Who Knows Where

by WindigogoGadget

The Queen & The Stranger

Compound was a changeling infiltrator hiding in the Crystal Empire, the one lone spy sent out after news of its return reached the hive. Since they were all low on options at the moment, it didn't take very long for Queen Chrysalis to send out at least someling to venture its frozen borders. The plan was to report back in three months, with some love stockpile and the basics for a small underground outpost so that if the journey had proved fruitful, the next groups of changelings could easily establish a strong foothold in the Crystal Empire.

Keyword, was, because now Compound was a terrified changeling. Guards had recently begun forming up in check-points as if they'd find the Crystal Thief with a simple magical scan. It was hardly going to do anything to find them, but just walking past them while they were in the process made her body feel like it was going to fall out of balance. The so-called scans were particularly powerful versions of the disguise removing spell, if she had any less strength in her, it would've been over, but a fed changeling is a strong changeling, and as such, she managed to resist it.

She avoided any checkpoints after that, even though it meant being publicly cut off from other parts of the city.

The crystal thief... Something had stolen the Crystal Heart, the one thing that she planned on reporting to Her Majesty as soon as possible. A giant enchanted gem, just bursting at the seams with love, enough to make a changeling sick. But it could be just the answer Her Majesty needed to the growing problems of hunger in the hive, just before taking over Equestria, possibly. She had a shelter hidden somewhere here, it wouldn't save her from freezing in the incoming storm, she was too far away to call for help through the hive, and if she allowed herself to get cut-off and become trapped in the snow grave, she would die trying to escape. Her next few days were spent jealously hoarding as much love as she could before the storm became too heavy to fly in.

Her Majesty needed to learn of this at once.

The frozen north was harsh, far harsher than she remembered as she was on her return trip directly to the hive. Yes, they might notice the disappearance of one Shining Emerald, a jeweler in the Crystal Empire, but it was not her concern. Her main concern was to avoid getting ice from forming upon her wings. This marked her fourth rest stop, every time she exerted herself the temperature difference caused beads of water to form on her slick chitin, freezing in the icy wind during flight. She could feel the link getting stronger, like a fuzzy feeling. Forcing her thoughts up to the surface of her mind and through the scattered link was uncomfortable; a faint ache in her horn forming up.

She closed the link and waited for a response. Compound had to keep it brief, lest too many things get lost in translation with the broken connection. It was far, the original trip had taken three days for her to get this far, but it felt like she'd gone and flown dozens, hundreds of miles in the one day she'd been in flight. The difference between a fed changeling and a weak one was almost night and day, its power felt grand, and to feel the gnawing hunger wither away to the darkest recesses of her being was simply a blissful and comforting feeling. All of this power and she would never believe she could out-class a Queen though, that was treasonous, and as far as she cared impossible and unnecessary.

She had to get closer it seems. Something about an escort on its way with- No, on command of her signal. Not close enough for a clean link, but it was shoddy. Just a few more minutes and she could fly to the Hive. She could reach the Badlands soon.

At most, it had been two weeks or so. The Bastion was humming with life again, it had stopped suddenly in mid-air when they had arrived in this new world, the cause of which being a built-in failsafe, that it would save enough energy inside of itself to continue to hover instead of falling when running low on energy.

Rucks shook his head. By his estimation, there should have been enough power stored from all of those cores and shards to keep the sailing island running for five years at most. Any more would just be for the added velocity in traversing over the broken world or adding a little bit more onto that clock. But it had suddenly just stopped after a few months.
Possibly as a result of Zulfs outraged attacks on the Bastions monument, damaging its intake port would likely mean reducing the amount of energy it could extract successfully from the new power sources, the new cores. It was why he had explained the shards as little doses of medicine to make the Bastion all right again. Because really, he was using them as calibration while he repaired the monument, the intake. But that didn't explain why it was so low. Perhaps something had drained it faster than usual, or the sudden take-off? All the energy needed to rewrite the world itself with the echoes of the vibrant unbroken one, condensed into a single blast to turn the Bastion into a flying ship. Frustrating so was the fact that this was the second time a problem had reared its ugly head just to vanish back into the shadows without an explanation other than It just happened'. He had a few theories about all of this, but theory was all he had.

He felt there was another more important thing, where on earth were they? Was this some mishmash created by the calamity? Or something else entirely?

Either way, they would need more than just one shard to get the Bastion moving again. Still, they weren't entirely defenseless, the Kid was here, and when away they still had the mechanical bull, the descendant of the legendary anklegator, Queen Anne, one of the Squirt windbags, and himself, Rucks, while he was still past his fighting days, could still wield his choice weapons and was as capable as anyone else.

To say Rucks was concerned was an understatement, his wisened half was screaming at him, and his scientific half was attempting to assure themselves that they could hold their own in siege warfare, the Bastion, while not impenetrable, was hard to bring down, and there were plenty of places to hunker down. With some luck, the Kid would be back on his feet in no time at all. Right?

It had taken the remains of an entire country, an entire culture of decimated people that Rucks had regretfully pulled the trigger on, it had taken all of that and more to even put a stop to Kid and his unyielding determination, and not for very long. Despite how little they could care for an unconscious boy, he pulled through.

But this time was different. He wasn't waking up so quickly, he hardly even stirred, and the most they could get as a confirmation of life was a steady pulse, which would have meant waking up in a day or two of rest. But it had been two weeks since their arrival here, and a majority of that time had their sturdy muscle out of commission. Zia was worried, and while she wasn't much of a healer, she at least knew enough to patch someone up after a less-than-perfect expedition into the wild unknown. Zulf and his feelings about the situation were murky at best, it must be hard to be among the people you wanted to destroy so badly.

Wrenching himself free from his doubts he had gone to walk around the Bastion's main plaza, where the brilliant azure monument stood, sealed tightly with a faint blue glow, currently working on moving the core to the center of the safe-haven, to the center of its interworkings, carefully hidden somewhere below.

The armory stood truly empty of life this time around, normally he wouldn't be going walking around in such a place, but he felt as though something was tugging him here. Aside from all the dust building up one of some of the unused weaponry, and a carefully locked up prototype of the Calamity, there was nothing out of place. The only thing that truly caught his attention was just the antiquated hammer, stained with blue metal splotches now from its long time of being unused, uncared for. His hammer- and His rifle.

He was a fighting man, but not so much nowadays, he'd done enough without being on the front lines. But maybe carrying his own life-long friend around would be a comforting weight to the ever-so confusing world he continued to find himself in. A wistful gaze hung in his eyes as his hand reached out to grip its wrapped handle, how could he have just let his own friend sit here and rust?

Rucks later found himself underneath the heart of the bastion, stepping on wood planks that creaked gently under his weight. He was wearing his old officer's uniform, a deep vibrant blue pea coat, and brown trousers. On his front, he carried his rifle by its sling, and on his back sat his hammer. He was finding himself to have to get re-adjusted to lugging around so much weight again, but he could manage today and regret it in the morning. So far he was down here to content himself by becoming lost in his work once again, wanting to return to his theories on the world so he could at least have something to talk about with the Kid when they woke up, or another story to tell for Zia.

The power in the cores had mysteriously vanished with the wake of the Calamity, the most logical explanation to this was likely because of how much it had taken to keep all of the Bastion together, more accurately the heart of it which that he currently tampered with.

The Bastion was designed to be... Bigger, on par with an entire city, not just a small hamlet consisting of a few buildings that were vital to the Kid and his questing for more cores, likely its size was compromised when it was pulling through the calamity. This theory was further supported by the fact that when the Cores came back, it had actually brought more livable land to be on, to build on.

Now... Why had the Bastion run into another bump in the torn-up road? His best guess was that by detonating the supply of cores they'd amassed, they might have drained more than he had expected. Of course, though, his estimate was made after the Bastion's second purpose was realized, not before, and it had the unexpected and unaccounted variable of the Ura that had gone and dug in the seeds of something wrong in the Bastion, something wrong that had only recently cleared up.

He had to throw that theory in the bin, too many unknown variables.

The second one was that it had been losing more power keeping itself afloat and bringing out materials that were hard to find in the ruins of reality. That would explain some of it, he'd only approximated flight, not how their quality of life had been affecting it. But still, it wouldn't be enough to halt it entirely.

He stopped when he heard something metallic clink behind him, taking a glance behind him he spotted nothing except more wood and the blue glow from the cores hanging up above. No real cause of the noise, except for possibly the wind.

Another reason could be that the evacuation of all of them resulted in the Bastion finding a new world entirely, a new existence, anywhere that still remained, and that ripping a hole into a new plane of reality, and then sealing it to prevent his gutted world from spilling into this... New World... was what had drained the power. If that was true, it meant that they were the only humans alive at this point, no Ura countrymen to encounter out in the wilds, no survivors from Caelondia at the frontiers of his country.

This was it.

He felt his skin crawl at the thought, if this was a new world, then where would they go? What would they do? Start a city of a population of four and a few beasts? Who's to say the locals will be so friendly at strangers knocking on their doorstep and claiming a bit of land for themselves? Even more so when they had stolen a core from them, their reputation here was tarnished more than the metal windbags would be caught munching on.

Attempting to banish his worry yet again he called his thoughts to the prototype of the Calamity that had been hesitantly handed off to the kid in his last stand, in the Tazal Terminals, the center of Zulf's people, the Ura homeland. That prototype had seemed to react when near the so-called Crystal Heart, which had prompted a day of studying the two thoroughly together, and the results were strange. The bright red shells that would be fired from it were more theoretically more accurate on account of the now stable energy it was drawing, which was coming from the Heart, something that should be impossible as the Calamity Cannon was one of the first few experimental weapons created by their tampering and refining of the forces of nature that made up their world, and it seemed that the only reason it was possible was on account of the two having a similar type, essentially being compatible.

What this boded for them, he was unsure. A warfaring people would study it, and inadvertently cause another Calamity due to the sabotaged notes and study behind the largescale version based on the prototype. It would be another world ended.

Rucks began the trek up a flight of stairs.

On the other hand, should it be discovered and its purpose revealed... Well, that reputation is going to be a lot more sullied than would be worth polishing up again. Small blessings that they kept all that wasn't in use under lock and key, and that as far as he knew, the Bastion was still hidden.

"This world has a lot more going for it in the prosperity sector, almost makes you wonder what it can be hiding, doesn't it? In any case, Zia, how has the kid been? Still snoozing?"

A girl with pale, almost snowy skin sat at the table, fixing up the blue bandana keeping black hair from spilling over her face after setting a plate on the table. Blue clothing and leather bracers, Zia was dressed up like a gilded sapphire. A gilded sapphire faded and worn from nothing but worry, reflecting in her once piercing brown eyes. Between the two of them, there is only silence.

"...He's alive. Still." The singer's voice was once melodious, now heavy with anxiety. "There's not much to say, aside from Zulfs turn to watch over him being up."

The silence fills with the gentle clanging of silverware, working its way slowly through the stew that had been painstakingly prepared. Too bad the sour mood has seeped into it. "I can look after him for a while again, it's the least I could do."

"Which one, Zulf, or him?" Zia said dryly.

"Aw, don't give me that. You know exactly which one of them I mean. Besides, we all have to stick together a whole lot more now, we can't afford to let a bit of mistrust break all of us again." Rucks chided, his low tone ringing through clearly as he took a few more bites of his stew.

What had happened before was a whole lot more than just a bit of mistrust, but it isn't polite to talk about that at the dinner table now is it?

"Don't you worry now, the kid will wake up soon, and it'll be all right."

"You said that last time when he was sent out, and when he came back with a back full of arrows." Zia said snappily.

"Well, I'm not the one who gave him the freedom to choose after did I?" Rucks replied, a faint grin forming up. "Yeah. I know, I know." Zia's anger deflated, and the table went quiet again with a much more natural silence.

"I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting when I said no to restoring the old world, but this" She gazed out into the open skyline, watching the twilight settle over the sky. It was weird seeing true twilight without seeing the liquid rock beneath the world's crust light up the sky from underneath. "-wasn't what I was expecting."

"I know Zia." Ruck rose from his seat. "I know."

As the darkness settled all around the Bastion, Rucks had gone down a set of stairs in a small hut out of view, and out of mind, behind the Pantheon. At night the Bastion seemed to lock itself up, the ground underneath that made the landing pad would sink into the land below and vanish, making it difficult to get in. Through the front door so to speak at least.

Coming down the stairs he sees the three rooms that were actually in use. Yes, he had his own room too, but he tended to stay up at the surface in his tent, keeping watch at all hours of the day, even if he couldn't be much use. The tiny bit of green fibrous material caught in a door hinge did not escape his vision as he opened the door to the kids' room, inside a pale man with ruffled black hair sat on a stool. "Turns up Zulf. Come on, head up to the dinner table." Zulf silently slipped away and out of sight.

The kid had a bit of the armor on him removed, revealing the simple black tee-shirt underneath all the loosely tied pieces of metal. It was at least comfortable to lay on, and should he awake, at least it wouldn't be with a cricked back.

Something wooden groaned in a corner, and Rucks sat down on the stool after taking a second to sweep some dust off of the collection of mementos the kid had garnered over the course of his journey here in the Bastion. Or at least, he would have, if there was any dust on them. The crystal barret that stood on top of a lonely wardrobe glinted in the light, as if polished once again, and it was doubtful Zulf or Zia would touch something that both didn't belong to them, and held a great deal of value to the kid, especially of the sentimental variety.

Something he said a long time ago was pushed to the forefront of Rucks' mind, if only for a moment. The kids very own hammer was in his room, despite every other weapon being rightly locked up in the armory, this one was kept displayed in a corner, the bronze head shining cleanly as it stood upside down. Most of the things in this room hadn't been touched since they got the first core.

So why were things clean?

Warding the growing unease he just sighed and stared at the Kid's still form once again. "Just a stranger's voice to guide you, that hasn't even asked your name." Rucks thought to himself quietly. "I don't suppose a bit of the stranger's voice will get you to wake up again, will it?" His hands felt their way off his hammer and onto the grip of a finely cut maple stock, slowly weaving a finger into a loop, a gentle click sounding from metal falling into place. "Especially when we've got two o' them in the same room now don't we?"

His rifle pointed upward, as the slow stirring of warm air made itself be known to him despite his old ears. Something was hiding on the roof, and that something had better make itself be known before they get shown The Mercy.

"Hmm. And just when I thought you creatures would never notice." A strange dulcet chitter echoed from above, and Rucks snapped his attention to it, keeping his rifle by his side as he avoided striking first. Something with the vague silhouette of a horse held itself firmly to the roof by its hooves, with green eyes and a fibrous translucent green mane. The black chitin and twisted horn strapped to its head weren't helping, reminding him of the stones that sprouted sharply from the earth in areas that had been severely damaged by the calamity.

"And I suppose here lies the great Crystal Thief those pitiful ponies were fussing about. You look like you've seen better days." The being descended from the roof, righting itself in the process with a smooth motion of its limbs. Rucks noticed the fangs that protruded from the bug-beings mouth and the various holes in its legs.

"I don't think I've ever seen such a cruel fate be inflicted on someone other than my own kind before. I must ask then, how did this one escape?"

Rucks was quick to catch on to the question and cut through the pregnant pause swiftly. "The skyway sent him away before he could be captured." His neutral voice took precedent since for once, some creation from the wild unknowns wasn't out to fight, and could actually be reasoned with. Hopefully.

"...You seem to have a lot of knowledge about us, and the locals. Don't suppose you could actually wake him up, would you?"

The gaze of the bug made Rucks its target, the creature rose to its full height before addressing him. "I suppose I should apologize for the intrusion. I am Queen Chrysalis. Leader of the changeling swarm, and in the process of being hunted, much like you."

"Come again now Queen?" He raised a brow.

"Certainly." She said almost proudly. "You are correct in that I am knowledgable, and you seem to hold some I am interested in, as well as an object of... Importance, to me."

"Suppose you'd like to make a trade then?" A little crevice made itself known at the corners of Queen Chrysalis' face. "Correct. Propose for a moment that I heal your 'Kid' here, wake him from the wasting spell those ponies have cast, and I..." She paused, pretending to think. "I, take the Crystal Heart that you have in your possession."

Rucks closed his eyes and took the rifle fully in his hands in thought. "We need that core to survive."

There was much to ask about why they were being hunted, but he had to play along lest the strange Queen suddenly vanish along with his answers. Or worse, attempt to force its way into stealing the core. "Suppose for a moment then, that if you let us hang onto the core temporarily, while we find a replacement, you can take the original."

The Queen seemed to stiffen if just for a moment, and returned to talking like nothing happened, if with just an iota more sympathy if it could even be called that in her voice. "The wait will be harsh on us, creature. But maybe I'll accept-" the grip on the rifle hardened as the changeling suddenly hovered in the air in front of him, grinning with disturbingly sharp teeth. "-if you can make a demonstration."

Anklegator - Anklegators were thought to be extinct because their eggs took decades to hatch and were easy prey. Capable of growing massive sizes, none know how they look like below ground, only their scarred horn and rumbling right before revealing a brightly colored scaly face of death. The largest one, Queen Anne, was notorious in the believed hatching grounds of the species, Roathus Lagoon. Rumor states the species is invulnerable unless it rains.

Stinkeye - A small creature made up of one eye covered in tough, green spiky skin, capable of floating. They only move when you aren't looking them in the eye, and often explode in a small cloud of pestilence and organic shrapnel when destroyed.