21: There's buggery afoot- ahoof- ahole.
Battlecry salutes, her deep voice not wavering under Eight’s death glare.
“You are welcome to join as well, queen. Same goes for any changelings you wish to bring.”
“Why aren’t you wearing armor like all other dwarves?” asks Eight.
“Most dwarves, queen,” Battlecry tilts her head and smiles at me without glancing Eight’s way, “Some of us would do anything to repay the king the freedom he stands for, and I mean anything. I am strong enough not to need to hide behind my armor all the time. My assistant here,” she nods to the dwarf with the fully loaded cart, “is hauling everything I might need during our session.”
“...did he bring a fucking shovel…?” grumbles Eight.
“Yes. Yes, he did,” Battlecry finally looks directly at Eight, “Although we normally don’t use those unless we’re fighting in more open spaces.”
Eight’s eye twitches.
She must know that no matter how astonishing Battlecry looks, how confident she is and, if Granite picked her for more than just to piss Eight off, how good of a fighter she is-
Oh… Eight senses how I feel about the dwarf. THAT’S why the sudden animosity. I guess our link is deepening quickly. That also means I can’t really do much about that, especially when I know Eight’s history of jealousy. The good part is that she eventually became friends with One, so there’s that hope.
I sigh.
Let’s just get this over with.
“Battlecry, lead the way. Eight, do you want to join?” I make my executive decision.
“Obviously,” Eight puts her hoof under her chin, giving Battlecry a cold, appraising stare, “I can’t leave you alone in the hooves of someone who’s seeing a changeling for the first time. Who knows what she might get into her head.”
As long as it’s not your eggs, I’m generally okay with whatever.
Battlecry leads the way through the castle to the lower floors. It’s still strange to walk through a multi-story building underground, especially when the rest of the city is flat like Battlecry’s stomach.
No, bad changeling! Stop staring at the dwarf booty swaying in front of you. Besides, she wouldn’t likely survive anything you did with Eight.
Sometimes I miss the days of being just a drone and not having to think about these things.
Soon, we enter a wider, open room without any decorations other than beige training dummies of various sizes made from some rubbery but firm material. Battlecry’s assistant starts unloading his equipment by the door while she picks various pieces up and begins putting them on. When it comes to the heavy boots for her hind legs, Battlecry winks at me and flicks her tail.
“King, mind helping me with those?”
“Heh, what sort of a fighter can’t put on their own armor?” sneers Eight, blocking my way immediately.
Battlecry shrugs, but I can see a spark of amusement in her eyes.
“It would be faster, that’s all. But if you want to go slow, I’m game too,” she plops her plot on the floor, and fastens the leather straps of her boots to fit right.
Is steam coming out of Eight’s ears? No, that can’t be it.
”You’re nailing both of them later, right?” Scream appears, sitting on the floor and stretching her forelegs.
”SCREAM? WHAT?!” Eight’s composure breaks completely, ”What are you-? STOP GIVING HIM IDEAS!”
”I didn’t hear you complaining when I gave him ideas while the two of you were gooping all over the cellar,” Scream retorts, grinning.
”...great, now how do I prevent a murder, or at least explain it convincingly…?”
”That was different!” Eight seems to have completely forgotten about Battlecry for a moment, ”Why are you here anyway?”
”Long story,” Scream shrugs dismissively, ”I’m busy, boss bug makes for some fun relaxation. Now back to my original question. Boss bug, you’re banging both that underground fleshlight and your berserking swiss cheese here, right?”
”We met like ten minutes ago, Scream,” I sigh.
”So… later?” she smiles at Eight whose eyes are now bulging, and despite it being biologically impossible, I think, there’s a vein throbbing on her forehead.
”You want fleshlight?! I’ll give you fleshlight. I’ll rip that fucking dwarf whore’s legs and head off, and pull her insides out through her asshole! Then you can wear her around your cock or whatever you want.”
She advances towards now suited up Battlecry who seems undisturbed by the visage of approaching death in the form of Eight.
”Holes damn it, Scream!” I facehoof.
”I always aim to please,” the alicorn beams.
“Eight, stop!” I say firmly. She freezes, waiting. Of course, if I tell her to back off completely, that will do nothing good for her bubbling jealousy, but I can’t just allow her to brutalize and likely sodomize the poor dwarf. I mean, Battlecry looks confident in her plate armor, but if I let Eight have a go at her like this, she’s basically just ketchup in a can.
“I’ll show you that there’s nothing about combat she can teach you that I can’t,” Eight growls, not moving an inch.
Battlecry cracks her neck. Judging by her expression, she obviously knows what’s going on and probably that I was checking her out all the way here. How to play this out so that no one gets hurt? Better yet, how to play this out so that I gain something out of this?
I smile. I might be a crappy fighter, but my decisions are for the betterment of my hive. That’s all.
“Eight, you are free to appraise Battlecry’s skill, but it will be skill, not strength,” I say. Both mares look at me.
“What do you mean, boss?”
“That this will be about technique Battlecry can teach us. I know that if you used love to fight like you usually do, with strength, dexterity, and toughness no one can match, this would be pointless. BUT we’re low on love-”
”I’ve got some grand ideas on how you three can refill afterw-” Scream opens her mouth.
-”SHUT UP!”-
Not. Now.
“-and so I want you to fight with only minor enhancements, and no in-combat transformation. Prepare all you need beforehoof. I am certain you will outclass Battlecry physically anyway, but if it’s possible she can help you in the skill department, I want to use her.”
“If I win, I will use her as an egg sack,” growls Eight, calming down a little. Green fire envelops her legs, and her traditional curved saw blades grow on the back of each.
“Awww, I was going to ask for that anyway,” chuckles Battlecry, matching Eight’s glare by licking her lips, “Now I’ve got an incentive to throw this fight,” with another laugh, she bonks her hoof against her helmet as if she recalled something, “Oh wait, not from you, but from the king.”
Eight is grinding her teeth, only waiting for my command to start the fight. Scream leans to my ear and whispers:
”Don’t flatter yourself too much, boss bug. While that dwarf cock sock IS interested in you somewhat, I can feel her lust or lack thereof, and she’s doing this mostly just to make punch bug go berserk.”
In a way, that’s actually good.
With a nod, I say:
“Alright, go for it.”
The dance of death begins.
Eight is still blindingly quick, and her punching hoof misses Battlecry so tightly her mane sways in the air. The dwarf seems to have expected it, and her reserved dodge is followed by a quick swing of the back end of her axe which bears a hook. She accurately threads the metal through a hole in Eight’s leg, and with a pull she leads the warrior along a line on three legs. A normal pony would stumble on all threes while being pulled forward by their fourth leg, but Eight is by far not one, and she’s way too used to close encounters of the pugilistic kind.
Against all force to the contrary, Eight simply stomps her caught foreleg down, tearing Battlecry’s axe off of its leather strap around her fetlock, making the much smaller dwarf by her side stumble. She follows it up with a wide swing of her other foreleg straight against Battlecry’s temple.
The dwarf thinks quickly, slipping under Eight’s, and ramming the spike on the top of her second axe into Eight’s belly. Eight’s secondary armor holds, but the spike sliding along still scores a deep scratch into Eight unarmored chitin on the lower part of her chest.
Said position, however, is perfect for Eight to steady herself on her legs, and punt Battlecry away. Even with her armor, the dwarf clearly wasn’t expecting that, and Eight immediately closes the kicked gap, raises her foreleg, and stomps down.
To Battlecry’s credit, even the shock of the situation didn’t make her drop her axe, which she now grabs with both forelegs, blade raised to meet Eight’s crater-making stomp.
Eight screams when her leg splits in half on the sharp edge, her own strength betraying her. Battlecry twists her hooves, and the agony makes Eight push herself off with three legs, and she lands on her side. As Eight jumps back up, her foreleg sealing up on the surface, Battlecry uses the moment of respite to dart forward for her previously lost second axe, and reattaches it to the damaged strap.
Eight isn’t bleeding anymore, and her foreleg is in one piece, but she’s limping and gasping heavily. Her love level hasn’t moved noticeably, so she’s abiding by the rules of using only the most basic abilities.
The two clash again and again, Eight now much more careful around Battlecry, blocking her strikes with the hardened blades on her legs rather than trying to take the blows and inflict more damage in return. Battlecry senses the change of pace as well, slowing the fight down now that she knows Eight has cooled down and isn’t going to get easily baited to eat a devastating counterattack.
“Hey, king,” Battlecry calls out, “How about you send this roided brute off to the gym so that the two of us can do some proper training.”
Eight doesn’t attack or react in any way, and Battlecry finally assesses it’s completely serious now.
After circling around each other for a while, it’s clear that Battlecry’s strength is defense, and it’s up to Eight to start something. First exchange of blows leaves Eight with a shallow scratch on her neck. She attacks over and over, measuring various approaches and Battlecry’s response. For some reason, though, it’s now Battlecry who is on the offensive, with Eight blocking the axe strikes with her reinforced leg blades.
As one swift duel ends, Battlecry drops one axe, and grabs a hammer from a belt around her barrel instead. Eight goes for another trade, and quickly regrets it when instead of eating another barely dangerous glancing blow from Battlecry, the dwarf goes for her leg instead of her neck. Battlecry reads the incoming swing completely, hooks Eight’s hole like in the beginning, but instead of trying to outmuscle the changeling, she lets Eight stomp the axe down while using her pirouette to slam down the hammer spinning around her other foreleg onto the chiting blades on the back of Eight’s held leg, shearing off all the jagged edges in one blow.
Eight screams and flails around in pain and panic, tossing Battlecry away. Is she… losing? The growing wounds are certainly making it look like it.
With one foreleg disarmed but regenerated into a usable degree, Eight begins her onslaught. While she looks like a rabid beast jumping around, biting the air, slashing everywhere, Battlecry is dancing, dodging, avoiding taking damage despite her heavy armor. Occasionally, she manages to counterattack the storm of teeth and sharp chitin that is Eight, leaving more and more bleeding scratches all over her chest, sides, and even one slashing the side of her mouth into a horrifying smile.
Eight doesn’t stop, though. She doesn’t even slow down. Battlecry, however, does.
”Damn, punch bug is smart!” Scream grins, ”Won’t take long.”
”She’s getting diced,” I say in disbelief, ”Should I let Eight go all out?”
”Only if you want to piss her off even more than on the off chance that she loses.”
”But she IS going to lose!”
”Shush, your green is showing. Punch bug realized she wouldn’t win if she fought like before, but she still has one insurmountable advantage over the dwarf, and she’ll win soon.”
Several trades leaving Eight with more bleeding gashes later, Battlecry, gasping for breath, quickly snaps her warhammer to the belt on her chest, and flicks her hoof in a way that reveals a thin slot in her foreleg armor and a tiny nozzle - a more advanced version of the standard dwarven flamethrower.
I hear the ‘whoosh!’ of the fuel igniting, but at that point, Eight is already standing in front of Battlecry, her previously mangled foreleg shoved right against the nozzle.
Everything goes red as an expanding ball of fire envelops the two, and I jump up to lend a helping hoof.
The fuel burns out quickly and with barely any smoke, revealing Battlecry crawling back up on all fours with Eight striding towards her like a smoldering, unstoppable menace, the ends of her mane and tail still burning.
Battlecry stands up, looks straight at Eight, then reaches for the strap of her helmet and takes it off. With a nod of one warrior to another, she says:
“I yield. Damn, I’m gonna have nightmares about this for-urk!” her eyes bulge when Eight grows claws on her foreleg, and drags Battlecry up by her neck to her eye height, armor or not.
“Eight!” I rush over. She lowers the choking dwarf back on all fours.
“You win,” says Eight, walks to a wall where she sits down, and starts focusing love to her repeatedly demolished foreleg for more than surface healing. This is more than vaguely similar to her fights with One. I was stupid to think Eight hasn’t changed in this regard. In my defense, she didn’t give me much reason against it.
Now freed, Battlecry quickly strips her armor off, peeling away the protective leather underlay which got baked by the explosion. She herself, however, is drenched with sweat and shaking, but otherwise only heavily bruised.
“King, if you don’t mind, I would ask you to postpone our practice for, let’s say, tomorrow. I’m exhausted, and I would feel bad not being an example and just telling you what to do. Despite my... arguable loss, however, I hope you will seek out my services anyway, as I still think I may be of use.”
“I told you you didn’t lose,” Eight raises her voice without looking at us, “Boss wanted this battle to be about technique and skill. Under those terms, I lost. I am faster, I am stronger, I am tougher than anyone else you will ever meet, but… I don’t know how to fight?”
Battlecry takes few steps towards Eight, but doesn’t approach her completely.
“With all due respect, you know perfectly what your weapons are, those blade legs and all, but you didn’t know what I could do. I believe some technique training with me could help even you, although I’d like to face you on full power. Have you thought about adding some long-range weapons to your repertoire?”
“No. I will fight with my hooves and my strength. If a… gadget wins for me, then I don’t deserve my rank.”
Battlecry simply nods.
“I disagree with that sentiment, but I can respect it. To me, victory achieved by any means for my city is still a victory as long as I don’t stab my enemy’s back in the dark. If they have a flamethrower, then I’m not going to force a melee fight.”
“If someone is foolish enough to pull out a flamethrower against my king, I will walk through inferno to shove my hoof through their skull, and the solid rock behind it.”
Battlecry smiles.
“You know, I believe you, and I apologize for my previous attempts at enraging you by teasing the king. Although I admit that I was only half joking. I heard some interesting rumors about changeling traits, which might be… attractive to certain kind of dwarf.”
I clear my throat, making them both look at me.
“Let’s leave the option of filling you with eggs for some other time, although I’m certain that if Eight had her way with you, the resulting brood of changeling warriors would be sexy, adorably tiny, and completely unstoppable. I know that the goal here was to teach ME how to use my skills effectively, but I’m also fully aware that my best defensive option is to have Eight as well-trained as possible. Would you mind if I add Five to the practice as well? She had interest in complex weapons, and classic changeling combat with Eight can’t hurt. Or, you know, maybe basic physical routine for everyone?”
“You’re not talking your way out of this,” Eight stands up, testing her restored leg and wincing, “Battlecry, get instructing. Once you get him in shape, I’m sure we can make all those bedroom rumors about us pale in comparison. You, boss, drop and give me fifty!”
***
“Heya, Seven,” Two waves at the reading changeling, visiting the library for the second time.
“Good to see you, Two,” Seven smiles back, his resting villain face brightening up instantly, “Are you up for some more practice?”
Two lets out a heavy sigh.
“Yeah...” she sits down on the carpet, raises her hoof, and conjures up a soft ball of warm light with ease. This is all she’s been able to do whenever she tried, and compared to simply enhancing her eyes to see in any darkness the light trick is completely worthless, “As it turns out, complex infiltrator abilities are even more difficult to figure out, and next to impossible without any expert around. Do you know how to control ponies with pheromones or voice or something else of that kind?”
Seven shakes his head, closing his book and levitating it onto the table.
“I’m afraid I don’t. There’s was next to no information about it in our hive mind, so I’ve always had to either bite dwarves or use magic. I know some hypnosis and suggestion spells, though. There’s a lot of books on the theory around. It’s kinda strange, really.”
“Hmmm?” Two looks up at him, “What is?”
“That a population reliant completely on technology would have a massive magic section in their library, and some of the more dangerous books contain what Eight warned me to avoid - tactical spells.”
“That doesn’t sound bad. What are those?”
“Supposedly, those are spells which require many unicorns to use, or alicorns themselves. They can level vast cities and ruin stretches of land, rendering them uninhabitable for centuries. I was curious so I read those, of course, but there’s no way I could use them so I’m trying to get better at complex spells that don’t require too much power instead. The ways of magic are indeed mysterious.”
“Well, I care more about the practical part of what I want to learn rather than theory and experimental potential,” Two pouts, “And as it turns out, nothing works. Magic? Poof! Mind control? Unless you’re a changeling or Topaz, I can yell at you all I want and nothing happens. Maybe Five was right, and I should only think ahead and try to predict bad stuff happening so that I can stop that beforehoof with a simple bite here and there?”
“Come on, Two,” Seven sits back down into his armchair, and pats lap. It takes Two a moment to understand, but she jump into it, and Seven wraps his forelegs around her, “If you don’t mind me saying, I think I know what your problem is.”
“That I was a useless egg that was left behind because my mother was right not to believe in me?” she grumbles.
“See? Sure, if you say it like that it sounds bad, but I was there when we moved directly into Brauheim, and it was nothing of that sort. Eight made a mistake. She panicked because she thought something happened to the boss.”
“Well, she could at least act like she regrets it.”
Seven shakes his head.
“Well, to be completely honest… she probably doesn’t. To her, we really were just tools to help her get to the boss.”
“How can you be so calm about that?!”
“I supposed that was just how things went, really,” Seven shrugs, “She made us, she was infinitely more powerful, so we did what she told us. It’s not as if she was sending us on suicide missions, and she gave us enough freedom to do what we wanted in our spare time. That’s how I ended up here.”
“I still don’t like her...”
“I doubt that she cares. On the other hole, boss seems to like you a lot.”
“Yeah, boss is awesome, but I’m worried that if he spends too much time with her, he’ll end up the same.”
She looks up at Seven’s chin when he chuckles and hugs her tighter.
“From what little I’ve spied through the hive links, it’s more the other way around. But you know, I think you’re too obsessed with her when you should be focusing on yourself. You’re trying to compare yourself to someone… someone really up there. That’s not going to work, and it’s obviously hurting you and only you. If it helps, Five felt the same way for the longest time.”
“Really? Flower Pot did?”
“Is that her official name now? Heh,” Seven scratches Two behind her ear, “Anyway, yes, she did. Unlike with me, Eight could train Five to use her skills properly, and shared knowledge with her. It didn’t go well, and Five came to the conclusion that since Eight was around, her only reason for existing was to to take a blow for one of us. I’ll tell you the same thing I told her - you should be comparing yourself only to yourself from yesterday, Two. If you made at least a tiny bit of progress, you’re a winner.”
The two sit in silence for some time, Seven rubbing Two’s belly while she cuddles against his own, until Two speaks up:
“Mind if I try something on you?”
“Nothing reckless, I hope.”
“I’ll be gentle,” Two closes her eyes, and in a moment Seven feels her mind inside his head.
He lets her gently touch his thoughts and memories, curious about what she’s doing. In comparison, as undisciplined as Two is, she could likely break through his mental defenses, so he’s only watching. As Two works through Seven’s memories, she leaves herself open as well, and Seven uses the opportunity and his limited skill to examine the surface of Two’s thoughts as well.
”Everyone, we’ve come to the conclusion that you should all join combat or physical training. Meet us at the castle gym. A dwarf mare called Battlecry will lead the session.”
The two changeling minds untangle, and Two perks up, rushing away between the shelves. Seven takes a deep breath, and mumbles:
“Outside… as myself… with a dwarf mare… oh boy...”
“Got it!” Two comes back trotting on three legs with a big book held in one foreleg.
“Hmm, got what?”
“I found out that you read a beginners book regarding hypnosis and mind control.”
“I know some spells for that. I can show you the practical side.”
“No no no no,” Two shakes her head vigorously as she opens the library door, “I wanted to know how and what those spells affect, and your memories of this book fit. I dunno, magic just doesn’t feel like the right thing to me, but if I know how things work, then I might figure out what I need to do with my body to control others.”
“Well, good luck with that,” Seven smiles, turning his head, “Wait! There! Who’s that?”
Two looks at the rather big backside now disappearing behind a distant corner.
“That wasn’t a dwarf!” she hisses, “Come on!”
The butt was at about head height for Eight, and grey with black stripes. Two is certain she’s never seen anything like that before. And no, it wasn’t any kind of armor, it was squishy. Another changeling?
”No, it wasn’t a changeling, or I can’t sense anyone around,” says Seven while quietly trotting ahead, ”I think I read about something similar. If it wasn’t paint, then it could have been a zebra!”
”What’s that?” asks Two, clearing the corner. The back half of a big, grey and black pony body disappears up a staircase.
”A kind of pony from deep south. They are grey with black stripes, and are the most similar to earthponies. What could one be doing here?”
Following the hoofsteps gets harder and harder, and eventually the two rushing changelings lose sight of… whatever… they were…
...what were they doing?
Two blinks, gasping for breath on the top floor of the castle. Seven, apparently in a worse physical condition, arrives shortly after.
“Umm, Seven… why are we here?” asks Two, looking into the empty and silent hallways, clearly puzzled.
The other infiltrator scratches his head.
“I’m… not sure. Must have had something to do with… with wanting to stretch our legs?”
“Hmmm,” Two furrows her brows, “Right, boss wanted us to do some physical exercise. I… I wanted to tell him about something… report to him that… that...”
Seven shakes his head. Did he fall asleep for a moment or something? All dizzy and everything. Probably lack of oxygen from all the galloping around.
“That we went for a run already, maybe? Sadly, I doubt that would save us from a training session.”
Two shrugs.
“I suppose so. Damn it, I finally found an interesting book and now I have to wait to read it because of orders.”
Seven laughs.
“HAH! Welcome to my world, Two.”
The two chuckle and head down, Seven explaining to Two how to levitate stuff properly so that she doesn’t have to limp on three legs.
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Sinister. A new faction?
Seven should get around to uploading his knowledge to the cloud for others to use as needed.
Three may be an entirely new class of Changeling, thinking of Warriors, Infiltrators, Casters, and Drones. Three is in tune with love as an integral part of himself and the world around him beyond a fuel. A love engine, manipulating and generating love energy in it's purest form for novel applications as pure love energy, instead of using it for strength, physiology, magic, or whatever forms of manipulation the Ruler class use. I think Three is going to earn his rank in due time. Unless you kill him and rip my heart out again you cruel monster.
In a similar vein, I've been meaning to mention that Boss' approach to his hive may prove to be the most powerful approach a changeling ruler can take. Because he cares about his subjects. He loves his subjects. And for a creature feuled by emotion and their ability to interact with it, this pure, selfless, uncorrupted care for his subjects sets him up a power tier from the rulers of the past. Having read "Hard to Find the Right Words" the difference between sincere love and stolen love is readily apparent. And Three's own affinity, combined with the capabilities Boss established back in "An Exercise in Management" when Three is killed for the first time, sets a precedent for how sincerely and deeply felt emotions effect a Changeling s powers and abilities in and of themselves. Both of these things fall in the Boss' favor with both his approach to harvesting, and his devotion to his hive (most notably Three, if only because there is no justifiable reason any one would ever hurt Three which could excuse the behavior and thus temper Boss' rage) fall in Boss' favor.
If anyone is foolish enough to come after Boss' hive, his family, they will be destroyed with a power that Changeling rulers haven't been able to tap into for millennium, pure, unadulterated rage feuled by love that anyone would hurt those he cares about. A feeling that likely no ruler since the very first has ever been able to experience in their selfish quest for power and revenge, to find it within themselves to truly care about their fellow Changelings, to have loved ones and ACT on it. This is the power Boss commands. He won't let anyone hurt him or his loved ones ever again if there is anything within his considerable power that he can do to stop them.
damn.... that moment when eight realizes that she still has room to improve. two is turning into a brain bug.... ooOOOooo.... battlecry realy needs to stop shaken dat booty. or someling might take advantage... and also, holly battleaxes batman! dwarf got skillz to pay all da bills...
all hail the booty!
9526349
Dun dun duuuunnn!
He needs to buy a better cloud subscription and a a data plan with unlimited upload.
He's the closest to what the show glitterbugs are, but I'm not making him green and sparkly. Besides, he would lose cup holders.
A good leader knows that the prosperity of his people is his own prosperity. It's as simple as that, and in today's political situation all over the world it makes sense that people often forget.
9526811
8 still has room to improve because she's never been 1. 2, better brain bug than brain slug. BC, the broodmother of mini-lings!
\o/ Praise da booty, hug da booty, be da booty! \o/
you keep referencing "laying eggs in the brain" and mentioned in EIM as a method of making infiltrators without infusing the nymph with love to physically change it. i was wondering about the mechanics of it. because to lay eggs in a brain you have to first penetrate the skull. i don't know the gestation cycle of changelings but a brain rots pretty fast once the subject dies and it is exposed to air so in order to make use of the grey matter, it would have to be absorbed by the egg as it grows, or consumed by the nymph just after it hatches. then there's the matter of accessing the brain without ruining it or making a hole large enough for it to leak out onto the floor. i suppose the method that comes to mind first is going up the nose as there is only a relatively thin barrier between the sinuses and the cranial cavity (this method is actually how the brain is removed during embalming) or you could go through the eye socket ( but you would still have to break through a thin layer of bone) then there is the mater of the changeling nymph escaping the skull after hatching. the skull is not like an egg. it is designed to hold itself together even while subjected to a surprising amount of force. then there the fact that a equine skull is quite a bit stronger then a human skull...
maybe i'm looking to far into this...
9528000
Shove ovipositor into the mouth, grow a spike there, and penetrate the soft top bit of the mouth, insert eggs, turn brain into much while pushing eggs out. Force love into eggs, make them change quickly into small larva and nom nutrients while fresh, then the larvae cocoon up, digest love and brain mush nutrition, and eventually emerge from cocoons as infiltrators.
For better details in a better story written by a far better author, read "The Reign of Queen Sparkle".
Oh god. Silence Zeeb.
9529647
Evil zeeb? Paladin zeeb? Evil paladin zeeb? Evil mind control paladin zeeb?
Isn't it too cold up north for them anyway?
Hrm... Someone, who you can't remember about when you don't see them? Sounds familiar. I can't remember...
9529647
Silence? What Silence? What are you talking about? And why do I have painted strips on my hands?
9528036
so... death by the blowjob from hell... at least you arnt aware of the larva in your skull... getting a spike inserted into your brain tends to interrupt its function. and why is eight so obsessed with this? i get the impression that this method of changeling creation has earned the bossling stamp of disapproval as it would go a fair distance toward completely obliterating all the work he has made towards changeling public perception of changelings. and i don't think eight would want to do that to bossling.
9530971
Jealousy. Jealousy. Jealousy. Intense.
9530570
I think it's the silents from dr. Who, but no.
This could be... mejik!
9531100
I know, but I just have bad sense of humor
So on top of super strength, speed and toughness, eight will get proper combat training huh?
I am getting more and more curious about their reunion with one and meeting with Celestia.
9538214
Technically, 8 will just gain more experience against non-changelings with varying weapons. Our warrior slut dwarf can't teach 8 much about how to improve her own combat style reliant on changeling-specific weapons or on what constitutes for hoof to hoof combat. For 8 to become absolutely monstrous, she would have to visit the Silver Sun and train under Cross and Antares (shameless Imbalanced world plug). Then I have no doubts she would eat any non-divine enemy for breakfast.
Yaaaay! Fouuuuuuur!!!! :D
It occurs to us how woefully empty the Hive Mind is. Such a tragedy in and of itself...
Again with the 'zeebutt that rules all minds' xD
11638959
One cheek to rule them all.