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// Chapter 1: 30 Years Later 
// Story: Converted 
// by Shaded Changeling 
//------------------------------//

Shade woke with a loud gasp.
He flailed his arms, frightened by the memories that had welled up suddenly. He quickly found himself face first on a cold floor. Cursing under his breath. He pushed himself up and stood on his two…no wait…four?
Shade looked down at his legs, he was not imagining it, he now had four legs. Each one being covered with holes, and now that he looked at them, they weren’t covered in scales…
He began looking around. Turning his head rapidly. Mirror, mirror, mirror… need a mirror Shade needed something reflective. Anything! He found it in the form of a nearby green crystal.
Rushing over. He heard clopping noises as his legs hit the ground. Hooves? Do I have hooves now? That would be dealt with later. He came to a stop at the crystal; he almost didn’t want to look for fear of what he would see. But he had to know.
He regretted it instantly.
His face, once covered in black scales, was now smooth and shiny…he had a carapace now. And a single curved horn jutted from his now smaller skull. Along with that, he had two fangs that jutted from his shorter snout looking like bat fangs.
His eyes were what really got him though. His left eye, had turned solid blue, no pupil at all, and was now taking up a good portion of his head, while his right eye, while still taking way too much space on his face, still looked like it had before. An orange eye with a rounded pupil, But after seeing himself, it shrank to a slit from surprise.
He touched his new face with his han… hoof, he needed to get used to calling it that. It made a small clink sound when he touched it. And a single tear began to form in his right eye. But he wasn’t done with his new body yet, he had wings yes. But they were Insectoid, and were full of holes. How am I supposed to fly with these things?
He began trying to flap his wings, and was met with a slight buzzing sound. Like that of a fly or a cicada. He was pleasantly surprised when he actually lifted off the ground. But looking over his shoulder, he saw his wings were flapping rapidly, making it seem as though he had half of a fan strapped to his back. But in-between them, what looked like a bluish saddle covered his back, like a large scale.
He took the time to look at the bottom of his body, black carapace the full way, ending in a small black tail, nothing like he was used to.
As he began to land, he was pleasantly surprised to see the wings actually responded much like his normal wings, at least in effort needed. When he started to think about walking, he found himself face first on the floor again. kay… just going to not think about it then…
As he sat down on his haunches, he started looking around the room. He noticed the strange green lighting, the entire cavern was being illuminated by those green crystals with pods scattered around the wall. Looking back where he thought he first woke up. He saw another pod burst open from the inside. He wanted to look around more, but he was interrupted by a pounding in his head.
“All soldiers prepare to leave the Hive!”
Hive? What Hive?
Shade looked around the room to see a few other pods beginning to open. And more of the what even are these things? Shade remembered them, but he never knew their name.
He was brought out of that thought process by an insect-like voice from behind him shouting “Hey! Nymph!”
Shade turned to look towards the cry. To see another one of the…Uhh…Until he found out there names they would be called Equibugs.
“Didn’t you hear the order?” The Equibug called back. “All Soldiers are to report to the top of the Hive.”
Shade had no idea where that was. So just replied with a “Huh?” Before quickly snapping his mouth shut and putting one of his ha…hooves up to his mouth to be sure that sound came from him. It sounded like him, but with a small distortion.
“Typical…” The Equibug said under his breath. “Turn to face me, Soldier.”
Shade obliged but was very shocked to see the expression on its face being one of surprise. “What in the Hive happened to your eye?”
Shade unconsciously touched his right eye before replying “It’s always looked like that.”
The Equibug looked at him in disbelief. “Drop the disguise. You aren’t going to fool another Changeling with that.” Changelings! That was their name!
“Disguise?” Shade asked completely lost now. Oh right! Changelings except… “I don’t have a disguise…”
“Whatever…” The Changeling clearly didn’t care. “You must have hit your head on something. Just follow me. If you even remember how to fly.”
This made the Changeling laugh but Shade just took off and followed him through the tunnels, which were strangely winding. Shade had no idea if he could even find the exit if it weren’t for this horse bug guy.
They flew in silence which Shade didn’t mind; it let him take in everything around him. Including that he now had fur-covered ears, which strangely weren’t covered in chitin, but that the smells in this tunnel seemed strange, there was a constant smell of what Shade compared to skunkweed and another smell, that Shade could have sworn was cotton candy.
By the time the two of them got to the entrance, Shade stopped and just stared, there must have been hundreds of the black carapaces of Changelings, all lined up like a military force. Most of them wearing some kind of dark armor, which curved around their head to look like a helmet, but left their face and eyes completely exposed. So for Shade those seemed pretty pointless…unless rocks fell on them…but the carapace should handle that more than fine. But what got him was the leader…
Even though Shade had no idea what gender it was, because most of the Changelings looked the same, somehow Shade knew it was a female… But she was slightly taller than the others, only by a head or so, but somehow Shade recognized her as superior.
Another voice in his head.  “Last call! All Soldiers. Report to Princess Ceymi.”
Princess? Where have I heard that name before? His thoughts again were broken by the same Changeling as earlier. “Nymph!”
I guess that’s my name now… Shade thought as he flew down to where the Changeling was standing, perfectly in formation. “So…” Shade said kind of unsure of how to ask this, after all, he wasn’t sure if this was just a dream, or if his last memories were a dream, or if he was even alive right now. “You got a name?” He asked to the Changeling “I mean given how many times you’ve…”
“Spine” He replied. “It’s Spine. And you will call me Sir, as I am your commanding officer Nymph.”
Alright then… Shade was having trouble with this, and the fact that his name was apparently now ‘Nymph’ did nothing to help him find out anything.
Princess Ceymi turned to look at the Changelings behind her. Smiling, before speaking in a loud booming voice that still seemed regal. “Subjects! You are all about to aid the Hive in a valiant way! You are about to attack our prey! If we succeed you will be honored! However… if you stand in the way of our conquest, I promise,” Her voice was suddenly seething with anger. “The Queen will punish you personally.”
Throughout the entire crowd, Shade could hear a slight chattering of Chitin… He was one of the only ones that weren’t shaking slightly.
“Now then! You fly to Canterlot!” At once the large group of Changelings began to flap their many wings, creating a cacophony of buzzing and Shade was only slightly slow to take off. He managed to quickly meet up with Spine and stay in... basic formation.
“So this Canterlot place?” Shade said trying to shout over the wind, his strange new ears picking up everything. “What is it exactly?”
“Chrysalis damn it Nymph what do you remember?” Spine said turning his head to look towards Shade.
“To be honest…” Shade thought about for a few seconds. “I remember having claws…aside from that…not much.” Spine seemed to roll his eyes, it was difficult to tell with a solid blue eye but his mouth gave it away.
“You really must have been dropped when you were an egg.” Spine called back “Do you know what Equestria is?”
“Uh… kind of… Not really…”
Spine lifted one of his hooves up to his head with a very loud CLUNK! “Have you heard of Ponies?” And under his breath he added, “Please say yes…”
“Yeah…” Shade replied, “Quadrupeds, hairy, kind of... colorful… if I remember correctly.” Truth be told Shade had only ever seen one of them, even in his, I guess his past life, from what he remembered. She was regal, sort of a god like appearance saying something about Equestria…Shade wasn’t really paying attention.
“Well at least you aren’t completely brain dead Nymph.” Spine replied. “Equestria is where they live…and they are weak compared to us.”
“Never underestimate an opponent.” Shade replied, something he remembered. “Those that seem like a small threat can still put a dent in your armor.”
Spine looked over at Shade raising an eyebrow…ridge…whatever they had… “You sure you're a soldier?”
“No idea… Like I said…only remember a few hours ago. And… some kind of… weird visions…” Shade had to think back to it, while Spine looked beyond Shade as another Changeling flew over.
“Darkblaze? What are you doing here?” Spine said as the Changeling flew next to him.
“Just taking in the sights. Having some fun getting out of the Hive. Going to try and…” He caught Spine’s eyes looking at him seriously. “What?”
“You know what I mean, joker. What is an Infiltrator like you doing in a Military outfit?”
“Well I figured that just in case this whole thing goes south we may want a few spies in there. Just to weaken ‘em up a little.” He noticed Shade. “Who’s the new guy?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Spine replied. “He broke out of his pod a few hours ago and I picked him up. Figured we could use the extra Hooves. Now I’m not so sure…”
“Why’s that?” Darkblaze was looking between Spine and Shade.
“He has a bit of a… condition… He can’t remember anything since before he woke up. Even then it is useless stuff.” Spine said. “See for yourself.”
“Hey, Nymph!” Shade looked towards them and Darkblaze got his first look at Shade’s right eye. “Whoa! What happened to your eye?”
“It’s always been like that.” Shade replied. Turning to focus on where he was flying, but not really needing to. He still understood how to fly, it was more about him trying to figure out his memories, put them in order. He clearly remembered having claws and was pretty sure he had only two legs before… but… something was different. He couldn’t put his fing…hoov….No idea what to call it now… on it. His mind was jumbled, the last real thing he remembered was…that burning city… and… that face… laughing…
“Hey, Nymph!” Spine said looking toward Shade, who just noticed he was losing altitude “Something wrong?” Shade corrected his height as he looked back towards Spine.
“I’m…just thinking…”
“Hey I got a name for ya” Darkblaze said looking towards Shade. “Snake Eye”
Shade was looking at him with an expression that just said ‘No’ but Darkblaze was busy laughing at him.

Night fell quickly over the Swarm, so much so that Shade didn’t even realize it was getting dark. But his right eye didn’t seem to be affected. Well at least there’s one good thing about this.
Looking towards the ground, Shade noticed that they were flying over a section of forest. And that there was a small piece of movement. Looking around, Shade saw almost no deviation with the rest of the Swarm but he wanted to check something.
Shade lowered himself down, just so that he was flying over the tree line.  He heard from above Spine shouting “Nymph! What are you doing!” but he wasn’t going to look away. He could have sworn he saw something, and he thought it looked like a lizard tail.
Spine had flown down next to Shade and was giving him a look of reprimand. “What are you doing Nymph?”
“I could have sworn that I saw something…” Shade began before a single sound hit his ear, a whistling. Not the wind, he had long since gotten used to that. It sounded almost like…
“Nymph? Are you okay?” Spine asked looking at Shade as he wobbled through the air “Nymph?”
Green fire fell from the heavens. Bashing into buildings.
“Nymph? Are you alright?”
“What’s up with Snake Eye?” Darkblaze had asked when he lowered himself down.
Those black creatures…fell like hail. Smashing through buildings. Landing on soldiers. One of them grabbed Shade, but he had burned it with fire from his mouth.
“Snake Eye?”
Then… Her… their leader… Burning the capital… the council… dear god… they were…
“Darkblaze, grab him!”