Stick had finished feeding me all her stew, only having claimed a few mouthfuls herself, and was starting to feed me my own bowl as well when she seemed to freeze. I wasn't the only pony who noticed it.
"What's the-" Rainbow Dash began but at a shake of the changeling's head she stopped. Leaning over to me, so her nose brushed my ear she whispered. "Somepony else is here, they just tried a little drink from Applejack, I pulled back quickly." I nodded slowly to the news, trying to keep shock off my face.
Leaning to Dash on my other side, I tapped her shoulder. "Think you can fly and get Twilight as fast as you can. Changelings are about." No sooner were my words in her ear than I almost fell over. She had started to move. And move fast. She was out a window before I even heard the glass break leaving us with only the sound and the colors trailing off her tail to know she was even there. "Fillies, under the table." My words were harsh but those around looked quickly to AJ who nodded.
Stepping to the bench I grabbed up a knife there in my mouth and turned to face the door. "You going to show yourselves or-" I didn't get to say more, three dark shapes rushed in and with green fire two became copies of Big Mac, each of them intimidatingly big. A green burst flowed around the knife and yanked it from my grip.
"Lay down or we will put you down!" The changeling at the back had a lot of hiss and chitter.
I didn't glance under the table, but to AJ. "Alright, no need to hurt anypony." I stepped forward, Stick at my back looking more angry than nervous.
"You hurt them and I will tell Queen Fast!" There was so little chitter in her voice I was proud, she was delaying, making them stop to think.
Applejack was next to not show any fear. Bumping the table forward as she got up, I saw she had cleverly made it even harder to see under. "If'n yah jus' let us go, ah'll make sure y'all ain't followed."
The changeling at the back laughed. "Let you go? You will be the first to go into our new pods!" It strode up, lowering it's horn toward Stick. "And you, traitor, you we will drain." A green lance leaped out at my friend and she was felled, flopping to the floor. "Carry them. If you don't follow us we will do worse to you and her." I worked to get my head under Stick, lifting her up and trying to sling her on my shoulders. Big Mac, looking furious, helped me with her and together we carried the mare outside.
How they were moving around, and yet keeping their own 'hive', was obvious. Three carts sat out the front, two with ponies moving them still. The changeling 'leader' from inside smiled with glee. "Get these three into the pods!"
"What about the one that flew away?" One of the ponies that had been moving a cart stepped closer, their pony-guise dropping to reveal another changeling. A very small changeling.
"What do you mean? We get them packed in and move fast. No chance anypony will catch us." I leaned a little into Big Mac and got his ear sweep down where I could whisper to it.
"Fillies are safe in there. Lets try and slow em down. Can you kick a wheel off their cart?" I kept my voice low, head turned so that any sound that does carry from it wouldn't be toward the attackers.
"Ay'yup."
I grinned and shifted, getting all my weight under Stick and freeing the stallion for whatever he wanted. Still touching his side I felt his whole body tense, those huge muscles he used to work the fields with, suddenly impossible to slow down. He charged the first cart and with a mighty buck knocked a wheel clean off and thumping one of the fake Big Mac's in the head with it. The changeling was down and there was yelling.
"Stop that NOW!" The leader lowered their horn to the raging earth pony and a blinding burn of green slashed across my vision and the distance to Big Mac. It seemed a moment like he would ignore it but he got two more steps before he fell, face first. "Get the other two into pods now, leave the injured."
I was grabbed up in changeling magic, pulled toward one of the serviceable wagons and the back cloth was slung aside. It was dark and black inside, but as I was pushed up into the wagon a dull green glow could be seen. I thrashed and kicked, trying to fight free but their magic was sure, it pushed me so that the first part of me to touch the goopey pod was my flank. It was cool at first, flowing up and seemingly greedy to suck me in. It crept up my flank and even as I fought all the more it gathered up my legs, my belly and without further ado, all the rest of me.
There was a little light at first, my thoughts grew heavier and heavier as the changeling that had stuck me in could be seen through a blurry green fog, fiddling with the thing. They seemed to poke one part and it was like the fog leaked inwards, filling my mind. Images started to float through my thoughts, Stick, David, David-as-Silver. I smiled, all I could think about were the ponies I liked the most, about how good it was to have them smiling with me. A coolness seemed to sink in on those thoughts, picking at them, making me have to fight to keep hold of them.
It was like sleeping, waking, running a marathon. It was uplifting, draining and… painful. I could hear nothing the pod didn't want me to, I could see nothing it did not think would make me spill my emotions for the changelings.
I felt them, it was almost like when Stick drank from me too hard, but with my emotions constantly locked 'on' I could do nothing but feel the teeth of their minds. Changelings drank from the pod, from me. It was like the bubble that contained me held me out and naked, forcing me to give my neck to them again and again.
Weakness and tiredness was my life, I don't know how long I was in there before I saw the little face through the goop. The changeling wanted me to watch. "You can hear me?"
It took effort to focus, to look at them through the images the pod forced me to gaze at. I managed a nod.
"Good. I have you all to myself, we split from your friend, the orange pony." Applejack's image now joined the ones in my vision, was it my fault this had even happened. "I need to drink from you now." The sharp mind-teeth of the changeling dug and tore, pain lanced right to the core of my emotional self.
Weakness and weariness was my new closest companion. It wrapped me like a cloak. The pod… it fed me, somehow. It kept me alive but even as it did it stole a whole lot more. "Your friends are gaining, close. I am going to drink extra deep today. You will learn to like this."
I saw in those eyes, there was pain, even as they dug around in my neck. The ice that formed in my emotional center was an ache of loss, but I couldn't stop, the pod wouldn't let me.
Time passed, I don't know how much or little, but something certainly changed as my world shook, then again and again. It was the fourth time when the established feedback loop of the pod was shattered and my own thoughts came back. Where was Stick?
"Penny! Penny! Can you hear me?" Twilight stood above me, her magic wrapped around my form as she looked down. "Where is Applejack?" The fog cleared more and more by the second and it came to me.
"They split?" My voice was rough, the goop that had held me had started to work down my throat and it felt scratchy. "She… fillies okay?"
The alicorn nodded. "I left them taking care of Stick and Big Mac. Can you get up?"
I nodded to her, my world spinning a little as I did. Working one hoof after the other I managed to work my limbs. "How long?" I was getting the hang of walking again as she told me.
"One of them chased Dash, but she was too fast. She followed the other fork." The words built a picture I didn't like. Still maybe five of them.
"How long?"
Twilight looked down, I could see lines where tears had formed. "One day, only one day."
"Four… maybe five left… one here?" Twilight nodded to my assessment. "Then only three or four. Can you blink to Rainbow Dash?"
The princess of friendship knew her friends well and nodded with a smile. "Of course, hop on!" I blinked at the offer and she turned. Working myself onto her back was neither graceful nor comfortable, but she spread her wings and the world wrenched.
We were in the air, a streak of rainbow patterns below us dodging changeling-green magic bolts. "Get me to the wagon, help Dash." I had to shout, flying like this was not the best way to be heard.
Twilight tucked her wings and for a moment I thought she had lost her mind. We were in a dive, almost straight down. At the last moment she pulled up and gave a little buck. I rolled along the ground and bumped up on the hidden side of the wagon from where the changelings were fighting Rainbow.
A look around revealed I was not alone, however. A pony flashed with green and was once more the small changeling. Their eyes narrowed and they gave a nod, laying down on the spot. I wasn't going to look even a gift-changeling in the mouth right then and ran around behind the wagon and up into it. AJ was still curled up in the pod, clearly visible from the outside.
I turned and, with a glance behind me to aim lashed out with both rear hooves. The pod trembled where I hit it, just to the side of the mare's head. Another kick and it was leaking goop. The third and my hooves were stuck in it, pulling at me.
"Not now!" I snarled and kicked again and again, getting one hoof out and using it to smash the whole front of the messy thing. The goop gave up its grip and AJ flopped out, whimpering. "Applejack!" Her eyes opened and were instantly focused on mine. I should have known an Element would be able to deal with this better than me.
Throwing back the wagon flap I saw Twilight was standing over Rainbow Dash, green magic boiling around the pegasus. The changelings were focused, one was down and two up. AJ looked me in the eyes and we nodded.
Our hooves weren't silent, but they were fast and even though AJ was faster than me I still got a good speed up just as we both slammed into the remaining changelings, the blow driving them and us to the ground.
I saw the sphere of force form, it wasn't around me this time though. With the two cut off they slumped and I noticed the magic around RD fade.
Twilight was all kinds of power, radiating it, washing the path in it. Clearly doing something bad to the princess of friendship's friends was not smart. "Are there any more?" Her question sailed over my head.
"One more ah think."
I was just getting my hooves under me, fighting the pain of crashing into one of the dark creatures, when the small one came out from behind the wagon. "Wait, Twilight, they helped me!" The mare had her horn aimed but didn't discharge.
There was a flash. Brilliant gold magic boiled in the air for seconds as Princess Celestia unfolded her wings. All magic in the area seemed to falter and stop, save Twilight's. But the princess was not alone. Spike was with her, as was Queen Fast.
"They are not mine, look at the holes." Fast spoke, glancing at the small one and then to me. "What is happening here?"
All eyes came to me and I realized, with a sinking feeling, that I was probably the pony who knew the most of this whole mess, and was willing to talk.
"Can… can we go back to the Apples' Ranch. I want to see Stick is okay." My weariness, of having had Stick feed on me too much, then getting thrown into a pod, it was catching up and gaining strength from the crazy charge.
I did notice Fast's eyebrow raise at my words, a faint smile curling her lips. But it was Celestia that spoke. "Very well."
The flare of gold came again and I was almost as badly shaken by that as to Twilight doing the same. Stick was laying on her side, looking poorly, but she was alive. I ran to her, leaning down to nose and nuzzle her. "Enough, you have two monarchs behind you glaring at your back and you choose to delay them?" The soft chitter in her voice was the best sound I ever heard.
"It's been too long, and they will wait." My whisper back had her smile and I felt, just then, it was worth almost anything to have gotten.
"We will wait, Penny Farthing, as long as it takes to reassure your friend, but not a moment longer." Celestia's voice held no scorn in it.
I sighed, kissed Stick's nose and turned. "Well, I guess it all started when we woke up…" Thinking back, I called up the conversations, gave them as short and succinct as I could. "And Stick explained how she could sense when another changeling was drinking from somepony at the same time as she. Sorry to go to such a length, but that fact is important." Celestia nodded to this, accepting it. "While indulging these fillies in town, Stick drained herself a little much and if it wasn't for Applejack and Rainbow Dash, well, it might have been bad."
They listened patiently, even the changelings. The black and be-holed creatures looked sullen and broken, Fast standing over them and clearly doing something to keep them from so much as squeaking.
"We had been invited to lunch, both of us." I emphasized the words, so that the meaning of things got across that AJ and RD had fed Stick. "Which we were just finished when she warned me, quietly, that there were other changelings around and that they had tried to feed on some of us. I passed this on to Rainbow Dash who left them in her dust to get Twilight." Celestia nodded.
She turned to Twilight. "I told Spike to send a message to you and went after them, Rainbow right beside me. When the path split I went one way and Dash the other."
"Big Mac had crippled one of their carts, they had to move fast and light. Stuffed me…" I shuddered, remembering the pod. Fast herself stepped forward, dark-but-whole hoof reaching out.
"It was a pod, wasn't it?"
I nodded.
"Horrible things, at least without careful attention." She seemed to want to spit in distaste at the even thought of someone in a pod.
"They stuffed me in a pod and… next thing I knew Twilight happened." I smiled over to the alicorn who had freed me. Damn it but I owed her big now, she had saved me twice. "Together we zapped over to where Rainbow Dash was fighting and while the princess helped keep them busy I got Applejack free. Things were close in the end, we had to charge the last two while they weren't looking."
Celestia nodded. "Mostly satisfying account. But it doesn't account for the last changeling." Noticing the shape beside Fast, I nodded. "They could have jumped you before you got Applejack free. Twilight and Rainbow Dash would have been subdued and I might not have been able to sense her to come here." The implications of this action really sunk in. The changelings would have had not only three strong mares to be in pods, but an alicorn.
"Come here little one. We need your account." The smaller than normal changeling looked up at Fast, who nodded down to them and nuzzled their neck.
"I don't like living out here!" They sounded, well, quite vehement. "They make us steal happiness from ponies, it makes me feel bad, even pods taste better than this." The little changeling glared at the two conscious changeling outlaws. "I was too slow to keep up when Queen Fast split the hive from Chrysalis, I didn't want to stay behind but I couldn't keep up. I had only barely hatched."
There was movement beside me, Stick crawling her way up to all fours and walking slowly over, bowing low to Fast Change. "Queen, can I ask a boon?"
The queen looked a little surprised but, a glance to Celestia reveled a half smile.
"My queen, I will be spending some time, it seems, from the hive. Would you accept this drone in my stead?" For the first time I heard not a bit of chitter from Stick. She looked up to Fast's startled expression with a determined smile.
"Stick… I must accept." A hoof bumped my side and I looked but didn't see any movement, there was only one pony close enough to have done it. Celestia. "Let it be known, changeling Stick is no longer a drone she is… a journey-pony." I blinked at this. "And as one leaves the hive, another shall enter. Your name?"
The little changeling, eyes wide, looked up at the queen. "Grub!" Fast's snout pulled into a giggle.
"Grub, you are now a drone of my hive and, your first task will be to feed well enough to lose those holes."
"Now, less glad matters. All other changelings involved in this incident will work. They will work supervised by other changelings and they will work for the betterment of Equestria. They will work and they will get fed. I ask that they be given another chance." Fast glared around, even at Celestia, who nodded just once.
Stick managed to almost crawl back to me and we both barely got into the Apples' barn before passing out. Forget Celestia. Forget other changelings and, in fact, ponies too. I needed to rest.
I stiffened as Stick's magic touched me. Her mind-snout questing and finding my abused neck. Trembling, I almost started to pull away before I felt her lips kiss that part that had been abused. Mentally and physically I pressed against Stick, at that moment nothing would get between us. In her embrace, with her body and her power so close to me, I felt a part of myself start to heal.