After several hours, the second shift of guards came in. The injured unicorns were still being treated, so the pegasi were the ones to come in this time.
"How's the prisoner?" the mare of the pair asked.
"She's fine, but she's been pulling some bullshit tricks," the mare of the unicorn guards responded. "When he stepped away to relieve himself," she pointed toward the other unicorn with one hoof, "she tried changing herself into me to fool him when he got back. But the horn blocker ring made it obvious who was who. I'm surprised she was even able to change with it on. And now it looks like she's playing dead or some crap like that. Don't let your guard down around her for a second."
The pegasi looked in through the bars. Their prisoner was lying unconscious, bound and gagged, much more heavily restrained than they remembered her being. "Yeah, no kidding. Best not to take any chances with these change-things around."
A pair of synchronized loud clanging sounds echoed out from the room, followed by nearly synchronous dull thuds.
It was a fair distance from their bunks to the cells where they kept 'persons of interest', so it took a while for the pair of injured unicorns to make the distance. The room right before the cells separated by a secret door was their locker room, and there they found the pegasi just closing up their lockers after putting away the overalls they used for protection in their cover jobs in the warehouse.
"What were those noises we heard?" one of the newcomers asked.
"I don't know. We just got here to start our shift. What did it sound like?" the mare returned.
"Like something hitting metal, and then a thud or something? We should check on the prisoner," the other newcomer said.
The unicorns opened the secret door and headed in, the pegasi following shortly behind.
"Where are the other guards?" one of the unicorns immediately asked.
"Beats me. They should be here. Did they abandon their post?" the pegasus stallion queried.
"Check the prisoner!" the other unicorn ordered, and soon they were looking in through the bars.
"Hey, doesn't she look an awful lot like-" the unicorn didn't finish the sentence, as he was interrupted by a loud, synchronized pair of metallic clangs, followed by a pair of not quite synchronized dull thuds.
The unicorn leader poked his head into the bunk room and stared at the two injured unicorns, playing cards at their sad excuse for a table.
"Something wrong boss?" one of them asked.
"I need you two to search our hideout for the prisoner. Somehow she managed to escape, and hang all four of the other guards. I want her back! Now! Dead or alive. Don't take any more chances with her."
The two unicorns nodded while a string of profanity issued forth. But they were on their feet in seconds, getting out into the base and beginning their search.
Three hours earlier...
Wind Chaser groaned audibly as she regained consciousness. The shielding trick they had adapted, coating their bones in copper to created internal 'faraday cages' to protect their nanospiders from electromagnetic pulses, had only had limited success. But the active nanospiders were able to restore the inactive ones much faster than they could recover on their own. Still, her head was abuzz with pain, still, from the lightning bolt and the intense awareness of damage still being repaired. The copper had even melted a bit from the direct lightning strike, making the toxicity of the copper an even bigger issue as some of it had flowed off through her blood stream while the nanospiders were unable to compensate.
"You're awake? Heh. Too bad for you. Our boss is going to have fun getting information out of you, little filly," one of the unicorns said to her. The other guard, null in disguise, just rolled his eyes, waiting patiently.
The talkative guard kept going with his taunting, going on and on until null got into position and knocked him out with a sharp blow to the head. Simple and effective. null liked that. So he got started immediately on efficiently unlocking the cell, helping Wind Chaser out as she took on the downed guard's form, and then binding and gagging the unicorn tightly. Dissolving the nail in her horn, Wind Chaser was able to remove the magic suppressing ring and pass it to null, who placed it on the guard. It wasn't nailed into place, so it could still be removed, but that would have to be okay for now. They didn't have a fresh nail handy, and the rules they were bound by clearly prevented making one with their kingsblood.
Closing the door behind them, the two changelings took up the guards' positions and waited for their replacements to come. Wind Chaser was still a bit wobbly at first, but she had plenty of time to recover before the pegasi finally came. Let the shell game begin.
The two injured unicorns searched every room of the building quite thoroughly. Ridiculously thoroughly, in fact, even flipping through ledgers and file cabinets as if the missing changeling could somehow be disguised as a sheet of paper. But in the end, they too went missing. The unicorn they called 'boss' was not amused. Four guards dead, and two missing along with a half dozen of their enchanted cloaks. How hard was it to keep one unconscious changeling with a horn blocker under lock and key?!
One thing was for sure... these enemies he had acquired, this 'Itinerant King' and his pawns... he could no longer afford to take them lightly by any measure.