//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4: The Hive - Part 1 
// Story: Mane co Mercenaries: The Battles 
// by Paintpaws 
//------------------------------//

A soft yet bright yellow light blinded the mercenaries vision momentary, once their senses had cleared and their eyes had readjusted to the dimmer light of the world around them they saw that they had been brought to a forest, the trees themselves seemed darker then normal trees, the bark was almost black and the leaves where leathery. 

Princess Celestia raised her head and examined their surroundings, then nodded to the mercenaries, "Travel north, you cannot miss the hive." She flared her wings, "Remember that the easiest way of getting Spy out is getting in without being seen." The Princess of the Sun said before taking gracefully to the sky.

As soon as she was in the air the mercenaries began their short trek to the changeling hive, once Princess Celestia was out of sight Princess Cadence glared at the mercenaries.

"She told you no fighting." She hissed angrily, gesturing to the packs of weapons brought by the mercenaries.

"She said, no fighting if we could help it, your highness." Engineer said calmly, "And honestly, the're more to protect you, if we get in trouble. Which is likely to happen, considering our luck with changelings so far.."

Princess Cadence dropped her glare, feeling slightly guilty for the mercenaries, but then raised an eyebrow, "What about Spy? You'd consider that luck, right?" 

Demo snorted, "More like one of them changelings have finally come to their senses and realised that their Queen's a bloodly power hungry psychopath, that's not luck lass, that's common sense." 

Cadence was about to argue when Scout interrupted her, "Why are you and the Princess so obsessed with Swiss cheese legs anyway?" He asked hovering above the group. "There's hundreds of them just the same."

The Princess of Love sighed, "There isn't hundreds that would turn away from the hive like he did," She paused, "To turn away from their only home and their own kind... That's not something a lot of ponies could do."

"So he's a rarity?" Sniper asked, "Valuable?"

Princess Cadence nodded, "Aunty said that she tried to make with the Changelings a long time ago, but they refused for some reason. Every so often a changeling has come to Celestia because they had, like you said, come to their senses." She sighed again, "Aunty said that whenever this did happen, that changeling would be marked a traitor and be hunted down by the hive. She said that it happened every time no matter how well hidden or protected they were. Spy was the one she decided, that she would go all out on saving."

Engineer frowned, "She didn't really put much effort into it then... no offence." 

"She thought that he would be safer with you, especially with a dragon." Cadence said, Pyro chirped happily overhead.

"Izzat why she'd risking you and her self for him?" Demo asked, turning to the Princess

Cadence didn't answer, she stared ahead with wide eyes. When Demo followed her gaze he saw it. The Changeling Hive.

The hive was a greenish black, matching the trees that grew around it and it had holes that matched the creatures that lived inside. Yet it was large but not very tall, the mercenaries guessed that the rest of the hive must be underground. Sticky green patches of something were  around and hive, some spilling out of holes that might be windows, there were also cobweb like substances, similar to a changeling's mane and tail. that reached out from the hive and stuck to the ground. 

Guarding what was supposedly the entrance stood a group of four large guards, they wore thick, dark blue armour, unlike the thin more metallic type that the attackers of Teufort had worn, their horn's stuck out of their helmets and were tall and jagged, clearly built to fight with. Their wings poked out too, seemingly larger and had less holes.

"How we gonna get past?" Scout asked.

"We're invisible, remember." Demo hissed, not quite sure if he had to keep his voice down or not.

Scout landed hesitantly and looked out at the guards, "Yeah but what if we're not."

"Are you saying that you don't trust Celestia?" Princess Cadence asked, looking pointedly at Scout.

Before Scout could answer back, Soldier grabbed him, "Only one way to find out!" He said, then launched Scout towards the changeling guards before any of the mercenaries could stop him.

Thankfully, Scout could recover quickly from falling. He spread his wings out, tensing them to slow himself before aiming himself skywards and beating his wings quickly so that he would be far enough away from the changeling guards to have an advantage on them if they did attack. Which they didn't.

Scout beamed and turned back to the group, who where hiding amongst the bushes, "It safe!" It called over to them while keeping a wary eye on the guards in case they reacted to his voice. Which they didn't.

The young pegasus landed slowly in front of the four guards as the others approached, he was about to wave a hoof in one of the guard's faces when Demo stopped him.

"Careful lad, don't wanna push our luck." He said, releasing Scout, "And they probably ain't like the Brattish royal guards." He added as he and Scout crept past the guards and into the entrance of the hive, the other mercenaries and princess following them, Heavy going last.

Only Medic noticed the changeling guards glance at the giant earth pony, before the unicorn could warn the others or even take note of the action another headache made it seem irrelevant.

Once inside the hive, the group looked around at the many passageways and quickly realised that they didn't really know where Spy might be. As a group they decided to head downwards, hopefully to where the prison cells would be, they followed paths at random and sometimes ending up back where they started. The mercenaries unable to agree on a route.  

After what felt like an eternity of aimlessly wandering, Cadence stopped and stomped her hoof, "Do any of you actually have a plan or are we just lost!" She demanded, trying not to slip into Royal Canterlot tone in her frustration.

The mercenaries grinned sheepishly, Cadence blinked, "Not even a follow the left wall?"

"We would do, but Sniper thinks that will get us more lost." Demo muttered.

"Keeping to the left would just lead us in a circle, not get us lost." The griffin growled.

"Well if you're so good at it then you lead us." Scout said with annoyance.

"I've suggested mapping the area but you blokes don't wanna do that." Sniper snapped back.

Before a fight could start, Heavy interrupted them, "Why don't we split up?" He asked.

The other mercenaries stared at him, Engineer looked to Princess Cadence and then to Heavy, "Is that really wise partner, what about the Princess?"

Cadence was about to complain when Heavy spoke again, "Like Princess said, she can look after herself, does not need as much protecting as you think." Cadence smiled at this.

"And what if one of us gets inta trouble?" Scout asked.

"Shout. Changelings cannot hear us." Heavy said simply, the others seemed satisfied by this.

"Ah still think that Pyro and me should go with the Princess, just to be sure." Engineer said.

"So we split into four and five?" Sniper asked.

"Nyet, less to cover more ground. Like threes and twos." Heavy said. 

Engineer frowned slightly but Sniper nodded, "And if we get into trouble or wounded." The griffin added with a cynical tone.

"Da, Engineer and dragon with little Princess, you with Scout, Soldier and Demo, me and Medic." Heavy sorted the groups and nodded.

Sniper groaned inwardly at the thought of being stuck with Scout in a fight, Soldier and Demo cheered and Pyro purred at the Princess, who nodded, "Now that sound more like a plan." She said.

"Good choice of teams too," Demo added, "But where too?"

Heavy looked around quickly surveying the area and thought, "Head downwards, Engineer, Pyro, Princess, Soldier and Demo go right but keep to left wall. The rest go left but keep right wall. We can meet up in centre." The stallion paused, "If there is one." He added quickly.

Engineer thought for a moment, "There might be a mainframe type place, well not a mainframe but..." He shook his head, "We don't wanna get to the throne room."

"If we find it throw everything you've got at the Queen then get our asses outta there." Soldier said with a nod that made his helmet wobble.

The other mercenaries agreed and set down their designated paths, yet Engineer was still worried, so Pyro kept her guard up. Princess Cadence frowned, "I thought that you guys all worked well together." 

Engineer sighed, "To be honest we haven't really been in any real fighting, not anything like this anyways. We were only recruited about a year ago, sure we've had time to bond and all but.. not really fix together as a team, the Princess didn't wanna risk us."

Cadence gave a comforting smile, "She does speak rather highly of you all, even if the guard captain hates you." 

The unicorn couldn't help but blush a little at the complement, "Heh, a bunch of misfits like us.." he chuckled, "Well your guard captain's awful old, 'bout time someone replaces him." 

"Aunty wants that, but none of the guards really have the..." She searched for a word, "The right feel, I guess." 

Engineer blinked, "That because they all look the same or something?" Cadence giggled.

"No silly, that's just an enchantment. Did you really think that Aunty could find so many stallions that all look the same." Even Pyro sounded like she was laughing, Engineer chuckled again.

Elsewhere in the hive Demo and Soldier trotted beside one another, Demo quickly looked behind him, "Maybe we should start leaving breadcrumbs." He muttered, mainly to himself.

Soldier blinked, "You brought snacks?" He asked.

Demo sighed, "No I dinnae mean..."

Soldier cut him off with a gasp, "Are you going to teleport bread?" He asked excitedly.

"It's a figure of speech lad." Demo said before he could be interrupted again, he shook his head, "I don't want ta get lost, that's all."

"We'll just blast this place to hell and go home for a beer." Soldier said.

"Aye, go down to the pub for pint." Demo added and laughed, "That reminds me, not that Engie's not here..." Demo pulled out a bottle of scrumpy with his magic, uncorked it and took a long swig.

Soldier snorted, "So you did bring snacks." 

"For me lad, not for you." The unicorn said before taking another sip, "If we do get in a fight here it's gonna be one hell of a show."

The pegasus nodded in a agreement, "And we're gonna send each and every one of those love sucking maggots back to their mamma's in a box."

Demo laughed, his bottle was nearly empty already and he could feel the scrumpy starting to have an effect on him, "Aye, those sneaky little snakes in the grass are gonna get blasted into thin gruel." He pulled a second bottle out his saddle bag, "Gonna make me bag as light as a wee feather by the end of this."

In the next passage over Scout and Sniper quietly glided along, the griffin was trying to make plans for what he would do if they were found by changelings, the pegasus had quickly gotten bored at Sniper's silence.

"So, er, what's it like in the Griffin Kingdom?" Scout asked, snapping the griffin out of his thoughts.

"Didn't come from the Griffin Kingdom." Sniper muttered.

"...But you're a griffin..." Scout said after a moment silence.

"Yeah, so?"

"A griffin not from the Griffin Kingdom?" The pegasus asked, "Are your parents griffins? Did you move?"

"My parents are Minotaurs, just like the rest of Austneighlia." Sniper said bluntly.

Scout squinted at the griffin for a long time, trying to work out if he was serious. Sniper was as straight faced as he was before, as though he didn't notice anything wrong. The pegasus scrunched up his face, "..right." was all he said before finding a more interesting topic of conversation. Himself.

"My ma raised all eight of us all on her own," He started, "We all different types of ponies and my brothers were in a lot of gangs and stuff but they were always faster then me so little old Scout said you know what, I'm gonna fly faster then any of these losers and he did. Like we were like wild dogs man, no one could stop us."

"What about your dad?" Sniper asked.

Scout shrugged, "Don't know, don't care, why should I care, he don't care enough about my ma to stay with her so I don't care about him. Probably don't even know he has an awesome little pegasus but that's too bad for him 'cause he missed out on having a perfect son like me."

"Right." Sniper muttered.

In the passage furthest from Princess Cadence, Heavy and Medic walked silently, the giant earth pony seeming quite happy to stop if Medic's headaches forced him to stop walking.

"(We should have seen somebody by now.)" Medic groaned in German, Heavy just nodded.

"(Remind me how your ubercharge works.)" He said abruptly in Russian.

Medic blinked, "(What? Why?)"

Heavy shrugged, "(Might take your mind off the pain, I don't know.>) 

The unicorn sighed, "(It's an old spell that I manipulated to my magic, it takes pain and damage and converts it into pure magic that makes flesh strong enough to survive anything and it...)" He rubbed his temples and started moving again, "(And this really isn't helping.)"

"(Can it survive alicorn magic?)" Heavy asked, following him.

"(God I don't know, I've never really felt like slapping Princess Celestia across the face in the hopes that my magic is stronger than hers.)" Medic said shaking his head, he sighed and stopped walking again, "(This isn't right.. something isn't right..)" He muttered.

"(What's not right.)" Heavy asked, standing nearby the unicorn.

"(Everything.. you and..)"

"(Me?)" Heavy said with a tone of annoyance, "(I'm not the crazy one.)"

A hurt look crossed Medic's expression, he shook his head and turned to leave, "(I'm going back to find the others... I..I don't like this.)"

Before the unicorn could take more than three steps away he was slammed into the walk by a powerful forelimb and held there by his neck, his vision blurred for a moment as a second pain started throbbing in his head. Once his vision restored it'self he saw Heavy, his eyes glowing a strange green, Medic met his eyes and before he could do anything his mind went blank.

'Heavy' chuckled cruelly, dropping his voice disguise, "Aww, crushes are cute aren't they?" He said mockingly to the now fully hypnotised Medic, he inhaled deeply, "We don't get much power from them but it's more than enough to take down you petty little ponies, then the love princess will be ours."

Medic rolled his head to one side and pushed his back legs against the fake Heavy's chest, as though he was trying to push him away and defend himself, the fake Heavy simply tutted, "I'm not the one you'll be fighting, dear doctor."