"Wake up."
Lance struggled to open his eyes, having difficulty remembering how he fell asleep. He last remembered leaving Miss Flower's place, after a fun afternoon of training. After only a week, he was already beginning to see the effects of her teachings. Not on a physical level: he was already in pretty good shape for a six year old. It was on a mental level: He was starting to see things differently from how he had before. He noticed things that, only a few days ago, would have escaped his attention. Miss Flower was right about how the Five Paths were different schools of thought. He could swear he was even thinking differently from how he had before.
However, he had failed to notice whoever, or whatever, had zapped him from behind, and knocked him out.
Finally opening his eyes, he looked up, and saw, well above him, a pair of luminous blue eyes. It was too dark to see anything else in the room, outside of a small circle of light that surrounded him. Unlike Miss Flower's, which seemed to twinkle and sparkle with emotion, these were cold, hard, and void of emotion. Like a pair of sapphires, they might have been beautiful, but they had no soul inside...
A voice, devoid of emotion, of feeling, of anything, said, "You are awake. Good. I had concerns that I had used too strong a spell." The eyes blinked a couple of times, then asked, "Do you want to ask questions?"
Lance tried to speak, but had trouble. His throat felt surprisingly dry. He tried to move his body, and was unable to do more then twitch. The observer blinked, then turned to one side.
"You are thirsty. A moment." After a few seconds, a glass of water was lowered down to his lips, then tipped over to where it poured into his mouth. He swallowed, grateful for at least that much.
Clearing his throat, he asked, "Where... am I?"
The watcher, after a moment, said, "Still inside the Crystal Empire. Specifically, an abandoned house within sight of Flower Mantis' current residence."
Able to move a little now, he asked, "Why am I here?"
"A question better asked of a philosopher," the voice said, and were it not for the empty tone, that could have been considered a joke. "If your meaning is why I have abducted you, it is simple: you are my key to obtaining the secrets of the Fifth Path."
Lance may have been a colt, but he was no slouch when it came to putting two and two together. "You're her second student. The one she refused to teach the fifth path."
"Precisely," the speaker said. The eyes closed for a moment, then reappeared a moment later, a bit lower, as if the speaker had lowered it's head. "And you are her third. She appears to be attached to you, enough so that she has risked discovery by allowing you to move about freely, in spite of the damage you could cause her, simply by speaking of her. I will use that bond, tenuous as it is, to secure what I need to become complete."
Lance was now thoroughly confused. "Complete?"
"Yes. Complete. I am a weapon, intended to be used to destroy any who would dare fight against those who rule the swarm. I cannot fulfill my purpose without the fifth path. Those who chose me will not accept me, flawed as I currently am." The speaker's eyes closed again, and there was a sound, as of somepony, or somebuggy, walking down a short flight of stairs. During this pause, Lance was finally able to rise to his hooves. When the eyes opened again, they were at eye level, and very close. The speaker stepped out of the shadows, and Lance was shocked to find he was staring at a changeling, yes, but a girl, no older than himself. "I am Leiurus Quinquestriatus, the Deathstalker. And I will become the perfect weapon."
-------------
The last thing that Flower Mantis was expecting was to be confronted by Shining Armor. Worse, she definitely wasn't expecting the knight to know her by name...
"Flower Mantis, may I have a moment of your time?"
Her first instinct had been to deny it, but after a moment's thought, she realized that if they not only knew she was a changeling, but exactly which changeling she was, odds were that there was little chance of wiggling out of it. Taking a deep breath, she said, "If we could walk while we talk? I have a bit of an appointment I need to keep." Lance was due at her house within the hour, and she wanted to be there to meet him. It wouldn't do to have him show up without her to mind him: he'd probably start exploring and bring the entire web of traps down on his head at once...
Shining Armor, not wearing armor, thankfully, nodded, and said, "It has to do with the appointment you're going to, actually: True Lance is missing."
Flower stopped dead in her tracks, then turned to face the knight. She was... shocked to find how terrified she felt right now. She'd barely known the colt a week, but... suddenly, she had trouble imagining a world without him.
Shining Armor continued, saying, "We've been searching for him all morning, as well as last night, when he didn't show up at the orphanage where he's currently staying. There's been no sign of him. The last time anypony saw him, he was leaving your residence. If there's anything that you can tell me that would help us find him, I'd be grateful."
This was all too much to process. Bad enough that she only now found out that his first name was "True", but he was an orphan? The little colt had never really talked about himself. She'd never even thought about what the colt did when he wasn't around...
But, if he was missing, it could just mean he was lost somewhere. He did say he liked to explore. The idea that anypony would wish a sweet colt like him harm was...
Suddenly, a terrible premonition came to her.
Looking at the knight, she decided she'd have to take a risk. "Follow me. Try to keep up." The knight nodded, and she turned. Both of them began running, making a bee-line directly for her home.
----------------
Lance was working very hard to find a way out. After her dramatic revelation, Leiu... Lei, forget it, he'd just call her Elle, had left, indicating that she needed to drop a package off at Flower's residence. Odds were, it was a ransom note. Well, Lance wasn't going to sit idle and let things happen around him. Never again.
The windows had all been nailed shut, and the door was locked, not the regular way, but instead using some sort of spell. However, she hadn't thought to do anything about the chimney.
It's rare to find anypony who thinks outside the chimney...
Before he left, he scrawled a message on the wall in fireplace ash. He had a plan...
------------------
When Shining Armor and Flower Mantis arrived at the changeling's residence, they found half a dozen guards inside, all bound with adhesive gel and knocked out. Placed in front of them, with care, was a note. Atop that note was a small sculpture of a scorpion, made from twisted copper wire. While the note wasn't signed, the sculpture, along with the unconscious guards, told Flower exactly who was responsible for this.
Shining Armor, shocked at the scene that lay before them, asked, "What happened here?"
Picking up the note and studying it, she said, her voice low, "My second biggest mistake has come back to haunt me..."
-----------------
Leiurus returned from placing her ransom demand at Flower's residence to find her bargaining chip gone. The half-dozen guards inside of her mentor's home had surprised her, but were easily handled. But she now faced a problem. She had dismissed the chimney out of hoof as a method of escape, as the colt didn't have wings, and could not stick to walls. An oversight on her part: the Path of the Fox teaches one to find routes where others saw only obstacles.
However, the message that he had scrawled upon the wall was far more interesting than the colt's ability to escape her. Written in ash was a short message.
"Meet me at the city square. I will show you a new path."
It was... interesting. And obviously a trap. Yet, the Deathstalker was intrigued. Her entire life had, literally from her hatching, had revolved around becoming the perfect weapon. While she had been aware, in a vague sort of way, that there was more to life than that, her role as a weapon had been made very clear to her from birth. She had been taught, by several tutors, all of the spells they knew. And from Flower Mantis, she had learned four of the five paths. She could not return to face her masters until she was complete. Yes, if there was another path, one even her mentor was unaware of, then she would not be complete until she learned of that one as well...
She had to choose between waiting here for Flower Mantis, minus her hostage, or chase down her hostage, try and extract this new path from him, at the risk of losing track of her mentor in the process...
--------------------------------
"So," Shining Armor said, "Before you were in the Queen's Arrow, you were forced to teach this... "Deathstalker" everything you know?"
"Yes. And I didn't choose the name. At the time, I didn't know about the obedience spell, so while I truly didn't want to, I ended up doing it anyways," she admitted. It was... worrying to find out how much the knight knew. Mole Cricket had informed Shiny about a broad number of topics, but the knight had kept his word to the commander, not making those revelations common knowledge. However, he could freely discuss those secrets with another changeling.
"And if what I remember is true, you weren't inducted into the Arrow until a year before Canterlot: she'd be, what, four at the time?"
Memorizing the map on the back of the note, she said, "Yes, and she'd spent every waking moment being drilled, not only on the five paths, but on the secrets of changeling magic as well. The intention was to create a living, breathing weapon. The first changeling I taught the five paths, after completing the training, used what I taught him to hurt his fellow changelings. He'd believed that, because he was more powerful than any other changeling alive, he should be the one to rule. I was forced to stop him. I defeated him by using a dirty trick: I drained him dry of love, leaving him locked in dry hibernation. Afterwards, I dropped him at the bottom of a deep lake. Unless somebuggy hauls him out of there, he'll stay there until the end of time. The second time, the student was a mix: half commoner, half aristo, she could burn love for strength, and sling spells at will. But since her training started almost immediately after hatching, she'd not have time to establish any sort of personality of her own. And with her entire life being dedicated to being a weapon for the swarm, she'd never turn against her own kind."
As Shining Armor looked at the unconscious guards, the cream of the cream of the defenders of the Crystal Empire, he shuddered. Cricket was right: the helmets needed some kind of a chin strap, or else the fact that they could deflect stun spells would be meaningless, since they could be removed easily with a simple lifting spell. "The fact that she's what, six, and can take down six of my best without any of them raising an alarm is impressive, I'll admit. But what's so special about this "Path Of The Dragon" that could possibly make her more dangerous?"
"The Path Of The Dragon," Flower said, as she put down the note, "Is the difference between being able to defeat dozens, and being able to defeat hundreds, or even thousands. I created the Five Paths based on the fighting styles found in the southern kingdoms. All thirty of those kingdoms. I had to steal a lot of secret scrolls and texts, and spy on a great many training sessions, to complete my understanding of those styles. It took the better part of ten years." Gesturing at the slumbering guards, she said, "She defeated your guards by lifting their helmets and stunning them with a spell while they were surprised. If she had access to the path of the dragon's innermost secrets, she could have taken on at least twenty of your best, fully armored, and all ready for her, and defeated them all without taking even a scratch, all with her bare hooves. I've done similar feats, myself, so I know of what I speak. With her current level of magic, combined with the secrets of the Path Of The Dragon, she would be... unspeakably powerful. And now I'm going to have to teach all those secrets to her, or else Lance might get hurt..."
-----------------------
Lance was sitting under the Crystal Heart, smiling. Here she comes. The Deathstalker was having trouble making her way through the crowd. Today was the Harvest's End festival, one of the biggest celebrations in the Crystal Empire. The entire city was gathered here, or close to it. The party went from noon to sunset, and with it being mid-afternoon, things were getting ready to really start hopping. While the changeling was currently in the form of a unicorn, with a white coat and pitch black mane and tail, he had no trouble seeing it was her. Her blue eyes were just as devoid of emotion as ever.
Finally, after several minutes, she reached him. A little short of breath, she seemed almost... irritated. "You are going to come back with me right now, or..."
"No, I'm not."
Her eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed briefly with very real and obvious anger. It was the first time he'd seen any emotion in them. It only lasted a moment, but it told him all he needed to know...
Elle said, "If you will not come willingly, I will force you."
Grinning, Lance asked, "How? If you cast a spell on me, there will be at least a dozen witnesses who will raise an alarm. If you try to drag me away, the same. Plus, I'll start yelling for help. The guards have probably been looking for me for most of the day, and if I tell them that you kidnapped me, they won't hesitate to apprehend you. With half the guards in the city here, I imagine that's more than you can handle. Oh, and if you try to leave? I'll set the guards on you." He had used the Path Of The Fox and The Path Of The Spider together. He'd tricked her into chasing him right into a trap. Now, unless she was willing to expose herself to the entire city, she would be forced to dance to his tune.
After a moment, she said, "Then I will simply leave, right now, and find your parents..."
An empty threat, but it still made him angry. With a scowl, Lance said, "Not unless you have a time machine: King Sombra sold more than a few of his subjects to slavers in foreign lands, my parents among them. They were outside the empire when Sombra used the Time Skip spell. Do the math."
He hated talking about that. If it were not for the fact that he was so angry right at that moment, he would have wanted to cry. It was why he kept himself so occupied, going on adventures all around the empire: it kept him from dwelling on the fact that he'd never see his parents again...
He'd never even had the chance to say goodbye...
Leiurus' voice brought him back to the present. "What is it that you want?"
His armor against the unfairness of the world, his grin, returned to his face, and he said, "You came here because you wanted to learn about the new path I promised you, right?" After a moment, the changeling nodded. "Good. Well, I want to show it to you. I should warn you, though, that this is a path more powerful than any you can imagine. I'll probably end up destroying you by teaching it to you. Are you willing to risk that?"
The changeling nodded.
"Good. Now, let's go have some fun."
---------------------
"That clever little scamp," Flower said, grinning, as she looked up the chimney. She'd had barely any time to teach him, and he'd pulled a masterful escape, right under the muzzle of somebuggy who had five years of training over him. And if the message written on the wall was any indication, he had something planned.
Turning back to Shining Armor, she asked, "The Harvest's End festival is today, right? I think I overheard a couple of ponies talking about it." Shining Armor nodded. "And it's held at the city square?" Another nod. After a moment's thought, she chuckled, and said, "Clever boy. While I doubt Lance knows it, Leiurus has very little experience with anything that could be considered enjoyable. It's always been training of one sort or another, practically since the day she was hatched. Let's head over to the square, but I'd like to keep a low profile, if we can. I kind of want to see what sort of Path my newest student has invented."
--------------------
"What is this strange substance?"
Lance chuckled, and said, "It's cotton candy."
The Deathstalker examined the strange pink material. It was... light, and fluffy. She had never seen anything like it. She asked, after a moment, "What is it's purpose?"
The colt chuckled, and said, "You eat it."
Strange. Well, if that was what he wanted, she supposed that was a simple request. Since she was half an aristo, she could taste, and digest, pony food, although the most she had ever tried before was simple bread. After watching the colt take a few bites, she finally decided to try a bit of this "cotton candy" herself. It was...
Incredible. Comets flew across her mind, trailing streams of pure, unbridled joy in their wake. Explosions of flavor ran up and down her tongue. In her brief life, she had never experienced anything like it. She immediately took another bite, then another...
"So you can smile," Lance said, grinning.
Leiurus was abruptly startled out of her euphoria, and was horrified to find that the colt was right. A hoof raised to her face, she confirmed her fears. She was smiling! And worse, she couldn't stop! One of the biggest and most terrible violations of the tennents of her training! A weapon wasn't supposed to smile: a weapon felt nothing! When her mentors heard about it...
...Wait. Who was going to tell them? Even she didn't know where they were right now.
Well, she certainly wasn't going to tell them, if she ever saw them again. She resumed digging into the cotton candy, smiling the entire time. It felt... strange. Was this that happiness thing that she'd overheard others talk about? If it was... she kinda liked it.
---------------------
Watching the two of them sitting there, eating cotton candy, Mantis was stunned. Shining Armor had left, leaving Mantis in charge of watching over the pair, while he briefed his wife, and the guards, on the current situation. And what she saw now was unbelievable.
Deathstalker was smiling. She would have sworn that was impossible: part of her training, under her other mentors, had been to remove anything resembling emotion from her character. Their method had been brutally simple: she was kept in absolute isolation when not in training. She had not even been allowed to have toys to play with. Mantis had hated that, but had been forced to go along with it. But now...
--------------------
"What is this strange device?"
Lance laughed, and said, "This is a teddy bear."
The colt had won the toy in some strange game of skill. He had thrown a baseball at a set of milk bottles, knocking them over, and had chosen the bear as a "prize". Considering the fuzzy brown object, she asked, "What is it's purpose?"
"You hug it," the colt said.
Leiurus, after a moment, decide to try it. The cotton candy had been... wonderful, after all, and a few of the other things, like the performers doing dances and singing songs, had been lovely as well. She supposed she could trust his judgement... for now.
She understood the concept of hugs, having seen it done a few times during the last year, although she'd never experienced one herself. She decided to give it a try. Hugging the teddy bear, she felt...
Calm. At peace. All of the cares, worries, and concerns of the world seemed to melt away. She couldn't say just how long she stood there, cuddling the strange artifact, but it seemed not to be anywhere near long enough when she came back to herself. She hoofed the bear back to Lance.
He waved it away. "It's yours. Keep it."
Leiurus had some difficulty in accepting what she was hearing. She was a weapon. A weapon didn't have possessions. But...
...But it was so fluffy! And it was the first time anybuggy, or anypony, had given her anything. Ever.
She felt an overwhelming urge to hug something again, and the bear didn't seem enough right now. Looking at Lance, she knew exactly what she needed to do.
-------------------------
Now Mantis was sure the world was upside down: The Deathstalker was now hugging Lance. Until that moment, she had doubted that Leiurus had even known what the word had meant. It seemed impossible that this could be the same changeling that she had trained from sunrise to sunset for five years. The small, yet incredibly dangerous hatchling was undergoing some sort of metamorphosis, right before Flower's eyes...
--------------------------
This was the moment of truth. While Lance only had a very basic understanding of the five paths, she remembered what Flower Mantis had told him. He had decided to put his own spin on it all, but he felt she would have approved. He had used the Path of the Fox to lure her here, and the Path of the Spider to keep her here. He had used the Path of the Tiger and the Path of the Mountain to spot the weaknesses in her emotional defenses, and exploit them. From there, it had gone far faster than he had possibly imagined. Just a small bit of kindness. Just single gift. He had been able to see from the beginning, just by looking into her eyes, how empty she was. And how lonely...
Nature abhors a vacuum. Anything empty wants only to be filled.
Now it was time for the Path of the Dragon. The Dragon Is Strong Above All Others; Before The Dragon, Strength Has No Meaning. To Lance, that could only mean one thing. The heart is the strongest muscle in the body, and all the strength in the world is meaningless against the simplest and most fundamental power in Equestria: Friendship.
Lance hugged her back.
The Sixth Path: The Path Of The Pony. The Pony Does Not Harm His Enemies, He Helps Them; The Pony Destroys Enemies By Creating Friends.
Friendship Is Magic.
There was a brilliant flash of light.
-------------------------
The next day...
Flower Mantis watched the two youngsters playing in the park. After the lightshow yesterday, there'd been a great deal of panic and shock. Thankfully, the guards were able to get things calmed down pretty quickly. When Shining Armor and Princess Cadance arrived, they had been just as stunned as Mantis was, but upon seeing, and truly understanding, what had just happened, their smiles were just as big as Flower's was.
Leiurus Quinquestriatus, the Deathstalker (although she was now going by Elle) was, due to her unique upbringing, as far from a changeling as any creature could be. She hadn't been a bug, a monster, she'd not really been anything, except someone trying to be something that no creature could be. No one can truly become a weapon, so long as they still had a heart. A single push in the right direction had been enough. The moment she had allowed herself to feel, those emotions had been strong enough to destroy Sombra's curse, all on their own.
It wasn't a Crystal Pony and a changeling she was watching right now, playing and having a grand time, but a Crystal Pony and a Crystal Unicorn. The first true Crystal Unicorn to be seen in a thousand years.
Shining Armor would be along soon with forms for her to sign. After everything that was happening, nopony had even raised an eyebrow at a changeling volunteering to adopt and raise a pony. It would be probationary, at first, but a year can go by very quickly. And who knows? She'd already seen one miracle beautiful enough that she'd waived True Lance's tuition permanently. Maybe she'd get to see another one soon, from the other side.
----------------------
Meanwhile, elsewhere...
"Are you certain this is where the first one rests?"
"Yes, master. The crews are ready, and, as per your orders, we will begin raising him within the hour."
"Good."
"Ah, and the second?"
"She is... irrelevant. Far too young to be useful, from what you've told me. Besides, for the task at hand, he will be sufficient. Now raise him, and be quick about it. It's a long journey back to Equestria, and we are on a timetable."
"Your will, my lord."
"Call me... King."