The Locust Hive was surrounded by hordes of gingerbread men and flying pilots, while a gigantic Mother Mae-Eye blocked the front door and glared down at the trapped swarm.
Scratt was surprised at Mother Mae-Eye's appearance. "Is that her? Eugh!" He suppressed the urge to vomit, "she looked a lot nicer before!"
Mae-Eye's attention was to Queen Erranda, "you should be ashamed of yourselves after what you did to my creations!"
"I suggest you move out of the way, Mae-Eye" Queen Erranda warned, "if you don't want to lose more of your minions!"
"Ah!" Mae-Eye lifted a finger, "you didn't say Mother Mae-Eye, Erranda!"
"Because you are not a mother," Erranda reviled. "You are a vampire who is not even worthy of that title, especially after what you've done to whom you call your own 'children'." She remembered from Mae-Eye's monologue about "heading home," and something about the "titans". "In fact," she added, "I doubt you even belong here."
"Why how rude of you!" The witch rebuked, "you should have accepted me as your mother when you had the chance, then we would never have to deal with all this trouble! Although," she grabbed her chin as she recalled something, "you are right that I am a bit of a foreigner." Her attention turned back to Erranda, "do you remember the time we've first met, when I told you I came from a far away place?"
Erranda's grimace dropped into curiosity as she realized she was about to get the answers she wanted. "Yes, I do."
"Well, it's true." Mae-Eye confirmed, "I do come from a far away place. A very, very far away place. You see, I'm not really from Equestria. I'm from another world called Earth."
Now everything makes sense. Erranda realized, knowledge of powerful magic, an entire reality underground, being an unknown species, it all comes down to a creature from another world! "How did you come here?" She demanded.
"I'll tell you everything you need to know," Mae-Eye waved her spoon-wand as she cast another spell. "But only because it's the last thing you'll know before you're grounded!" She summoned images that changed as she explained her origins, and it took the appearance of an old film movie that began with the countdown.
5
4
3
2- Boop!
"It all started in a big city where five teenage superheroes, called the Teen Titans, lived to protect the townsfolk from nasty criminals. I was busy selling my things there, when one of the Titans bought one of my precious pies and then brought it to their home. After they've eaten the pie, they soon became my children. They were the first ones I had in a long time, so I took care of them, clothed them, fed them more pies, and they even loved me for those things."
Pfft. Erranda rolled her eyes sarcastically. Yeah, right.
"But then one little rascal became all troublesome and harassed me, and before I knew it all of my children turned into misbehaving little monsters! I tried teaching them a lesson, but they kept on rampaging my new home and ruined my work, all the while slipping away from me like little weasels. It was not much different from all of you. In fact, Erranda," she pointed at her with her wand, "you even remind me of her a bit with your big eyes, long hair, dangerous magic spells, and rebellious demeanor!"
"Count on it," Queen Erranda said.
"So anyways, the worst of it came when they took my wand and then banished me, along with all of my work, into one of my own pies! Thankfully for me, they were still sweet enough to send my pie to one of their friends, the H.I.V.E. Five, and so I took them as my children. But then something still haunted me - I still felt like the Titans were my real children, only to be reminded of what they've done to me earlier. I still wanted to punish them for it, but I was just too busy with the H.I.V.E. to simply leave them unattended.
"So I asked myself, 'how do I punish the Titans and reclaim them as my children without them banishing me again?' I thought, and thought, and thought, and thought, until I saw the leader of the H.I.V.E., Jynx, who was a powerful psychic. One day, I went up to her and I said, 'Jynxie-Boo my dear, mother would like for you to do her a favor. Why don't you use your magic tricks and take me to a place with lots of love. That way, mother can do some business there.'
"Though it was hard on the little one, she did just that. Before I entered the portal, I told my children to behave while mother is away, left behind lots of pie so they don't starve, and then waved them good-bye. When I entered the portal, I found myself in a wild forest very much like the ones back home. Then I saw a town nearby, and so I decided to take a look, and I was amazed by what I saw. That place the portal took me to just so happened to be a little magical land of ponies, where they all live and frolic in love, peace, and friendship; Equestria! A lovely name, don't you think?
"With all this love in the air (some places more than others), it was the perfect place to set up shop, and gather their nourishing love so that I will become stronger than ever! I will start by making some pies for the ponies, make them into my children, extract their love by baking them into more pies, sell those pies to more ponies and so on and so on until I get all the love Equestria has to offer. That way, once I return home, I will punish the Teen Titans without being opposed ever again!
"And things went along so well for the first few days, until you came along, and... well, we all know what happens next!" The magical images get sucked back into Mother Mae-Eye's wand.
Scratt clapped his hooves after the "movie," but when the other drones looked at him, he stopped and sank into the crowd. "Sorry," he smiled nervously.
Queen Erranda only loathed Mae-Eye even more, "so your destruction of Equestria and all of its inhabitants, your brainwashing, all of your kidnapping, and your pursuits of power are all just so you can squish a few insects? This is low! We shall defeat you just as the Titans have before!"
"Such brave words for someone like you, Erranda," Mother Mae-Eye took a few small steps forward. "But since you rascals are behaving so horribly today, I'm afraid I'm going to punish you, by sending you all to bed!!"
Mother Mae-Eye waved her wand. The front door suddenly locked itself with waffer boards, and all the windows suddenly closed with blinds, dimming the room slightly with the only light coming from the sunroofs at the ceiling.
"Your efforts against us are pointless, Mae-Eye," Erranda boasted confidently. "For we will devour your minions just as before. Drones," she commanded, "feed on her minions!"
But she suddenly heard some groaning and complaining behind her. When she checked on them, she realized her changelings became sluggish and full from eating the gingerbread men earlier.
"No more food."
"Oh my stomach."
"Give us a break."
"Oh," Erranda facehoofed herself. "Whoops."
She was suddenly hit by Mae-Eye's magic bolt. She rubbed her head as Mother Mae-Eye laughed at her, "that's what happens when you eat too much sugar!"
Queen Erranda growled at her, I never thought I'd say this, but she's right, my drones are just too full to devour her minions. How do I defeat her?
"Take them down, but keep them alive!" Mother Mae-Eye commanded her minions, "I'll need them for my new confections." The horde of gingerbread men all ganged up on the Locust Hive, who were outnumbered about five to one.
"Forget about eating them!" Erranda encouraged as the drones prepared themselves for combat. "We'll have to fight them to get out of this!"
With no other option left, she and her swarm attack the legions of her minions with a variety of methods, like simple bucking, transforming into different creatures, and flying upwards to get the pilots mowing them down from above. Queen Erranda burned one group of gingerbreads with a flamethrower spell, and grinned as she saw them burn into immobile crisps draped in viscous frosting.
A weary Chitin knocked one back with a magic bolt, then he snapped another's head off in half with his back hooves. He chopped down a few more that surrounded him.
Scratt joined the drones flying after the fighter pilots. "Oh hayseed," he complained nervously. "What have I gotten myself into?"
As Scratt hovered idly in midair, one of the life-sized planes, which resembled a World War II fighter, caught him on its sight. Its pilot wore classic leather flying gear with a pair of goggles over its eyes. It zeroed in on Scratt through the cross hairs and then locked the plane's weapons on him.
When he heard a noise grow louder nearby, Scratt turned around and gasped to see a fighter plane closing in on him. "Uh oh!"
The plane fired pellet-sized pies at Scratt, who dodged them by flying above it. The pilot flinched and then clenched its candy corn teeth at losing his target, so he turned the plane around the other direction.
Meanwhile, Scratt watched it from above and sighed in relief. But when he saw it turn around, he blurted "oh c'mon!"
The plane whizzed over at Scratt and shot more rounds of miniature pies, though it missed every time thanks to Scratt's small size. Later on however, he jerked and then plummeted into the ground. The gingerbread pilot grinned at believing he caught the little drone, and so went on to find other ones. It did not notice a pair of antennae behind its seat.
"Ha ha!" Scratt popped out behind the pilot, catching it off guard before grappling it under the arms, throwing it into a fatal plunge before flying off. Scratt used the same trick before while he was with Chitin saving the hive from Mother Mae-Eye's spell. The empty plane headed straight towards Mother Mae-Eye, who screamed as it zoomed past her before missing her and crashing into the wall.
After seeing the wreckage, Mother Mae-Eye stared disapprovingly at the Changelings breaking her cookies. "Hmm," she pointed her wand to the battle. "Perhaps it's time they get help from Mother Mae-Eye."
She used her magic to lift all the broken pieces and latching them together. What resulted were twisted, disfigured, Frankenstein-esque abominations whose body parts were glued together with blood red frosting.
"What?!" Queen Erranda reacted, "she can revive them out of broken-off parts? This just gets better and better!"
The abominations attacked the drones in their new forms. Queen Erranda and her drones tried to break them apart like before, but at each time the broken parts only rose up to reassemble into more abominations.
Erranda kept using a flamethrower spell to burn the gingerbread mutants and melt their frosting, so it was very effective. She also shot out streams of water from her horn to soak them up and turn them into a soggy mess, and even causing any of them that stepped on the puddles to slip and land on their rumps, or in some cases each other. But the rest of her drones did not fare so well, orange-tinted sweat trickled down their faces from all their fighting. Some of them even became too weak to keep fighting, and were ganged up by the gingerbreads.
"I don't know... how long... we can... keep this up!" A drone next to Queen Erranda panted, "they... just... keep on coming!"
"Then we'll need a different strategy," even she began to tire. "Remember that our priority is to leave here intact and return to Equestria!"
"But how?" He gasped, "all the... exits... are... closed.... What are... we... going... to do?"
The queen hurriedly examined the situation, but she only saw overwhelming armies of gingerbreads - some normal, others mutant - surrounding their hive numbering barely over a hundred. There was also Mother Mae-Eye who blocked their only exit out of the world she created, and smugly watched the fight turn to her favor. Erranda realized that they were only wasting time and energy on Mae-Eye's minions who keep regenerating via her magic, and this caused their disadvantage. They were fighting a losing battle. Unless...
"We're not gonna survive this by fighting those things!" She reasoned, "we'll have to take to the air and take out Mae-Eye ourselves!"
"I... don't wanna... question your orders... my queen." He questioned, "but what... about... her magic? And how... are we... gonna... beat her?"
"We don't need to," she answered. "We'll need to distract her away from the door and unlock it! Am I clear?"
"Yes, my queen."
She turned her attention toward the center of the battle where the rest of her hive was, and rallied. "Everypony, listen up! The crooks will not reach us if we take to the air, we're going to bring Mae-Eye away from that door so we'll get out of here!"
The drones that still fought on the ground rushed over to their queen, and hovered their wings as soon as she did.
"Let's do this." After she pointed to Mother Mae-Eye herself, Queen Erranda and her entire hive left the ground-bound gingerbread army behind to fly toward Mae-Eye.
"Oh no you don't!" Mother Mae-Eye conjured a house-sized metal spray can with a picture of a dead bug and the words "Pest-B-Gone" on its surface. When she sprayed the can at the Changelings, they all whittled down in hacking coughs. Their lungs burned and eyes stung when they came into contact with the fumes.
With the drones unable to move, the gingerbread men that were still the right shape tied up each of them, including both the queen and Chitin, in rope-like licorice.
Chitin tried to protest, "*cough* *hack* let me go, *cough* you crazy *cough* freaks!"
The drones that still had some energy left tried to break the ropes, but they could not set themselves free.
"Crud," Scratt cursed. He was tied up alongside Erranda and Chitin, "so much for that idea."
"You've been bad, bad little children, love bugs!" Mother Mae-Eye rebuked to the fallen swarm. "Honestly, I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner! Now," She waved her wand to prepare a spell. "It's time to eat. This time, it'll be something big enough to feed every one of you!"
Mother Mae-Eye wasn't joking around when the pie she created was easily the size of a swimming pool to the changelings, and so it hovered high above the ground and cast a huge shadow over them.
Dang, Chitin felt overwhelmed. That thing is massive! It's almost as if Mae-Eye herself could- something lit up inside his mind. ...fit inside it.
He turned to the aforementioned witch.
How did those Titans defeat her again?
Upon examining Mother Mae-Eye, he noticed she was channeling her magic through her wand. He glanced at the pie, and then back to her wand, when he remembered something from her monologue,
...the worst of it came when they took my wand and then banished me, along with all of my work, into one of my own pies!
The wand. Of course! I'll use her wand against her by using it on that pie!
"Mother!" He called over.
"What?"
"I have a plan that could defeat Mae-Eye!"
"How are we gonna do that?" Erranda reminded him, "she has us on the ropes."
"We'll use Mae-Eye's wand to banish her in that pie, that's how the Titans defeated her back in that other world!"
"But how are we to grab it from her hands and use its magic? Surely she'll try to stop us with it."
Chitin looked again at Mother Mae-Eye, whose minions moved out of the way of her giant pie as she set it nearby. He returned his attention to the queen, "listen."
He whispered something in her ear.
"What?" Erranda reacted, "what about those-?"
Chitin continued whispering, and Erranda grew more and more intrigued by what she was hearing. She commented, "I'm not certain that it will work, Chitin. But it may be our only chance."
They felt thundering footsteps as Mother Mae-Eye walked towards them, tippy-toeing her way across her minions. "Now, time to eat!"
A changeling protested, "but we're too full!"
A huge cloud of magic formed around the immobilized swarm, carried them up and towards the pie, and removed their licorice bonds, knowing they couldn't escape anyway.
Scratt said his prayers in tears while Erranda and Chitin stared down with dread at the confection below, for they knew they saw what could be their ultimate fate. With that in mind, they shut their eyes tightly and took a deep breath.
"Now, eat!" She dunked the whole Locust Hive deep into the pie, and then waited.
And waited...
And waited...
And still waited... but they never rose back up.
Mae-Eye grinned at her finally subduing her adversaries, and reasoned that by now the whole swarm should be influenced once again.
All the changelings popped back out of the pie. Their eyes returned to the fatigued appearance of the spell's effects, followed by the weak smiles, and their bodies, especially their mouths, were covered in the cherry paste and crust. Even Queen Erranda was influenced this time, as her mane became all sticky and messy. Oddly enough, their eyes did not change color like before.
"Hello, mother." Scratt greeted affectionately, "we're sorry with what we did before. We don't know why we were so upset."
"But then you showed us how you loved us," Chitin chimed next. "When we tasted your delicious pies again, we realized what it means to be family. And Mother Mae-Eye," he added, "you are our family."
"In the end," Queen Erranda finished, "there is only one thing that matters to us, and it's the fact that we love you."
The entire hive finished their speech in unison. "We love you, Mother Mae-Eye!"
"Aawww..." Mae-Eye clasped her hands endearingly. "That is much better! Much, much better!"
When she pulled them back out, one could tell that the licorice ropes were gone from them.
"Now come with me, my children." Mae-Eye beckoned, "it's very late for bed."
"Yes, mother." The hive rose up in front of Mother Mae-Eye at her face, and moved forward.
Chitin glanced back to her, and yelled, "now!"
About half the hive buzzed to Mae-Eye's shocked face, and swarmed her around like a swarm of angry bees. She yelped as she flailed frantically at the swarming drones, dropping her spoon-wand to the floor.
With Mae-Eye successfully distracted, Chitin rushed down to her spoon-wand, which was the size of Queen Erranda, and then snagged it with his magic.
Mother Mae-Eye saw Chitin with her wand through the swarm of changelings. "Give that back, you thieving rascal!" She shook her fist at him, "that thing belongs to Mother Mae-Eye!"
Queen Erranda settled near the pie while the rest of her hive followed, and took a deep breath.
"Okay, here goes."
When she used her magic, the orange aura formed around the massive pie. She strained more and more as she tried to lift the massive object, but took about one minute before she managed to carry it a few feet off the ground. Already she started to wear out as the aura around her horn intensified in color and shifted more viciously, and having previously spent her magic on attack spells didn't help it either.
"Help me lift thing!" The queen screamed, "I can't do this by myself!"
"Oh, right away, queenie!" The rest of the drones flew over to carry it from the bottom of the tin, lifting it much higher.
With Mae-Eye's wand still in possession, Chitin watched the pie slowly rise up to his level. But he worried about Queen Erranda's condition if she was using every magic reserve she had left. I hope mother can hurry it up even with the others helping her out, he thought. Because I don't know how long we can keep Mae-Eye distracted long enough to make it work! It looks like we're coming close, though, he added hopefully, so I'll use the wand on that thing and hopefully she'll be banished for good.
As Erranda turned the pie to face Chitin, sparks flew around her horn, which by then burned like a hot stove.
Meanwhile, Mother Mae-Eye was still too busy with the drones around her to focus casting spells. "Get off me! Get off me, you nasty little insects! Yow, that stings!"
Chitin strained himself as he channeled his magic into the wand, changing its pink aura to orange.
"HrrrrAAAAGGHHH!!"
He successfully used the magic on the giant pie. Before long, the thing started floating by itself, taking a metaphorical mountain off Erranda's shoulders. The crust was replaced by an outlandish swirling portal of black and white enigma.
Mother Mae-Eye swatted Chitin away, crashing him to the floor.
"Haha!" She caught the wand, "I got it!"
But she gasped long and hard when the castle started warping around her. Then a wind blew towards it, which started as a breeze before growing into a gust, until eventually reaching hurricane speeds. The mutated gingerbreads were carried away by the force, as well as the flying planes, and even some small items like utensils.
Mother Mae-Eye lost her wand again to the portal. "No, what have you done?!"
Even at hurricane speed, the "wind" still kept getting stronger as it sucked everything in like a giant vacuum. Yet for some reason the Locust Hive was the only thing that stood, though they still felt the intense wind!
By the time a tornado-like speed was reached, the castle began to fall apart; the oven-beds and doors of cupboards were torn off and warped by its strength. Even the pie on the changelings' bodies and manes cleanly peeled off.
"That thing will suck us down with her if we stay here," Erranda told her hive. "Quickly, we need to get out of here!"
They tried to reach the front door, but it broke apart from the sucking, revealing that it wasn't just the castle that was falling apart; it was everything of Mae-Eye's creation, including the very reality of her candyland world. Mother Mae-Eye panicked as she struggled to escape the vortex of doom. "How... dare... you... do... this... to me!" When her body got lifted up, she screamed as she whirled around uncontrollably. Still pinned to the ground against the black hole, the Changelings watched as everything got sucked in like a drain.
After a few minutes, everything faded into what seemed like an endless, black, empty void where not even the ground they stood on was visible. By that point, Mother Mae-Eye was the last thing in what was left of her world, and she slowly sank very closely into the pie as she reached out in vain to escape. Finally, when her body was squeezed inside the portal, she attempted to push her out with whatever strength she could muster, but literally nothing she could do would stop her inevitable fate.
The last they saw of Mother Mae-Eye was her face, and then her long nose sinking inwards. "No. Not again! How could this happen to me?! NO-O-O-O-O-O-O...!!"
Suddenly, bright light leaked out from the portal against the void. When the final trace of Mae-Eye was gone, the Locusts averted their eyes when a massive flash of light filled the entire void, essentially turning it from black to white.
The next thing they knew, they were in a small, very familiar clearing surrounded by green forest with rustling leaves and bird song. The changelings looked around to familiarize themselves, before they realized that this was the same spot that Mother Mae-Eye's shed was at.
They turned to where it should be, but it was gone. The only sign of it was a large dirt patch where it once stood. With all this in mind, only one thing was certain; they have returned to Equestria.
The pie that Mother Mae-Eye was sealed in stood right on the ground, except now it shrunk to normal size. Queen Erranda slowly trotted to the cursed pastry and looked down at it. Even though the otherworldly witch was banished from Equestria, Queen Erranda didn't feel that her deal with Mae-Eye was quite finished yet.
The Locust queen thought about how Mae-Eye tormented those Teen Titans back on their world, and how she came here through their "friends," the "High Five" she thought it was called? And finally on how she tried to devour all life on Equestria, including the drones. If Mother Mae-Eye was that dangerous, then by no means would Erranda allow such an evil entity to travel the world, or between worlds, and destroy everything it touched. So instead of devouring it, Queen Erranda had a more fitting end for Mother Mae-Eye.
She smashed it, getting the sticky paste and crust over her hoof. The ruined pie, along with the mess, morphed into a pink cloud of magic that rose into the sky, and disappeared.