Know your enemy

by Znegil


15 Camping trip

We arrived in the dungeon under the Canterlot palace and Chrysalis gently placed the changeling in one of the cells.

"Knowing that he probably was supposed to kill you, you are surprisingly nice to him.", I commented.

"He was only following orders. Changelings would never disobey an order from the Queen. They are raised to never question her authority."

"So now what will we do with him?", Luna asked. "Should we try to get information from him?"

"There is no use in trying.", Chryssi replied. "He would rather die, as I said they are absolutely loyal to their queen. There is a very complex spell I can cast upon the cell to prevent him from connecting the hive mind, but I have to renew it once a day."

"When the queen doesn't hear from him for a few days, wouldn't she just send a new agent after you? Maybe a one with more experience?", Luna asked.

"Yes, that's how it will be...", Chrysalis replied very gloom. "She will send agents until one is successful, she has an infinite amount at her command."

"I can't accept a future herd member being in constant danger of being murdered.", Luna said to her.

"You're right Luna, I will bring everyone in danger, I withdraw my proposal for..."

"That's not what I meant.", Luna clarified. "I can not accept someone tries to kill you since you are a part of our future herd and I like you." Luna drew the surprised Chryssi into a hug. I saw how happy Chrysalis looked thanks to Luna's kind words. I was so happy for her and for us all, but her expression changed to horror with Luna's next sentence:
"That's why we will dethrone Queen Lycosa."

"Wait... what? We can't do that!", she shouted while she gently tried to get out of Luna's embrace.

Luna set her free. "Why not? If we defeat her, they all will obey your orders, that's what you said."

"But she has all the stored love of the hive to fuel her magic, that's incredible power, we can't challenge her in the hive."

I touched her cheek with my hand. "I'm pretty sure you know someone who can suppress magic."

"I know very strong shield magic.", Luna added.

"Even if we could get away with such a crazy plan, what then?", Chrysalis asked. "I live as a changling queen in the hive while you are here... I don't want that anymore."

"What if your changelings would be allowed to live among ponies?", Luna suggested. "They could absorb the love and friendship of ponies and over time they will find friendship or even love aimed towards them, just like you did. Do you think that could work?"

"Yeeeesss... that should mostly be okay, they are all unique individuals and not that much different from ponies. You really think they would be allowed to live like that?"

"When they just feed of the emotions around them they don't harm anyone and we would have then as allies and friends... I think I learned within the last few days that we are not that different."

Chrysalis looked at us for a moment. "I think you two are absolutely crazy...", she said. "And I love you for it." She kissed both of us on the lips. Luna seemed to be surprised, but there wasn't any complaining.

"Let me just cast the interference spell and we meet in Alex room in a few minutes.", Chryssi said with a smile and started her spell.

...

"Okay, there are a lot of positive points to our favor.", Chrysalis explained. "She feels safe and would never expect an attack.
I know the hive and which way we can avoid the guards. All we have to do is bring Alex close enough to touch her. It's our huge advantage I never told her about his ability... I still can't believe we are doing this."

"It's for the benefit of Equestria and your kind.", Luna said. "And it's my chance to do something positive I will be remembered for."

"It's to bad my ability prevents us from flying or teleporting.", I complained.

"But we will bring food, water, blankets, and tools.", Luna explained. "It will be like a camping trip. Here, there is one thing I want you to have." She handed me a sword in a decorated scabbard.

"Wow, it looks amazing, but I never used a sword before or even held one.", I admitted.

"Well, when it gets dangerous I don't want you to fight without a weapon.", Luna said smiling. "Just point the sharp end towards your enemy."

Twilight arrived, Luna had sent her a message that she was chosen to learn Changeling magic. She was out of breath, it seemed like she had been running here from the train station. Chrysalis took her aside and started to show her how the interference spell worked. Twilights task would be to keep that spell up.

Meanwhile, Luna and me packed all the things we needed in saddlebags, and I modified one of it to be more like a backpack to me.

We told Twilight we would go on a camping trip together, me and Luna had argued about this before. I thought it would be better to tell the truth, but Luna insisted on keeping it a secret. It seemed she didn't want Celestia to know what was going on and was afraid Tia would just take over the whole operation.

So we walked out the palace, my sword under Luna's Saddlebags, and Twilight waved goodbye to us and told us to "have fun".

A team of three characters, as different as they could be, walked into the sunset and into their adventure.