//------------------------------//
// Meetings, Assignments, and Experiments 
// Story: The Triumvirate 
// by Fedora71 
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Chapter 18

This was a good dream. Scott’s dreams looked fairly basic, but this one was over the top and epic. Typically, his lucid dreams were zombie apocalypse. This, was that and more, lots more. He was making an epic stand on a hill top with zombies. The flood, tyranids, and Zerg were rushing him in an epic charge. He had a space marine stormbolter in one hand, and the other he had the halo 4 SAW. Also, there was a terrified woman wearing tattered clothes wrapped around his leg. As lucid dreams go for him, this was the best. Master Chief, Duke Nukem, the God Emperor of Mankind, and Ash Williams to his left, the cast from the Expendables 2, including Chuck Norris, to his right, and the Avengers at his back. This was going to be awesome. 
“Get Some!” He shouted, as he stood against wave after endless wave of monsters. “For Teddy Roosevelt, Chesty Puller and Andrew Mutherf***** Jacksooooon!”
He stood his ground as everything that could be thrown at him perished. Screaming profanities and one-liners that caused Duke Nukem to salute. Together, atop the mountain top for what felt like hours upon endless hours, his brave band of warriors fought like Scottish warrior poets from an epic that would be told for centuries, nay millennia, to come.
Finally, through the waves of enemies, the generals arrived. Sauron, Darth Vader, Lord Voldemort, Horus, and Thanos. They looked like they were about to make a speech for typical villains ordering the surrender of the good guys. Scott wasn’t having any of it. He picked up his enchanted naginata and charged them, with the rest of his allies at his back. He had no idea what happened to the hot chick.
Just before they met in what would become an epic battle, something akin to a tidal wave surged the landscape. It rippled the landscape and the swarms of endless inhabitants. A white beacon of light appeared through the thundering clouds in the sky.
Scott’s dream collapsed, and everything devolved into a pure white plain… He was returned to his griffin form. A pony was standing off into the distance. A pony with a unicorn horn and pegasus wings. Scott wracked his brain for the proper term… Alicorn, that’s it.
“Are thy dreams typically so void?” asked the dark blue alicorn with an ethereal mane. 
“No, typically they are pretty out there,” Scott replied, scratching his head. Great, he was griffin again. “May I help you with anything, since I’m pretty sure this isn’t part of a dream?” The griffin could tell everything seemed too surreal, including the white.
“You are correct,” She said ,in voice that screamed stick-up-the-butt royalty. “I was merely examining your dream, and hoping to meet with you, as well as the rest of your friends.”
“And you are Luna, I presume?” Scott asked, much to Luna’s shock. She had known her name may not be as common amongst the griffins, but she should still be recognized.
“Yes, I am Princess Luna,” she said, cutting out the royal ‘We’. Her sister had told her that she needed to be less proper.
“What did you want to talk about?” Scott asked, trying to get things back to the matter at hand.
“Your friendship with Ancro and Stigandr,” She replied. Her horn glowed, and a cushion appeared. She sat upon it.“We wish to know how it began.”
“Isn’t that what Twilight’s going to do tomorrow?” Scott asked, sitting down on the…nothing. This blank dream was going to force a san check. 
“Yes, Twilight Sparkle is going to interview each of you, but I desired a slightly more personal touch,” she replied. She took note that he was busy examining the blank dreamscape, mainly the plain they were standing on.
“What do you expect me to say?” Scott said, trying to think of something that would start the conversation or sway into a direction that she could understand, and maybe put two and two together and lift the…mute spell? They hadn’t really come up with a name for it yet, had they? He’d have to discuss that with them when he woke up.
“I just wish to know how you all met,” Luna said, hoping to start a conversation that may help her understand what the relationship between these three was. She still hadn’t written off changeling control entirely.
“Well, that’s pretty easy,” Scott said smiling. “It began back when Ancro had jus-” Scott woke up in his bed, scratching his shoulder. He got up and went to the bathroom.
Luna shook her head and grunted in frustration. Just when she was about to get some answers, the griffin had woken. It would take him a while to go back into that state of sleep. She could simply cast a spell that would make them sleep; however, it would not guarantee bringing them to the dreams in which she could contact them. Dreams were a funny thing that she couldn’t create, and could not alter them to the extremes. She was at the relative mercy of the dreamer; however, if she got into any trouble, she could simply leave. She decided to try again, this time with the changeling.

Ancro ran through a forest, but something was off about it. He couldn’t place what it was, though. As he ran, he became aware that he was being chased. He didn’t know what was chasing him, he just hoped it stopped. He nervously slowed his pace and hoped it just happened to be on the same path as him, and it just was just coincidentally running blindly through the forest.
It turned out to be false, and he felt hot breathing on the back of his fin. Nervously, the changeling turned around and simultaneously wanted to scream, vomit, and pee himself. There were a few things that outright terrified Ancro, one of which was spiders. This one had long grey legs and, for a spider, an abnormally large abdomen. It heavily resembled one of the spiders you would find in your basement or other damp, dark places. Two of its legs seized Ancro, while the two rear legs started to try to web him up.
Ancro, panicking and not able to use his magic, desperately tried to bite the spider to make it let go. Then he looked down and noticed that it was even more terrifying on the ground. There were spiders scurrying around everywhere. He wanted to die. The he saw the size of the fangs on the spider that was wrapping him up.
Ancro’s bite finally made the giant spider let go, and he flew as fast as his wings would carry him. Unfortunately, that was through several spider webs, and found himself feeling them crawling all over him. He closed his eyes and flew blindly through the forest. Amazed he hadn’t hit anything, he opened his eyes and saw a dim light coming from a door to a log cabin. Desperately, he flew up to it and opened the door with his mouth, diving into the main room.
He looked around for a mirror while he tried to shake the spiders off him and frantically buzzed into the bathroom. The changeling screamed in frustration. The bathroom was all the proof he needed to see to realize it was a dream. He had trained himself to not have lucid dreams, but be able to tell if he was in one by giving himself a trigger. His trigger was that all the bathrooms in his dream looked identical to a gender neutral gas station bathroom, complete with stained ceiling tiles.
He looked in the mirror and was surprised to see Luna looking back behind him. He turned around, but there was nopony there. He turned back to the mirror and she was gone. Ancro took several deep breaths closed his eyes and turned around. He opened them, and saw that Luna had reorganized the bathroom into something akin to a living room.
“Pleasure to meet you again, Princess Luna,” Ancro said, then recalled what happened in their past meeting. “Sorry about hitting you last time.”
“It is alright,” she said in a regal tone, “thy strike didn’t even hurt.”
“So, how may I help you in the wonderful world of my dream?” Ancro asked, walking around and examining the room. She had an eye for detail.
“Dream?” She asked confusedly, “I thought this was a nightmare, with thou’s behavior.”
“You could say it’s that,” Ancro replied, upset that his sarcasm had fallen upon deaf ears. “Still nice to know that I can’t sense your presence here, so no need to worry about hurting me.”
“Yes, it is indeed a good thing to note,” Luna replied. “That was actually the reasoning behind me not trying it after our first encounter.”
“Makes sense,” Ancro replied.
“Does thou mind if I ask thee some questions?” She noticed Ancro tensing up and quickly added, “Nothing truly personal I assure you.” She started off attempting to make Ancro relax. “I was just curious about your relationship with your friends.”
“Like?”
“I’d like to start with when it began,” Luna replied.
Ancro let out a sigh of resignation, something that confused Luna. “Is that all you want to know?”
“Yes, it would be satisfactory,” she said with a nod.
“It started when I met Scott in the-…” The dream collapsed and went white, and Luna was cast out for a second time that night. Ancro woke up and felt his back was stiff. He sat up and popped his back, hearing a satisfying crackle.
“Crap,” Ancro said as he rolled over and lay his head down on the pillow, “now I’m up.”
This was starting to get frustrating, Luna thought, stamping her hoof. She hadn’t expected herself to be ejected from the dream again. Her irritation hadn’t gone unnoticed.
“Is there something wrong, your majesty?” One of her guards spoke up from the shadows beside her.
“Nothing,” She snapped. “I shall be in the garden if I’m needed.”
“Yes, your highness,” he replied.
Twice, she had been kicked out of dreams by untimely wake ups. Her kingdom may be threatened by a force that they had never encountered. Their friendship made no sense, even when you looked beyond the species, to a personality-wise perspective. From what she had gathered, Stigandr was a fairly reserved and polite personality, Scott was a fowl-mouthed griffin, and Ancro was a casual smart mouth. She took a deep breath and decided to try one last time.

The sun was setting, and Stigandr had finally set up camp. Stigandr realized he had forgotten to get firewood. He trotted through the darkening forest picking up sticks, twigs, and dried bark. As he got back to his campsite, he realized that a fire was already going. Stigandr saw Princess Luna standing behind the fire, and he spat the sticks out of his mouth and bowed slightly.
“You know that it would’ve been easier if you had grabbed those with magic,” Luna pointed out. Yes, while he was awake, his magic was blocked but this was a dream, and from what she could tell a fairly lucid one.
“Yeah, I know,” he replied, coming out of the slight bow. “It’s just one of those things I like to do without, it takes away from the experience of living simply.”
“You would be well suited as an earth pony,” Luna said with a friendly smile. She was more comfortable dealing with ponies than a changeling or a griffin.
“Would you like to have a seat?” Stigandr asked politely. Inside, he was excited to get to spend time with one of the Equestrian princesses. “I can make you some tea, if you’d like.”
“You are aware that this is a dream?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, of course I know it is a dream,” Stigandr said, digging out his kettle. “Doesn’t mean I can’t be hospitable.”
“You could simply make tea appear in front of us,” Luna replied, trying to make a point.
“Yes, I could, but then there’s no fun or challenge in that,” Stigandr replied, “defeats the point of living simple, besides there’s a new recipe I’ve been wanting try out.”
She was about to point out that this was a dream…again. Then she realized that it wouldn’t be getting her anywhere, and that this unicorn had his heart set on doing things the hard way.
“I wished to ask you about your friends.” Luna spoke up once the tea was done. He had used pine needles and honey; it smelled drinkable and appealing, to say the least. It didn’t taste awful, either.
“What do you want to know about them?” Stigandr was happy to spend time in Equestria with the ponies from the show, but he also would be happy to not be locked up while being in Equestria. In fact, he was bumping that up to the top of his list of stuff not to do while in Equestria.
“I would like to know how it began,” Luna said plaintively, having already been kicked out of several dreams, it was genuinely starting to get annoying.
“I’m not sure what all I can say,” Stigandr said, trying to be painfully obvious. He tried to put a big flashing neon sign above him that would let Luna know he was literally not sure what all he could say. He really wished somepony would hurry up and suggest that he may not be from this plain. He briefly wondered if Lyra could help.
“What do you mean?” She asked, “Have you been sworn to silence?”
“I can’t say,” Stigandr said, trying to communicate that he literally couldn’t say. He hoped she wouldn’t take it the wrong way.
“What can you tell me?” She asked, losing her patience. Stigandr took this that she wasn’t in a mood for delays, and that she didn’t want him to wait. He figured it was better to look like a fool with his mouth moving incoherently than to waste any more time, and see just how much she could affect the dream.
“Well, I met Scott when we were i-“ Luna was not surprised when the dream collapsed, and she was catapulted back to her own mind.
Luna stood in the garden, utterly confused. Normally, she would’ve thought that her host had merely woken up. That though, was far too convenient, and three times is beyond coincidence. There was something seriously wrong. She hadn’t entered Ancro’s dreams before now, out of fear of harming him like she had done when they had met in person.

After they had woken up and the breakfast had been served by the guards, Stigandr hit Ancro in the shoulder. Not hard enough to actually hurt him, just enough to leave a bruise. “What was that for?”
“Kicking me out a window,” Stigandr replied, smiling.
“I guess I may kind of deserve that…” Ancro replied, rubbing his shoulder. Ancro smirked and threw a light jab that Stigandr easily deflected, then the changeling threw another and another. So they began a bit of light sparring. Scott looked on as his two friends went about their usual business. Stigs had reach on Ancro, the unicorn being taller and lankier. Ancro had a bit more ferocity and tenacity. The changeling also had a tendency to fight dirty. He tripped Stigandr against the bed, and shoulder tackled him at full force. Stigandr wasn’t out yet, and caught his friend with his fore hooves. He wrapped his friend in a headlock that Ancro frantically fought to get out of. They didn’t notice the door open. Ancro did, however, notice the strong presence enter the room and he froze up, which let Stigs get him to the ground.

“Do they do this often?” Twilight asked Scott when she realized they were playing around.
“You have no idea,” The griffin said, rolling his eyes. Those two going at it like that with company around was a bit embarrassing.
Stigandr let go of Ancro and the duo immediatly stood up. Ancro took note of the saddle bags filled with slightly less stuff. “We need to talk about some of your request.”
All eyes looked to Ancro. “What, fezzes are cool.” The changeling adamantly defended. “I want a fez, a blue one.”
Scott and Stigandr had known what to do when Ancro got like this. Just move along and ignore him. “So, no more harassing guards?” Stigandr said, ending the awkward pause.
“Now then, I would like to begin interviewing you all,” Twilight said with a warm smile. “Just a few simple questions for posterity’s sake. Any volunteers?”
“As long as it doesn’t involve you blindsiding me with your horn again, I’m game,” Ancro stated, getting up from the ground.
“Excuse me; you hit me and Cadence in the horn!” She growled.
“We can discuss these things later,” he replied. “Lead the way, Miss Sparkle.”

Duo had drawn lots with the nine other changeling praetorians who had succeeded. He took his spot at the rear of the squad he was assigned to, as more lots were drawn by the various commanders to see who would go on the mission. Three decena were needed to go to Canterlot. Since praetorians were extremely flexible, it didn’t matter who drew what lot. Una had told him that. He remembered asking her what praetorians specialize in. Her answer: Whatever the queen asked of them.
Duo’s decena drew one of the Canterlot assignments. He didn’t have to wait to be told which one, since the commander smiled evilly back at him.Having already decided upon how they were going to start their hazing, the other decenas drew Crystal Empire assignments, infiltrating outlying communities where the crystal hearts influence was weaker. The changelings were given their briefing, which consisted of nothing more than go in the front door, kill the praetorians if necessary, aid the other decena in their missions, then leave. The fact that Chrysalis had allowed for the order to aid other decena showed how important this mission was. No need to ask how painful it would be if they failed.
Duo focused on fixing his resolve to the mission at hoof, as they flew through the bleak tunnels of the changeling city. Originally, it had been home to the diamond dogs, but once they had moved on to better and shinier caverns, the changelings had moved in and had since used it as a home while in Equestria. With thousands upon thousands of tunnels carved by the dogs and blasted by the changelings, it was nearly impossible for an intruder to find their way around…or back. His sister had found him once when he had gotten lost down here. Duo’s concentration had not gone unnoticed by the rest of the group. One saw fit to speak up.
“So, you’re the new praetorian,” a voice said from behind Duo. He dared not glance back, focusing his eyes forward rather than looking back into whatever hazing trap had been prepared for him. “Heard your sister is one of the failures we have to kill.” There was malice in the changelings voice. “I wonder who will get that dubious honor.”
There was an emotional spike from the front of the decena. The rest of the changelings in synchronization looked back at the changeling behind Duo. He became extremely quiet, scarcely able to hear the buzzing of his wings. Duo pondered the source of the emotion, before realizing the source was the commander. He heard that they were skilled, able to issue orders on a slight emotional whim, but he didn’t grasp the possible scope of it until then. He also knew from what Una had told him that if you did anger your commander, you would be begging for death for hours before they granted it to you. The ponies called it sadism, enjoying the pain and fear of others. Changelings called it snack.

“I know I agreed, but is all this really necessary?” Ancro asked, as Twilight hooked him up to all manner of equipment. There was a metal helmet with light bulbs, suction cups with wires running to and from them. It didn’t help that they all seemed connected to a giant water wheel that looked like it belonged in the pit of despair.
“Yes it is,” she replied. Ancro knew she didn’t like him, but he couldn’t pin what she was mad at him for. Was hitting a unicorn’s horn that much of an insult/ If so, he needed to apologize to Stigandr.
“Okay,” Ancro said, bowing to her expertise, but still a little skeptical. Twilight wouldn’t do anything to hurt him severely…right? “If you don’t mind me asking, what’s all this for?” If he knew anything from watching the show, it was that Twilight loved to explain things.
“It’s for an experiment to monitor your physical and magical power output upon achieving a multicellular organic shift,” Twilight replied. “The device on your head monitors and records your vital signs as well as your brain waves, so that when you change, I’ll have data to look back on and study.”
“Okey-Doke,” Ancro replied, using context to clues to guess she’s going to watch him shape shift and check the before and after data.
“I’m going to remove your ring,” She said, magicking it off.
“Question!” Ancro asked. He would’ve comically raised his hoof as well, but his hooves were anchored to the ground.
“What?” Twilight replied, setting the ring down. She was clearly expecting him to try something, but her demeanor suggested that she was prepared. The ring had been doing its job of taking all but the bare essential of energy from Ancro, leaving him just enough to shape shift if absolute need be.
“Can any unicorn take the ring off, or does it have to be you?”
“Well, hypothetically, any unicorn could take the ring off you and your friend’s horns, but finding one willing would be an extremely difficult task,” she said. She didn’t have to change her tone for the last part to show her disdain. Ancro could taste it from where he was sitting. “Now I’m going to need you to trans-“
“Like this?” Ancro said, in Twilight’s voice and body. The unicorn was obviously shocked and perturbed that the changeling would take such a blatant form.
“Hey Twi,” Ancro said, feeling the unicorn’s rage. “You need to chill, I figured you would want something you’re familiar with in order to get more accurate results on comparison.” 
“Well that makes sen-“
“Also, I wanted to see if I could tick you off like this.” He smiled with delight, “apparently it does.”
Twilight was doing her best to not hurt the changeling and pass it off as testing his pain threshold. She knew he wasn’t working with Chrysalis. If he had been, he wouldn’t have saved Cadence, he would have Stigandr and Scott under a spell, and he definitely wouldn’t have hindered his own rescue. He was innocent, but still she couldn’t trust him. They still didn’t know who he was working for, and why he had broken into the library looking for a nonexistent book on long-forgotten magic. Celestia had warned her that Luna had been thrown out of all their dreams when she had entered them. Neither of the Princesses knew of anything that could cause that. Three times was more than coincidence. The purple unicorn took a deep breath, and steeled herself for what she knew was going to be a long day.

(Thanks for reading! A big thanks to my editor Sara/artist (shaya.laperro@gmail.com) and to my friends for not complaining about me writing them in such a way. If you have any critiques, criticism, pointers, thrown pottery, or infant sacrifices please leave them in the comments below so they may be collected or addressed later (the scene with Ancro and Twilight went through so many rewrites it’s not even funny). Please if you fav it like it!)