The splashing of water echoed through the halls of the Canterlot sewers as two ponies ran in circles, trying to find something.
“Where did it go?” one of them asked. “I swear I saw it here a moment ago.”
“We’ve been chasing this shadow of yours for half an hour now Valve,” the other replied. “I swear, you must be losing your screws, like old Pipe Wrench.”
“Would you just pull your head out of the sewage and look around? If you would’ve kept an open eye instead of dropping your tools like an uncouth foal, maybe you would’ve seen something too!” Valve yelled.
“Well excuse me for not being a magical unicorn with a horn that glows every time my brain farts!” his partner struck back.
The unicorn sighed, “Let’s keep moving then. I don’t want you to get paid for no work at all.”
The duo left the corridor of the sewers, and not a moment later a green flame erupted from the walls.
“Last time I hide in the sewers!” a buzzing voice hissed, as its owner jumped out of the small hole. “We really need to get out of these tight spots!”
“And how do you think we should proceed?” A calmer, unnaturally resonating voice asked, another shadow slowly stepping out from the dark void. “For all we know, the smell of these waters could easily betray our identities.”
“Our tallest brother is right.” The third changeling emerged from the black emptiness, his voice easing the tension in the small corridor. “But even if he is, we can’t really stay here longer. We have less than a week, before we run out of juice. And then we’ll be exposed like a larva without a hive.”
The three changelings, Buzzer, Thorax and Shiftlight were the only ones of their kind left in Canterlot, after the failed invasion of the city. They merely escaped, because they were at the deepest cistern of the sewers, when the explosion, that did who-knows-what to all of their forces, happened. By the time they reached the surface, they only found ponies, and a city in ruins, but merely any sight of their own kin. Since then four days have passed, and the three brothers were struggling to survive.
“We should first get a bath, to get rid of the stench,” Buzzer suggested. “Then we could find a romantic pair in the Canterlot gardens, and...”
“The first part I agree with,” Thorax said, and his taller brother nodded, “the second: not so much.”
“To find a public bath, we should impersonate one of the sewer workers, and get their map of the sewage system,” the muscular Shiftlight suggested. “It may have an exit to one such institution.”
The other two nodded, and followed Shiftlight’s lead, to where they first met the ponies. Then they spread out, looking for a possible exit. Soon Buzzer found one: a large set of stairs.
“This looks different than any other we saw so far,” he stated.
“Nice going kiddo,” Shiftlight said, passing by his brother, “maybe you’re not a clustermock after all.”
Buzzer merely growled at the taunt. In the hive, they were divided into clusters, and a clustermock was usually the weakest one of such division. And thus, constantly the target of, well, mocking.
“He didn’t mean it,” Thorax said catching up to them, as Shiftlight ascended up the stairs. Buzzer looked at the other changeling, giving a faint smile, then followed his brother.
They stopped outside the door to the chamber of the plumbers. Shiftlight sighed, and erupted in green flames. When the flames died down, there was a brown coated earth pony, in a hard hat with a headlight, wearing a yellow vest, with a twisted pipe on his flank. The changeling then proceeded behind the door in his new disguise. Inside, he found a room, with three desks, two lockers, tools and pipe parts scattered everywhere, along with several parchments and blueprints.
“Hey there, Canal Twist! What brings you back?” an older grey coated pony greeted Shiftlight inside.
“Hello, Pipe Wrench,” – Shiftlight replied after a quick glance at the pony’s flank, – “Valve sent me back to fetch the sewage system’s map for him. He said we found a new tunnel he never knew existed. But after making me chase a shadow for half an hour, I wouldn’t be surprised if he would find a spa filled with seductive mares in the sewers.”
“Haha! Yeah that would be something to find now wouldn’t it be?” Pipe Wrench replied, grabbing a parchment. “Alright, here it is, just don’t get it wet, like last time! The Canterlot library ain’t gonna make us another free copy this month!”
“Alright, I’ll be careful,” Shiftlight replied taking the paper and grabbing a compass from one of the desks. He looked at the clock on the wall, “Be back by lunchtime!”
“Lunchtime!” the elder huffed. “You want to spend the entire night down there?”
Shiftlight closed the door behind him without an answer. His brothers looked at him curiously. He simply gestured with his hoof for them to get moving.
After a few turns, when they made sure they were alone, Shiftlight returned to his normal form with a green flash, and pulled out the map from under his wing, where he tucked it. He took out the compass and started to examine the parchment.
“We are about here.” He pointed at a small line on the map. “And we need to get to this east tunnel to enter the spa. When I was up in the office I checked the time: it was half past ten in the night.”
“So the spa should be closed for good by the time we get there right?” Thorax inquired. “That’s at least half good news.”
“Well, yeah, but how do we pick the lock?” Buzzer retorted. “I don’t know if you have noticed, but I’m currently out of objects that I could use, and that’s a not too long list.”
“Is a needle and a scalpel sufficient for you?” Shiftlight asked.
“What kind of scalpel?”
“Well, once we get to the hospital you can have all the scalpels you need,” he replied. “This way.”
After a considerable amount of wandering around in the sewers, they managed to get to the basement of one of Canterlot’s hospitals. They searched the tool sheds of the small room, and acquired a crowbar and a hammer.
“Hmm. These nails might be useful,” Buzzer said. “Check the room for a rasp; might not need those scalpels after all.”
“Found one,” Thorax replied, handling the tool to his brother.
“Great, thanks. This should only take a few minutes. Brothers, one of you should grab what we need. The other should watch the door for us.” His siblings nodded and got to work, while Buzzer turned back to the vise he wanted to use.
About an hour later they managed to leave the basement of the hospital, armed with the crowbar, the hammer, ten housemade lock picks, a set of rasps, a hoofful of nails, a screwdriver and an adjustable wrench. By pony standards they merely stole some tools from a workshop. By changeling standards, they were armed to the fang.
“Another hour maybe, and we will be just outside the spa,” Shiftlight stated. “How fast can you break us in brother?”
“Ten minutes top with these junkpicks,” Buzzer replied. “Let’s just hope we aren’t breaking into a ruined spa.”
“Real positive attitude,” Thorax sighed. “What did they teach you during the ‘Survival in hopeless conditions’ course?”
“How to see things as they are, when you’re trying to stay alive, and how to see differently when you can rest without being afraid that you’ll wake up next to your spilled guts,” he answered.
“Who was your teacher?” Shiftlight inquired.
“Sergeant Fangmill.” The other two hissed at the name of the training officer.
“Doesn’t he hate everyone?” Thorax asked, compassion in his voice.
“He especially hated me. That’s why I had to learn everything he ever said, showed or even thought.” Shiftlight let out a small chuckle at his brother’s misery. “Thanks for the support.”
“Hey, I may change my opinion about you.” Buzzer raised an eyebrow at him. “If you survived that course under Fangmill, you might be the toughest one of us.”
The Buzzer just let out a clicking sound, which was basically a signal for his pleased state. After that the trio kept silent, until they have reached the surface.
When Shiftlight stepped on the cobblestones of the street, he immediately transformed into a unicorn stallion, with the same colored coat as the stones were. His brothers followed his example, leaping out of the hole, morphing and after they all got out, they slid the lid of the sewers back into place. Thorax looked around at the buildings, and then silently pointed at a large building with a baroque style front. Buzzer rushed to the door, pulling out the picks from beneath his illusion skin, and got to work. The other two changelings watched the streets. Buzzer muttered something under his nose then, with a loud click the lock gave in, and the trio slipped into the dark void of the building’s inner halls.
Once inside, they shifted back to their insect-like forms. Their only hope was that only four days after their hive’s fiasco, the ponies would still be more occupied with fixing themselves up than fixing up their buildings. Thorax used his magic to dimly light up his horn just bright enough for them to examine the reception hall.
“Found a map,” Shiftlight stated, “it says they have several huge pools, but I think we can rule out those as a possibility. The relaxation areas are out of question as well. Maybe we should look around in the changing rooms.”
“Sign says that’s this way,” Buzzer pointed at a corridor.
The three changelings quickly and silently made their way through the empty hallway. They approached every corner with caution, continuously turning around to keep their eyes on every shadow, and their ears on every noise. Carelessness was not a luxury they could allow.
Soon they found the stallion’s changing room. After a few more minutes with the picks, the trio were soon under the hot water streams of the showers.
“You guys ever thought about how to go on?” Thorax asked the unease question, rubbing Buzzer’s back. “What do we do now?”
“Return to the hive,” Shiftlight stated. “What else should we do?”
“Yeah, if there is a hive left,” Buzzer replied. “I hate to be the bearer of bad suspicions, but if our Queen couldn’t return back home in time, the hive might be the worst place for us.”
They slipped into silence for a while. They all knew that if Chrysalis went missing or worse, their home would become a battlefield for the power hungry cluster-leaders. Drone would go up against drone, as every wannabe ruler would try to eliminate the competition’s larvae. Even if Chrysalis would’ve left with naming a successor, there would surely be at least a two sided turmoil in the changeling hive.
“Well, we should only hope there isn’t one then,” Thorax said, with a nervous laugh. “Surely she would never...”
“Then what do you suppose brother?” Shiftlight interrupted sharply. “That we forget returning home? We leave our hive and our kin behind? That’s what you think we should do?”
“I don’t know! Maybe!” Buzzer struck back. “I have no intention of going back to the hive, and become the murderer of my closest kin!”
“Now, no one said it will be truly that bad, did any...” Thorax tried to ease the tension.
“Then you would let them to tear each other apart? I would give my life for any other of the hive!” the tall shifter yelled.
“And what would you accomplish?” the shortest changeling raised his voice too. “Do you think that your sacrifice would suddenly melt the heart of General Stinkhole, for example?”
“Maybe we should really stay away from the hive for a...” Thorax started again quietly, just to be cut off again.
“I still would feel guilty to leave so many of my brothers and sisters murder each other over nothing.” Shiftlight hissed.
“Oh and you would stop murder with murder right? Never seen that fail before!” Buzzer stepped closer to his brother staring in his eyes.
“ENOUGH!” Thorax yelled, overwhelming both of his brother’s voices. “You fight like two larvae over a puddle of slime! For all we know we may be the last of the changelings, and you want to rip each other’s throats open! We need to stay calm, or our mistakes may mean the short extinction of the remaining of our kind!”
Buzzer stepped back, and Shiftlight cowered. Thorax was panting a bit, and then turned to his smaller brother, continuing to scrub his back.
“We cannot risk going back.” Buzzer said silently. “I won’t risk going back. Not now.”
“Then we find a place.” Shiftlight looked at his brothers. “A small village. We feed. We gain strength. We gain knowledge. We wait. And then, we go back to the hive.”
“A year should be enough.” Thorax added. “We need to wait a year. Maybe when we get back they’ll greet us as heroes. We could become our queen’s personal guardians.”
Thorax continued to blab, and other than that the only noise was the sound of the splashing water. Buzzer closed his eyes, and lowered his head, while Shiftlight stared into the darkness.
Just one year, he said to himself. I could live that long away from the hive.