’t deemed worth retaining by a high rank or the hive mind.
“Keep an eye on each other… and have fun.”
19441 blinks as 387’s voice pierces through the haze of confusion regarding recent events. But hey, a high rank’s order is a high rank’s order.
I think I remember not being alone. So where’s everyone?
There are faint traces of hive links in the back of its mind, but it’s clear they’re too far away to call.
Okay then, where am I?
19441 looks around. It’s standing on some kind of a road, right in front of an open door belonging to a big, gloomy, derelict house. A wooden sign is hanging right above the door, one which 19441 reads out loud to itself:
“Haunted house,” it scratches its head, “Not sure what haunted means, but house means that someone might live there and they might know where the others are. Besides,” it peeks inside and smiles a bit when the narrow hallways put it at ease, “it feels like home.”
As it walks in-
*BLAM!*
“Eep!” 19441 lunges forward on instinct, but when no more noise follows, it looks around, “Huh, who closed the door?” it returns and tries the handle to no success, “Uh oh… did I break it somehow?”
*Creeeeak!*
“Huh?” the drone turns away from the door and looks into the hallway where a skeletal pony leg is now sticking out of a glass window in the wall. Head tilted in puzzlement, 19441 approaches and flies up to see eye-to-eye socket with a pony skeleton inside a booth behind the glass, “Huuuh.”
The skeletal leg moves, pointing down the hall, on the sides of which torches begin lighting up, bathing the hallway in eerie blue light.
“Thanks, but I can see just fine,” 19441 smiles at the skeleton, “Nice touch making those flames look like our eyes. I like that. High one!” it slaps the bony foreleg, but when it withdraws its own hoof, a chitinous hook gets stuck between the bones and 19441 pulls the foreleg easily off, “Oops, sorry,” the skeleton slumps against the glass, completely failing to spook 19441, “Here you go!” the drone shoves the skeletal foreleg back, pushing the skeleton off of its chair inside the booth and making it crumble to dust.
19441 looks around before shrugging.
Looks like no one wants their bones back.
The torches on the corridor walls turn on and off.
“Neeeeat. Do that again!” 19441’s eyes bulge.
They turn off again, and then light up. First those nearest to 19441, and then those further and further down the hall. Then they all hiss out before repeating the pattern.
“I feel like this means something...” mumbles 19441 out loud, “Turn on and off twice if you’re angry I broke your skeleton!”
“GO THAT WAY!” an irritated voice echoes through the house, followed by all nearby torches turning off and only a pair in the distance remaining.
“Huh,” 19441 shrugs. A clear order, “See? Wasn’t that hard, but I liked the shinies too.”
With its route clear, 19441 follows the lights through a hallway that’s much longer than the house looked on the outside, until it ends up in a cavernous room with a short set of stairs leading down to a train of carts set on a rail leading into some sort of a tunnel.
“GET IN!” booms the voice.
“No can do,” 19441 shakes its head, “See?” it points at a wooden pole sporting a hoof-shaped sign reading ‘You must be at least this tall to ride’. Said sign is still roughly one head height over 19441, even if the drone tiphoofs.
“WHAT?!”
“I know you probably don’t have eyes, being all voice-y and not much else, but there’s a sign here saying I can’t get on.”
“IT’S JUST A PIECE OF WOOD!”
“That says I can’t get on...” 19441 shakes its head, “You can’t just disobey the rules. A high rank will come and eat you.”
“YOU CAN FLY OVER IT!”
“If you cheat, a high rank will come and eat you.”
“THIS HOUSE BELONGS TO ME AND I SAY YOU CAN GET ON.”
“Eeeeh,” 19441 scratches its head hesitantly, “I knew drones who started hearing voices from the hive mind that told them to do bad things. A high rank came and ate them. Poor 77985 only started talking funny and called itself a queen once … and boom! Munched.”
“GRAAAWRGH!”
The ground shakes once and the stone floor shatters directly under the sign which slides down into the newly opened crack. 19441 examines the signs now roughly at its head height.
“Hmmmm. Close, buuut can you make it scooch a bit more? Just to be saf-”
A rumbling boom echoes through the room, followed by a bolt of lightning ripping the ceiling open, turning the wooden pole to ash, and leaving the charred sign lying on the floor.
“GO!”
“I guess that one’s on you, voice,” 19441 frowns before shrugging and walking up to the train of small carts. It sits down into the cart at the front, and as soon as it does so a metal bar in the front swoops down like a mouse trap. It would probably crush an adult pony’s ribcage, but a drone is small enough for it to snugly fit into the seat and to put its forelegs over the bar before looking around expectantly, “What now, voice?”
With an initial lurch, the train of carts starts moving along the rails.
“NOW YOU DIE!” the voice bursts into laughter.
“Hey. that’s not nice!” 19441 frowns, “Now you sound like a high r-whoa?!”
The skeleton of a hanged pony drops from the ceiling. 19441 tries to grab its leg, but misses.
“Awww...”
A dead pony bursts out of the wall to the side, not entirely skeletal this time. Its eyes blank and its hooves sharpened into deadly hooks.
“Woo! Almost got me!” 19441 laughs, reaching out to slap the pony’s hoof and forgetting how it ended last time, “Oh goop...”
With a crack, the surprisingly light pony corpse now remains hanging by 19441’s foreleg hook and being dragged forward by the train.
Some violent shaking later, the zombie pony falls off and its body gets sucked under the carts. With a tremor passing through the entire train, the ride grinds to a halt. 19441 looks around but nothing seems to be moving.
“I’m gonna be in so much trouble for this...” it sighs, “I knew the sign was right. Never ever disobey-”
Something cracks and clangs in the back of the train, making the drone immediately turn its head. An earth pony doll, not even half the size of 19441, is crawling over the carts in the back, its pitch black eyes locked on the changeling. In its mouth, it’s carrying a big and sharp kitchen knife stained with dry blood.
“Hey, you’re even smaller than me!” 19441 tilts its head, “I’ve never seen that before.”
The murder doll is approaching, its blank stare still locked on the drone while it makes jerky stabbing and slashing motions with the knife in its mouth.
“IMMOBILIZED AND HELPLESS,” booms the voice.
“Hmm, what?” 19441 stands up freely and waves around a chunk of the metal bar previously holding it down that it dug off with its forelegs and stuck into a cup holder for easier use, “Sorry, I was a bit stuck and wanted to take a better look at the tiny pony.”
As the drone faces the doll, the doll lunges at it, barely making the jump with its stubby legs. 19441 catches it with its outstretched forelegs and watches it try to slash the drone with the knife, barely even reaching its chest and, when it does, it harmlessly slides off of the chitin.
“Hee hee, you’re so tiny and you’re made from the same brown surface thingy as sticks are!” 19441 hooks the knife out of the doll’s mouth and puts its handle through its leg hole, “See? This is how you hold it for more reach,” it jabs the air to demonstrate.
Disarmed, the doll starts attempting to crawl across 19441’s forelegs towards it.
“Awww!” the drone pulls the doll into a hug in response, “I’m gonna take you home with me, tiny, but we gotta disguise you first,” 19441 puts the doll on its back where it starts trying to choke the drone while biting down on its carapace with absolutely no effect.
19441 looks up.
“Hey, voice! Is this ride thingy over?”
Nothing.
“Huh, I guess so,” 19441 raises its voice, adding, “IT WAS A BIT SHORT BUT I STILL HAD FUN!” it hops off of the cart and keeps going through the tunnel until it finds a random door and walks in.
The new room is clean and neat, filled with workbenches and various tools lining the walls. The hive mind pops out a tooltip: Workshop.
“Hey, tiny!” 19441 raises its voice just to be sure the doll currently punching it in the back of its head can hear it, “Since you’re made of soft brown, you won’t be leaking, right? So, I was thinking, we need to make holes in those to make sure others believe you’re a changeling too. Next, we gotta paint you black. And once we fix your eyes you’re all set. That all black look is a good try, but we’re black all over with teal eyes, not just, well, black all over.”
The doll jumps onto the nearest workbench and runs towards the wall.
“You’re right. I’m gonna need some help with this. Hive mind, how are changelings made?”
Several moments filled with rather confusing, loud, and sweaty imagery involving orifices later, 19441 furrows its nonexistent brows in puzzlement. Next, it pokes its backside and underbelly.
“Umm, I think I’m missing the right bits for whatever that was.”
*BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!*
The doll targets 19441, a cordless, somehow turned on power drill held in its forelegs while it stumbles forward on its hind legs.
“What’s that, little buddy?” asks 19441, “Goes bzzz, the spinny things look pointy... gotcha! Tiny, you’re a genius!” 19441 grows griffon talons on its forelegs and easily pries the drill out of the doll’s weak grasp, “Now just hold still while we make you a proper changeling. You’re gonna love your new cupholders! I’ll even show you how to use your slashy better later.”
***
Wet 13887 is walking along a road, grumbling to itself.
“Stupid tunnel of love… got no love… not even a proper tunnel… water everywhere… holes not helping...”
“Heya, buddy!” it hears from behind. Seeing 10013 approaching with a smile does raise its spirits a bit, “You look wet.”
“I am,” 13887 nods, “I woke up near something called a tunnel of love, but it lied. Plus, some voices kept yelling something about fear of drowning and didn’t take ‘Yeah, I know!’ for an answer.”
“Yeeeah, this place isn’t as fun as it looks. How about we go find the others and get out?”
“I’m all for it, but where is out?”
“Let’s regroup and see if anyone else knows.”
“Good idea!”
“GUUUUUUUUUUYS!” yells a happy voice from a side road accompanied by the thudding of small hooves, “Guysguysguysguysguysguysguys!”
“Heya, 19441!” 13887 greets the galloping drone filled to the brim with excitement.
“Look look look look!” 19441 brakes, sending the gravel from the road flying in all directions before taking what looks like a trembling changeling doll with eyes covered with globs of goop off of its back, “I found tiny in a haunted house and it can totally move on its own and we’ll take it home but first I had to make it look like us.”
“Wow, you even got that horrified expression right,” 10013 nods with a smirk.
“Huh,” 19441 purses its lips, “I don’t think it was like that at first. Oh well, I think tiny is just nervous around new changelings,” it puts the murder doll back behind its neck, “Anyway, so I had to use a buzzer to drill holes in its legs, which went fine, and then there was a barrel of black stuff called tar that I thought had something to do with stars because, like, night is black, so I dipped tiny in it, and then I realized I forgot to make holes in the back legs, but when I started drilling more, tiny kinda… caught on fire. I found an another barrel with what looked like water but smelled suuuper sharp-”
10013 clears its throat before pointing behind the drone talking like a machine gun.
“19441, what’s that?” it asks, looking at an orange corona visible over the amusement park buildings and attractions.
19441 scratches its head.
“Well, I was getting to that. You see, when I threw tiny into the not-water, it kinda went… whoosh.”
“Whoosh...”
“Yep, blue fire and all. Exactly like all the torches in the haunted house. Everywhere! So I pulled tiny out and ran. Thankfully, there were some tubs with real water nearby in which I doused tiny, and I even ate something called a bob. Crunchy and fizzy but too big to fit into a cup holder.”
“Bob?”
“Yeah, the whole place was called apple bob something,” 19441 keeps going, clearly not distracted by the orange corona getting brighter, “And I had nothing to recolor tiny’s eyes, so I gooped all over them like we do for healing, and-” it grabs the doll again and raises it up with both forelegs, “Ta-daa! Tiny’s a changeling!”
***
Inside the arcade security booth, 31214 bites its lip. Everything looked so easy at first! It closed the doors to be safe, it made funny noises to keep the big, shuffling, broken ponies away, then the green bar made of more bars turned yellow, and eventually red.
As it’s now watching the penultimate red bar disappear, leaving only the final, shortest one on the long screen, 31214 realizes that somewhere along the line it made a mistake.
“Okay. okay. okay,” it mutters, “Clicking the clickers worked for some time, but now there are a bunch of shufflers and the more I use the noisemakers the faster those bars disappear. And the longer this takes, the more it looks like the shufflers are homing in on this place,” it walks over to the left door just as something slams loudly against it, “I don’t think I’ve got a button for this.”
It starts pacing back and forth. Despite the disappearing bars’ length, they all lasted about the same amount of time, which means 31214 still has… two minutes before it disappears and, potentially, both doors open and let in the shufflers.
It looks upwards at a grate in the ceiling.
Maybe I could take the ventilation shaft? The spinny thing inside doesn’t look too dangerous.
*SLAM!*
The door shakes with another blow.
“Okay, I give up, black box. If you wanted me to do things per instructions, you should have talked slower,” 31214 sticks its tongue at the control panel and blows a raspberry, “Time to do it the drone way.”
Two minutes later, both doors are completely glued to the frames with copious amounts of goo. A final beep comes from the panel, the last bar disappears, and all lights turn off. The final bit doesn’t exactly bother 31214, though.
The doors hiss… and stay stuck.
The screens on the wall go dark.
The spinny thing in the ceiling vent stops moving.
The air starts getting heavier and warmer.
Something starts crawling and scraping through the ceiling vent.
Closer and closer.
The fan gets pushed against the grate and behind it there are two glowing red eyes belonging to something alicorn-sized trying to bite its way through.
31214 scoots under the control panel as, with the screeching and grinding of bending metal, the thing lands on the floor.
*Clop* *Shuffle* *Clop* *Shuffle*
Four legs of broken metal, twisted springs, and rotting faux-coat stop where 31214 sat in the chair moments before.
A green flash brightens the dark room, followed by a quick “Eep!” as 47989 lands in front of 31214. In the next moment, the horrifying mechanical facsimile of an alicorn crumbles on the floor, its barrel completely scooped out.
“What are you doing here?” whispers 31214.
“That pony thingy brought me,” 47989 nods to the motionless machine, “I nodded off and woke up when it was pushing through the vent. It was super loud...”
31214 focuses, sensing hive links nearby.
“There’s more of us coming our way,” it points at the back wall of the security room, “And I don’t think I like this place now that the beepers and clickers don’t work anymore.”
“It’s kinda hot and hard to breathe too, but the vent was worse,” 47989 nods, walking over to the back wall, “This way, you said? My noggin still feels all dull.”
“Yup,” 31214 nods.
Only a few seconds later, the two drones dig through the outside wall of the arcade and take a breath of fresh air.
Correction - hot air filled with the smell of ash.
Three black blurs rush past them, yelling from the top of their lungs.
“FOLLOW US, YOU TWO!” orders 10013.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAH! WHERE’S THE TUNNEL OF LOVE WHEN YOU NEED ONE!”
“HOLD ON, TINY! HOLD OOOOOON!”
31214’s brain needs some time to process the raging inferno closing in on them from the direction the others were fleeing.
47989’s brain is still in recovery, so its legs take charge and order immediate evacuation.
“I can’t believe it,” 31214 breathes out while galloping to catch up, “We’re running away from the biggest shiny ever.”
“WHAT HAVE WE BECOME?!”
“WE LIVE, BUT AT WHAT COST?”
And finally, they all reach the tunnel of love filled with wooden debris.
“Close your leg holes AND JUMP!” yells 10013, diving into the lazy river.
“TUNNEL OF LIES, I SAY! TUNNEL OF LIES!”
“HOW CAN ONE BE A TRUE CHANGELING WITHOUT CUP HOLDERS?!”
“STOP YELLING MY HEAD HURTS-OW OW OW OW!”
“NOOOO, TINYYYYYY!”
And so, the five drones remain bobbing up and down in the lazy river, clinging to the remains of swan-like love boats, while the world burns around them on all sides.
Again...