The Hive
The hike through the remaining wastelands separating them from the changeling hive was long and tedious, but largely and thankfully uneventful. Thorax admitted that he used to sneak to and from the grove and hive often before finally leaving, thus he knew several tricks to be able to safely sneak across the barren terrain without detection, and he employed a few as they trekked to the hive. The only exception to that was in regards to what they did to hide from the changeling patrols that flew by overhead at regular times.
Clearly, there was a routine and planned pattern to the patrols, but Thorax made it clear that these set patterns were deliberately changed at random intervals so to prevent enemies memorizing the patterns and bypassing them altogether, so taking the time to memorize them had always struck him as pointless. Instead, what he had always done to slip past an overflying patrol, back when it was just him sneaking about, was to transform into some mundane object that to an overflying patrol wouldn’t seem worth noticing. As he obviously couldn’t do this with their whole group though, he instead resorted to his custom spell that hid an object by making it “unnoticeable” and expanding the range sufficiently to encompass all of them. As the spell was a magic hog even when just applied to Thorax, the strain of doing this was enough that Thorax couldn’t maintain it for much longer than five to ten minutes at most, but that was usually all he needed to do it for. It helped that Thorax’s confidence in being able to slip past all of this rubbed off on the rest and thus, emotionally speaking, they did little to give themselves away to the changelings routinely flying by.
It was slow going, but their progress was steady, and many of them weren’t in too much of a hurry to arrive at the intimidating hive lying ahead of them, ever looming bigger the closer they got. Along the way, while they were still ducked behind a large boulder so to hide from a nearby patrol, Ember remembered she needed to check and see how the effects of the magic-absorbing throne had on her firebreath, and did a quick test. Fortunately, she and Spike both demonstrated that they could still breathe fire, but it lacked the normal colors that distinguished them, the flames coming out as merely raw orange fire, and they lacked the normal degree of control over the behavior of the fire. Spike likened it to having a “campfire in my mouth,” explaining that he could produce the fire, but whatever the fire did after that was per it’s will, not his. He rather liked this, because of the raw power the flames felt to have, but Ember was annoyed by the lack of control, pointing out that she couldn’t breathe a refined flame with which to try and cut into the throne when the time came. But she at least noted that they both still had the firebreath and thus was available to them for use if needed. This boosted their hopes for success, but not enough to eliminate the dread of what still lay before them in their so-called quest.
Perhaps as a result of that apprehension, there wasn’t much talking among the group. This at least suited Trixie just fine, left with plenty to think about after what had happened earlier in the grove and was still trying to sort through the experience of her mental link with Thorax. This must have left a sort of vacant look on her face though, because eventually Starlight, having been keeping an eye on Trixie a bit more than usual since that same event, sidled up to her.
“Are you doing okay, Trixie?” her friend asked quietly.
Trixie blinked her eyes a few times as she slipped out of her introspective state. “Yeah, fine, just…thinking.”
“Mm.” Starlight went quiet for a second. “Look, about earlier, in the grove, I have to ask…did you already know Thorax was telepathic before then?”
Trixie shook her head. “Hadn’t a clue until then, so it was just as much a surprise for me as it was for you,” she replied.
Starlight mulled upon it a second longer. “What was it like?”
Trixie had to think hard about that one. “I don’t know how to put it into words, honestly,” she admitted. “It’s…sort of indescribable…you have to experience it to really get a full feel for it…but it was sort of like…his mind and my mind were joined and made…for a few fleeting moments…one.”
Starlight blinked in surprise. “Are you saying he had full access to…well…everything in your mind?”
“I guess so…but I still felt in full control of everything in my head, and he didn’t seem to be prying into anything in there.” Trixie rapped the side of her head for emphasis. “Actually, he spent most of it just stuffing his thoughts into my head, both in the attempt to calm me down, and to answer my questions on what was happening as I thought of them.” She tilted her head at Starlight. “Why do you ask?”
“It’s just…telepathy…” Starlight sighed softly. “Most of what I know about it is only theoretical, but I still know enough to know it could be a double-edged sword if used incorrectly…and I just can’t help but wonder…if a changeling like Thorax can see into our minds like that…what else could they do? Could they manipulate our thoughts, change our way of thinking, force us to adopt views or opposing sides we normally wouldn’t? Control us through our minds to force us to do something we wouldn’t want to?”
Trixie frowned. “Do you really think Thorax is capable of doing anything like that?”
“No, of course not. Thorax wouldn’t have done everything he’s done up to this point if he meant to do malicious intent like that, so I fully believe you when you say he did nothing more but soothe your mind. But it’s not him so much I’m worried about, it’s the other changelings. What could they do with such an ability, and could they, or perhaps have they already, used it to control ponies like me or you?” Starlight sighed again. “After Spike left with Thorax, Twilight had already theorized about something like this being the case. I hadn’t really read too much into it at the time, but now, to find out that Twilight was actually right about this…”
“I don’t think the changelings could do stuff like that even if they wanted to, though,” Trixie interjected. “While we were linked, Thorax shared some info about how all this mental linking stuff works, and…I’m still trying to sort through some of it, but basically, they can share thoughts, coax the mind to undergo simply tasks like recall a memory, just relax, or shield itself from danger, but it seems that’s about it, and seems that’s all they’re really interested in. The stuff you’re talking about, the mind control and tampering with and falsifying memories…that all seems to be beyond them…and I don’t think they’d take too kindly to the idea of doing it anyway. It seems they were once, a long time ago, all linked together perpetually in a sort of hive mind but, long story short, they found that was hindering them as a race too much and was too prone to abuse, so they abandoned that practice and now refuse to go back.” Trixie’s expression turned to one of concern. “Thorax even conveyed to me that if he were to be caught doing anything even close to forming a hive mind by the others, he could be executed for it as punishment.”
Starlight pulled back in surprise, but some doubt still remained. “And you can be sure none of that was fabricated, and was all real and true fact, not just things he was feeding you to keep you…unaware?”
Trixie thought about it. “As much as I ever could be,” she admitted. “I…can’t really prove it verbally, I guess, but…after experiencing that mental link…I can just…feel it was real. All of it. Thorax wasn’t fabricating anything…so yes, if you’re asking me, then that’s the truth.” She smiled faintly, but encouragingly. “The mental prowess of a changeling isn’t the thing you need to be worrying about, at least.”
Starlight sighed once more to herself. “Yeah, probably,” she admitted. “It’s just…it’s sudden…caught me all off guard by it. I mean he’s been upfront about a bunch of other things about himself, so I guess I’m just surprised he never mentioned this before now…”
“Never mentioned what before?” Spike asked, now moving over to join the two mares, having overheard the last part of Starlight’s last statement.
Starlight glanced in his direction and seized the opportunity. “Spike, are you aware that Thorax is, in fact, telepathic?” she asked quickly. She expected him to be surprised by this information.
But he wasn’t at all. “Yeah, he is,” Spike replied with a casual shrug, like it was old news to him. “Well, latently, at least,” he then added, recalling how Thorax usually referred to the skill. “It still requires physical touch to do after all, so there are limitations.” He was about to go on to ask how this came up when, studying the expressions of the two mares, Trixie’s especially, he abruptly made the connection and his eyes widened slightly. “Did Thorax forge a mental link with one of you?”
Trixie sighed then nodded. “Yeah, with me, back in the grove, when we were hiding from those two changelings that nearly found us,” she murmured as if ashamed. “It was how he got my emotions under control and calmed down, so we wouldn’t be discovered.”
This, however, seemed to cause the surprise in Spike Starlight had been looking for, and he tilted his head at Trixie, clearly looking like he hadn’t expected to hear this detail. “Really?” he asked. “Huh…that’s…that’s surprising…”
“What surprises me more is that Thorax never said anything about it before now,” Starlight remarked. She tilted her head back at the little dragon. “You seem to know a fair bit about it though.”
“Starlight, other than Trixie now, I’m the only other one in this group who has experienced such a link with Thorax,” Spike explained simply, fiddling with the bowtie he still wore as he reflected back on the memory of the experience. He glanced at Trixie with a look of understanding. “So I’m probably the only one here that understands what that’s like…though Trixie being a unicorn, Thorax probably had a much easier time linking with her than he did with me.” He grinned sheepishly at the pair and patted his bare forehead. “He had incompatibility issues to work around, see.” He then focused his attention on Starlight more fully. “But anyway, it’s not really surprising to me that Thorax hasn’t mentioned it before to you. It was over a moon after I met him before the subject first came up with me. It’s something he’s very quiet about, and resorting to it is not something he takes lightly—he highly respects the sanctity of the mental scape for both himself and others, understanding that’s a very private thing to be able to gain access to. The sense I’ve gotten is that there are plenty of changelings that feel the same way…in fact they overall seem a bit leery of their telepathic abilities if you want my honest opinion, which makes sense if you know the history. They’d rather turn to other tactics than their mental abilities first if they can, or so the impression Thorax has given me.”
“So the reason me and Trixie are only finding about this now is simply because he’s protective of that ability, knowing it’s a very sensitive thing not to be toyed with,” Starlight recapped, starting to understand.
“Exactly,” Spike agreed with a nod. He turned to Trixie. “Which is why him choosing to forge a link with you surprises me so much…that’s no small thing for him to have done.”
“He…didn’t really have a choice at the time,” Trixie pointed out.
“Actually, Trixie, he did,” Spike pressed. “Because if all he needed to do was to end your panic attack and force you to calm down, then he could’ve just stunned you, leaving you knocked out for the remaining duration of that close encounter and not outputting any revealing emotions.”
“He could’ve,” Starlight agreed, nodding her head to herself thoughtfully. “In fact, I have to admit, Trixie, that if he hadn’t acted first, I was just about to try and stun you myself.” She gave her friend an apologetic grin. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Trixie replied, before refocusing her attention on Spike again. “But so he chose instead to forge the mental link, which, given the circumstances, makes sense to me…so that still doesn’t mean it was that big a deal, does it?”
“Trixie, you have to understand, Thorax wouldn’t do such a thing with just anyone,” Spike explained, then sighed, averting his gaze to the way ahead of them as they continued marching for the hive. “The night before Twilight found us in Vanhoover…we learned, or rather Thorax learned, that Princess Luna had been trying to track him down via the dreamscape, wanting to visit his dreams. She felt there was more going on than what Twilight and the others had told her, so she wanted to see for herself what Thorax was like and thought peeking in on his dreams would give her the answers. What she didn’t expect was that Thorax, because he’s latently telepathic, sensed her presence and caught her in his dreams, forcing an unplanned confrontation of sorts…I don’t really understand all the details on what happened exactly, but…” Spike shook his head. “Thorax swears to this day that Luna meant absolutely no ill intent in doing what she did, believes everything she told him during that encounter was complete truth, remains convinced that she was in the process of swaying to our side, and may have acted favorably for us in the days to come if Twilight hadn’t found us first…but even though he had the perfect chance to let Luna fully into his mental scape, let her see for herself who and what he was and that he was no foe…he still didn’t trust her enough to grant her that access. Even though he thinks of her so favorably, that wasn’t enough to earn the right to see into his mental scape, he’s that protective of it.”
Trixie looked at Spike blankly for a moment, brow furrowed in thought. “So what does that mean?” she asked.
“It means he trusts you, Trixie,” Spike replied softly and reverently. His gaze turned distant. “A lot more than I’ve been giving him credit for, in fact.”
Trixie’s gaze went vacant for a long moment, beginning to understand the scope of this trust Spike was trying to convey to her. It was humbling somewhat to consider the depth of that trust, and yet she couldn’t help but focus her attention on Spike still, catching on to the implications towards himself his statement provided, and she gazed at him for a long moment, debating to herself. “Do you trust me then, Spike?” she asked finally and slowly.
Spike hesitated for a second before replying. “My trust is growing, at least.” He didn’t elaborate further. Instead, after a momentary pause, he glanced back at Trixie. “So…that mental link…you handling the aftermath okay?”
Trixie seesawed one hoof back and forth, uncertain. “There’s…a lot of new stuff in my head that wasn’t there before that I’m still trying to sort out, much less get used to actually being there.” She frowned. “It’s weird having thoughts and knowledge that are so clearly not mine bouncing around…it’s jarring.”
Spike grinned knowingly. “Yeah, it, uh, it takes a little getting used to, but you adapt in time,” he admitted, reflecting on his own set of foreign memories that were still easy to recall in his mind. He had grown used to them being there, but recalling them still disoriented his mind a little due to the disconnect in ownership. He glanced between the two mares again. “Anyway…anything else either of you wanted to discuss?”
Trixie and Starlight exchanged glances briefly. Trixie slowly shook her head, not feeling the need to discuss the matter further, so as that left Starlight, she turned her attention back to Spike. “Well, I still have other questions I’d want to ask, but they’re technical enough that I don’t think you’d be able to answer, Spike, so for now, I guess so.” Starlight grinned a little. “But you at least helped me settle a few…misgivings I had about it all.”
“Good,” Spike said with a nod. “It wouldn’t do to have something like this wreck your confidence in Thorax needlessly, now of all times.” He nodded his head ahead of them at the changeling hive they were trekking towards.
Starlight nodded in agreement. “I concur, it’s going to be critical that we keep trust in each other at this point, or we’re not going to stand a chance in there,” she reasoned, then grinned encouragingly at Spike. “But never fear…unspoken telepathy or not, I still trust Thorax to safely guide us there, and with the rest of us here to back him up…hopefully that’ll be enough to give us a fighting chance.”
Spike shared the grin. “I hope you’re right,” he said. Then, without further comment, he trotted off, pulling ahead of the two mares, leaving them alone towards the back of the group.
Starlight turned her attention back to Trixie. “Well, at least you can take comfort that there’s someone else that can relate to what you went through in that mental link or whatever you want to call it,” she bantered cheerily.
Trixie nodded distractedly. “I suppose,” she admitted. She sighed. “I guess…I just wasn’t prepared for what…what that happening signifies.”
“It means Thorax has put a great deal of faith and trust in you, more than most would give someone other than themselves. That’s not something you want to depreciate in the slightest,” Starlight summed up. She nudged Trixie encouragingly. “But I don’t think you are in much danger of that…that trust is two-way, isn’t it?”
Trixie grinned a little to herself, but didn’t reply.
Meanwhile, Spike caught up with Thorax leading the way across the barren expanse heading up to the hive, coming to stand beside his changeling friend. “Hey,” he greeted.
“Hey,” Thorax greeted back, his attention focused on the hive ahead of them. It was beginning to loom over them very closely now.
Spike fidgeted with his claws for a second. “You forged a mental link with Trixie?” he asked suddenly and without warning.
There was a split-second delay before Thorax replied. “Yes,” he answered simply. But there was confidence in his choice.
Spike nodded to himself for a second. He turned thoughtful for another second after that. “I know that’s no small thing for you to have done,” he noted aloud. “You trust her a great deal then, don’t you?”
Thorax glanced down at Spike. He grinned a little. “As much as I do with you, bud,” he replied pointedly.
Spike nodded to himself again. “Okay,” he said, taking a deep breath as he turned his head to peer ahead of them. “Then…I trust your judgment.”
Thorax, who was expecting Spike to take a bit more issue with the matter than this given their past history on Trixie, regarded him in mild surprise. “That’s it? Just like that?”
“Yeah,” Spike replied softly then gave Thorax a serious glance. “Because now I know you’ve come to understand her on a level that I never will. As such…you’re now in a far better position to judge her character than I am. So…if you are willing to put that much trust in her…I’m not really in a position to argue, am I?”
Thorax’s grin returned slightly and relaxed a little, nudging the dragon with one hoof. “Don’t discredit yourself too much, though,” he urged. “You know I tend to be a bit quick to trust…so it was your misgivings in her that made me make sure she had earned it first.”
This made Spike grin to himself, feeling reassured.
Finally, after several long minutes of hiking and evading detection across the barren terrain separating the changeling hive from the rest of the world, the group of aspiring infiltrators arrived at the base of the massive structure and ducked behind some jagged, claw-like structures randomly jutting out of the earth immediately surrounding it. From here, the group got their first up close look at the hive’s entrance, a dark and gaping maw that was open and easy to see enough that it was hard to picture how one could sneak through it without getting spotted, even if one took away the two menacing-looking guards that presently stood securing it. Thorax said there were more just inside, hiding out of sight, too.
“Their job is to study everyone who enters or exits the hive and make sure they really are who they appear,” he explained quietly to the rest of them, keeping his voice low so to not be accidentally overheard by the many more changelings that were moving about the area. “So obviously they’d notice right away you all are not changelings.”
“Well, obviously,” Ember grumbled, folding her arms. “I mean, we don’t even remotely look like you.”
“Yes, but keep in mind we are changelings, shape shifters that can take on any number of appearances,” Thorax patiently reminded. “Sometimes changelings come and go while still in disguise for whatever reason, so even we changelings need to just double check and make sure. Besides, changelings can disguise themselves as other changelings and if they get away with it, then that can grant them access to places they normally wouldn’t and cause trouble. In wartime, before the hives were united, changelings were known to use such tactics trying to get into enemy hives. So it doesn’t hurt to always be skeptical of what one sees…or so a common changeling saying goes.”
“Speaking of,” Starlight interjected and turned to face everyone else, “in case any of us get separated while inside, I want to make sure we’re all clear on the code phrase to use confirming we all are who we say.”
“You say ‘Eaisht lesh dagh cleaysh,’ and I say ‘eisht jean briwnys,’” Ember replied immediately. “Simple.”
“Speak for yourself,” Trixie muttered, and struggled to repeat the whole ancient dragon proverb. “Eaisht lesh dagh cleaysh, eisht jean briwnys,” she struggled out slowly, but managing to sound out the words accurately still. She shook her head. “I still say we should’ve picked a simpler and easier code phrase to say, like, I don’t know…‘klutzy draconequus’ or something.”
Spike couldn’t help but snicker. “Something tells me that Discord wouldn’t approve of that,” he noted.
“Well, he’s not here, so it’s not like he’d get a say in it,” Trixie smugly pointed out.
“It wouldn’t make much difference if he was anyway,” Thorax reminded. “He’d be just as powerless magically as the rest of you, no offense.”
Spike had to snicker again though. “Now I’m picturing Discord’s reaction to having to be powerless for any space of time.”
“There will be time to discuss that later,” Starlight interrupted, eager to get going. She turned to Thorax. “Thorax, if not here, then where are we going to enter this place?”
“This way,” Thorax instructed and led them nearer to the hive.
This actually brought them to a hiding spot even closer to the main entrance, managing to slip past the first set of guards stationed outside of it, but with no obvious alternate way inside. Nonetheless, it was apparently still within sight as Thorax quickly noted with relief that it was unguarded as he had hoped. He then focused his attention on the solid outer wall that neighbored closely to them while the others kept an eye on the changeling guards and looking out for any sign of trouble.
Then Starlight had a thought. “Thorax, if the front entrance here is so heavily guarded, then why is this side entrance of yours not?” she asked, without turning away from the lookout she was keeping with the others.
“It’s only open part of the time,” Thorax replied back, as if this was enough to explain everything.
Only left puzzled by the vague statement, Starlight started to glance back at him. “What do you mean by that?”
But she felt Thorax’s hoof tapping her shoulder, and she turned to see Thorax silently pointing at a wide hole-like opening in the hive’s outer wall that Starlight could’ve sworn wasn’t there a second ago. Deciding not to question it for the moment and quickly getting the attention of the others, they hurried over to the opening while the coast was still clear. The entrance didn’t open quite level with the ground, but Thorax was able to easily fly into it, and Ember was tall enough to simply clamber into it then turn around and help the others up. Soon they were all inside and they turned around to get, for most of them, their first good look inside the changeling hive. The interior was a massive expanse of tunnels and chambers that seemed to crisscross and intersect with each other purely at random that didn’t even seem to congeal together into distinct levels, all made from a blue-green chalky substance that seemed solid as if rock, but felt a bit too smooth and porous under their respective feet and hooves. Altogether, the tantalizing and overwhelming view was enough to make one’s head spin.
“Whoa,” Trixie murmured aloud as she gazed up at it all with widening eyes, an expression that was largely shared by all of the others. “Okay, I am definitely glad we’ve got you here, Thorax. I don’t think we’d be able to find our way through all of this without you.”
“You definitely wouldn’t,” Thorax agreed as he turned back to face them, pointing with one hoof.
They heard a gravelly, crunching noise, and the others turned back in time to see the entrance they had just come through collapse in on itself, vanishing completely from sight as it turned back into a completely solid wall.
“Uh, why did our exit just vanish?” Ember remarked aloud, sounding a little alarmed by this.
“It’s a changeling hive,” Thorax reminded them, drawing their attention back on him. “It shifts and changes shape like we do all the time. As such, we’re the only ones who’d have any ability to navigate it.” As if to demonstrate this, he turned around and started walking towards another solid wall perfectly in time for a new opening leading deeper into the hive to appear. “It’d be nothing short of total chaos to the rest of you, I’m sure.”
“No joke,” Spike mumbled as they followed Thorax through this new opening, only to watch it, too, immediately close behind them again once through. “I don’t know how you can make any sense of this.”
“It’s home,” Thorax simply replied, leading the way further into the hive.
They voyaged deeper with Thorax as their guide, moving quietly and quickly in hopes they weren’t noticed. Fortunately, the hive, or at least this portion of it, didn’t seem especially busy at the moment. The only changeling to be seen anywhere around was Thorax himself, and he seemed to know exactly what he was doing and where to go. He also seemed to always know precisely whenever a new opening was going to open or close, always walking confidently towards or away from them in perfect time with them as a result.
“How are you doing that anyway?” Starlight finally couldn’t help but ask, astounded by how reliably Thorax could do this. “Are you somehow doing that, or can you just somehow tell when one of these openings are going to open or close?”
“Both, I guess?” Thorax replied, uncertain how to describe it. “Some open randomly, some at regular intervals, some automatically as I approach them, and some just react immediately how I want them to.” He shrugged. “I’ve never really thought too hard about how it works…but I guess it’s just something instinctual.”
“Hmm,” Starlight hummed to herself. “I wonder if it’s some latent magic…sort of like how earth ponies can have an instinctual ability to grow plants and the like because of their latent earth magic…”
“I don’t know about that, I once knew an earth pony who, the poor dear, seemed to kill every plant she touched,” Trixie grumbled aloud.
“Whatever causes it, I’m sure these doorways wouldn’t respond to any non-changeling then, so they might as well really be solid walls to anyone else,” Spike reasoned as they stepped through such a doorway that had sprang into existence the moment Thorax approached it.
“Exactly,” Thorax agreed with a nod. “Part of what I meant when I said you’d all be totally lost in here without me, or any changeling for that matter, to guide the way.”
“Only part?” Ember asked critically. “So dare I ask what the other part is?”
Thorax motioned with one hoof at the thick weave of interlocking tunnels ahead of them. “Well…it is a complete maze in this place.”
They kept going regardless though, and even though Thorax had to stop and get his bearings every now and then, he kept leading them ever deeper into the hive, directing them to the first destination they had agreed to stop and check at for the captured princesses and friends. Never once during this whole time did they see another changeling other than Thorax…which actually heartened them, as it meant their luck was holding out thus far. Nonetheless, they still heard every now and then the faint scampering of hoofsteps somewhere off in the distance of some changeling passing nearby in this unwieldy maze, leaving them ever alert. Eventually though, after several minutes of what felt like to the others like merely random wandering, they arrived in a deep tunnel which arched to their right in a gradual curve.
Thorax stopped at the start of this curve and turned to face the others, motioning for them to wait a moment. “So around this bend will be the entrance leading into the harvesting chamber I told you all about,” he explained. “And I really ought to forewarn everyone…what we find in there might seem a bit…disturbing to you.”
Trixie audibly gulped. “You said that’s where the changelings here keep captured ponies to feed off of, right?” she asked, trembling a little.
Thorax nodded solemnly. “It’s still about another hour or so before the next mealtime so there probably isn’t going to be anyone in there except guards outside the major entrances.” He motioned ahead of them. “This isn’t one of them, of course, this is a side entrance leading through…” he hesitated, unsure of the proper term, “…I guess the equivalent of a kitchen…?” Trixie squeaked at this, so Thorax backpedaled, shaking his head as he got back to his chief point. “…what I’m saying is that even though it’ll likely be void of changelings that could catch us…that doesn’t mean it probably won’t be any less nerve racking for all of you. But…we all agreed we wanted to check and make sure the hive isn’t keeping the princesses here, so…brace yourselves.”
The group all looked between each other as they steeled themselves, but eventually they all nodded to Thorax, conveying that they were ready to proceed. Nodding back, Thorax motioned for all of them to follow him and to keep quiet. Leading the way with the others closely following, they continued down the corridor, following it on around the bend. At the other side was what appeared to be another solid wall, but as usual, Thorax approached it without slowing and with the usual gravelly grumble, an opening appeared in the wall, permitting them access into the room beyond. This room was relatively small, at least by comparison to the many cathedral-like rooms they had previously seen in the hive, and was empty of any occupants. But it bore many cubbyholes, counters, and other flat surfaces serving as tables hewn directly out of the same material that made up the rest of the hive, all bearing baskets, plates, and tools of unclear purpose on or in them. It very much did have the feel of a spacious kitchen, though far more robust in design and lacking any obvious stove or oven. As Thorax navigated them through the tabletops and other objects scattered throughout the middle of the room, the others looked around apprehensively. Curiously though, they didn’t immediately see anything out of the ordinary, though the room still gave them an odd feeling that seemed out of place and unsettling.
Finally, Spike had to ask the question. “Just what is this room, Thorax?” he asked, keeping his voice hushed as instructed.
“The refectorium,” Thorax replied levelly. “It’s where meals for the hive are prepared.”
The others paused to look at him. “How so?” Ember asked after a moment.
Thorax glanced back at them briefly, then altered course slightly so to lead them to a series of cubbyholes carved into the wall of the room. “Because there’s only so much food to go around and to make sure the supply of it is kept regulated and isn’t going to waste or hoarded, only the messores—uh, changelings that harvest positive emotions—are allowed to collect emotion from prey here at the hive. What they collect is then placed in these.”
He reached into one of the cubbyholes and pulled out a pouch-like container that seemed almost like a far smaller version of a changeling cocoon, small enough to fit into one’s hooves. The others gathered closer to get a better look. The pouch itself was colored the typical bright green color like a cocoon, but this was dampened by the pinkish-white glow the swirling, energy-like contents within produced.
“Thorax, what’s in this?” Starlight whispered, unable to identify these contents.
“Concentrated emotional energy,” Thorax explained, “So concentrated that it becomes visible and produces a glow like this. The messores portion out into every pouch enough to sustain a changeling until the next mealtime, and then distribute them out to changelings at such mealtimes. This one is probably either a leftover, or being saved for the next mealtime…probably the latter now that I think about it.”
Starlight peered around the rest of the room, struck by how innocent that seemed, and yet she couldn’t shake the strange feeling that she felt in the pit of her stomach. “I don’t get it then, this room seems simple enough,” she observed with a frown. She turned back to the others. “So why do I feel so…weird?”
“I know what you mean,” Trixie piped in, sitting down and rubbing herself with her hooves as if lightly chilled, while Ember and Spike both nodded their heads in agreement, confirming they felt similar. “I feel…weirdly content, but in like a…sickly sweet, forced and false sort of way…I don’t feel like I should be feeling that way, and it’s just…bizarre.”
Overhearing this, Thorax slipped past the group, leading them towards the wall opposite of the one they had entered through. “There’s a reason for that,” he admitted solemnly. “We were going to have to go in here next anyway, so it’ll…make more sense if I just show you.”
As he approached the wall, another doorway appeared, opening into a much more spacious and open, but relatively level room filled with a green glow. The moment the doorway appeared, the weird feeling the others were getting suddenly doubled, and as they slowly filed into the room, it only took one look to see why. They all collectively gasped except Thorax at the sight. Lined up into broken rows with filled with irregularly-sized gaps but no less unsettling a view, the room was filled with occupied cocoons, all containing caught prey, many with the familiar shapes of a pony within. The number of the cocoons was enough that the others had to stop and just stare in shock at the disturbing sight.
Thorax, meanwhile, continued on for a few steps, then turned around and sat himself down before them, looking ashamed. “We feed on positive emotions,” he reminded glumly. “So it wouldn’t do if the prey we caught wasn’t still feeling positive.” He made a solemn nod at the cocoons in the room. “These cocoons are magicked to coax the prey sealed within them to continue to feel positive emotions while inside…what you’re all feeling is bleed off from that, all trapped in one spot.”
The others quickly realized this was what made it feel weird to them, as this feeling of positivity felt out of place this deep within the hive, and the sight of all of these cocoons of captured prey only made it worse. Chilled, the group broke apart and started going from cocoon to cocoon, peering at each occupant inside. They were mostly ponies of all types and sizes, young and old. Pegasi, earth ponies, unicorns—there were even a few crystal ponies to be found among the prey. But it wasn’t just ponies even; there were also diamond dogs, griffons, donkeys, zebras, a couple immature dragons (which Ember growled angrily at the sight of), as well as a slew of various woodland creatures, ranging from rabbits to foxes or bigger. There was even a manticore. It seemed that if it was capable of producing positive emotions, it was on the menu for the changelings.
Starlight idly walked down the length of the room with the others, shuddering at every new cocoon she peered into. “Just how long have some of these ponies been here?” she asked, fearing the answer.
Thorax averted his gaze. “It can sometimes be hard to tell just from sight,” he admitted reluctantly. He was clearly very uncomfortable about all of this. “But I hope most of these have not been here too long. The preferred practice, if someone is to be captured and taken back to the hive like this, is to capture someone who is already planning to travel somewhere, like on a vacation or a business trip. The changelings will then capture them, take them here to harvest as much emotion we safely can without creating harm off of them while during the space of time they were expected to be gone by all that know them. Meanwhile, the dreams that someone has while in their cocoon fills in the blanks of what they expected from their trip, and then the hive releases them back at the expected time of their planned return from such a trip, none the wiser. That way, no suspicion is aroused and the hive does not risk discovery and thereby trouble.”
“Admittedly makes a degree of sense,” Spike was forced to admit aloud as he peered into one cocoon, sighing sadly at the sight of the unfamiliar pegasus within.
“You said that was the preferred practice though,” Ember recalled, scowling a little as she continued peering into cocoons as well. “So what is the not preferred practice?”
Thorax sighed, hanging his head. “Sometimes,” he admitted, “when letting them go free again would only endanger the hive in some way, some prey is kept here permanently, until they are no longer able to produce emotion of use for the hive.” He shamefully spied one cocooned pony that was well up there in years in a cocoon he knew was not freshly made, but he opted not to point this out to the others. “And that can be a fairly long time.”
The others exchanged uncomfortable glances at this.
They kept searching through the cocoons, searching for any sign of the missing princesses and their kidnapped friends they knew to be in the hive. Some of the cocoons were near to the two main entrances on either side of the room that had a guard stationed at both, so to reduce chance for detection, Thorax went and checked those cocoons for the others, that way if he was observed by one of the said guards, they were less likely to think him too out of place. But luckily neither guard noticed him. Before long, they’d been through most of the whole room, without any sign of the missing ponies they had come for, or anyone else they recognized or knew.
This didn’t leave Trixie feeling much better. Finding one pony sealed in cocoon that couldn’t be much older than a teenager and her heart going out to the poor pony, she sighed. “I wish we could free and rescue all of these other captured ponies too,” she desired aloud.
Starlight, standing across the row from Trixie, turned to watch the showmare turn away from the cocoon and proceed to the wall marking the end of the room. She sighed too. “As much as I wish we could, Trixie, there’s no way we to do so without getting caught. It’s just not possible to coordinate the safe escape of so many without raising the alarm, and surely the changelings would never let us get away with it. We don’t have the numbers to even think about trying anyway.” She ran her hoof over one cocoon, peering mournfully in at the occupant within, wondering who the unicorn inside might be. “We’ll just have to hope that Thorax is right and that they all aren’t going to be here permanently or won’t come to any lasting harm…or that the aftermath of all this will put both sides in the position to negotiate their release.”
“Besides, by freeing them all in one go like that, you’d risk starving the hive as a result,” Thorax added with a sigh of his own, peering sadly back at the many cocoons they had passed in the room. “And I don’t think any of us want that on our heads.”
Spike turned away from the final cocoon he was checking and at his changeling friend. “What do you mean, Thorax?” he asked. “Is the hive really that pressed for food?”
“Oh, it’s even worse than I thought it would be,” Thorax admitted sadly. He gave Spike a forlorn look. “There’s…been a shortage of food supplies in the hive for some years now…and after the attempt to invade Canterlot failed and alarmed Equestria about us, that shortage had gotten worse.” He peered back at the room, as did the others, noting how many gaps there were in the rows of cocoons. There were a good number of them, some quite sizeable. “And it seems it’s only gotten worse still since I was last here at the hive…this room is far emptier than it ought to be, emptier than I’ve ever seen it. If it keeps getting steadily worse like this…the hive is going to be struggling to survive here soon.” He hung his head, saddened by the thought.
A heavy silence hung in the room for a second. “No wonder the changelings are trying to invade again,” Ember remarked aloud. “I’ll bet you diamonds that a lot of them think it’ll be their last chance at survival.” She shifted awkwardly. “If it fails…well…that might be the last straw for them.”
Thorax snorted suddenly, turning to face the group. “What’s worse is that I know it doesn’t have to be that way if the hive would just make peace with Equestria, but they won’t…so in a way, they’ve brought this upon themselves.” He hung his head. “And that’s what’s so tragic about it.”
Spike moved to comfort Thorax. “Hey, look,” he said, gently hugging one of the changeling’s legs, “all that means is that you can help them by showing the right way.”
Thorax was quiet for a second. “Yeah,” he mumbled, but he didn’t seem very convinced. He gazed about the room for a second and the cocoons scattered about and sighed. “You know, it’s strange coming back to this room after so long. Before I left the hive, even though I had disagreements about the directions the hive was going at the time, I never really gave a second thought about what we changelings were doing in this room…I just took it as a part of life. But now…after so many moons away from it, living in Equestria and thriving off of just friendship alone and not needing such a thing as this harvesting room…” he shook his head, “…it all just feels so…wrong now. The sight of this room is making me feel sick to my stomach, appalling me by the thought that my race has to resort to kidnapping and holding hostage innocent beings that don’t deserve fates like this…it’s…shocking, feeling like this now. It’s like…like I had always been aware of that reality before, but it’s only now that…that my eyes are really seeing it.” He kept shaking his head, unsure. “And if even I couldn’t see that before now, only after I had to go and live a life free of it for so long…how can I expect other changelings to see it that way too, if to them, all of this is…” he almost had to spit the word out, “…normal.” He went silent after that, letting his ambling thoughts sink in for a long moment. He then took in a deep breath and straightened, changing the subject. “Anyway…we’ve found no sign of the captured princesses in here, so I think it’s safe to assume now that Queen Chrysalis is keeping them captive in the throne room as I originally suspected, so we might as well get moving and head for there, next.”
“Now wait, hold a moment,” Trixie said, who was hovering at the nearby wall of the room, peering at it, before glancing back at the others. “What about this? What’s through here?”
The others stared at her for a moment. To them, it appeared to be just a solid wall, but as that didn’t necessarily mean anything here in the hive, a couple of the group looked to Thorax expectantly. But even Thorax seemed confused by what Trixie was suggesting.
“Trixie, that’s just a solid wall,” he stated, taking a step closer to Trixie. “There’s nothing to go through to, I can assure you. There’s never been anything there to begin with for the whole time I’ve been alive.”
Trixie’s brow furrowed. “Wait, really?” she asked, surprised. “You mean you can’t see it? A hive full of masters of illusion, and I’m the first one who sees what’s wrong with this wall?”
Starlight took a cautious step forward. “What are you getting at, Trixie?” she asked, attempting to mediate.
Trixie rose to her hooves, and smirked a little. “Oh, nothing much, just that the Great and Powerful Trixie knows a wall that only looks like it’s a wall when she sees one,” she explained.
And then to prove it, she trotted right on through the wall as if it wasn’t really there, vanishing from sight. Everyone pulled back slightly in surprise, momentarily unsure how to respond.
“Trixie!” Starlight called in surprise, taking another step towards the wall, but stopping short of following Trixie on through it. There was no response from Trixie to be heard though, nor did she reappear. “Trixie!”
Another long moment passed in which there was no sound or sight of Trixie. But just when the others were starting to grow worried, Trixie abruptly stuck her head back through the wall, looking as if her head had just been stuck onto the middle of the wall, and grinned cheekily at the others.
“Sorry, I didn’t realize it was soundproof for a second there,” she explained, then stuck her hoof through the wall too so to motion them to follow. “But it’s just an illusionary wall, perfectly safe to step through, and there’s another chamber behind this thing. Not every big and there doesn’t seem to be anything in it, but still…if someone’s gone through all the trouble of hiding it…”
The rest of her statement was cut off as she retreated back through the wall and vanished from sight again. The others all glanced at one another with varying degrees of perplexity and surprise then Starlight cautiously pushed her way through the wall. Except for a faint tickle of magic against her body, she felt nothing, and the wall might as well have never been there. Spurred on by her example, the others one by one followed her through, starting with Thorax and then followed by Ember and Spike, respectively. The chamber on the other side was indeed not very big, barely just big enough to fit all of them, and would also be unlit if it wasn’t for the fact that the illusionary wall only created the illusion on the one side—on the other side it appeared as nothing more than a faint barrier of rippling magical mist, just transparent enough to see what was happening back in the main chamber they had exited, as well as allow light into the little room.
Trixie sat herself in the middle of the small chamber and wore a big and smug grin on her face, proud of her little discovery, but the others simply stood about the chamber and looked generally puzzled, uncertain of just what it was that they had uncovered. Thorax seemed especially confused by this unexpected discovery, his brow furrowed greatly as he numbly moved about the small chamber, taking in the details. It seemed the fact this chamber existed at all baffled him and that troubled him greatly.
“But…I don’t understand…” he mumbled aloud as he came to stand at the opposite end of the chamber, staring at its far wall. “This shouldn’t even exist…”
“Is it maybe something new?” Starlight reasoned as she slowly circled the outer edge of the chamber, searching for any details they may have missed that could explain things. “Something that was added after you left the hive?”
“No, no, it can’t be,” Thorax assured immediately, running one hoof over the wall in front of him. “The resin in this wall has a fair amount of age to it and been here for a good while…it’s easily several years old. It’s existed since well before I left the hive.”
“But…why build a little room like this anyway?” Spike asked aloud, not seeing the point of the little chamber. “And why hide it?”
“Whatever the deal is with this room, it doesn’t seem to get a lot of traffic,” Ember observed, having bent down to run one claw along the floor at one edge of the room. It came away quite dusty. “I’m thinking no more than maybe one or two are ever in here at a time, and they walk mostly in the middle of the room.”
“Then does that mean that not many other changelings know about this room too?” Starlight asked, thinking aloud. She glanced around blankly at the otherwise empty room. “What is so special about this room that it’s kept hidden from most of the inhabitants that might use it?”
“Whoever does come in here must do so pretty regularly, because there’s no sign of that same dust build-up here,” Trixie said, motioning to the center of the room where she was still at.
“There’s not much where Thorax is at either,” Spike observed, moving closer to where Thorax was sitting, lost in thought as he continued running his hoof along the far wall. “In fact, there’s no dust build-up in a nice straight line from the entrance and on through here, from one end to the other. Almost as if…”
He trailed off, and slowly his and everyone else’s gaze traveled to the same wall Thorax had been studying, all starting to come to the same conclusion. Guessing their thoughts, he glanced back at them and solemnly nodded. “Yes,” he confirmed, answering the unspoken question. “There is a hidden doorway here on this wall.”
A moment of silence passed as this was allowed to sink in, and the others waited for Thorax to continue explaining but he did not. Finally, Ember folded her arms. “Well?” she prompted the changeling. “Open it.”
“That’s just it,” Thorax said. He seemed more troubled than ever. “I cannot.”
“What? Why not?” Trixie asked, frowning.
“The doorway seems to be sealed in such a manner that it will only respond to a certain member of the hive,” Thorax leveled his gaze with the others, “One of royal blood.”
The others started to catch on and gave the wall with its unseen door in it renewed study. “What is Chrysalis hiding, then?” Starlight wondered aloud.
“We’re not ever going to find out unless we can get that doorway open,” Trixie pointed out flatly, not seeing how they were supposed to do that if Thorax couldn’t open it. “I mean, it’s not like we can just ask the queen to open it for us.”
“I’m not sure we should anyway,” Thorax reasoned, and he suddenly seemed apprehensive of whatever might lie beyond this hidden doorway, taking a couple steps back from it. “Queen Chrysalis no doubt has a good reason for all of this…what if it’s something potentially dangerous or harmful?”
A moment of silence fell as they all digested this. “What if Twilight and the others are being kept behind that door?” Starlight countered instead.
Thorax opened his mouth to rule it out, but then found he couldn’t assume it wasn’t a possibility.
Finally, Ember sighed and stepped up to the wall. “Well, there’s more than one way to make an opening,” she said, popping her claws as she glanced at the other dragon in the room. “Spike, you might not know how to use that sniffer of yours, but surely you must know how to use those claws, right?”
Spike smirked and flexed his draconian claws, joining her at the wall. “I’m way ahead of you.”
Together, they began furiously scraping away at the wall, scratching and gouging it with steady progress and quickly wearing it away. Fearing the consequences, Thorax opened his mouth to start to object, but found that the two dragons, their claws built for precisely this purpose, were making short work on the wall and had dug through enough of it already that he was forced to see the damage was irreversible already and decided to keep quiet. The wall quickly weakened under the onslaught and soon it started to crack and crumble, at which point Ember changed tactics and started to slam her body against the deteriorated wall, trying to get it to give way. On her third try, it finally collapsed, the wall breaking up into chunks that then unceremoniously plopped onto the floor, opening up to whatever lay beyond. As the dust quickly settled and they got their first view beyond the closed opening, their eyes started to widen in realization. Thorax audibly gasped, shocked.
Beyond the now forced open doorway was another secret chamber roughly double to triple in size to the little one they presently stood in. All but a small portion of it, enough to step into and stand in, was filled with cocoons of captured prey. Numbly, the group slowly slipped into the new room, gazing about at the cocoons in astonishment as they worked to understand just what this hidden stash of changeling prey meant.
“There’s enough cocoons in here to fill in some of those gaps back in the main room,” Starlight observed aloud, jerking her head back in the direction they had come as she moved around to take the chamber in full.
“And some have been here for a good while, too,” Thorax noticed sadly, stepping up to one cocoon containing a sickly looking pony within. He placed a hoof on the moist skin of the cocoon. “This poor soul has been fed upon enough times that he’s on the verge of an emotional collapse because of overfeeding.” His brow started to narrow, hinting at the beginning of a scowl of disapproval. “Whoever has been coming in here to feed hasn’t been showing the restraint they should be.”
“But if the door leading into here can only be opened by a changeling royal, then we already know who that’d have to be, right?” Trixie reasoned aloud.
Thorax didn’t reply, and instead he just sat himself down numbly in the center of the room, staring at it all in shock and clearly never having expected to find something like this. Starlight watched him sympathetically for a long moment, but finally had to pose the question. “Thorax,” she began slowly, “is it possible Queen Chrysalis has been hoarding prey for herself from the rest of the hive?”
Thorax again didn’t reply. But in many ways, an answer wasn’t needed.
It didn’t take long to search the room, and the group found by the end that there was no sign of anyone they knew. Nonetheless, they were even more reluctant to leave these cocooned beings in this secret stash than they were those in the main chamber, for fear that they might be leaving them only to be sealed away from sight again. But ultimately they knew they had to. They simply didn’t have the means to mount a rescue of that sort of scale—they weren’t even sure if they could pull off the rescue they did intend to carry out. So eventually, they left the secret chamber and the harvesting chamber altogether, proceeding to head on out back into the rest of the hive, now heading on for the throne room where their targets hopefully were being held. But they all did so with heavy hearts, and with much to think about the enormity of what was happening in that room.
Thorax was especially troubled by what they had uncovered, and he was eerily silent for the next several minutes as they walked away from the harvesting chamber, him leading the way once more. But despite more than one of them trying to prompt him to open up, he refused to speak of it. When Ember eventually whispered to Spike that she didn’t understand why the changeling was so perturbed about this, as it seemed obvious to her that Chrysalis was disloyal to all but herself, Spike suddenly thought he might have an explanation.
“From what I know, Thorax and Chrysalis have never seen eye to eye on the direction the hive should be going, and they both have known this for ages,” Spike whispered back to Ember. “But up until now, I think despite all his criticisms of how Chrysalis rules, Thorax still thought of her as his leader, and that she still did what she thought was best for the hive. So now he’s realizing that might never have been the case after all.”
They continued on through the depths of the hive, gradually heading upwards within the towering structure. Their luck thus far continued to hold and they encountered no other changelings, but the sounds of them being nearby such as the pitter-patter of hoofsteps or the faint hum of their gossamer wings were starting to grow more and more frequent. The interior of the hive looked little different from when they started though, the corridors and rooms appearing as more as an unregulated mish-mash of intersecting paths, and there seemed to be no distinct distinguishing marks from any of it as far as the others could see, other than the fact they’d find what were clearly stairs. They had no more idea where they were or where they were heading like the changelings who lived here, making the would-be rescuers all the more glad they had Thorax around.
Yet the further they went, the more Thorax worryingly became uncertain. It seemed he had to stop at junctions to consider which path to take next increasingly longer every time he did so, and it started to rattle the confidence of the already on-edge others he was supposed to be escorting. When Thorax began to mumble aloud under his breath during such moments too, partly in grumbling and partly in thought, Starlight started to grow worried.
“Thorax, you are sure where to go to get to the throne, right?” she asked in a whisper, moving closer so to talk to him.
“Yes,” Thorax confirmed, then, biting his lip, amended, “well, reasonably sure at least.”
Starlight winced. “Thorax…”
“Look, I’m still confident I can navigate my way through this hive still,” he assured, abruptly stopping and turning to face the others, causing them to stop too. “It’s just…” he sputtered in frustration for a second, “…things have changed in the hive a lot more than I expected, and it’s only slowing us down.”
“Well, you have been gone for a while,” Spike pointed out.
“I know that, and I’ve been keeping that in mind,” Thorax relented. “In fact, I was fully expecting it. The interior of the hive is adapted to what is needed at any given time pretty much year round. Rooms are expanded or reduced in size to suit changes in demand, tunnels are rerouted to adjust for changes in hoof traffic, and so on. That’s normal.” He scowled, looking back at the tunnels ahead of them. “What’s not normal is just how much of it I’ve been starting to notice. For the stretch of time I’ve been gone, I expected a tunnel changed here, a room added there, but mostly relatively minor changes on a whole, nothing so drastic that there’d be whole portions that are new and I wouldn’t already know how to find my way through. That’s been about the normal average for that stretch of time for as long as I can remember. But now…” he motioned ahead of them with one hoof. “…now it’s all shifted a lot more than I could’ve expected. I’m starting to see signs of extensive changes here and there, whole routes that now lead to entirely new portions of the hive, a lot more changes in a short stretch of time than I’ve ever seen before. And what’s weird about it is that I can’t clearly discern why.”
The others glanced around at their disorienting surroundings for a moment. They were, of course, unable to relate to Thorax’s problem much, but the fact it was a problem at all certainly didn’t bode well with most of them. If anything, it only made the alien surroundings seem all the more foreboding.
“Well,” Trixie remarked, her voice a little uneven as she sought to find an upside, “at least it’s all been pretty quiet the whole time we’ve been in here.”
“And that’s the other thing that’s bothering me,” Thorax admitted, turning back to face them, concern clear on his face. “It’s almost too quiet in this hive. I mean, I’m certainly not going to complain to that as it means for us that it’s easier to avoid getting caught, but…” he shook his head. “It’s typically quiet for this time of day as I’ve indicated before, but it’s all oddly quieter still than would be normal. It could be nothing…but then again, it could also be something. Either way…it’s giving me a bad feeling that I don’t like.”
Spike was heard gulping, and that wordlessly seemed to sum up how their little group felt about that thought quite nicely.
Still, there wasn’t much they could do about it except keep pressing on and hope for the best, and they all had to concede to each other that this was more desirable anyway. So they pressed on. Thorax still had to stop and discern where to go next every now and then, often with more grumbling about this as he was left feeling unsettled every time he had to do so, but nonetheless he still kept them moving ever forward for their destination, still notably confident that they were going the right way and would successfully get there in the end. He kept telling Starlight (who kept asking, the unicorn getting less and less confident of their odds the longer they traveled) that he just needed to get to what was a key central junction and take a specific tunnel, at which point it was almost a straight shot on to what Thorax called “the queen’s sanctum,” within which was the throne room. And it wasn’t too much longer before they arrived at that junction, smaller than they were expecting given its apparent importance, but clearly a well-worn one nonetheless. They proceeded into it cautiously in case there were other changelings traveling through, but found the way immediately ahead of them empty of life as usual, to their relief.
Regardless, Thorax still had to stop in the middle of the junction, a glare forming on his face. “Oh, of course they did,” he griped under his breath.
Not quite softly enough to not be heard by the others. “Do what?” Ember asked.
Thorax grumpily threw out a hoof ahead of them. “How many tunnel entrances do you see directly ahead of us?” he asked.
The others looked ahead, uncertain. For all they knew, there could be more than what they were seeing, they just didn’t have entrances actually physically open yet, considering it had been well established by now that such entrances tended to appear and disappear at what seemed like random. Nonetheless, Trixie tentatively hazarded to guess judging from what she saw. “…three?”
“Exactly,” Thorax replied with a frown. “There normally were four, with that fourth being such a heavily used one that I can’t possibly see what the need to seal it off would be. But they have!” he motioned at a stretch of blank wall that sat between two entrances. “They’ve sealed off the entrance to that tunnel entirely, probably moving it to somewhere further ahead for all I know, but of course, that was the tunnel we wanted to take.”
Starlight perked up in alarm at that. “Is that going to cause us problems?” she asked, concerned.
Thorax rubbed his forehead and waved a hoof distractedly at the tunnel sitting immediately adjacent to the spot the missing tunnel had originally begun. “Not too much, we’ll have to take a longer, more roundabout, route with that tunnel instead, but it should still connect up with the tunnel we want further ahead and we can just slip into it then.” he rolled his solid blue eyes. “Unless they’ve arbitrarily changed that too.”
“You sound very frustrated by this,” Ember noted aloud as they all continued into the tunnel Thorax had indicated.
“Well, it certainly doesn’t help my attempts to navigate us to where we need to go,” Thorax pointed out. “But a lot of these changes also seem so…without rhyme or reason, almost random and without purpose, at least none that I have been able to figure out.”
“Well they can’t have done it without some reason,” Trixie reasoned as they walked.
And soon, the reason started to become clear, as after heading down this tunnel for some feet, they started to hear a distinct sound, growing louder, and coming from somewhere ahead of them.
“You guys all hear that, right?” Spike asked nervously.
“It…sounds like stomping,” Starlight said, her brow furrowed as she attempted to identify it.
“No,” Ember corrected, blinking in surprise. “Not stomping…it’s marching.”
They started to near a side-opening that led into a chamber running along the side of the tunnel, which Thorax pointed to. “It’s coming from in there,” he observed, and shifted course to take a cautious peek. The others followed.
The doorway lead out onto a small ledge that overlooked the chamber beyond, and that room was expansive, equivalent in size to a large amphitheater that could seat hundreds, but instead of that, it housed more changelings than they could count, most to all were wearing armor, and were either marching in formation, stockpiling supplies, or conducting drills of some sort while clear authority figures shouted out orders in the changeling language. Unseen from their peeking spot, the five intruders stared at the sight for a long moment in silence, processing just what it was they had found.
“Well, now I know why they sealed off that tunnel,” Thorax muttered to himself. “It would’ve run right through the middle of things if they didn’t. They sealed it off so they could build all of…this.”
“What is this?” Trixie breathed, awestruck by the sight. “Are they…practicing for some event, or…”
“No, no, they’re troops,” Ember realized, chilled. “They’re training troops.”
“Look at them all!” Spike declared in a harsh whisper, fear sounding in his voice, enough that Thorax had to sniff the air and make sure the scent of that fear wasn’t growing too noticeable. “They must have hundreds in here, enough for an army!”
“That’s gotta be what it is,” Starlight said, starting to catch on. “There’re enough forces here that—it’s like the army that tried to invade Canterlot.”
“No,” Thorax retorted sternly. “This is far larger than that force. The force that attacked Canterlot was only about a third of the hive’s total population at the time at most…this seems closer to double that, if not as much as two-thirds of the hive’s population…and this might not even be all of them that they’re training at the moment.”
Spike felt his breath catch in his throat. “You could invade whole countries with an army like that.”
“I think that’s the idea,” Starlight concluded grimly. She glanced at Thorax. “I’m guessing Chrysalis really isn’t going to be content with just conquering Equestria after all.”
A scowl had started to form on Thorax’s face as he stared down at the army in training. “I’m starting to think she never planned to in the first place.”
Hopefully the intrigue is slowly increasing with this chapter. Figured I might as well try and subtly up the stakes of the changeling invasion scenario a little while I was at it.
We've discussed the details of changeling telepathy before, and as such I worked to try and keep it a brief summary here, but I still felt it was a subject worth addressing, especially seeing that Starlight would surely be aware by now of Twilight's theories on the matter and might have had a little red flag go up that needed taken back down again. The real chief point of all that though was to try and convey that it was no little thing Thorax deciding to forge a link with Trixie like he did there, and just how much trust he truly shows in her in opting to do so like that.
There was going to be a small scene in which Thorax briefly discusses various sorts of solid food "appetizers" that are also served to changelings with pouches of emotion, including a wedge of changeling cheese that he quickly downs, but it felt out of place in comparison to the tone of the rest of the scene, and I figured the more action-driven readers among us wouldn't mind me getting to the chief points that much sooner.
Originally I had plans for Chrysalis's secret stash to contain chiefly fellow changelings (implied to be dissenters like Thorax later in the story) as prey, along with an implication that she was feeding on not just positive emotions, but negative emotions as well, which as you may recall is not a healthy practice for a changeling to do...but I then decided that was demonizing her a little too much, so I toned it back a little.
In other news, to show how far ahead in writing I am not...I have been busy writing what we will call for now as "The Climax." 
Stats
Page generated in 0.068 seconds
Total duration
1,094 users online
2,096,897 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
So the odds of them encountering Pharynx is slim?
oh shit
You know, I feel like if the party had -really- wanted to cause questions to be raised, they would have tried to dispel the magic illusion wall leading to the Queen's hidden stockpile. Yes, it might have alerted the hive that something was going on, but the whole 'why is there a secret chamber here full of prey that is being overfed on that can only be unlocked by a royal doing here?!" would almost certainly cause some serious shockwaves.
Considering that something clearly breached the hidden chamber to bypass the sealed door, I don't think the Queen would be able to save face by claiming that she was opening up a hidden stockpile of food for the good of the hive either...
Then again, causing strife in the hive is less important then getting the pony royals out.
8529012
He's probably there somewhere, but as this takes place before he was important, he may not actually show up. Maybe a brief cameo but that is likely it
This scenario with the changlings troops is pretty chilling. Up until now it was assumed Chrysalis was just going to secretly control Equestria and later other nations with their populaces unawares.
This gives me the terrifying thought that perhaps her real plan is to outright capture the populace in large swaths and use them as an eternal food source. A whole continent of nothing but changlings and food.
Oh boy. This is not good at all. Here's hoping they can dodge this giant problem and save the day.
Well damn. This is getting real creepy real quick.
From the way you made it sound it would have been funny.... And as one of those one of those more action-driven readers I must lightly protest.
A bit of levity would have been fine and would have broken the tension a bit without damaging the tone or pacing... My issue was always the transition from SOL to adventure being a bit choppy.
On that note the last few chapters have been perfect... I am so tempted to do the whole cliched fake Italian perfecto kiss the tips of my fingers routine but... then again it could come off like this:
8529042
oh shit indeed
I was so sure that there would be just a bunch of chocolate behind her secret door
Starlight I'm pretty sure you'd never be able to muster a force big enough to invade a country in just one room. Even if said room is massive, and can hold, say, 10,000 soldiers that isn't anywhere near enough. Even if equestria doesn't have an army, and is caught completely unawares you'd never be able to occupy the entirety of the country to the point were you could prevent an uprising. As an example in December of 1941 100,000 German troops occupied France. Good luck occupying equestria with 10% of that, and attacking other countries whilst doing that.
8529389
I was betting on Daring Do novels. Chrysalis as a closet fangirl is too funny to pass off.
8529012
The thing about Pharynx is that he was introduced in the show well after I had conceived and developed much of this part of the story, and I'm still working out if there's any way to try and implement him into the tale, or if it'd even be wise for me to try. Even if he did appear, it's likely not to be a very big or significant role, probably amounting to not much more than a cameo appearance, so yes, it is looking likely that he probably won't appear at all (though he might still get mentioned by name at some point--we'll see). There's admittedly not a lot about this that I can discuss right now without in some way spoiling the story, so it'll probably have to be a topic to discuss why or why not later on.
8529086
Indeed, their intentions at the moment isn't so much to start a revolution within the changeling hive but rather get in and get out rescuing their captured friends without getting caught themselves, so it was deliberate that they didn't dwell on ways of possibly revealing this to the rest of the hive at present.
Though to be sure, you certainly haven't heard the last of the matter.
8529244
You'd think it would be, but I just kept coming back to that scene and thinking "this feels all out of place" and finally just cut it out. Though the spot where it had sat left what feels to me a somewhat abrupt change in subjects (at least to me, so it's probably just me), I think it was ultimately a good call to make, tone-wise.
I'm a bit of a "writing pack rat" though, meaning things I cut out from something I often try to keep intact and hang onto in case I decide to put it back or find another spot in the story I could fit it in, so the scene wasn't deleted per se, just removed from the context of the story. Since some readers have shown interest about these deleted scenes, I might come back after the story's over and post something chronicling deleted scenes such as this.
8529389
It wouldn't at all surprise me if she's got some other secret room somewhere else in the hive filled with nothing but chocolate, actually.
8529418
I won't deny that I am probably exaggerating things slightly for dramatic effect, but given the direction the story's ultimately going to go, I don't think it'll prove to be anything crippling by the end of it, so I don't feel a need to loose sleep over it for now.
8529659
I understand completely... I've had to cut scenes like that so for the same reasons...
yeah I know the feeling I have had tons of those but unlike you I did not save most of them over time... mainly because most are not really in a 'finished state' or I'm like what in the world was I trying to write because they are snippets that I don't remember the context for...
I would be interested in a either a bones chapter after the end with all the deleted scenes or a blog post...
At some point Spike was described as to trot off. Dragons are bipeds for the most part, they don't do trotting...
Also - Good Job, Trix. Try changeling spellcasting next time.
8529781
"Trot" is a valid word to use for reference to any creature moving at a gait between a walk on a run, whether it be pony, human, or in this case, dragon. It is not specific to any one species. That would be discriminatory.
8529978
I though more of it beeing descriptive of a quadpedal sort of locomotion but maybe english considers trot in a diffrent way than my first language where you have a clear distinction between quadpedal and bipedal pace names where mistaking one with the other is an unfunny joke at best or an open insult at worst.
In fact - google translate clearly states it beeing discriptive of quadpedal movement as it speaks of using 2 pairs of legs diagonally.
Cool chapter
8530168
Well, I suppose more technically "trot" in English has more than one usage--one version in reference to the type of gait a horse can be trained to do, and a more general version that is basically just a synonym for a light jog (which basically is what a trot is), so it depends entirely on how you use the word.
But English is quirky like that.
8530349
I dunno. It makes it feel like the story is told from the pony perspective and even if this bit is more personalised toward Trixie's point of wiew, Thorax and Spike are still the main Protagonists. I have a strong feeling that this trotting shouldn't be there - enought to remember and comment abaut it.
How you decide abaut it is up to you.
8530434
Well, if you recall Spike was raised by ponies so he would probably use pony words more.
8531965
I feel he might fight old habits after Twilight.
8532089
Assuming it was brought on by such a habit, you presume he's even conscious of it. In my experience, most linguistical quirks such as this are usually spoken without realizing it or necessarily meaning to, and I could easily see such a commonly-used word (in their world) being easily overlooked and spoken without thought.
This is neat, it took me 2 days to read all of this in one sitting, do I get a cookie?
8532849
d111vui60acwyt.cloudfront.net/product_photos/33961854/smart_20cookie_20pic_20copy_original.jpg
well horseapples this just turned upside down fast.
our little band of heroes are going to have a hard time dealing with this.
Oh my :x
THE CLIMAX!!!
Lol, I've been dying for this momment!!! Yay!
It keeps getting more and more interesting
8529389
That would somehow make her similar to Celestia!
That ending gave me serious Star Wars vibes.
Now I know I'm way late with this but as I was reading this chapter, I kept hearing this music in my head as I read about them traversing the Hive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VER0ce9_jXY
Sometimes changelings and ponies are easy to confuse.
At the changelings, because they had captured the dragons, or at the dragons, because they had let themselves get captured?
If the queen fails the hive, the whole hive will fail.
Reminds me of this one (including the music):
Good chapter!
Especially the ending scene gave me some chills.
8532089
What, because he got his pwecious wittle feewings huwt?
The discovery of that army and Thorax's last statement made me think this;
What
?!
He never got a say in it anyways