//------------------------------// // More questions than answers: 7 // Story: They're home. // by Nameless Narrator //------------------------------// For only the briefest moment, pure shock silences the Las Pegasus Express. 99999’s headless body does a flip in the air and crashes on the spot like a rag doll, its forward momentum reversed by the hoof cannon slug. Ponies in the splash zone start screaming and, in a couple cases, throwing up. Images flash through Smiley’s mind in an instant, all but one one centered around 10k yelling at her for a good reason. The final one is that of the Queen briefing her on her mission and scared but curious 99999 looking up to her as the more experienced changeling. In that fraction of a second of shock, something unthinkable for a ‘drone’ wells up inside Smiley. “Does anypony else want to play the hero?” the earth pony who shot 99999 makes a show of blowing a faint plume of smoke off of his hoof cannon before he moves the bracelet around to slot the next slug into the firing mechanism, “I didn’t think s-” Smiley jumps from her chair onto the table, ignores the disarmed unicorn mare, and uses the pane separating the passenger spaces to lunge straight at the earth pony. To his credit, he doesn’t panic, points his armed hoof at Smiley flying straight ahead while hiding her face behind her tablet, and fires. Another blast let out in such an enclosed space deafens everyone involved. The writing tablet shatters into pieces. The devastating slug hits two green-glowing hooves behind which Smiley is hiding her muzzle like a boxer… …and disintegrates. This time the earth pony doesn’t react in time and Smiley rams directly into him, digging hooves-first. Her hooves push through him with little to no resistance, wiping most of his body from existence and stopping only when they punch through the train’s floor. The gory mess remaining from the bandit leader causes even more throwing up, and Smiley pulls her forelegs out of the holes just as she hears a terrified but also furious female scream from behind. The remaining unicorn mare’s horn flares with light, but before she can do anything lethal one of the crew members previously stunned by 99999’s death tackles her from behind and bashes her horn with a wrench. There’s only one bandit remaining - the pegasus mare who was guarding the back door of the carriage. As Smiley charges towards her through the aisle, she makes the wise decision to open the door and burst upwards through the narrow space between the cars. By the time Smiley follows her onto the roof, the pegasus is just a dark blur which vanishes even from Smiley’s vision in the next instant.  Realizing that even if she could track the pegasus she wouldn’t be able to catch up, Smiley floats back down to the passenger car. Once inside, she finds herself standing by the door and facing the peeking heads of everyone not busy with cleaning themselves up and having no clue what to do. The intercom clicks, hisses, and the announcer says: “Dear passengers, the bandit threat has been dealt with. We’ll be resuming our trip shortly and we ask everypony from the passenger car number one to move to one of the other carriages while the crew cleans up and performs emergency repairs.”  As if waiting for this, everyone starts moving towards Smiley blocking the door, so she jumps to the seat nearby and watches the others leave. Almost everyone shoots her a glance - several of them thankful for saving the situation, but most of the others are… unpleasantly familiar. It reminds her of Canterlot. She doesn’t remember much more than blurs, but some flashes of horrified ponies fleeing for their lives remain. Maybe it has something to do with her still being splattered with the gore from the bandit leader, maybe it’s marebelline.  Smiley doesn’t care. When the car empties, she walks through the aisle and starts gathering 99999’s remains. Changelings don’t waste love and changelings don’t leave traces of their presence behind. She’s no infiltrator, however, so scouring the blast zone for pieces of 99999’s head is more guesswork than organized cleanup. When the crew arrives, she’s sitting in her seat, blankly staring at 99999’s body limp on the table in front of her, chunks of the drone’s head glued haphazardly using goop to the neck stump in a failed attempt to put the Smiley’s friend back together. The arriving ponies pause as they notice her despite the previous request, and the steward who earlier explained to the two changelings how things worked on the express is the one to approach while the rest split up between cleaning tasks and floor and ceiling repair. “Hello, umm, Miss Smiley, was it?” asks the steward quietly. Smiley breathes in sharply, looks at him with teary eyes, reaches for her neck, for the tablet that isn’t there anymore, and freezes, having absolutely no idea what to do now. Seeing that, the steward offers a calming smile and continues: “Miss, I understand you’ve just lost a friend, but we can’t keep the body here. We still have time to give your friend a proper burial, or we can keep, uhh, his body in an ice box-” He stops as Smiley stretches herself over the table, shields the corpse with her body, and wibbles at him. “I… um…” his will fails against the alien, chitinous, yet still a pitiful and pleading expression that radiates hope that he can somehow make 99999’s death un-happen.  He’s at loss for words. Still hidden under the chair, 99999’s bulging backpack shakes despite there being nothing to cause it. The steward looks at it. It shakes again and this time Smiley notices as well. Curious what’s causing it, she crawls under the table, pulls it out from its hiding place, and puts it onto an empty chair. It shakes on its own again, this time harder. “Do you know what’s going on?” asks the steward. When Smiley shakes her head, he suggests, “Maybe you should open it?” Smiley unhooks the metal latch holding the top flap of the backpack closed and does so. Her jaw drops as the contents reveal to be a drone-sized changeling egg that’s beginning to crack. With the flap not limiting the vertical movement of the egg anymore, the next impact from the inside makes the egg break, revealing a fully formed but small drone head wearing the tip of the egg shell like a hat. It looks around, clearly spooked. “What happened?! Where did the noisemaker go?” it notices the ‘headless’ corpse on the table, “Ohhhhh… that wasn’t just a noisemaker, was it?”  “Whaaaat?” the steward wheezes, completely stunned. Several of the working ponies look away from their jobs and remain staring at the new changeling and blinking in shock. Smiley finally acknowledges 99999’s hive link returning into her head, and spreads her forelegs to hug the downsized drone. “PLEASENOHUGSIAMVERYSQUISHY!” blurts out 99999, stopping Smiley in her tracks. “What- what’s going on?” this time the steward underlines the question by a hoof wave towards the seemingly resurrected or duplicated 99999. “A moment, please. Smiley, you gonna eat that?” a slimy foreleg surfaces from the opened egg hole and points at the body. “Eat?” wheezes the steward again. No one is working anymore, they’re all watching the situation unfold. All Smiley can do is shake her head. “Yup!” 99999 nods cheerfully and bites off a small chunk of the egg it’s sitting in, “We’re made out of love, and-” it looks around, “I’m not sure about Smiley but I haven’t gotten any since Miss Gloom hugged me in Ponyville. We shouldn’t waste any. Who knows when we’ll get to eat again?” “Aaalright, enough chit chat!” the conductor, overseeing the repair work, calls out, “The sooner we get the train moving, the better. In the meantime, little bugpony over there can tell us what happened.” With Smiley still overwhelmed and paralyzed by a mix of indecision, shock, joy, and many other emotions she doesn’t know words for, 99999 takes charge and talks in between taking bites out of its egg. “It’s hard to explain because not even 10000 back home ever heard about a drone like me. Every feeding, I felt like I needed to make a goop egg and always pour a little spare love into it. I didn’t know why. A few worky times after hatching, I got munched by a gribbler and I woke up inside that egg later, small like this. I grew back after some eating and rest. I told 10000 about it and it told the Queen who said I was sturdy enough to let me leave the hive to pay off some old debt. Not sure what that’s about. Smiley?” Smiley shrugs. “Speaking of getting munched, you look hungry. Have a leg or two,” 99999 nods to its corpse, “I have this whole egg to finish and I can’t eat too quickly. It feels like some of my inside bits are… uhh… sloshy.” No matter how interesting the situation may seem, the second Smiley bites off 99999’s hind leg and starts nibbling on it, all the ponies around return to their work, if only so that they have something to draw their minds away from quiet crunching. The fixing and cleaning takes roughly half an hour, and when the crew is done they send the familiar steward as a representative to deal with the changeling mess. To his surprise, there’s nothing left of 99999’s body or egg, not even dirty smears , and the only remaining smell is a very faint scent of mint. “Huh, I guess that takes care of that,” he looks around for anything that might bother the other passengers. That the changeling whose head they all saw plastered on surrounding surfaces is back, only in a smaller version, is a situation he leaves to its natural resolution. Shortly after, the train starts moving again. Despite that, not a single passenger opts to return, instead they all scatter between the sleeping carriage, the dining car, and the bar. Who can blame them? Something strong to steady their nerves after today can’t go wrong. Due to that, the two changelings remain alone, this time with a lit lamp above their booth. Her newspaper ruined, Smiley is staring into the darkness behind the window while 99999 is curled up in its chair, snoring. The steward returns some time later with an official-looking, chubby unicorn who keeps his distance from the changelings and clears his throat. Smiley looks at him and, a moment later, 99999 raises its head too, yawning. “Ehm, changeling guests. Due to your assistance at dealing with the bandit threat and saving both the other passengers' property as well as the Express service’s reputation, your passes have been upgraded to first class for the rest of the trip,” says the unicorn. He’s unsure how the message is received because the changelings just exchange puzzled looks. Smiley reflexively reaches for her neck where her tablet, shockingly, hasn’t reappeared on its own. 99999 translates that gesture into Smiley not understanding what the pony meant just like the drone. “What does that mean, Mister pony?” it asks. Smiley nods. Understanding dawns on the unicorn’s face, fueled by the realization that he didn’t do anything culturally inappropriate, and his voice grows steady. “That means that you now have full, free access to the bar services and you can order food outside of mealtimes. On top of that, you can use one of the free first class coupés in the next carriage.” 99999 takes initiative this time. “Could Mister steward show us an example, please? We’re not used to this whole express thing, and we couldn’t use the bar because we’re not supposed to use up our shinies before we get to San Palomino.” “I still need to sort something out with him but I’ll send him back shortly. The crew has been notified of your change of status, so I doubt you’re going to have any trouble for the rest of the trip. You’re the only changelings around so they’ll recognize you. Anything else?” when the changelings shake their heads, he adds, “Good. And once again - thank you for your courage and… sacrifice. You nipped things in the bud before they could get significantly worse.” With one final nod, he leaves and both changelings resume doing what they were doing before. Someone is supposed to come and tell them what to do next, and that’s a reassuring thought.  *** Finally, one missing warrior returns to the throne room.  Frowning and mumbling to himself, 387 passes by sleeping 99 without otherwise making a noise, heads straight to the secret hole in the wall where the tea mugs are kept, takes one, and pours himself a lukewarm drink from the kettle on the now cooling down stove. 99, sleeping with her back almost pressed against the stove, doesn’t wake up even as 387 sits down next to her. While that might be surprising, it speaks more to 387 making next to no noise this entire time as well as giving off no mental presence. He takes a sip, closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and checks the hive mind situation. Chrysalis is away, impossible to sense, 156 is vaguely downstairs but out of reach as well, drones form a one mental blob in the High Score Cavern- “Hi, 387!” the cheerful mental voice of 99380 responds to the warrior’s careful probing, “I’m with the Queen and she told me to tell her if I sensed you.” “And did you?” “Not yet. I, uhh, did I mess up the order of things?” “Good. Could you not tell her that I’m back for a couple minutes?” *WIBBLE?* “Nevermind, I get it. It’s against the Queen’s order. You can tell her,” 387 shakes his head and doesn’t resist. Drones will be drones. Of course, in the next second he hears a different mental voice. “Where have you been?!” asks Chrysalis sharply. “Oh? Were you worried or something?” the warrior forces a playful tone. “Yes. I clearly must be getting senile.” “Well, grandma, let’s talk about it over a nice hot cup of cocoa later.” “387-” “In. Person.” Chrysalis would be a terrible infiltrator if she couldn’t catch onto the insistence in his voice, so she stops pushing and just replies: “I might take a while.” “That’s fine. 99 is being lazy here and I missed our last sparring session, so I have something to entertain myself with.” Their connection vanishes, and 387 looks sideways at 99 who must have caught the mental conversation and is waking up. There’s no way she would know what was said, she’s not powerful or skilled enough, but even the fact that she sensed a link between the Queen and a flutterpony is an admirable feat, despite her proximity to him. “387?” she rubs her eyes, yawning, “You’ve been gone for a while.” “Ooooh, I am the ghost of 387,” the warrior says in a spooky voice, “I have come to kick the snot out of youuuu. Training-wise, of course.” 99 tilts her head, having to query the hive mind for whatever 387 might be doing. Ghosts aren’t really a changeling thing and 99 isn’t that versed in general pony lore. “Can we take it a bit easier today? I’m exhausted,” she admits, pushing herself up. “Works perfectly fine for me,” 387 nods, “We can stay here. Bugbutt isn’t going to be back for a while and 156 seems busy with who knows what. If I didn’t trust her more than anyone else here I might get suspicious.” The two move away from the stove and 387 leads the way in stretching. Technically, changelings don’t need that, but any step taken to spend less love is worth the time. 99 uses the time -before they get to the second part which is physical training and the final one which is combat- to bring up a topic that’s been bothering her for a while.  “Hey, 387, can I ask you about something… strange?” “I swear I juggle drones only when they ask me to,” replies the warrior, “and we did the bowling thing only once and we stopped when 99663 threw up. The drones doing the pins volunteered too.” “This is about Queen Chrysalis’ daughter,” she says with hesitation. “Which one?” 387 raises an eyebrow. That’s not what 99 expected. “Does she have more of them?” “Right now you mean?” the warrior shakes his head, “No idea. One of the pre-Canterlot top ranks was supposed to be her latest one, but she had loads of them over the centuries. They usually became the generals of the hive’s armies,” he chuckles, “The last army we had was the one that attacked Canterlot and Bugbutt led that one herself. Before that… it’s been a while, to say the least.” “I had no idea that royal descendants were this common, but yeah, I meant the recent one.” “Since 156 is the top rank of the hive now, you can safely assume Chrysalis’ newest spawn is either dead or she deserted the hive,” 387 shrugs, “Can’t blame her, to be honest. I’m pretty sure there are thousands of changelings who survived but took the opportunity to never return to this life again. Although-” his expression turns wistful briefly, “with how things are now, some might want to come back for the first time in… ever. I should bring up the notion of establishing an official changeling embassy somewhere.” “If we entertain the idea that she survived the invasion, why would someone as highly ranked as the Queen’s daughter desert the hive?” 99 switches positions, now stretching her whole body instead of separate limbs. “Unless you were rank 1, you were potential food for rank 1, and whatever rank she was, she wasn't rank 1,” 387 shudders, “Enough said. She could have left to escape the power struggle, she could have just disliked the hive’s direction and fled to form her own, although I’ve never heard of a lasting successful attempt. Chrysalis always wiped all fledgling hives she learned about. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re kind of a competitive species.” “Oh…” 99 withers a little. It’s entirely possible that 415’s story is right then, at least in this regard. Maybe the Queen’s daughter successfully escaped and Chrysalis hunted her down. “What, are you planning on leaving us?” asks 387, “Bugbutt is way more permissive these days, but a rival hive might still be a bit too much and, to be honest, you’re not strong enough to defend yourself.” “I’d like to travel and learn more, but not to leave the hive for good. Definitely not,” 99 shakes her head, “I’ve just been wondering what the Queen’s plan for me is.” “I doubt even she knows, but don’t tell her I said that. She hates it when I’m right so I’m saving that one for a special occasion,” 387 smirks, “And if you want to spend some time among ponies, just ask Big Floaty,” 387 recalls the drone name and snickers, “You’ll get a long-term mission to go with it, but you’re usually free to do whatever you want otherwise.” “Huh, I should do that,” 99 nods. “You should also do a hundred push-ups,” 387 decides that their warmup is over. “Speaking of missions,” 99 finds her second opening, “Do you know 745? I’ve been checking mission schedules and she’s way too late. I wonder if something happened to her.” “No, should I?” 387 shakes his head with complete honesty, “There are only a couple of ranked changelings I regularly spare time to chat with. I wouldn’t worry, though. From everything I’ve heard recently, this winter is exhausting even for experienced weather pegasi so who knows how screwed the weather is outside of the Badlands. If you’re really worried, check up with 156. She manages high ranks. I have my hooves full with herding drones.” “I will. Thanks, 387,” she smiles and starts doing the allotted push-ups.