Shiftlight immediately counted at least a dozen of guards in the reception hall, four of them unicorns. In a minute their disguises would be blown away like smoke in a whirlwind. In the seconds following that they would be pinned to the floor, and tied up. Well, at least that would be the case if they didn’t do a thing.
“Scatter!” Thorax yelled, the trio acting as one, shifting to another form, and launching themselves towards the blockade of guards.
The usual changeling tactic, which worked in most cases was that when they were discovered, they gave as much trouble to the guards as they could, trying to help the survival and escape of at least one member of the hive. Then they force themselves to never look back, and return to their home.
This time, it was different. The brothers took on a disguise unlike their normal selves, and all headed for the exit. Buzzer appeared as a huge changeling, charging at the toughest spot of the blockade. When he got close, he shifted to his true form, slid beneath the unicorn guard in the middle, and kicked upwards while still in motion. A painful yell from his victim let him know his strike found its target, and the shifter quickly moved out from beneath the collapsing pony.
Thorax looked like a short but bulky changeling, and with this disguise he flew at a small group of pegasi protecting a unicorn. While mid-air, he closed his eyes aiming to dash right into the unicorn, casted a blinding flash, and landed on the pony magician, knocking him out.
Shiftlight had other plans instead of charging boldly into the blockade. He took the appearance of one of their superior, General Stinkhole, who was tall, muscular, had bruises and scars all over his body, had a broken fang, and a missing eye. He immediately grabbed the pony closest to him, the librarian Miss Parchment from behind the desk in the reception hall, and held her as his hostage.
“Let me go or she’ll get a nice bitemark,” he threatened. “And I don’t think you know what I have chewed on before.”
The group of remaining guards, two unicorns, and five pegasi blocked the exit almost completely with their bodies. The other guards were away chasing his brothers, except for the knocked out unicorn, and the other magician moaning in pain on the floor.
“Let her go, and you won’t get any more scars on your body,” a unicorn guard said, stepping forward.
“You think I care about my body?” Shiftlight laughed, drooling saliva on the librarian in his grasp. “I have chewed on the body of a dead rotting rat, and drank sewage water. I think my bite is poisonous enough to kill. Your choice.”
The unicorn guard stepped away from the door, the other ponies following his example. Shiftlight slowly dragged his prisoner towards the exit, keeping an eye on all the guards. When he had a clear shot at an escape route, he bit his victim, and took off to the streets of Canterlot.
Thorax was running. Not like he was in a bit of a hurry, but the six pegasus guards chasing him were a good motivation to test his fitness, reaction time and ability to make good decisions. Like any field infiltration this had its ups and downs. The pros? It seems like he managed to avoid the first chance of getting caught. The cons? The guards didn’t give up easily.
The changeling took on many forms to keep the guards on adapting to him changing. His plan was to find a large mass of ponies, jump in the middle and erupt a green flame, while not changing, making the guards think he have, then avoid detection, and get out of their sight. He was in luck, because after a few turns, he noticed a huge mass of ponies gathering in front of a small shop. He guessed they were there for free stuff, so the mass would be tight. Just what he needed.
He jumped up high, aiming for the middle of the gathering, and erupted in a green flame while still mid-air.
“Changeling!” Thorax yelled, disturbing the ponies. His shout stroke a nerve, as every individual started panicking, and the mass started running in every direction.
He was about to aim for the nearest small street when he was grabbed by a female unicorn, who then dragged him all across the frightened mass, heading towards a group of guards. Thorax became frightened, but he couldn’t risk blowing his cover. If everything else fails, he could still hold the mare as his captive.
“Help!” the female unicorn yelled. “Changelings! Here on the streets!”
“Don’t worry ma’am!” a pegasus guard replied. “Just stay behind us, and you’ll be fine! Spread out and search for the shifters!”
Thorax never said a word, being dragged behind the guards, and was too shocked to notice that the mare was now hugging him and sobbing on his shoulder. After a while he managed to pull himself together, and as he was looking around, he noticed that all the guards took of to search for him and his brothers.
“Are they gone yet?” The mare asked with an unusually cold voice.
“What?” Thorax was surprised by the question.
“Slime, you’re a stupid one,” she replied, and looked around, wiping her tears off. “That’s taken care of. Let’s head to the train station.”
“Brother?” he asked the unicorn. “Is that…”
“Who else?” Buzzer asked back in the mare’s image. “Turns out male pegasus guards are required by protocol to wait for a female officer to inspect a female citizen. I just had to find the only boutique and mimic myself as a mare.”
The two changelings headed for the train station, keeping an eye on patrols, and looking for their brother.
Shiftlight was getting impatient. His fruitless attempts to find his brothers through trying to start a conversation with everypony was infuriating enough, even without the constant thought of them not returning to their hive. But with the royal guards patrolling around the train station it was worse than his nightmares. He barely managed to take the appearance of a light-red colored pegasus, and the patrols were eyeing him frequently.
“Excuse me miss, are you headed for Ponyville?” he asked the same question the fifteenth time. “It’s my first time in Canterlot, and this huge station is confusing me.”
“No, I’m sorry, I’m headed to Las Pegasus,” she replied, and left. Shiftlight bit his tongue to not swear out loudly, and started looking for the next possible targets.
“Hey there sexy,” a female voice said to him, “you said you were heading to Ponyville?”
Shiftlight examined the mare in front of him: unicorn, with a vanilla coat, fire-red mane purple eyes and a seductive look.
“Took you long enough to get here,” the tall changeling replied. “Where is our remaining brother?”
“Buying our tickets,” Buzzer answered, heading towards a locomotive. “Our train luckily leaves in less than ten minutes. We’ll inspect it for guards first, get off, and wait till the last second, to see if any gets on.”
“I’m glad you made it here,” Shiftlight whispered, following his brother. “I thought about giving up and going back for you.”
“Strange that normally this shouldn’t bother any of us,” Buzzer remarked. “After all, they teach us that we’re expendable.”
“This isn’t normal,” the other replied, “and we’re not expendable anymore.”
The train started without complications, and the three changelings finally managed to catch their breaths for the very first time. Their plan was in motion; the royal guards weren’t on the train, so the chance of being discovered dropped to almost zero. They even inspected the conductor, to see if he was a unicorn, but turned out to be a simple earth pony.
“I have no idea how long I could’ve held out in those horrifying conditions,” Buzzer sighed. “The constant stress of being discovered, the lack of constant food source, and the lack of backup from the hive made it unbearable.”
“Tell me about it,” Thorax replied, “I had to shift to about a dozen different forms to make it out of their grasp alive. If I don’t get some love in this Ponyville, I won’t make it to the next village.”
“We’ll make it,” Shiftlight said. “We always do. If this won’t work, then we get some food the other way.”
“Crack yeah!” Buzzer yelled. “Time to stalk our prey like we did in the old days!”
“You mean after we ruled out every other possibility,” Shiftlight killed his sibling’s joy. “Remember, the way it is with ponies, they know every major event, no matter the distance. We should tread carefully.”
They slipped into silence. Only now did they all feel the weight of their situation. They will be completely cut off from their home, they should be unable to use their magic or their abilities as changelings, and they will be forced to master their masquerade to become somepony else. Somepony, who never even existed before.
Buzzer closed his eyes, and let his thoughts drift off. He thought about the hive, where he was the target of constant mocking and bullying, he had to train at least eleven hours a day, sometimes more, and he got beaten by his superiors, for being small. Yet, he wished he was back there. He had no chance to survive, if he was discovered, had nowhere to escape, and couldn’t rely on anyone. But then he realized something: he had a new life in front of him. He was taught that ponies almost never risk the life of others of their kind, so almost every attempt to barter with ponies while holding somepony captive was successful. That means, there is a chance, that if they play their cards right, they won’t need any magic, seduction or other trick to get love from ponies. All they have to do is make many friends.
“I’ve been thinking.” He said, opening his eyes.
“That’s never good.” Shiftlight replied.
“I’m serious.” Buzzer continued annoyed. “I’ve been thinking about our training, and what we could use from it in our situation. Ponies care about each other more than we do, and their caring comes with our food. They care about their families and their friends. Well, obviously, we can’t become anypony’s family. Conclusion?”
“The more friends we have, the more chance we stand on surviving.” Thorax said. “Not bad.”
“So, we do our jobs, we make friends that’s clear. When do we start gathering intelligence?” Shiftlight asked.
“We have no idea what to gather.” Buzzer answered. “But maybe you could make some friend and ask them to teach you.”
Thorax let out a hearty laugh at Shiftlight’s displeased expression at this sentence, while Buzzer tried to show a serious face. After failing miserably, he joined his brother in a stream of giggles and laughs, while Shiftlight turned towards the window with a stoic expression. Deep inside he was glad that his brothers were happy. But he was also terrified, of making friends. While he barely ever showed it, he hated any social interaction, be it talking, helping or even sitting together in silence.
Just one year, he said to himself.
The train pulled into the Ponyville station, and the ponies started to get off, each heading towards their own destination. Three ponies, one lime colored unicorn with light blue mane, blue eyes, a half-lime half-cookie on his flank, one pale gray with brown mane and tail, blue eyes, a scalpel cutiemark and one deep blue, with purple eyes, dark gray mane and tail and a dream catcher mark got off from the same carriage.
The trio of changelings then stood in front of a map displaying the layout of the village, planning where to go next. They stole some bits from the spa, the ruined diner and Golden Compendium, but most of it was used on the train tickets. Since the day was at its noon, they decided to first ask around for any opening in their desired jobs, and then meet in a local inn, the Retching Griffon. But before they could move away from the map a high pitched voice stopped them in their tracks.
“Hello complete strangers!” the owner of the voice, a pink fluffy mare greeted. “Were you on the same train as we were? That would be so cool! I heard a hearty laughter from one of the carriages, with my super-sensitive ears and I used my detective skills to try and track it down, but when I got there, it vanished! Anyway, I’m Pinkie Pie, and I’m still looking for the ones who managed to be happy on a train, because almost everytime I travel everypony is so boring and so stoic you couldn’t imagine, it’s like I’m traveling with a bunch of zombieponies. Is it your first time visiting Ponyville? Are you here to meet your friends or your family? Do you need a tour guide? I’d love to be your tour guide. There are…”
The shifters stood there taken aback, as any attempt to flee was blocked by the flood of words erupting from the volcano with a cotton-candy mane. They began to feel kind of uncomfortable, as slowly every single pony’s attention was focused on them.
“Go ahead.” Buzzer hid behind Shiftlight. “Time for you to make a friend.”