//------------------------------//
// Fifth Day, Afternoon—Sleight of Hoof 
// Story: Cutie Mark Crusaders Fantasian City-State Historians, YAY!!!!!! 
// by Dragonborne Fox 
//------------------------------//

The trip to the nearest guard post was uneventful, despite the fact that Matt had conjured shadows around him, Katie and the trio to effectively levitate the whole lot of them over there like some sort of deranged, drug-addled genie. Getting into the guard post proved far more interesting; the front gates were armed to the teeth with drones, tanks, airships, and turrets, each poised on them with odd ripples on their surfaces that suggested they were blending in and out of reality on a whim. The only reason they could see the weapons and gates at all was thanks to Matt casting a spell over the area, revealing all of that ruckus hiding in plain sight over what seemed to be part of a simple mountain range.

The cannons remained trained on them until a flying, drill-less drone scanned them to admit them. For another thing, Matt waved his horn towards a sensor built into the gate itself, a simple series of gemstones built into and around a massive lock, and it opened with a groan of steel upon registering his magic, allowing him, the wraithling and the Crusaders to slip in with the aid of his shadows. Inside was pitch-black, and the gate closed behind them, shrouding them in darkness. Matt lit his horn once more, casting a light at its tip that gave them a radius of golden magic to see each other and the spell's edge.

"I got a question, and it's been bugging me since that virus thing showed up yesterday," Sweetie asked, turning to Matt and tilting her head. "How come you can use shadows? Isn't that forbidden magic?"

Matt shook his head. "Well… I assume you've heard about King Sombra, right?" he asked, garnering a nod from the Crusaders. "He's… a species of pony called the Umbrum, that are living shadow-entities compacted into pony form with powers over darkness, and they were once corrupted ponies who dabbled a little bit too much into actual forbidden magic until they became their own equine subspecies with a particular weakness to love, and Crystal Hearts if any are present to channel that love. I'm… half-Umbrum, though I'm smart enough to not use the forbidden magic because it will actually eat my sanity if I try."

"How come you're half-Umbrum?" Scootaloo asked.

Matt smiled. "Well, some Umbrum can regain their sanity, fall in love with non-Umbrum, and… the rest is history, as they say. Mom just never really liked talking about her heritage, and neither did my Uncle Andrew," he answered with a shrug. "And no, Ragnarok doesn't count as forbidden magic, on the grounds that I'm still sane after using it. Neither is using darkness-based spells, unless you're performing a blood ritual or making a phylactery or something like that." His smile waned a bit. "Also, don't include that in your report please, we don't want to give the Canterlot nobles more ammunition against us."

The Crusaders shared looks. "So not all Umbrum are evil?" they asked in unison.

Matt's smile returned. "Nope. Though, the non-evil Umbrum are few in number," he replied, turning to the darkness ahead. "Stick close; the soldiers in the guard posts are paranoid." With that warning, he began to trot ahead, albeit at a sedate pace to avoid outrunning the children and wraith.

A long hallway stretched on, or at least that was what it seemed as they traversed the tunnels. But walls rippled around Matt whenever he veered towards, then through them, and the Crusaders and wraithling followed to find themselves in a completely different tunnel every time. Goodness, the guard posts took their security more seriously than the Aerie itself; one could easily get lost in this maze with no way out, and they were thankful they had another, more experienced adult to guide them around. Maybe the horrors witnessed during the Trials had traumatized the guards on some level, the youngsters reflected.

Katie kept her ears perked and attentive, swiveling them to catch even the slightest sound. All she caught were the noises their hooves made on the floor, and she'd have been lying if she said she weren't creeped out by that fact. "I can't even hear the whirring of magitek…" she muttered, ears twitching. "And I know for a fact we have drones outside. Why can't I hear them?"

"Sound-based illusions. Helps keep the guard posts' locations a secret from whatever enemy decides they want to confront us," Matt replied, heading towards another seemingly-solid wall with his charges following him. "Also helps us mask how big our military actually is." The Crusaders peered past his legs, and found a light in the distance of this hall, dim yet present.

Katie's head jerked up a bit. "... now I'm hearing something else," she reported, looking intently ahead. With that, everyone went for the sounds, muted at first thanks to their hoofsteps, yet gradually growing louder and louder the closer they came. Eventually, it grew loud enough to form into coherent words coming from two voices, and the youngsters realized what they were hearing were the sounds of an unusually disgruntled discussion.

"Can you believe this? All this damn time, Windwood's been among the population of mangled alicorns," one masculine voice said, sounding irritated. "And she's been geased, too, so she couldn't tell us diddly squat! It's the same with her twin; she couldn't spill the beans about her severed horn either!"

"At this rate, I'm not even surprised anymore. Lance and Natalie are also among that population, so it would only make sense that they'd find another disgruntled member of that particular society with a bunch of angst and a penchant for afflicting horrible ailments on whoever the hell crossed her," another said, the shaking of the head audible in his voice. "Nor am I surprised her sister's with her on that one; heard she has fantastibad harp-playing skills. How do you screw that up?"

The Crusaders silently gasped and turned to Matt for an explanation, wondering if what they heard was either true or a bunch of hooey before they remembered the odd, almost out-of-place scars that adorned Anna's back. Had… had that weird alphabet seemingly written on Anna's body have something to do with the scars on her back? Oblivious, the pair of voices continued their banter, spilling more information that the Crusaders quickly realized might have actually counted as classified.

"At least Lance doesn't have his horn anymore. And nobody can make him dance like a puppet, either," one voice said, the nod audible in his tone. "Though, given what he had in mind for Fantasia while under his geas? Wouldn't be surprised if fertility magic was in his repertoire of spells."

"Oh please, you and I both know the bastard can't cast worth a damn," the other said somewhat snappishly. "Starcovert has more power in the functioning halves of her wings than he ever did in his horn. Still surprised she hasn't gelded him yet, with all the crass jokes I hear he cracks on their adventures. Surprised Windwood hasn't turned him into a pin cushion yet, either."

The first barked out a laugh. "Dude, I hear Windwood begs for him in her sleep!" he said. "But seriously, when we found her, she had no practical skills whatsoever—she had to have classes to learn basic things and spells before actually being able to join the military, and had to have physical therapy on top of that just to be able to walk again! I'm amazed she climbed the ranks as quickly as she did!"

"Yeah, she took to the training like a sand slime to a desert," the second agreed. "Hey, you did hear about the catastrophe in Greenwood, right?"

"Oh yeah… would that be grounds to classify Windwood as one of the Children of Catastrophe now?" the first wondered out loud. "And given the miserable state we found her in, there must have been a pretty good reason for her to go against orders to torch the village, and she didn't even have the decency to walk up to the villagers herself first, and announce to them, 'Hey, your town sucks, it's got to go,' or something like that."

Matt sighed, shook his head, and looked at the Crusaders with a flat expression as they turned to regard him with horrified looks. "Anna did what?" Apple Bloom asked in a whisper, unable to comprehend what she was hearing.

"Trust me, you don't want the details—most I can say in a nutshell is that Greenwood was run by elderly maniacs who enabled a set of terror triplets with a horrifying penchant for hurting those in their supposedly tight-knit community who stepped out of line from the established village 'tradition,' and they didn't like foals belonging to outsiders all that much," he whispered, just loud enough for them to hear him. The word 'tradition' turned venomous as he spoke it. His eyes even briefly flashed red when the word left his mouth, as he probably imagined whatever Anna went through to warrant the torching of Greenwood.

"Is it true that… she's an… and Lance…" Scootaloo asked, even as pieces of a puzzle began to fall into place in her head. Was that how Lance… controlled the gryphons during the whole mess of a war? There were spells for that?!

"Anna would skin me if I said anything, and Lance would revoke my breeding rights. And then both might shoot my eyes out afterwards, with extreme prejudice. On a related note, Sarah might impale me with her halberd to keep my trap shut." Matt shook his head, his expression still grave. "Unfortunately for the questions most likely on your mind…" His head dropped, and he frowned deeply. "The answer's 'yes.'"

"What about Natalie?" Sweetie whispered back. "Is she gonna be okay?"

Matt shrugged, lifting his head again. "Her wounds are battle scars. And she's not particularly the type to show them off," he replied. "As I was actually there to see her obtain the scars, I can say this: long, tiring fight with one of the war mechs back in the Trials of Attrition. She's not mad her wings have been halfway amputated; she can just self-levitate to compensate for her flightlessness, and besides, she called it even by amputating Lance's horn off his head." He looked at the trio with a no-nonsense expression reserved for misbehaving soldiers with a failure to communicate. "Also, don't stick any of that in the report either; what you heard here does not leave this guard post under any circumstances, save for what is allowed to be put in the report. Understood?"

Their nod of affirmation eased him somewhat, and he turned back ahead again. They approached, then walked into a room with lit screens and a control panel. The screens were the only light in the room besides Matt's magic, showing off everything surrounding the mountain range and the horizon beyond. The light of the screens was also revealing two changelings, a gold and a green, having a heated discussion between themselves, without noticing they had a peanut gallery full of eavesdroppers listening in on it.

"I'm telling you, the moment we had to treat Windwood for her fractured legs and extreme case of hunger, was the same moment I knew something was up. Her insanity didn't help either; I'm surprised we didn't have to cocoon her to keep her from hurting herself," the green changeling said, shaking his head.

"As bad off as she was back then, I'm amazed she didn't wind up turning into a wraith on us. What would she have done, roll off the gurney? Flail her leg-casts like wet noodles? Not to mention the fact she was pregnant when we found her," the gold changeling agreed with a nod. "Truth be told, there was no helping those twin foals when they came out stillborn; I'm saddened she's still visiting their graves yearly. The Lonesome March must be really rough on her, and what's worse, is it's almost time for it to happen again."

"Yeah, and she can't hear us all the way out here, since she's holed up doing paperwork. That mountain'll eat her sooner than she hears us talking about this," the green changeling said, still frowning ruefully at it all. "And with Lance practically riding her ass to get the paperwork done, I'm amazed he hasn't proposed to her already."

"She's still not legal, dude. And she won't be until she hits twenty-one," the gold soldier said severely, his frown deepening in disapproval. "That's another three years off, at least. And that's if she doesn't geld him first."

At that point, Apple Bloom decided to cut in, if only to stop listening in on this discussion unfit for children. "How do ya get in a real bad shape like that at all?" she asked curtly, causing the two soldiers to jump and turn their heads to spot her and her group. The soldiers freaked out and conjured blasters, but lowered them when they saw Matt raise his hoof to signal a halt. She made to repeat the question, but Matt closed her mouth with his magic and shook his head at her as if to say 'your sister would murder me in my sleep if I told you, and she won't even have the decency to make it a betrayal.'

Matt turned to the soldiers, still wearing the 'what we have here is a failure to communicate' expression. "I can get trying to hide yourselves talking about that one little topic that's liable to have your cotton-stuffed exoskeletons mounted above the nearest fireplace if a certain Lieutenant-General were present to hear about it. And I can also get talking about other, somewhat-related topics of similar nature in conjunction with the first, but can we not talk about any of it in the presence of impressionable children?" he asked bluntly, causing the soldiers to gulp and shakily nod as they moved to stand at attention.

"Yes sir," they mumbled in unison.

The green soldier decided to venture, "Why did you bring kids here, sir?"

"Showing them how things work around here, for a project they're making," Matt said simply. "Also, I will be telling Lance what you were talking about earlier, so you two are not off the hook," he added in a harsh voice.

The soldiers wilted, wings drooping and tails tucking between their hinds as shame flashed in their eyes. "Understood, sir…" they muttered in unison. "Is… that all?"

Matt shook his head, released his magical hold on Apple Bloom's mouth, and nudged her forward with the still-raised hoof. "Go on; they won't shoot as long as I'm here," he said gently. The other Crusaders followed Apple Bloom, and after a moment, so did Katie, who might have strode gamely forward to keep the situation from turning any hairier than it had.

Immediately, the blasters were raised again, this time poised at the wraithling, who did nothing more than quirk a brow and lift her head in response. "Well? Gonna bug up and shoot me with your large guns to compensate for your tiny ovipositors?" she asked, causing the soldiers to falter for a bit. "Or are you gonna stand there and stare like yellow-bellied chickens and flail your hooves for a while longer?"

The soldiers traded looks, well aware of the wraithling's seemingly suicidal bravado. They jerked back to their superior, when his shadows raced out to forcibly lower their weapons for them. "No friendly fire, especially in the presence of children," Matt growled in warning, his eyes beginning to radiate purple and black mist. "Or do you want me to shove my hooves up your asses and wear you both like footwarmers?"

The gold changeling gabbled, flailing a hoof at the wraith. "Y-y-you mean to tell us that—" he started, his eyes almost bugging out completely from his head.

"Yes. Also, she's immortal; your potshots would just make her want to flay you once whatever limbs you shot off regenerate," Matt said, still frowning in disapproval. It seemed like he was now going to have to add 'insubordination' to the list of this pair of changelings' growing woes. "Or cannibalize you, whichever would prove more convenient for her."

Katie turned her head to scowl at Matt, or at least, as much as her split grin would allow. As he was standing behind her, her head rotated a full one-hundred-eighty degrees with a few sickening cracks resulting from the procedure. "Dude… it's practically Changeling Code to not drain your fellow changelings dry," she said severely. "Even I had that drilled into my head before I became hiveless."

"Not that kind of cannibalism; I'm talking about the one where you use your teeth," Matt replied, shaking his head at the wraithling.

"Still not kosher," Katie argued, before turning her head back to the soldiers who were mere seconds from initiating friendly fire right to her scarred face. "Well? Gonna show me how much of a pair of big strong changelings you are, or are you gonna bend over and see reason?" she growled at the pair.

It took a few seconds for the pair to come to their decision, and begrudgingly, they sent their weapons back to the ether. "Alright, alright, what do you ponies want?" the green soldier asked, turning to look at the Crusaders.

Apple Bloom asked first, if only to delay the soldiers' inevitable punishment later. "How do the illusions work around here? Don't they normally go away after being dispelled?" she asked, tilting her head. "Cause I reckon that they must be a special sort; I was taught most illusions break once ya see through 'em."

The green soldier sighed. "Well, the illusions are cast into special gemstones that keep them in effect, acting as a kind of geas upon the magitek they're slotted into," he said. "Basically, cast by a normal unicorn, alicorn, or whatever, illusions dispel once seen through, though depending on who is casting them and what tribe they are might make that task more challenging. But if they are cast into gemstones that keep them active after being seen through, then it makes quick work of altering the illusions if paired with certain other spells, making them that much harder to break overall. It also helps that it depends on the strength of the caster, and Bladerune over there is one of our best in that department."

"You'd practically have to destroy the magitek thoroughly just to break the illusions," the gold soldier added, smiling as the Crusaders began to write the information down on their notepads, though after taking a moment to angle themselves in relation to the light just to see what they were writing. "Which is kinda hard to do, when it seems to phase in and out of reality as it damn well pleases." He wore a bit of a rueful smile on his face. "Well, I see you're one of the three who earned her mark yesterday. Must've been bonkers to fight the sentient virus that's been a thorn in our side for so long."

Apple Bloom grinned, still feeling pride over that. "Ayup, and I bet that virus' masters are madder than Tartarus right now," she agreed. "Never expected a bunch of foals to help land the final blow, and now they must've uttered every word in the book that I ain't allowed to use 'less I get a switching."

"No kidding. Those bastards must be blue in the face right now," the gold soldier agreed.

"Trust me, these kids have guts of steel," Katie agreed, wings buzzing without lifting her off. "And I should know; not many foals their age, or the age when I turned, have had guts of steel."'

The soldiers turned to look at the wraithling with frowns. "Wait, you were a nymph when you became a wraith?" the green one asked, garnering immediate nods from Matt and the Crusaders.

"How else am I so puny?" Katie replied, lifting a hoof to gesture to her body. The soldiers took one moment to double-check her height, and sighed, now feeling a slight sense of relief that they didn't add 'child abuse' to their list of issues, even if said child was technically older than their grandparents.

"How old are you, scrawny noodle?" the gold changeling asked, somewhat exasperated. "I mean now, not when you kicked the can."

"I don't know; I was sealed for much of my unlife," Katie replied with a shrug. "Definitely older than you, though."

The pair of soldiers traded looks. "That's worrying… a changeling who can't remember?" the gold one asked, almost disbelievingly. "Even if she had been hit on the head repeatedly, she should still be able to remember everything…"

"Well… if you're sealed, you might also be unconscious during the whole kerfuffle. So if that's the case, it would make sense she'd have a gap in her memory, despite changelings remembering everything from when they hatch up until they die," the green one replied, before turning back to Katie. "What were you sealed in, and were you conscious?"

"Well… something ate me, so I was kinda sealed in that. I remember feeling warm, gooey, wet flesh and sharp teeth that only scraped me, before I was encased in a giant crystal attached to the thing that ate me. I remember seeing out of that crystal into a cavern with a hall, lined with torches on both sides, and spiked, rune-engraved chains presumably anchored to the entity in question," Katie replied, drawing a sharp gasp from Matt and the soldiers as she made the confession. "Also, I… was conscious, but kinda lost my mind, and had forgotten more than a few faces that showed up to prod around the cavern like dumbasses, so… I had to take a year or two after being unsealed just to reconfirm reality itself…"

The Crusaders turned to her, confusion flashing in their eyes and arching their brows. "Do you know what the thing that ate you was called?" Scootaloo asked, before noticing Matt's very pale face, wide eyes, and shrunken pupils. She turned to him and pressed further, "And what's with you? You look like you've seen a ghost…"

"I… I think I know what… or rather, who, she's talking about…" Matt muttered quietly, his face continuing to drain itself of whatever color it could grab in the somewhat darkened room. He turned to the Crusaders and added, "Let's just say I fought the entity in question with Natalie and Lance, after accidentally awakening it and nearly dying because it drained much of our magic… and we've successfully slain him. But if he had changelings and such sealed in him…"

The Crusaders paled at the implications. Katie did too, an impressive feat given her complexion. "So… there might be other things running around because of that?" Scootaloo ventured.

Matt grimly nodded. "I mean… I'm not a hundred percent sure about this, but… if there are, we have to take immediate precautions…" He turned to Katie again. "You're going to tell us what went down before your sealing after these three have headed home. Do you remember what happened before the teeth from hell came clamping down on you?"

Katie nodded. "As sure as my hatching," she said.

"Okay, that's… that's a start." He turned to the trio again. "But first, we have a report to wrap up." He trotted over and pulled them into a hug. Somewhat confused, they hugged back, unsure as to what had grabbed Matt's goat and slammed it on its head by the horns, but guessed that it was a pretty bad situation given his expression. "Also, you three are going to get an explanation of what the hell I'm on about, since you're now… enough in the know to require it. Though only after this whole mess is cleaned up first."

The Crusaders nodded, and waited for him to yield his hold before parting from the hug. They turned back to the soldiers, who were still struggling to regain their composure. They could hardly be blamed for their pale faces; apparently, they knew what was up, and the trio had learned enough from their eavesdropping to avoid pressing the issue further.

But at least whatever mess was on Fantasia would hopefully be contained onto the planet, right?

The trio had to shake their worries for their Fantasian neighbors aside; the assignment wasn't going to finish itself, after all. "So how many tunnels do you have in the guard posts, and do they connect to the Aerie at all?" Sweetie asked, though with some trepidation in her voice as she struggled to shelve the worry away for another day.

"Honestly, we've lost count of the tunnels," the green soldier answered with a shrug, his composure returning to his features. "However, we have one tunnel in every guard post that connects to the Aerie, which all lead us to…" He wilted a bit. "The Graveyard of the Forgotten."

"The Graveyard of the Forgotten?" Scootaloo asked, tilting her head. "Is that where the dead from the Trials of Attrition are resting?"

The gold soldier shook his head. "No, no; the fallen have all received proper funerary rights in ash urns, and are held in a series of separate graveyards in the guard posts, which are connected to the tunnels that lead us to the Graveyard of the Forgotten," he answered. "The Graveyard of the Forgotten is where we… bury those we could not save, those who wound up forgotten by Fantasian society at large. It's a reminder of our failures; a reminder that we could have been quicker, stronger, better, smarter… but fell short." His expression turned solemn. "Lieutenant-General Windwood avoids it like the plague."

The trio jotted the information down, though they wisely kept out a few key details that would have ponies back home asking even more uncomfortable questions than they had asked their sisters and idol regarding a particularly sordid newsprint. "Is it full of hatred and despair?" Sweetie asked, turning to the soldiers.

The green one glumly nodded. "Yes, though only contained in the ashes of those who received full funerary rights, which… is pretty much every tombstone, and casketed slot available. We have to avoid touching them, or else we might go into shock," he said in a severe tone of voice. "Put it like this: barring… two exceptions at most, every creature we failed to save has died cursing their existence, their former communities, and even us for not making it in time to actually be able to intervene."

"And each and every time, without fail, they were so consumed by those emotions we had to burn their bodies as soon as they passed, just to keep them from returning as particularly pissed wraiths," the gold soldier said, shaking his head. "Windwood was one of the few we could save in time, and she was cutting it pretty close to death herself. And she's nuttier than even Lance was, when he was geased." He glanced at Katie and added, "How a changeling could come back as a wraith… boggles us. We're literally the one species that we know of on both sister worlds that should not be able to join the ranks of undead, due to the whole certain-emotions-being-literally-toxic issue."

"She's a physical wraith, too. Most of the time, wraiths are… intangible. Ghostlike. Usually hiding in cloaks and conjuring whatever element they died to," the green soldier said, frowning. "Which makes her over there an anomaly. And the physical wraiths… they're ten times worse than those dispossessed of their bodies. Stronger, harder to kill, mad as hell… it's as if they are so angry they literally refuse to die. But there is a way to kill them."

"Drain them of their hate and despair?" Apple Bloom asked, to which the soldiers and Katie nodded.

"Which is a lot harder than it sounds. The bastards won't even keep still long enough for the attempt to be made," the gold soldier replied. "And they have enough to kill an entire changeling hive in their bodies, making it… inadvisable to slay them that way. Pumping them full of love, however, does weaken them, but weakens the changeling who does that in turn, making that inadvisable as well."

The Crusaders took another moment to jot down some more information, making a tiny little section about the wraiths to avoid confusing their classmates, even drawing distinctions between the tangible ones and intangible ones. Of course, they tactfully neglected to mention their undead chaperone, who was standing not even three feet away from them watching them write.

"Are any of the tunnels dead ends?" Apple Bloom asked.

The green soldier nodded. "At least three-quarters of them are in the guard posts; any enemy that wants to waltz in and disable us through shutting these babies down will just find themselves in a seemingly endless maze with no way out, assuming they don't get detained and thoroughly questioned by one of us first, or shot down by the magitek inside and outside of the posts without being scanned first," he answered. "Those who… expire before we can get to them, of which there have only been three so far are given the same rights and privileges for their funerals, and subsequently placed in the Graveyard of the Forgotten."

"Do those in the Graveyard have any names?" Sweetie pressed.

The pair of soldiers shook their heads. "Not even the… exceptions who died without hatred and despair in their hearts have names," they said in unison.

The Crusaders turned to Matt and asked in unison, "How many soldiers are in each guard post?"

Matt frowned, eyes gravitating to the ceiling as he did numbers in his head. "In each post… roughly ten thousand a piece, and they all swap shifts with other soldiers to keep from going too stir-crazy," he said with a shrug. "Count that with the Aerie's population of five-hundred thousand, three-quarters of which are gryphons, most of which are either in active service or too young to be in service… we have a pretty sizable army."

"And how many guard posts do you have in total?" Sweetie pressed.

"A grand total of a hundred, scattered across the entire surrounding mountain range," Matt said without missing a beat. "Which totals about a million soldiers, three-quarters of which are changelings, overall." The trio's jaws promptly dropped. The Aerie effectively had enough numbers to stronghoof the rest of Fantasia into submission if the entire force were of a mind to?! 

"Of course," Matt continued, "changelings are… prolific in their breeding, and with the slime ranch are easily able to make a thousand grubs per couple, if that couple were to party around and breed with other couples, though most only take the sedate approach and pop out several dozen per clutch… and that's comparable to the gryphons' modest numbers of up to a dozen per litter, with individual nurseries for gryphon couples to rear their young in…"

"Whoa…" Scootaloo gasped, and turned to the soldiers. "And all the grubs are raised in the hatchery, right? At the same time?"

The soldiers nodded. "Though, we watch them in shifts too. And each changeling set of parents only have several dozen in the most recent clutches, or are raising older nymphs," the green one said with a blaise shrug of his shoulders. "We're not so keen on taking over the world through overpopulating it; that's a bit impractical in the long run." He grinned a bit. "We let the General and his right hooves… barring one exception—" The Crusaders didn't need to ask who that exception probably was, and dared not interject in the slightest, "—watch them sometimes. The little ones have taken a particular liking to Lance, sometimes clinging to his body and chewing on his uniform."

"And hissing their little heads off at him," the gold soldier added, smirking at the thought. The trio wasted no time jotting down the relevant info, taking the time to do the math in their heads and on their papers; better to show the work and get a better grade, than to bungle it up and render their extra credit moot. 

The gold soldier conjured a photograph and gave it to the trio, and they looked at it and snickered as it captured Lance's priceless, wide-eyed expression as he had grubs under his hat, looking like they were about to make off with it. As the grubs on his head conspired against him, there were other grubs gathered at his hooves, all of them hissing at him as they looked about ready to cart him off completely. His wings were probably hidden under his coat, but even so he seemed more concerned with the grubs attempting to steal his hat.

"Of course, the grubs get a little bit inventive. We had to break him out of a cocoon once, when the little ones figured out how to make chitil," the gold soldier said, grinning wistfully. "And this batch has a lot of fast learners; they might be getting blaster training before their twelfth molt."

"Molt?" Scootaloo asked.

"Changelings shed their skin like a snake, even though they have internal bones. It's because their exoskeleton can only hold so much flesh and bone before it pops open like a grape, though not before a new one forms underneath it to keep the goods protected," Katie said with a shrug and a roll of her orbs. "They have a molt once they become a nymph, every year until they hit twenty-one, which is their last molt, barring any royalty, who have supposedly had more molts to compensate for their long legs."

"Which is part of why our age of consent is twenty-one around here," the green soldier said. "Of course… we do have other reasons, but I'm not allowed to disclose them because Bladerune is standing right over there, and I do not want to become one of his leg warmers," he added, with a pointed glance at his superior as he shuddered at the thought. "But mostly we settled on that because nobody could really agree on anything else."

Scootaloo tilted her head. "Huh… I heard in biology class that Equestria's age of consent is eighteen… or was that health class?" she muttered.

"Health class. Not sure why they taught us that load of hooey, and made me wonder why ponies can even get pregnant before eighteen, when—" At that moment, shadows raced over to clamp Sweetie Belle's mouth shut.

"Your sister would stitch my writhing soul to the lining of a new fur coat, don't exacerbate the issue, thank you," Matt growled, one of his eyes twitching as he spoke. Sweetie Belle nodded, and relaxed as the shadows let go of her muzzle.

The soldiers looked at their superior. "They have sisters?" the gold one asked, gesturing to the Crusaders.

"Two sisters and an idol, distributed evenly amongst them," Matt confirmed, his eye still twitching. "And they would knock me absolutely senseless if these three tattle on us."

The soldiers nodded in understanding. "Very well." They turned to the Crusaders. "Is that all?"

Scootaloo, Apple Bloom, and Sweetie Belle traded looks, and returned the glances with a single nod. "That about covers it, I reckon," Apple Bloom answered.

The green soldier patted their heads and watched them turn to trot away, information in hoof. "And remember, kids: loose lips sink airships." When he garnered odd looks, he extrapolated, "Nothing you heard out of our mouths will do you any good if you tell anyone back home—it'll probably cause a mass panic attack, among other things."

"Okay!" the Crusaders said, and waved goodbye as they departed the room with Matt and Katie, leaving the soldiers alone.

Eventually, after the silence had settled, the pair heard static coming from the screens, and turned to them before they could say anything. They gulped upon finding the scowling face of Lance glaring them up and down, a snort leaving his nostrils as his wings shuffled for a bit and his hooves came to rest on his desk. Before the pair could do anything to defend themselves, he spoke in a chilling voice, "Godcat-damnit, how many times have I told you gossips to shut up about certain topics?"

The pair faltered. "Um… three times before you departed for Mythos, sir?" they stammered in unison.

Lance nodded, his expression hardening. "And you two numbskulls didn't think I wouldn't be listening in on every single guard post, as soon as Bladerune announced to me he was chaperoning the children towards one of them? Furthermore—" He whipped whatever device was allowing him to communicate with the insubordinate, inconsiderate idiots, turning it away from the desk to reveal basically all of the adult, visiting Mythonians plus Spike, each of whom looked about green in the face and fit to vomit. 

He turned the device back around once the soldiers had time to let it sink in that Lance wasn't the only one who had heard the discussion, before plopping the device back on his desk. "—I happened to be in the middle of a very important discussion when you two started flapping your gums carelessly, and now I have to explain to our fine guests the full story, thanks for that by the way," he hissed, his glare growing cold and even more narrow than it was before. "Well? What was your reasoning for sinking airships, knowing children might listen in on it?"

Silence answered him. In the darkness of the room, it was the ultimate damnation. Lance snorted again. "Since you two can't keep your damn traps shut, I'm going to assign you to other duties. Starting tomorrow, and until further notice, you're going to document, in triplicate, who enters and who leaves the Graveyard of the Forgotten. Is that understood?"

The pair paled, but nonetheless had to suck it up and face the music, lest they enrage Lance even further than before. "U-understood, sir," they said in unison.

"Good," Lance hissed. "Dismissed." With that, the screens reverted back to showing everything surrounding the guard post, leaving them to ruminate on the nature of their punishment.