The Nether Wars

by Blackdrag-rose

6: Construction

"Shimmer, don't let the wall fall down," Ironside grunted, pulling on a rope with his teeth as he struggled to pull up a wall, "Come on you lazy bookworm."

The changeling in question was staring at a blueprint that had been supplied to her by her superior, who was trying to make sure they built the house correctly. A few years ago she and her partner Ironside had done the same thing they were doing now, building a bunch of houses for those who wanted to live above ground. At the moment they were fixing the buildings that had suffered due to the aftershock of the destruction of the Hive not three hours ago. The blow had been devastating to them all and if it was mentioned every single changeling around quieted down and hung their heads down, silently mourning their ancient home.

She turned to Ironside, her horn surrounded by green magic, and added some bolts to the wood, securing the wall to the floor of the room and allowing her partner to let the rope fall out of his mouth.

"You could have helped me," Ironside angrily told her, pulling out a water container and taking a swing to hydrate himself, "instead of just laying back and doing nothing."

"You could have just used magic and we wouldn't be arguing right now," Shimmer stated, eying the next step as her horn pieced together the wall that connected to the first one, "If you bothered to use your magic we might actually finish a couple of these houses before the night is upon us."

They, like the majority of the vast amount of homeless changelings, had been tasked with building their own residence while the rest started work on the new Hive. The house they were currently building was supposed to house seven changelings in all, as that was all the room the blueprints called for in the area they had been given. Once the house was built they would be given the rest of the afternoon to either relax, start helping others build their house, or begin digging the underground tunnels of their new Hive. Ironside was going to try to relax, but Shimmer wanted to start rewriting the ancient tomes that they had lost as soon as possible.

The building supplies that went into building the new houses, and the new tunnels, came from Manehatten, delivered by train thanks to Copper. According to what she had said she apparently had a hidden storage bunker beneath the train tracks, which was packed full of house building materials. The Flying Vengeance was gone, but she had a second train that she had restored and outfitted with the stone that had allowed Nexus to destroy the Hive in the first place. Right now she was trying to set things right with them all and while Eclipse and his family knew she wasn't at fault for what had happened there were others who believed she was secretly plotting to collapse the new Hive on top of them.

"Whatever." Ironside groaned, whipping his magic out to put the second story floor in place above them, "The sooner we get this done the sooner I can relax."

Sometimes Shimmer believed that Ironside was just pure lazy and didn't put enough effort into his job, which was usually guarding one of the three royal princesses.

~Edge of the Old Hive~

Northern sighed as she stared at the rocks and the cliff walls, tears running freely as she remembered running down the tunnels and escaping from her guards so many times. She remembered the day her parents came to her and told her that they were all going out to an orphanage or two in search of a new family member. That was when she had met Harvest and Echo in the Ponyville orphanage, the same day they had gone home as sisters. The three of them had so much fun together in the library, breaking open the ground for Harvest's apple orchard, and even listening to the stories their parents told them.

All of those tunnels, gone in the blink of an eye. She had personally spent months building a map in her head, memorizing every twist and turn and where every door was supposed to be, but now that didn't matter anymore. She noticed a couple of changelings flying over the ruins, moving boulders and other large pieces as they searched for anything that might have survived the destruction. Her only items that survived were the small royal jewelry pieces and the armor that Copper had crafted for her once upon a time.

On the far side of the crater she noticed a shimmer of what could have been a part of a silver colored mane and there was only one pony she knew that had such a mane. Nexus was going to cause ever more trouble for them.

Northern growled and flared her wings, taking off and soaring right over the gaping crater as she kept an eye on the silver mane and the stallion it belonged to. When she got closer the speck moved, leading her deeper into the Badlands and she was more than happy to follow the blasted stallion. If she stayed silent she could catch him by surprise and hopefully knock him out so her parents could do something with him.

"What do you think she's chasing?" one of the changelings asked his partner, watching Princess Northern following nothing deeper into the Badlands.

"No idea," another answered, shifting a boulder to the side and opening a small hole in the ground, "but let her do what she wants. I might have found something."

Both changelings ignored Northern as they dipped into the hole they found, hoping to find something from the old Hive still intact.

~Copper's Tent~

It wasn't easy building a whole new workshop from scratch, but with what Copper had brought with her from Manehatten she had several small pieces already in working order. She wanted to find Nexus, so she could hoof him over to Eclipse and let the stallion suffer for the damage he had caused to the Hive and to Manehatten. In front of her floated three shards of Netherillium, each one of them made so she could figure out the exact location of whoever she was searching for. It wouldn't be easy with the limited power she had around her, which meant she needed to figure out how to sustain the core before the entire workshop went dead.

"How's it coming Copper?" Eclipse asked, stopping right at the opening of her tent.

"Not so good," Copper called out, shaking her head as she tried to figure out the power problem, "Nexus has been outsmarting me since day one, starting with blowing my generator in Manehatten up. He's been planning this for years, likely taking into consideration what we would do once he threatened to destroy your home or Equestria itself. Sure, he can outsmart me now, but I will figure out where he is and we will deal with him."

"Nexus didn't seem like the type to have a vast amount of power," Eclipse mentioned, staring at the changelings and ponies working hoof in hoof, "It seemed like he was either hiding his magic from all of us or he is bluffing and doesn't have a dangerous amount. But the way he spoke made it seem like he had a way to increase his power by some means."

Copper emerged from the tent, quickly crossed over to the train, found the warpstone, and, with only a second to wonder if she really needed to do it, tore the stone from the train. She crossed back to her tent and opened the core of the machine, patching the stone into the power and closing it quickly. She was well aware that Eclipse was watching her work, but she got up and began typing in a command sequence, her claws working the keys as the machine powered up again. This time she noticed that the shards were reacting in a positive tone, the green lights shining as they began to search for Nexus.

"I can't believe that worked," Copper breathed in awe, "I had no idea that the warpstones could be used as a power source for other machine and not whatever I plugged them into."

"It seems your getting better results now," Eclipse said, the shards changing to a bright red color for a second before returning to a normal green color, "What was up with the color change?"

"Nexus must have come close to the camp and was immediately discovered," Copper said in thought, "which means he left before he could do whatever deed he came to do. We won't have to worry about him for some time it seems."

"My King, we have news," a guard said, coming to a stop in front of the tent, "Nexus was spotted near your new residence, harassing the Queen and the Princesses, Unfortunately, before we could intervene he turned to smoke and the Queen vanished with him. Queen Viscarias has been ponynapped."