//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 
// Story: Left Behind 
// by origami 
//------------------------------//

Thorax the changeling had been left in the interrogation room for some time with nothing more than his thoughts.  He knew without using any of his changeling senses that the guards were still outside the door and would act if he even so much as wiggled the knob.  He didn't dare pace around either, as one side of the room had a large mirror, which Thorax knew was probably a one-way glass window, and likely hid a guard from his sight so they could observe him without him knowing.

So, he passed the time by going over the events from earlier in the day.

He had been part of the invasion force waiting outside the large pink shield that protected the city from attack.  Their orders had been to wait until they received a signal from the queen, at which point they would begin attacking; their queen had said she would drain the pony casting the spell and have it weak enough to break through when she gave the signal.

Once it had been given, every drone slammed their body against the shield, and the collective effort eventually succeeded, shattering the shield like glass.  With the shield gone, drones began diving into the streets, their bodies encased in protective magic which made them look like green comets rocketing to the ground.

While other drones participated in the attack quite readily, Thorax wanted to avoid it altogether.  In fact, he didn't even want to attack anypony in the first place.  From the day he hatched, he was nearly the complete opposite of his kind, only having the same appearance and practically insatiable need to feed on the love of others.  Where others had no compunctions of draining victims to a state of complete apathy, he had reservations, and those reservations often made him the target of much bullying and abuse.

After the shield broke, he flew down into the city and did his best to avoid any fighting and stayed out of the way of other drones, afraid he'd be drawn into acts of violence he'd sooner stay out of.  His hivemates, however, were more than content with their violent actions.  Damaging property, rounding up royal guards and other ponies in slime, and even engaging in some rather ridiculous tomfoolery.  On one street, he swore he saw one drone taking pictures with a camera of another drone modeling sun hats.

As he watched the violence unfold, he felt terrible inside.  None of these ponies deserved what was happening to them; they were simply going about their normal everyday lives.  They certainly hadn't wanted what should've been a cause for celebration to become the ringing of a proverbial dinner bell that signaled them out as being a main course for some sick and twisted buffet.

As Thorax tried to look away, he then saw something that made his eyes go wide.  In one of the areas of the city, six mares were facing off against a large group of drones.  The drones were using the most common tactic a changeling could use in deceiving ponies: shapeshifting.  Flashes of green fire replaced changelings with duplicates of the six mares.

Despite confusing some of these ponies in the beginning, the trick didn't work for long.  Soon enough, a massive fight broke out, and quite surprisingly, the ponies came out on top.

Thorax watched the fight in amazement.  The six mares all worked with one another to fight back the swarming changelings.  The heavy hitters of the group, a blue pegasus, a lavender unicorn and an orange earth pony wiped the proverbial floor with drone after drone, combining physical attacks with magic burst in an orchestration of skill and teamwork.

A pink earth pony in the group had managed to distract one drone, apparently egging him on to mimic her friends, with the drone obliging for one reason or another; he may have been absorbing love from her as he did so.  After a moment or so, the mare said something and proceeded to blast him and several other drones away with a party cannon seemingly produced from nowhere.

Even the least violent of them, a yellow pegasus and a white unicorn, resorted to their own methods, with the unicorn poking drones in the flank with a large hat pin and the pegasus using her own trickery by mimicking the communication of the other drones, often times throwing them off before they could realize the deception.

The altercation and its outcome had awed Thorax so much that he only barely noticed when the six mares were ambushed upon entering a building, but much to his surprise, the drones led the six mares back to the wedding chapel.  No doubt the queen was engorging herself on the groom, and possibly the princesses as well.  Thorax had to grimace at the idea of those ponies being sucked dry of all their love; he knew first-hoof what it was like to be drained and would not wish it on anypony.

Believing that the queen had already won, Thorax had decided to investigate the city.  He had checked out a few landmarks of interest, and was hovering in place while he decided what to see next, when he heard something rushing towards him from the chapel.  Looking back that way, he saw a wall of pink energy rushing at him, and he cried out as he raised his hooves and tucked up his hindlegs in an effort to protect his body as much as possible.

And then it had passed him, and shortly after, the guards took him prisoner.

Even after reviewing all that had happened, Thorax could still not think of a reason why that wave of energy that struck his hivemates and sent them flying wherever had spared him.  What made him so special that the energy simply ignored him, as though he were nothing more than a tree in the wind?

Before he could ponder his thoughts any further, the door to the room opened, and...

Thorax nearly made a mess in his chair.  It was both Princesses!  The sight of the two rulers put the changeling into a state of borderline panic.

"You are Thorax, correct?" the white alicorn asked.

"I-I am!" Thorax squeaked out, not wanting to anger a pony with near as much raw power as the queen had likely had during the wedding ceremony.

"I also trust that you know who we are?" her younger sister asked as well.

"I do!" Thorax again answered, nerves clear in his body.

"You may calm down," the older princess told Thorax.  "If we had wished you destroyed, we would have simply told our guards to do so.  We would simply like to talk to you."

Thorax did his best to calm down, but his nerves had him all twisted up inside.  The white alicorn let out a sigh and raised up her hoof.  "Please do as I do," she instructed Thorax.

Thorax, not wanting to upset the alicorn, raised his own hoof up.

"Breathe in" she told him as she brought her hoof to her chest.

Thorax repeated her actions, taking a deep breath in and bringing his own hoof towards his chest.

"Now let it out slowly," she said as her hoof moved away.

Thorax did the same.

"Good," the alicorn said with a smile.  "Now, repeat," she told him, repeating the actions, with the changeling copying the motion.

After a few repetitions of this, Thorax eventually calmed down.  He was still nervous, but he had better control of himself.

"Now that you are a bit calmer," the white alicorn continued, "We would like to ask you a few questions."

"Okay," Thorax replied, his voice not as nervous and speaking not as fast as before.

"Good," the princess said with a smile.  "Now, I am Celestia, the alicorn of the sun and one of the two rulers of Equestria.  This is my sister Luna.  She is the alicorn of the moon and dream realm, and she is the other ruler."

Luna gave a simple nod to Thorax.

"As for our questions," Celestia continued, "we were curious as to how you escaped the effects of my captain's shield.  Do you know why you seem to be the only one of your kind that wasn't sent flying away when it struck you?"

"I honestly don't know," Thorax answered.  "I saw it coming towards me and slamming into the other drones, but when it got to me, it just... let me pass through it, or something."

Celestia looked at him with a stern expression.  "Surely you aren't lying to my sister and I?" she inferred.

Thorax immediately began panicking.  "N-N-No, your highness!" he blurted out as he went prostrate on the table before him.  "I-I-I honestly d-don't know!"

Celestia looked at her sister, who looked at the changeling with the same stern glare.

"Perhaps we should put him to sleep and I investigate his dreams?" Luna suggested.

The white spots that seem to serve as the changeling's pupils shrank as he immediately backed away, falling out of the chair he was sitting in and backing up against a wall.  The sound of the chair hitting the floor caused a guard standing outside to rush in with a spear at the ready.

"Hold your position!" Celestia barked out, causing the guard to freeze.  "The prisoner has done nothing hostile to us."

The guard looked at the princess for a moment before he moved his spear away and bowed, then turned and exited the room.  Thorax remained in the corner, looking terrified at Celestia and Luna, but not looking directly at them.

Luna leaned close to Celestia and whispered to her "Sister, do you suppose this is an act?"

Celestia considered the changeling for a moment before answering.  "I don't believe so.  He got away from you like you were a bomb about to explode, and he looks terrified of being in the same room as us."

Luna considered the cowering changeling again.  "It could be a farce; their kind have always been experts at deception."

Celestia kept looking at Thorax.  "I am not certain.  This is certainly the first time I've seen one acting so docile.  It's almost as if there is something wrong with him."

"Besides the fact he's a changeling?" Luna asked snidely.

"No.  He acts like he has not one mean bone in his body.  I don't know if you can recall, but whenever we've taken a prisoner of their kind before, it always ended with some form of violence, usually with a guard being drained or one being hypnotized into allowing the drone to escape.  This one hasn't attempted anything of that sort."

"Yet.  He has only been in our custody for a short time."

Celestia had to concede that point; changelings were experts at manipulation and trickery.  She decided to continue with the questioning.  "Why did you surrender to our guards so readily?"

Thorax was still quivering.  Luna growled in frustration.

"SPEAK WHEN SPOKEN TO!" she commanded in the Royal Canterlot Voice, which caused her own sister to pin her ears against her head.

The changeling's response came in the form of a puddle forming underneath him as he whimpered.  Seeing the incident caused Luna to stand down a bit.

Celestia let out a sigh as she used her magic to lift the changeling back into his chair, but as soon as he felt himself being lifted up, he began screaming and flailing.  The guard burst in the room again, spear at the ready.

Sensing that the interrogation would go nowhere, the alicorn cast a sleeping spell on the changeling, knocking him out cold. She then turned to her guard with orders.

"I want this prisoner placed in the special holding cells.  Have somepony come and clean this mess, and have another pony clean him before he is put into the cell.  You will observe the cleaning in case wakes up and decides to attack."

The guard nodded.  "It will be done, your highness."

Celestia gave a nod in return and left, her sister following closely behind.

"What happened just now?" Luna asked her sister.  "I've never seen a changeling wet themselves when facing us before."

Celestia sighed.  "I don't believe this particular changeling is anything like the others we've encountered before.  I am tempted to allow my student to interview him in my stead.  He appears to be quite afraid of the both of us."

"And with good reason.  Shall I investigate his dreams now that he is unconscious?"

"No," Celestia answered, confusing her sister.  "If he is as afraid of us as he has shown, you could possibly give him a heart attack in his sleep and kill him.  I think the best course of action may be to allow somepony else to conduct any further interviews.  I think Twilight may be a good choice for that."

"But what about our own interrogator?"

"He has done his job, but I fear only having guards question him will cause him to clam up more.  Perhaps allowing a pony with a much less threatening demeanor would get a more positive response. He will still be watched by a guard as this is happening, of course, but the question is: will it be for Twilight's benefit, or his?"

Luna thought over what her sister had just said and began to laugh rather hardly.  "'Tis very true," Luna said between laughs.  "In fact, too true!"

The royal sisters both left for the throne room, having a good laugh as they exited the dungeons.