"And here we are..."
Titan Beetle hated the life he'd been forced to live. It wasn't his fault he was a changeling, and had someone offered him the choice of being anything else, he'd have leapt at the chance. If you'd told him that the only other available option was to be an incontinent mule sewer worker, then he'd not only have accepted, he'd have shown up to work every day, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, wearing rubber pants and nose plugs, and would never have breathed a word of complaint, even if he worked every day and lived to be a hundred and twenty. Earthworms had better lives than changelings did, in his opinion.
This was compounded by the fact that he was huge, both in height and in weight. At seven and a half strides tall, and weighing in at an awe-inspiring one and a half tons (Muscle and chitin, all of it. He might not have liked violence, but he liked to stay in shape), Titan was the second largest changeling in the hive, beat only by the legendary Goliath Spider himself, who was so massive that he could only disguise himself as an adult dragon.
Titan's intimidating appearance, his spectacular musculature, and his admittedly considerable talent at fighting had made him an automatic candidate for the Queen's Hoof, the elite bodyguard who watched over the royal family. Thankfully, this meant that he saw very little actual combat, but it also meant that his sole purpose in life was just to stand around, looking intimidating, and occasionally punch someone who suffered from suicidal stupidity. Titan would have much rather spent his time studying things like poetry, art, literature; all of the things that moved the heart and soul, and things that the changeling swarm lacked. The only culture that changelings could claim involved that strange fungal rash that Dung Beetle (NO RELATION!!! Ahem, sorry, no relation...) had developed on his exoskeleton after his refusal to bathe for sixty days straight.
Titan was a gentle bug who hated violence, even if he did prove skillful in its application. Fate had conspired against him, however, in putting him into one of the most violent and aggressive cultures in the world, one where every day was a fight for survival. The ones that, in all honesty, every race, species, and culture in the world saw as irredeemable villains. Worse, the aristocracy, the rare bit of cream, and the vast multitudes of scum, that floated on the top of changeling society, would actively track down young changelings who left the swarm (If you were forty or older, they tended not to be so enthusiastic about tracking you down, since your ability to contribute to the swarm was significantly less). Once found, the deserters would be dragged back, kicking and screaming, to be forcibly drained until their body was locked into dry hibernation, then left on display as a warning to others. There was no place in this world where a changeling, especially one of his epic proportions, could hope to hide.
No place in this world... but perhaps in another...
Examining the seemingly blank wall in front of him, Titan searched for the hidden catch that would allow him to open the secret door. While his window of opportunity was small, he didn't want to leave a trail. With the invasion in full swing, it would take time for his absence to be missed, and hopefully, by the time the invasion failed (Why the queen thought the swarm could ever hope to hold such a large country with the limited numbers that they had was beyond him), he'd be well out of reach of anybuggy sent to find him. More importantly, if he just smashed through the door, Princess Celestia would immediately figure out what happened, and likely send ponies after Titan, thinking that he was intent on causing mayhem, rather than just trying to escape the miserable life he lived.
Ah, there it was. With a flick of his hoof, he activated the mechanism that opened the secret door, then quickly stepped inside, closing the door and locking it behind him (Thankfully, since the door was built with alicorns in mind, it was not as tight a fit as most doors tended to be). After all, one thing he knew for certain was that he was never going back if he could help it...
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"And here we are..."
Morning Glory loved magic. Seriously, much more than would have been healthy for a unicorn, let alone an earth pony. She couldn't help it: Practically since she was a foal, she'd been fascinated by magic in all of its forms. From alteration to conjuration, from evocation to enchantment, she had studied the mystic arts to the point where she could quote entire books of magic from front to back, and a few from back to front. By all rights, were she a unicorn, she'd be the newest rising star at Princess Celestia's School For Gifted Unicorns...
But in spite of being able to ace the written entrance exam, something that even her idol, Twilight Sparkle, had failed to do (Twilight had forgotten to carry the one on question three), Morning Glory was not allowed entry, on the grounds of not having a horn.
It just wasn't fair! Zebras had shamanism, as well as potion brewing, griffins could work spells by weaving their talons in various mystical patterns, and even minotaurs could use 'buff' magic, spells that bolstered their innate physical prowess. For ponies, however, the only spells available were the kind that flowed from a horn, so by simply being born an earth pony, she wasn't able to cast spells. All ponies, she'd read, possessed some level of magical power inside, but only unicorns could tap into those reserves in the form of spells...
But if there were other worlds, and on those worlds anyone could do magic, then there must be some sort of secret, one that had not been discovered by the wizards of Equestria: The fundamental heart of magic itself. If she could discover that secret, she could return in triumph and show everypony that she was just as great a wizard as any unicorn in the world, if not greater...
But first things first...
She studied her reflection in the crystal in front of her as she waited for the sun to reach its zenith. Bright blue eyes stared back from the face of a pink filly with a purple mane, not long enough to be showy, but not short enough to be colt-ish. Mrs Butterbean, the mare who ran the orphanage that Glory was staying in, said that when she grew up, the young filly would be quite lovely. For now, she was considered adorable, even if she was an unrepentant magic nerd...
The natural mirror briefly shimmered, as if for a second it had changed from a solid piece of crystal to the surface of a still pond. It was time. She stepped forward, into the portal that would lead her to Celestia's secret room...
And almost bumped into a pony-bug-monster-thing that was so huge that he could easily swallow her in one gulp...
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Titan gulped loudly, seeing the tiny pony (Well, technically, almost every pony was tiny compared to Titan, but there was tiny, and then there was little filly tiny) who had just walked in. Drawing the natural conclusion, that the only reason why she would be here was because she was supposed to be here, he immediately felt a wave of cold dread fill him: If she screamed in here, odds were that anypony or anybuggy in the hallway outside would hear, and the jig would be up. The existence of this room would be known, along with the fact that someone was inside, and either the aristos would come to investigate after the invasion was over (in the unlikely event of a changeling victory), or Celestia would come in here personally, and lay the royal smack down upon him. The secrecy he'd hoped would keep him safe would be lost, and...
"Please, please, please mister giant guard monster sir, please don't eat me! I wouldn't taste good, and I'd probably give you a tummyache!"
Well, maybe this could work out, after all.
Keeping his voice very soft, he said, "I'm not going to eat you, kid, and I'm not a guard, so don't fret. But since you're here, why don't you tell me what you're doing, barging into Princess Celestia's secret chamber?"