The San Palomino Desert; a land of extremes. There the days parched the earth, the nights were as cold as winter, and water was as rare and precious as gold. A blazing sun struck the cracked brown dirt with hot intense sunlight, and the only plant life found were a few shrubs and patches of prickly cacti. Mirages covered the horizon like a vast, illusory sea to fool parched, desperate travelers.
A large flock of crows flew across the sky as if in pursuit for some promised land. The unlikely flock was so huge that it looked like some dark cloud that could have blotted out the sun - easily over a hundred strong. Their beaks hanged open to pant in a vain attempt to keep themselves cool.
For several hours, they drove themselves across the desert until something finally rose in the horizon. It was a collection of tall, rectangular structures lined with many colorful lights, which danced and flashed to show its aliveness. Finally a signature signpost stood in the front of the city in bold red print, but it was too far away to make it out right now.
The flock immediately settled on the cracked dirt, and then suddenly bright orange flashes consumed the crows one by one, revealing them to be none other than the Locust Hive changelings.
The Locusts were a tiny, nomadic hive of changelings whose numbers rarely passed two hundred, compared to several thousand or even tens of thousands of other ones. As its name would suggest, once every few weeks the Locust Hive flew across the land to find suitable environments to settle, feed on, and then move on once satisfied. Unlike most changeling hives, the Locusts have material food as a substitute for love, although the latter can still be devoured when necessary. They were distinguishable by their characteristic orange color scheme, oval-shaped wings (usually, this can change when trying to adapt to certain environments), and pair of antennae. Being nomads, they can quickly adapt to any new climate they enter, usually within about three to five days. But of course, nopony said it was comfortable.
Their queen, Erranda, stood in front of her swarm, and contemplated as she stared at the distant city. Apart from her drones, her orange coloring was accompanied by more red-orange gradients. Her unkempt mane began as a widow's peak that arched up at either side of her forehead, and then reached down to her shoulders, while a few thin strands hung in front of her face. Her horn was straight, but the tip was formed so it resembled an axe-like protrusion, so any goring from her would've been fatal.
She and her hive traveled in this wretched environment for more than two days, and they had not had a feeding for weeks. The last place they visited was a large forest inhabited by timberwolves, chupacabras, vampiric jackalopes, and carnivorous plants. Being too dangerous to stay any longer, they escaped to a desert, and they traveled. But obviously it wasn't any better, for, although there were not so many dangerous creatures, there was hardly any water to drink, and the only food sources were either critters that were too few, too small, and too hard to catch, or plants that were too prickly to be eaten. Although they slowly adapted their bodies to conserve more water and lose body heat more quickly, it would take another two or three days for it to be complete. They can also survive for three weeks without food before they starve, but their last feeding was two weeks ago.
The Locusts were hungry, thirsty, weary, and lost, and the queen wasn't any better either. They would not have survived a few more days without resorting to cannibalism.
But now they found hope in this new environment that is civilization. Queen Erranda herself had never seen a real pony city before, but in her youth she heard tales about them from her mother, which have been passed down from generation to generation to record the hive's past experiences. With this golden opportunity to not only perform their next feeding, but also to explore a new environment and see what it has to offer, Queen Erranda decided to seize it.
She finally spoke. "It seems that luck is on our side today, everypony," she slowly turned around to the drones behind her. "For before us is what could only be our salvation from this desert, a city of the ponies filled with much food for us to devour. We shall start our new raid very soon."
The changelings cheered and buzzed excitedly, but their voices were hoarse from their thirst.
Queen Erranda dropped her smile. "Unfortunately we are too weak to perform one, and we do not know what benefits or threats exist within its walls. We will need to examine this area first, so we will need our most able-bodied scouts to do so."
"But shouldn't we eat first?" A drone raised his holed hoof, "we've been living off of shrubs the whole time."
"Yeah," another agreed.
"I was getting to that part," she told him. "Considering our wretched condition, we will need to search for sources of water and food first. Once we are satisfied, we will move on to discovering their society and military defense. Now," she scanned the crowd. "Who is still strong enough to go scouting?"
The queen scanned the crowd over the health of her changelings, and immediately saw two promising candidates.
"Scratt, Chitin," she called.
"Yeah?" The former, a drone, looked hopefully up to her while the latter, a more developed changeling, knelt down and asked quietly. "Yes, mother?"
"I'll need the two of you to fly toward that city and search for any source of food or drink nearby," she briefed. "But you must disguise yourselves while there, we don't want to get caught. And come back quickly, the longer you linger, the hungrier we get, the closer we get to eating each others' flesh. Understood?"
"Uh huh!" Scratt nodded eagerly.
"Yes, mother." Chitin answered.
"Good," Erranda returned her gaze to the city, whose outskirts should be only about five miles away. "Now get moving, you two. We'll be waiting for you."
The two changelings nodded, and they pumped their wings and hovered above the ground. They flew forward and made their way towards the city.
Scratt was a typical, low-ranking drone at age two (drones have an average lifespan of six) who was not known for being bright, being a sort of "clown" of the group. But in spite of - or perhaps because of - his low rank, he had a strong desire to contribute to the swarm and earn the respect of his peers. He chose to do this by volunteering in scouting missions whenever the hive encounters a new area, but he sometimes puts himself or his scouting party in danger as a result of him either being distracted by something or by missing important details.
On the other hoof, Chitin resembled a much more developed form of changeling, complete with a droopy orange mane and eyes with distinct irises and pupils. As a matter of fact, he was what was known as a "prince" of changelings, which was a result of a rare occurrence of a changeling queen laying a "queen" egg containing a male embryo. These "male eggs" were usually thrown out to make way for a female. But Queen Erranda decided to keep his egg and raise him. He eventually became an expert leader of any scouting party he was assigned to because of his charisma and attention to detail.
As the two changelings reached closer to the city, they were able to read the sign as saying "Welcome to Fabulous Las Pegasus - Neighvada". But then Scratt noticed something peculiar behind the buildings.
"Hey Chi!" he called over. He squinted his eyes as he raised a hoof over his eyes to shield himself against the blinding sunlight.
"What is it, Scratt?" Chitin inquired to his wingpony.
"Is that still the mirage or does it really look like...?"
"Let me check, we need to make sure it's not another mirage." Chitin checked over at the would-be mirage past the city. He noted during the trip that mirages always receded when one travels toward them, unlike true bodies of water. This one, though, seemed a little different.
"Let's check it out," Chitin concluded. "If it's moving away from us, then it's a mirage, and we're heading to the city."
"Roger that!" Scratt replied.
They went around the city borders within about a mile away to avoid drawing the ponies' attention. By the time they got there, they found out that...
Lo and behold, it was not a mirage after all. Las Pegasus was situated next to a vast deep blue ocean. It was met by a beach that was completely empty of pony activity, although some garbage cluttered about it. The changelings could feel the cool moist air revitalize their tired bodies, like a gift from Elysium for travelers lost in the desert.
Scratt's jaw hung to the ground and eyes widened in disbelief at what he and Chitin were seeing. "Well," Chitin grinned smugly. "At least know where the water is," he turned back to his companion. "Now we need to find a food source."
But he only saw the drone entranced at the ocean in front of him, with the jaw hanged open and eyes widened into the size of dinner plates.
"Uhh... Scratt?" Chitin moved closer to him, "are you listening?"
"Oh... My... Gosh!!" At the last word, Chitin flinched as Scratt splayed his forelegs open, and gave the widest and most ecstatic grin he could muster. "Look at all this water, we're saved! Let's go!"
Scratt charged forward with lightning speed toward the ocean as he celebrated in reverence, and then dived headfirst into the foaming waves.
Chitin reached out a hoof to stop him. "Scratt, wait! That's-"
But then Scratt came back viciously spitting and scraping his tongue to get the bad taste out of his mouth.
"...seawater."
"Yeah," Scratt still spat in disgust. "Tell me about it."
"Like I said," Chitin continued. "We need to find a more suitable source. Ocean water isn't gonna do us any good."
Scratt paused for a moment before he glanced at something, and then pointed with his hoof. "How about there?"
He looked to where Scratt pointed to, and they saw in the distance a dense population little figures that could've been ponies. Some of them lay underneath colorful umbrellas and benches, while others - especially the children - hung out and played at the water's edge, and a few even set up nets and grounds for volleyball games.
What separated the ponies from the two scouts was a spacious metal drainage pipe of about seven or eight feet wide, and had a constant stream of water emptying into the beach, which made a miniature delta that divided it. What was interesting was that none of the ponies up ahead wanted to hang out near there. Chitin traced the pipe to the city, and he speculated that it could be a passage underneath it, making it a good potential place where the hive can scout the city from and plot out the feeding raid.
"Hmm," Chitin contemplated. "I don't know if there's any we can eat or drink in there, but let's investigate. Maybe we'll find something useful about this place."
"Well I figured that there might be something over there, ya know?"
When they flew into the sewer, they saw that it was very dark with the only source of light being little holes from the storm drains, which lined across a long, tubular hallway. The water ran along a canal with raised cement sidewalks on either side, stairways that lead to lower levels, and finally ladders that head up to the streets above. This place clearly looked like something that could be maintained by pony workers, so it was better to enter in a disguise.
Chitin looked over the small stream of water to determine if it was drinkable, and saw that it was definitely clearer than the seawater. It didn't look like enough to feed the whole hive, but if it was flowing from a source, perhaps this could work. And even if there was no food inside the sewer itself, it still could be used to hide and plan if they kept their disguises, perhaps even heading to the lower levels to further avoid detection.
Scatt apologized, "I'm sorry if there's not a whole lot in here, Chitin."
"I know," Chitin reassured. "But we can use this place as our base of operations from which we can scout the city. And with the ocean outside, we could always turn into seagulls and go fishing."
"Yeah," Scratt agreed. "We could do that."
Not wanting to be gone for too long, Chitin and Scratt came back out of the sewer and into the littered beach, and found a few fronds of seaweed tangled among the garbage.
"Now c'mon," Chitin picked up a strand of seaweed from the ground. "We must report back to the queen, we'll take the seaweed as proof about the ocean. I feel that our salvation is just ahead of us."
"Got it," Scratt held his own strand of seaweed in his mouth.
And with that, the two changelings turned to their backs and flew back in the direction of the main hive, but they were not aware of a small, shadowy figure with solid purple eyes watching them from inside the sewer pipe.