“This is... highly unfair,” Chitin stated, as she walked in a circle around Sentinel, inspecting him.
“Life isn’t fair,” Sentinel growled, eyes narrowed.
Chitin snorted, tossing her mane. “Indeed. But my ‘talents’ will not work on you while you are resistant to my magic.”
“You expect me to allow you to cast spells upon every pony you wish to feed from?” Celestia asked flatly, her eyes narrowing. “I’m afraid you’re deluded.”
“You do not understand, Celestia,” Chitin said, waving her hoof. “My kind feeds upon love. Even if I were to enter your guard’s mind, and become that which he loves the most, he would still not love what I am because he knows that I am a changeling.”
“This is a problem, then,” Celestia said calmly. “We are back to square one.”
“Undo your magic, Princess Celestia,” Sentinel said quietly.
“Excuse me?” Celestia asked.
“Undo it,” Sentinel repeated, watching the changeling queen with a vicious expression on his face. “Undo your magic so that I can let this thing do her little spell. And then I can have the pleasure of telling her to her face that her kind will never coexist with ours.”
“Your guard seems rather... biased,” Chitin stated, frowning.
“Sentinel, if I-”
Sentinel cut Celestia off, “-just do it!”
Celestia gave a sigh, and then strode over to the guard, gently laying her horn on his flank. The cutie mark glowed faintly, and then morphed, changing from a green glow, to a shield and two crossed spears, his original cutie mark. Like all of the guards specifically trained to hunt changelings, their cutie marks had changed when the spell had been placed upon them, to denote their new direction in life.
Sentinel wiggled his haunches for a moment, and then gave a soft shiver at the sensation. “Thank you,” he said curtly, not taking his eyes off Chitin.
Chitin’s eyes narrowed, and she stared into Sentinel’s gaze unblinkingly. Her horn glowed suddenly, and her eyes seemed to flash with magic. Sentinel reeled backwards, covering his face with a hoof, blinking rapidly.
“Hold my gaze, whelp, or I’ll hold it for you,” Chitin stated flatly.
Sentinel growled, lifting his eyes once more to Chitin’s own.
Celestia moved to step between them, but Chitin silently held up a hoof, halting her. The princess paused, and then receded, allowing the changeling to continue.
“Sentinel has been fed upon already,” Chitin said softly, still staring into his eyes, tilting her head slightly to the side. The guard seemed stuck in place, transfixed and unable to look away.
“How? I designed the magic specifically to counteract that,” Celestia said in disbelief.
Chitin gave a thoughtful hum, her eyes narrowing as she delved deeper. “Raindrop,” she whispered after a few moments. “Raindrop took energy from him, when they were... well,” she trailed off, uncertain of a delicate way to put it.
“While they were screwing?” Celestia offered with an arched brow.
Chitin nodded once, still not breaking the gaze with the guard. “The act seems to have broken its way through your magical defenses. It is unsurprising. It is the physically closest and emotionally closest you can get to a pony.”
“You say this as though through experience,” Celestia said guardedly.
“I do speak from experience,” Chitin said silkily.
Celestia went quiet at that, fathoming the implications.
Chitin said no more, and then she blinked.
Sentinel reeled backwards again, the trance broken, gasping and shuddering, lifting a hoof to his eyes and rubbing at them helplessly, like he had just been punched in the face.
The guard’s eyes were tinged with green when he opened them again, and he looked up at Chitin, his eyes slowly widening.
Chitin tilted her head gently to one side, watching him. Her form shimmered, and then seemed to melt, becoming that of a pegasus with a green body and a blue mane, with a cutie mark comprised of a sewing needle and a length of string twined around it.
“M-mother?” Sentinel asked, his wings flaring and stiffening in fight-or-flight reflex, a sudden lump rising in his throat as he danced nervously from hoof to hoof.
“I’m here, baby,” the pegasus cooed softly, motioning for Sentinel to step closer.
Sentinel made a helpless sound, stepping closer to the pegasus, and then bounding forwards the last few steps and capturing her in a powerful, firm hug, burying his face in against her neck, clinging to her.
Celestia watched with wide eyes, her brows furrowing in concern. Chitin, in the guise of Sentinel’s mother, waved her hoof at Celestia, motioning for her to leave.
Frowning deeply, Celestia rose to her hooves, and then stepped out of the cell, closing the door behind her and locking it. She stepped to the side, out of line of sight of the cell, and then sat down, to wait for Sentinel and Chitin to be done.
“Celestia?” Raindrop asked, as she strode down the line of cells to where the princess was sitting.
“Ah, Raindrop,” Celestia said with a smile. “We are very close to being able to cure you. We have all the elements in our possession again.”
“So I’m done?” Raindrop asked with a sigh of relief.
“Well... I do not require your help in our search for the elements any more,” Celestia said with a gentle nod and a warm smile. “Thank you for all your help, Raindrop.”
Raindrop frowned deeply at that, her eyes narrowing. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Celestia sighed and hung her head. “The changelings turned themselves in... but Chitin tells me that a group of maybe fifty or so have gone rogue. They’ve cut themselves off from the hive mind.”
“This is... bad?” Raindrop asked uncertainly.
“I am not sure of their intent,” Celestia admitted uneasily.
Raindrop gave a long sigh at that. “So much for going back to weather duty...”
“I get the feeling you enjoy this more than you let on,” Celestia said guardedly.
Raindrop gave Celestia a long stare. “I’ve been assaulted by a changeling assassin in the guise of a Dark Guard, faced off against a Hydra that almost killed me, crept through changeling-infested tunnels trying to rescue your damned elements. I’ve been stabbed, beaten, ended up in hospital countless times, blown up an airship and what appears to be several acres of forest. Not to mention my grandmother came back from the dead just long enough to steal my thunder, deus-ex-machina the fuck out of my grand rescue and solve the greatest problem of the most recent generation mere minutes before she just upped and died.”
Celestia stared at Raindrop for a long moment, and then gave a wry smile. “You wouldn’t trade it for the world, huh?”
“Not a damn chance,” Raindrop said with a wild grin.
Celestia smiled at that, and then lifted a hoof to rest on the pegasus’ shoulder. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for this nation, Raindrop. We are in a time of transition, I feel... And I feel that we will have need of your services again.”
“Kinda amusing that you don’t have a special task force for this kind of thing already,” Raindrop pointed out with a grin.
“You are my special task force,” Celestia admitted quietly. “You and Sentinel go above and beyond what I could ever ask anypony to do for us.”
Raindrop gave a wry grin. “We just do it for the money.”
Celestia shook her head and smiled.
“But speaking of the elements... we kinda found the pony who is supposed to bear the Element of Generosity. But he... well. He wasn’t very generous with his time,” Raindrop said with a frown, rubbing a hoof against her temple helplessly.
“I see. That is... not such a problem. We can afford to wait for him to free up some time in his schedule. There is no longer a threat looming over the castle so grimly,” Celestia pointed out.
“No threat of imminent doom is nice. Gonna make a welcome change of pace. But it’s gonna feel weird not running everywhere. What do you even want me to do?” Raindrop asked helplessly.
Celestia hummed thoughtfully. “I do not require your services at present. Nor in the immediate future. You are welcome to stay in the castle if you wish. We still do not have the seeker stone for the Element of Loyalty. We have no bearer for Magic, Loyalty, or Generosity.”
“Oh! Luna was going to go and try to get the bearers of magic and generosity while we were at the castle. You know, consolidate our forces or something. You should send her a message letting her know everything up here is hunky-dorey,” Raindrop said with a firm nod.
“I shall do so,” Celestia said, bowing her head.
“You don’t happen to know where Sentinel is, do you?” Raindrop asked.
At that moment, the cell door slid open, and Sentinel stepped out, his head lowered, ears splayed backwards. He didn’t even look at Raindrop as he turned to Celestia, leaning up to whisper something into her ear.
Celestia paused a moment, and then nodded gently, blinking and staring down at her hooves.
Raindrop stepped closer to the guard, but Sentinel sidestepped her, turning away as he began to walk down the hall. Raindrop caught a glance of his face as he passed her. His downturned eyes with puffy around the edges, as though he had been crying, and that worried her. Sentinel didn’t cry. This was the stallion that had smiled as she beat him to a pulp!
“Princess... what’s going on?” Raindrop asked, bewildered, looking from Celestia to the retreating form of Sentinel.
“He just needs to be alone,” Celestia said gently. “Give him some time.”
“What’s happening?” Raindrop asked flatly, brows furrowing, looking towards where Sentinel had already disappeared from sight and the cell where he had come from.
“Sentinel helped me to confirm a method with which the changelings could live with ponies without needing to use subterfuge... I’m afraid it hit a vulnerability that he himself was not aware of,” Celestia said quietly.
Raindrop’s ears splayed backwards, and she frowned deeply.
“I must take my leave,” Celestia said quietly. “I have much to discuss with Chitin. I will call on you again, Raindrop. But for now, relax. Enjoy some leisure time. The danger has passed.”
“The danger to the castle has passed,” Raindrop stated, sighing once. “I’m still part changeling.”
“But we are very close to having all the bearers. I know who the bearer of magic is, you know who the bearer of generosity is. We just have to bring them to the castle, and find the bearer of loyalty,” Celestia explained with a smile. “Take some time to rest, Raindrop. You have done much in very little time, you deserve some downtime.”
“I... I guess you’re right,” Raindrop admitted, nodding once and turning away. She paused then, “Can you ask Sentinel to find me at the inn later?”
“I shall do so,” Celestia said with a gentle nod.
Raindrop smiled, and then bounded away to enjoy her new-found leisure time.