Innocence Once Lost

by Scorched Earth

Payback time

Proofreader/editor: xoids

The convoy was moving slowly down the road. Two new vehicles sent from the moon were evenly paced, with troops marching between them. Some of the luckier ones had managed to climb into or on top of the machines and were thus spared marching. The convoy was currently taking the main assault force to their entrance tunnel, where they would move underground, meet up with diamond dogs that had set up a perimeter, and prepare to create a diversion. Meanwhile, the second unit would prepare to strike against the hive itself.

Although the new vehicles were appreciated by the troops, they still had several problems. First being that one of them had broken before they had even started. Apparently something was wrong with its engine. Second being that engineers down on the surface had no idea what, so they had sent it back to the moon for repairs. There were other, smaller problems, such as drivers not really handling their new vehicles and the suspension being busted. Apparently, engineers back on the moon had not thought that the APCs’ suspension—optimized for lunar gravity and the lunar landscape—might fare poorly under surface conditions.

The convoy stopped as it arrived to a hole in the ground, made by diamond dogs. Dogs had their unit ready to move in. They had arrived earlier to make sure that way down to the tunnels was clear.

“Alright. Get down there. Once everyone is down in the tunnels, you’ve got a thirty-minute break. Then we’ll begin the operation.” Came a shout from the front. The zebra legate was shouting general orders. Other commanders relayed the orders down on the convoy and troops began to unload from the APCs. They would not be of any use underground, so they would return to the closest military base.

It was not a very large army, certainly smaller than the one that had headed to San Palomino desert. However, it didn’t need to be large. The confines of the tunnels mitigated much of the changelings’ numbers, choke-points would funnel them toward a combined army that would simply fill the tunnels with bullets. Griffins, ponies, and zebras would take care of any changelings that would be able to get through the killzones.

They also didn’t need to kill every changeling. Just hold long enough for the others to achieve their goal.

---

Meanwhile, at the other end of the tunnel network, a small group was moving through a tunnel. The Elements of Harmony, their strange new “assistants”: Spike who was helping Rarity, Queen Chrysalis, and SOG-9—a human spec ops unit—were moving through the tunnel.

There had been a rather big fight whether or not she would be allowed to come, with Spike demanding he should be allowed to come too. Twilight had refused to allow Spike to come, but had relented eventually under the cold logic of others. Mainly that Rarity was largely helpless on her own and others could not look after her that easily.

Their point man raised his hand. The group stopped. After a while, the commander of the unit moved forward and took a quick look around, before turning back to others.

“Alright, about an hour now. Sit tight, make as little noise as you can. As soon as we get confirmation that the enemy has been engaged, we move in. Understood?” Nods and “affirmatives” signaled that the orders were understood. “Good. I don’t know why the command ordered us to take you all, the more people we have more likely we are going to get caught, but they don’t pay me for thinking.” He said and turned away. The ponies were situated a little bit away from the humans, who set down to make final adjustments to their gear.

“Thanks. For agreeing to this.” Chrysalis said.

“I still think we should have just torched the place… but orders are orders. Command says we’re to cover you and the Elements en route to their queen.” One of the humans said, before walking away. Chrysalis sighed and shook her head.

“They might grumble, but they will help us. Humans are master of doing things they don’t want to.” Twilight said in response. “So… what can we expect to meet?”

“If everything goes according to the plan, most of the hive will be fighting the main attack force. We will take a route through the nursery and spawning chambers, which connects to food storage. After that, it’s one of the sleeping quarters. From there, it’s a quick dash through tunnels and we should reach the queen’s chambers.” Chrysalis said. “If all goes well, we will catch the usurper by surprise, before she can realize what’s going on. Now excuse me, I need to talk with the humans about the route.”

“Mind if Ah ask why we all are there? Shouldn’t some of us be with the diversion force?” Applejack’s double asked. Twilight took a quick look around, before turning to others.

“Girls, keep eye on humans. Make sure they don’t listen in.” Others nodded and took place slightly away from the group. Except Rarity, who stayed with Twilight. “What I am about to tell you, is to remain between us. Understand? This is a national secret. I would not otherwise tell you, but clearly the REMFs didn’t think this plan through.”

“REMFs?” Rainbow Dash’s double asked. That caused one of humans to raise his head and, despite wearing face covering mask, they could feel his confusion. Him tilting his head helped too. Still, he soon lost interest and returned to his task.

“I explain some other time. Now… the big secret.” Twilight took a look around. She made sure that humans and Chrysalis were far enough not to hear and then whispered. “The truth is… the girls and I can’t use the Elements of Harmony well anymore.”

“WHA-” Applejack’s double was about to shout when Spike clamped his hand over her mouth.

“Ssh.” Spike hissed. A human turned to look at them, at which point Spike raised his voice slightly. “You’ll reveal us to the hive.” A lie, but convincing enough for the human to return to his task, which appeared to be gun maintenance. Spike then lowered his voice to a whisper. “Nobody is allowed to know about this. Only the Princesses know about this. Ponies have… disappeared for learning this. It’s that big a thing. No-one is allowed to know.”

“But… how?” Twilight’s double asked in a whisper.

“It’s because of how we used them; when we used them against humans, we used them to hurt. It’s not enough to ‘be’ the element, you need be pure of soul or something like that. The ancient texts were not very clear about them and translating them was more or less hit and miss.” Twilight answered. “We can still tap into them, but the effects are… not very strong. What we are about to pull… is something that might not be possible. That’s why you are here. If we fail, you need to step in. We can’t allow this to fail. Too much is riding on this.”

“To… hurt?” Fluttershy’s double asked meekly. Rarity answered this time.

“You see… when you fight a war… a real war… it’s not enough to just defend what you have. To quote one of the guards I met during that time, you don’t win wars by dying for your loved ones. You win by making the enemy die for his.” She said with regret in her voice. “At first… we concentrated on simply defending, keeping our troops safe. Yet, in the end… we had to use the Elements to cast offensive spells. The Elements didn’t take to offensive spells well.”

“With Discord, they didn’t care because Discord was why they were created. However, whoever created the Elements added a failsafe, to prevent them from being used for evil.” Twilight continued. “Luckily, in our case, the Elements got… confused, for the lack of better term, and are still bound to us. However, we can’t tap into their full power.”

---

Kommandant Dreich took a quick look at his clock, before turning to other commanders that were leading the diversion unit.

“It’s time.”

“Right.” The human commander muttered, raising his hand to his helmet to activate the comm. system. “This is the band, the party begins in five. Confirm.”

---

“This is the dance troupe, solid copy. Preparing for the dance.” A human said to his comm. system. “Alright, they are starting now. Get ready to move out. Wong, Gracia, you’re on point. Freich, Jones, you take the rear. Rest of you, form up on me.”

“This is going to be bad, isn’t it?” Applejack asked.

“Hmm… We are going inside a changeling hive, that obeys Discord, is filled with changelings, and houses an insanely powerful queen. Nope, can’t see how this could go wrong.” Rainbow Dash said with a sarcastic smirk. Applejack just shook her head.

“Right, you six, try to keep yourself safe.” Twilight said to their doubles. The humans didn’t know the truth about them, at least she didn’t think so. The human government was without a doubt aware of them, but the soldiers might not be aware who they were. “I know you’ve got experience when changelings attacked Canterlot, but this won’t be anything like that.”

“Hey, we know how to take care of ourselves!” Rainbow Dash’s double said with irritation in her voice.

“Miss, Double Dash, could you please keep your voice down? Thank you very much.” Came an irritated voice of a human.

“On scale between 1 and 10, how bad?” Applejack continued.

“I guess this is going to end up there with Las Pegasus or Ponyville.” Twilight answered.

“You guys are taking this way too seriously. You sound like this is going to be some sort of horrible fight, instead of infiltration mission.” Twilight’s double said, only to have rest of the Elements of Harmony turns and give her an unamused look. “Right?” She said much more meekly.

“Darling, let me put it this way. If I could choose between getting there and having my eyesight back, or going back to Ponyville without my eyesight, I would be on my way now.” Rarity said, with Spike giving his nod.

“Pipe down over there, we are near the hive.” Hissed Chrysalis. “Now we just need to wait until the hive realizes it’s under attack.”

---

“The troops are ready.” A Royal Guard captain said.

“Very well.” His dog counterpart acknowledged, reaching for a radio. “You hear me boys? It’s time to horribly, horribly murder some changelings.”

“Roger that. Going to horribly, horribly murder some changelings.” Came the response. The dog commander gave the radio back to the comm. officer before grabbing his rifle and pointing it at the direction where the changelings would come from.

Soon, explosion rang from the other end of the tunnel, followed by three very fast moving dogs. Five seconds later, they could hear changelings rushing through the tunnel, ready to strike down whatever had dared to hurt the hive. It started with with only few changelings, most likely only the local sentries. They were easily gunned down. Three escaped, as was planned.

Those three warned rest of the hive that the tunnels were filled with the enemies. This lead to hive setting itself in “emergency state”, leading to every able bodied changeling moving to attack the enemy. A single thought ran through the hivemind: “Protect the hive at all costs.”

When the first group rushed into the tunnel the enemies had been seen, they were met with a hail of bullets and arrows. Realizing that rushing straight into this “Wall of Death” would be suicide, the changeling swarm sought out other tunnels… only meet similar set ups. As the hive tried to debate among itself the best way to deal with this threat, a single voice overrode everything.

“We do not care how many you lose. Go and slay them. You have the numbers.” The voice of the new queen said. Not really having any way to oppose her will, the swarm threw itself into a suicidal assault, hoping that the enemy would run out of arrows and bullets before the hive would run out of drones and soldiers.

---

“It’s started.” Chrysalis said, although not really needing to say so. When a changeling hive would enter emergency state, you could hear it. Sudden buzz as every drone and soldier would rush out to strike down the enemy. “We better wait for a moment for them to move out. We don’t want to walk into them when they are moving. There will be a small number of drones left behind as a rearguard, but the main force will be attacking the biggest threat.”

Others simply nodded, deciding to trust the only one with any idea how a changeling hive worked. They could hear the faint echoes of gunshots.

Spike walked up to Twilight. “You think they can handle this? I mean… once these humans start killing changelings, can we be sure your doubles can keep their cool?” He asked.

“…I’m not sure. I hope we can get this done as fast as possible and minimal violence. Less they see, the better.” She said. Spike nodded, not really having anything to add. The group waited for few more minutes before Chrysalis signaled them to move. Chrysalis lead them down the tunnel, before suddenly stopping to look at another tunnel.

“Strange… this tunnel was not here the last time I was here. Did the usurper open it? If so… why?”

“You can find out later.” snapped one human, “Right now, we’ve got a job to do. Our people are putting their lives in danger for this.” The Elements grimaced slightly. They had dealt with all kinds of humans over the years, thanks to being national heroes. Not to mention valuable military assets, as much as the Princesses hated to use the term.

Apart from Twilight they had not, however, met a real xenophobic human yet. Members of SOG-9 were clearly human supremacists, who worked with non-humans only because they were ordered, and grudgingly at that. ‘Soldiers first, humans second,’ they said. Still, hearing them resent the current course of plan was not something they liked hearing. Mainly because it made them sound like they wanted nothing more than to shoot them and go ahead with the “kill everything that moves” plan as originally devised.

---

The swarm kept coming through the tunnels, forcing the long range fighters to switch to more controlled shots. This mean that some changelings would inevitably reach to combat troops. That was why there were melee warriors, such as earth ponies and zebras. Griffins and dogs were able to do melee fighting too, whereas humans were simply not equipped to do so. When even the simplest rupture in their suit would kill them, if the talisman failed or was damaged, it behooves soldiers to avoid melee combat.

One thing that the attackers found curious was the the fact that the tunnels didn’t fill up. Sure, changelings died and dropped down. They couldn’t just rush them like they had done in San Palomino. Yet… the tunnels didn’t fill up. It was weird, but apparently the changelings were pulling their dead and wounded out of the tunnels. For what reason was anyone's guess.

So far they were holding pretty well. They were well stocked on ammo and any changeling that managed to slip by was consistently taken out by melee fighters. Still, everyone was thinking the same thing: What was taking the infiltration group so long?

---

“Alright, the next chamber should be spawning chamber… if we are lucky, nobody will attack us as long as we don’t threaten the broodmothers.” Chrysalis said as they approached the end of the tunnel.

They emerged in a large cave, or chamber as Chrysalis called. There were few drones buzzing around, hissing at them, but they seemed to be more content on remaining near the large, almost larvae like creatures. These creatures were in small alcoves in the walls. Sometimes a drone would fly up to them and emerge with a small egg. Twilight’s double tried to do a quick counting on how many of these “broodmothers” there were. However, Chrysalis beat her to it.

“Only four? Where are four others? There are supposed to be eight.” She said, a shock evident in her voice.

“What are those things?” Applejack’s double asked.

“Broodmothers.” Chrysalis answered as she lead the group. “Final stage of a queen. Once a queen grows old enough, we go through a metamorphosis and become broodmothers. Each one is a former queen, who grew too old to lead. The hive served them once and now they serve the hive.” Chrysalis continued, looking at them. She knew her time was not anytime soon, but she still didn’t want to be reminded of her future. It was one of the things she had hoped from her attack against Canterlot. To find a way to avoid such fate.

“First thing a new broodmother does, is to spawn a new queen. Queens grow fast, so they can assume leadership. We also gain some of the memories, not all, mind you, but some memories of our mothers.”

“What if a queen dies before she can?” Twilight’s double asked, earning a glare from Chrysalis.

“Then either another queen will arrive and claim rule of the hive or one of the broodmothers will, under instinctive or subconscious pressure, spawn a new queen. I have heard stories of two broodmothers spawning queens at the same time, but that’s rare.” The group continued along the chamber, moving towards the exit.

“Strange that they haven’t warned rest of the hive…” Rainbow Dash said.

“Yeah, you would think they would have called everyone here, if these creatures are so important.” Spike supplied.

“These drones are… bound to the broodmothers. They don’t answer to the queen. Broodmothers themselves, nobody is really sure if they are capable of conscious thought or not. I never felt their voice in the hivemind.”

“I know all this is all nice and fancy, but don’t we have a queen to kill?” A human said. “You can discuss bugs when we have done our job.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree; the sooner we take care of this dreadful business, sooner we can return to the surface.” Rarity said. Being underground surrounded by insectoid creatures was not something she was overjoyed about. The other Rarity was current jealous that her double didn’t have to see the giant bugs. She had to make a conscious effort to not to look at them.

The exit lead them to another small tunnel, before leading them to other chamber. This one had several small chambers, some of enclosed in green goo, whereas others had a small changelings in them and looked them curiously.

“Aww, they are so cute!” Pinkie Pie said.

“Little nymphs. They spend first half of their life here, growing up and learning basics of being a changeling.” Chrysalis said as they walked through the hall. Sometimes a drone buzzed past them, to deposit an egg into an empty alcove.

“They don’t have horns or wings, I see. Do they get them later?” Spike asked.

“Yes. They can’t use any magic beyond simple feeding and basic illusion. Only after going metamorphosis, they get their wings and horns. You can see some of them having encased themselves in their cocoons already.”

“So we don’t need to worry they suddenly decide to suicide rush us? That’s good to know.” One of the humans said while keeping his gun pointed at the changelings.

The group continued their way across the chamber. So far, they had not encountered any resistance, apart when they ventured too close to nymphs. A drone would then arrive and try to scare them away, which they happily obliged. After making sure that the intruders weren’t a threat to little ones, it would buzz off to do whatever it was doing.

---

“Sitrep.” A human sergeant demanded as he ran to the front of the group.

“What?” A zebra centurion asked.

“Status report.”

“So far so good. they keep coming, we keep mowing them down. We lowered the amount of long range attacks we were doing and let them get into melee range, since we want to conserve ammo. We can hold up like this, but we want to make sure that if this goes south, we can at least hold them back.”

“Good thinking. I will tell the others to do the same. Any idea what those things are up to?”

“No idea they. They have been pretty much just throwing themselves at us so far. However, I bet they are just planning something.”

“True. this has been too easy so far. I will make sure you guys got a path to retreat and have the demolition charges ready. If we need to pull out, I’d rather have them not follow us.”

“Understood.”

---

“Alright. Now comes the hard part.” Chrysalis said as the group reached its next destination. “Beyond this tunnel are the sleeping quarters for the drones. If we are lucky, it’s empty. If we are not…”

“We have to deal with them in their home turf, with no way to retreat.” A human said. “Any idea if those others from beyond will join them?”

“I am not sure. I always made sure my hive was well hidden. I never had anyone attack it directly and memories I inherited spoke nothing of it.”

“Well, there is only one way to find out.” Rainbow Dash said.

“True. Gear up men. It’s time to wreck this place.”

“Get ready girls, this is going to be a bumpy ride.”

Comments

[Scorched Earth]

Well, here we go. Hopefully this will lead to a new, more stable "one chapter per week" schedule. However, due to certain events going on, the next chapter will be pushed to December, most likely. This time is used to edit and proofread the previously posted chapters.

[FastShadow78]

Ah good, a new chapter. Now I can finally sleep!