//------------------------------//
// Chapter Four: The Infiltrator Returns 
// Story: Conquest 
// by Blaze Spectrum 
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Hexapod gazed down at the streets of Canterlot from a the roofs of one of the corner shops. As an Infiltrator, he instinctively disguised himself.

Their invasion only called for three infiltrators, but it looked like it didn't need any. His recurve bow had seen no use apart from practice.  He didn't need to expend much arrows, or take out guards. While he would have gladly obliged if the Queen told him to pick off the guards at the gates, it wasn't necessary. He didn't kill anything yet in the entire campaign.

He raised it up, nocked an arrow, and brought the weapon to full draw. The draw weight was fairly substantial, but his foreleg did not falter.

Not for the first time in the campaign, he thought of picking off an unwitting civilian out of boredom. But he decided that he didn't want to have to retrieve the arrow. He gradually brought the bow to its normal state, and stuck the arrow back in his quiver. He looked up at the Queen on the balcony of the castle. Quietly singing to herself, watching changelings bombard the city.

Shortly after she seemed to finish, things began to go wrong. Light pink light began to flicker out of the throne room. Queen Chrysalis noticed and glanced back. She seemed to have shouted, and soon, a pink bubble flowed out, gaining speed.

He did a double take, and despite training, froze in the presence of the giant, seemingly impenetrable wall of pink. The sight was just too inconceivable, too immediate.

It hit him, and it did so hard. It didn't feel soft, it was solid as a rock. It also stripped his disguise away. He was launched backwards, barely having time to save the arrows that spilled out of his quiver. Two dozen were inside, and he only was able to retrieve a quarter. Gazing down at the city, he realized that most traces that the changelings had left behind had been reversed. 

Once the shield had faded away, he saw the ground as an approaching threat. He lost another arrow while placing them back inside his quiver. He tried to regain control in the air, and after about a dozen course corrections, was able to glide for the last few seconds to impact.

It was not a soft landing, as it knocked the wind out of him and rolled him along the ground several times. His bow flew out of his grasp and his arrows sprawled out of the quiver. But it wasn't enough to make any lasting damage. He spat soil out of his mouth, gathered his things, and took note of his surroundings. He wasn't too far off of Canterlot. But he had been repelled a substantial distance. He regained his breath, and began searching.

Hexapod searched around the mountain. He was relatively low on it, but he decided that his height was good enough. He had a feeling that Queen Chrysalis would be somewhere. The sound of carnage had also drawn him. He peered off the ledge and what he saw was something that made him instinctively draw his bow.

Nine Royal Guards. Instinctively, he nocked an arrow, drew, estimated the distance, and released. There was an audible twang as the arrow flew away. No more than two seconds later, there was a loud thud and a body falling to the soil. 

Afterwards, he realized that one of them seemed to be the leader, judging by his distinct armor. He cursed at not having thought more about his actions, but shrugged. He could kill him now. He nocked, drew, and shot again. But the unicorn could have almost sensed the arrow, as a pink shield was formed quickly enough to stop the arrow. 

Growling in frustration, he aimed for the previous point of impact, and shot again. But the shield had been repaired by then. He only had two arrows left, and was losing his patience. 

But then, something unexpected happened. The unicorn began to withdraw, bringing his troops with him.

He felt relief upon seeing that the unicorn had decided that he was too much of a threat to continue the attack. It wouldn't have taken long to stall out his arrows. With that, he decided to go down onto the camp. When several changelings chased after the unit upon the Queen's command, he shook his head. Judging by the speed of which damage to the shield he shot was repaired, the unicorn could shield their assaults with ease.

"Leave them," he said. It was not necessarily a shout, but it was loud enough to catch everyone's attention.. 

The changelings froze. All heads turned towards him. He put some effort into not flinching, as infiltrators generally stayed in the shadows, out of sight even to allies. He continued flying downwards, slinging his bow through a few specially made straps to hold it. His first priority was to get to the Queen, and nothing really was there to block his way.

But multiple whispers seem to cloud the air. Many questioned how he could speak against a command given by the Queen herself. While most seemed to whisper about that, the second most questions raised were about where he came from. He wasn't able to hear much more than the loudest voices, but there were enough of them to allow some room for inference.

As soon as his hooves made contact with the soil, he lowered his head and bowed. Queen Chrysalis walked forward. Her head wasn't even raised either. Once she got close, many expected her to scold the changeling. But none of that happened.

"Infiltrator Hexapod," he said flatly, "at your service."

Multiple gasps came from the crowd, which were accompanied by just as many cries of, "I knew it!" While the basic traits of infiltrators were widely accepted, little else was confirmed. They were the stuff of legend among the changeling horde.

Queen Chrysalis merely smiled. It had been a while since she had saw him, and he was often an asset in her invasions. When she was first assigned him, she thought of him as a powerful and valuable asset, but expendable if the time came. That was no longer the case. He was now her trump card.

After the silence hung in the air for a few seconds, she decided to break it,"One of our other Infiltrators is confirmed to have been killed. And the other is still missing."

Hexapod scowled, "I take it that it's Anthropod who got killed? Worst shot that the Infiltrators have ever known."

Queen Chrysalis decided to drop the issue, "And as you can see, the group we have assembled here is a mere shadow of what it was. The numbers of changelings being herded into the camp is beginning to slow now."

Hexapod raised an eyebrow," And what are you implying by that?"

"We need to search further, and look for more options than just changelings. Whether it be a griffon, or something else. Oh! And the rest of you, my changelings, go back to usual business!"

The crowd scattered, and chatter began to fill the air again. It was a welcome change for many.

After looking at the dispersing crowd for a while, he turned around.

"Is that it?" the instructions were too vague for him to believe that there was nothing more too it."

Queen Chrysalis visually seemed to have been caught off guard. He made a mental note to ask her if she was alright later.

"Oh yes! Pick a few changelings to come with you on your search!"

"You do know that I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself?"

"Oh yes I do, and honestly, I don't care. I can't lose you again, Hexapod."

Hexapod exaggerated a sigh. He obviously wasn't going to get much out of her.

"I guess I'll just choose some."

He stuck a hoof up, and pursed his lips. After he pretended to seriously consider the decision, he randomly selected two.

"You two."





Shining Armor didn't let the shield up until they had gone a mile away from the Everfree. While he admitted that he was rather winded from running, he was in a better state then the rest of his squad.

In a much more conversational voice, he said, "Now, you may rest."

One unicorn collapsed, not caring for his loss of dignity. The others were panting hard. While a few tried to pretend that they weren't winded, they couldn't help but take a few heavy breaths through their mouths.

He thought for a moment. He'd just been in heart-stopping action requiring near-perfect timing of spells, and was still on edge the whole time. Equestria was often at peace, and for all his training and work dedicated to perfecting defensive spell after defensive spell, running through various simulated drills, he'd rarely been in real combat. He was still vigilant, but the same couldn't have been said for his troops. They were more concerned about the next time he'd let them rest than what they would run into.

He re-entered the forest to see if he could get the rest of the Royal Guards to pull out. His first measure was to shout, loud. And that he did. 

"If there are any Royal Guards in the vicinity, then rendezvous here!"

He was somewhat annoyed by the fact that it surprised at least half of his troops, but he was more concerned about the lack of a response. And so, he decided to venture deeper.

With his spear raised, Shining Armor edged forward cautiously. He was still caught somewhat off guard when he heard the light rustle of a branch being drawn back.

He swore that the forest never quite stayed the same. Some paths he took were suddenly closed off by a bush of thorns when he came back to check it. While such changes were not so common that it was overwhelming, they still happened enough to be noticeable. And it unnerved him, especially since he often couldn't detect it until it had happened. Still he thought of it as a gift in certain respects. It kept him on edge, and in that mental state, he felt ready for anything.

The rest of the journey was uneventful, and as he approached another bend around the foliage, he doubted that there would be much of a difference in what he saw.

But when he turned around, he saw something which shocked him. The corpses of nearly an entire team littered the relatively barren road ahead. It shocked the Royal Guards into attention. While some were disgusted or shocked, only a few verbally expressed it. He initially thought that it was a whole team, but he only counted seven bodies.

Before he had time to contemplate the fact, a nervous voice rang out, "Is that you, Captain?"

His eyes turned to a shivering, prone figure hiding behind foliage. It took him longer than he would have liked to spot it. The unicorn had gone to great lengths to ensure that he wouldn't be spotted. Grass and leaves covered his whole body, and some dirt was smeared on his face. While about half of the leaves had fallen off of him as he began to cautiously stand up, he had done a reasonably good job at camouflage.

"Yes," Shining Armor confirmed several seconds later.

He added up his conflicting feelings. The unicorn would probably be too scared to face even more changelings, even under his protection. He did wish this search could have gone better, but they knew what they needed to: Chrysalis was here and she was still hostile to the Equestrian crown. Ultimately, he decided that they should come back with a larger force while the changelings were weakened. 

It's just that... Something about that archer set his nerves off.