The world slowly came into focus, and a black mass of chitin groaned in pain as it stood up. The holes in its legs were giving off tendrils of thin, green smoke, and the edges of its tail had been singed off. Its frills had also lost a bit of mass, likely the result of a forced transformation.
Fangheart's entire body ached, and when he tried to stand up, his legs gave out beneath him. He grunted, pinning his ears back, and clenched his jaws, shaking loose a bit of dark green dusk that had been burned off. He shuddered as sensation returned to his body.
He glanced up, and panicked immediately when he realized what was towering over him. He tried to stand, but any muscle he moved cramped up, and he could only scream in pain as his whole body failed to obey his commands to relax. Everything burned, and his only consolation was the swiftness of his impeding doom.
A great figure, slim, tall, and decorated with fine jewelry, was standing before him, its hooves firmly rooted on the starry ground beneath them. It glowed, like a long awaited dream or a new delicacy, but its stance told the ailing changeling that it meant business, serious business.
It glowed so well that no shape or shade existed on it. It was all the same white, untainted, incorruptible, unyielding brilliance. It leaned down its head over the helpless drone, and touched the tip of its horn to his forehead.
Fangheart's eyes shot open, and he relaxed. His whole body eased, and his pain went away, even the post cramp aches that should have plagued him for hours. His green eyes filled with fear, then denial, swiftly succeeded by acceptance, remorse, longing, and understanding. The back of his eyes glowed bright red, and the glow moved forward, until he finally closed them as the white figure stood back up.
"F-father?" he asked, still unable to move, his eyes opening again, returned to their normal shade of toxic green. Behind the green, pain burst forth, and tears welled up.
The figure turned around, and began to walk away.
"Dad?" Fangheart cried, and forced his legs to move. He rose on shaky limbs, and darted towards the white figure. "Please... Don't go, not again. I... I just..."
The figure looked over its shoulder at him, and lifted the drone's chin up with a hoof. Perhaps through the dreamscape, perhaps through magic, or perhaps through a product of building insanity, it seemed to tell the changeling, "Go, and show the world who you really are, all the good you can do, all the progress you've made, all that you strive for."
And with that, it vanished.
Fangheart collapsed, and he felt the world materializing around him. His chest landed on the cold stone floor, knocking the wind out of him. His lower jaw collided with the chains, only softening the landing a bit. His hindquarters hung in the air for a moment longer, before they too met the ground.
He lay still for a while, stunned.
When he lifted his head from the ground, he saw a white pegasus, with deep blue eyes, dressed from mane to hoof in shimmering golden armor, holding a spear next to his chest. The guard smiled at the changeling, and said, "Not so strong now, are you, metamorph?"
Fangheart coughed, and corrected the stallion, "It's xenomorph."
The guard smiled, and pointed his spear at the changeling. "The Princess says that you heal fast. I hope for your sake that's true," he told the prisoner. "How many people have you killed?"
Fangheart shook his head, and wheezed, "Zero."
"Here's for lying," the guard said, and drove his spear forward.
A scream could be heard echoing throughout the dungeon. By the time the sound reached the outside world, it was barely audible, the faintest of whispers on the wind, easily mistaken for the wind beating against the mountain, or the quiet tussling of a mouse rolling over in its den, trying to better sleep.
Twilight landed in Ponyville, greeted by her friends, and then the Princess. When the night was over, and the coronation planned, she knew that she had to ask the one incriminating question she could.
Now, Celestia sat upon her throne, listening to her student's roundabout way of asking where the changeling was. The conversation had started with an off hoof comment about foreign policy, and had rapidly jumped from The Crystal Empire, to weddings, to Chrysalis.
Celestia lifted a hoof to get a word in, and when Twilight calmed down, she asked, very calmly, and with the same formal dignity as she always did, "The changeling, it found you, didn't it?"
Twilight shook her head, and spoke frantically, "He didn't find me, so much as I found him out cold on the street. He was disguised at the time, and when his illusion fell apart, I chained him up, and started taking notes on how changeling society works. He has more comprehensive knowledge of the hive than all historical records combined."
Celestia said, "The changeling is Queen Chrysalis's heir. It already took several lives, and will face court tomorrow."
Twilight could say nothing. So long as he was getting a fair trial, she had little reason to intervene with the process. She did make one last push to see that he was represented fairly, "He... He's the last changeling capable of reproduction, and he promised me that nopony would ever be harmed by him. He... He's good, so please consider that."
"I will. Now, goodnight, Twilight Sparkle," the princess said, and waited for her student to leave, before standing up, and making her way through the many halls. She addressed every guard by name on the way, and came to a large double door, which she placed her horn against, and unlocked with a quick turn of her head.
She stepped forward, and the two guards at the door swung it closed behind her. She carefully stepped down the long staircase, and became acutely aware of what the sound she'd dismissed as noise actually was. She came to the bottom of the stairs, bowed to the assigned guard, and said, "I think that's enough."
The guard grumbled, and yanked his spear back from between the iron bars of the cell, eliciting another agonized scream from the prisoner. The spearhead was a personalized one, as he was an elite guard, serrated, and now, coated in thick green slime, which he wiped off on a rag he kept under his wing.
Princess Celestia turned to the changeling, and asked, "You are aware of what you stole, yes?"
Fangheart whimpered. One of his legs was that of a griffon, with talons bleeding from the claws. Another leg was thin, bony, and covered in thin fur, that of a donkey, with a black hoof at the bottom. His other two legs had been cut off from different joints, but were rapidly growing back, giving off faint green light as he healed.
Open wounds and sores had formed, some from chemical burns, thanks to the guard's compulsion to dip the spearhead in any puddles of venom he'd given off. His right eyelid was swollen shut. Green fluid was running down his face from where his left ear had once been. His left fang was missing, lying on the floor next to him, its base still covered in green blood.
The princess said, "You are hereby found guilty of mind controlling an unwilling person, murder, emotivorism, conspiring against the royal family, and reckless application of love spells. The minimum capital punishment issued to each of these crimes is much worse than your previous conviction."
Before Fangheart could even speak, he was teleported out of his cell, and being strapped to a table by his legs. He managed to shout, "I will plead guilty of emotivorism, and nothing e-" It was then that a machine lowered a surgical knife to his forehead, and he screamed.
Fangheart stopped screaming, and opened his only remaining eye, to find that nothing had happened. He looked around as much as he could without turning his head, and looked up at the knife. He blinked a few times, and looked over at a shower of sparks that had sputtered from one of the machines.
The sparks weren't moving. Nothing was moving.
He could only assume that Discord had, despite no longer being required to do it, saved his life. He'd have to remember to thank the draconiquus, before slapping him across the face for not saving his mother.
He looked back at the scalpel above him. He lit up his horn, and carefully removed the knife the mechanical arm holding it in place. He then used the knife to cut each of his limbs free, and quietly made his way towards the guard, who was also frozen, holding his spear proudly, watching the table as though someone were still on it.
He thought for a moment, and removed the guard's spear from him, deciding that he'd need it a lot more if he wanted any chance of escaping. He twirled the spear over his head a few times, then spat on the tip of it, wiping the flat part of it against the guard's white fur. "You won't need this without any more prisoners to torture," he told the guard, and rapidly bolted up the spiral staircase that the princess had come down from.
He couldn't think about how much this wounds hurt. He was on a time limit he didn't know, and he had to hurry if he wanted to escape before Discord changed his mind.
He paused when he came to a large door, with a small hole in it for a horn to go through. He thought for a moment, and burst into flame, transforming into a copy of Princess Celestia. He inserted his horn into the lock, which clicked as the doors opened, and smiled. He stepped outside, grabbed the two guards from their posts at the door, carried them back down the stairs, and swiftly locked up all four ponies in the cell he'd just inhabited, but not before placing an inhibitor ring on Celestia's horn to buy more time.
He made his way back up the long flight of stairs, slammed the door shut on his way out, and ran to the nearest window, smashing it with the blunt end of the spear. He felt the world catching up to him, and turned around just in time to see a pair of earth pony guards chasing him down the hallway.
He smiled at them, and gave them a quick salute. "Farewell, losers," he told them, and jumped, transforming into a copy of Rainbow Dash as he fell. Exercising the disguise's knowledge and skill in flight, he zipped straight towards Manehatten. This was a basic diversionary tactic, running one way while they're looking, and then turning around.
He glanced over his shoulder, and narrowed his eyes at the window from which he'd jumped. He held the spear in his front hooves, and gave it a heavy toss, sending it plummeting to the ground, where its tip buried itself in the dirt, still pointing towards Manehattan.
He flew down to the ground, landing in the cover of the trees, burst into flame, putting on his original disguise of a grey pegasus, and hummed to himself as he turned around, heading towards Ponyville.