3. In Post-Undead Equestria, Loot Nabs YOU!
The group of them retired to a small meeting room in the castle where a group of servants prepared some tea and crumpets.
“Hm,” Pharynx said as he sipped his tea. “So this is where Thorax got the idea.”
They all gave him an inquisitive look.
“No changeling knew anything about tea, let alone how to make crumpets, but now it’s a thing every changeling has around 3:30. I should have figured he picked it up from his time in the Crystal Empire.”
“Oh… well, do you like them?” Cadance asked.
Pharynx sighed. “I do. I hate that I do, but that’s how the Hive is these days.” He took a crumpet and munched it thoughtfully. “Speaking of which, none of us really knew what ‘3:30’ meant when he was trying to get it started. The Hive’s first trade policy was literally started so we could get clocks so we’d know when to have tiny cakes and hot leaf juice.” He rubbed his face. “By the stars, we used to be one of the most feared races in all the land…”
Twilight cleared her throat. “So, about the mimics?” she urged.
Pharynx nodded. “Well, start by telling me what you know about them, and I’ll fill in the blank spots.”
Starlight raised her hoof. “Actually, now that you mention it, I know practically nothing about them,” she said. “With all the chaos and one almost eating Sunburst and everyone yelling about it, nopony’s actually explained what it is other than a monster that looks like a treasure chest.”
Sunburst winced. “Ah… sorry, Starlight, I should have taken the time to explain earlier,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Well, it’s a type of creature that takes the form of inanimate objects and when a pony gets too close to it or is fooled by its disguise, it eats them. Because they can't move very fast, they often spew a sticky substance that glues their victims to the spot so they can't escape.” He looked back at his bandaged flank. “I guess we learned about that part the hard way. Anyway, I’ve read about them looking like umbrellas or chairs or things like that, but most of them seem to like pretending to be boxes, especially treasure chests for some reason.”
“Oh, there’s a reason,” Pharynx said.
“Ah! I think I’ve read about this!” Twilight exclaimed, her eyes lighting up. “There aren’t many studies on mimics, but according to my research, mimics were designed by sorcerers to catch burglars, and so they made them look like the one thing that would be irresistible: a treasure chest!”
Pharynx nodded. “You have the right idea, both of you,” he said, “so let me fill you in on what you don’t know…
“For one thing, we changelings believe that mimics and we were descended from the same species,” he began. “We aren’t sure about our own origins, but we believe that either one species split off into our two species, or else the mimics were a group of changelings that broke away from the Hive themselves, and that’s how they inherited similar transformation powers to our own.
“Either way, though, some pony sorcerer over a thousand years ago experimented with them and used them as living traps, just like you said, Princess Twilight. But eventually they grew independent, rebelled from the sorcerer’s control, and started hunting on their own. Unfortunately, they kept their taste for flesh, and soon they were hiding all over Equestria, devouring unsuspecting ponies and then immediately resuming their disguises to patiently wait for their next victim.”
“Wait a minute,” Starlight said, furrowing her brow. “If they were free to hunt whatever they wanted, why stalk ponies? Wouldn’t it be easier to just pretend to be a tree or bush and stalk animals in the wild?”
“Ooh, ooh, ooh!” Twilight exclaimed, raising her hoof and waving it wildly.
“Are… are you waiting for me to call on you like some school filly?!” Pharynx asked.
Twilight froze. “Nnnoooo?” She slowly lowered her hoof, grinning sheepishly. “Anyway, Starlight, it’s believed that mimics are ‘sapiovores.’ They only eat intelligent, thinking creatures.”
“That’s correct,” Pharynx said, ignoring the satisfied grin on Twilight’s face, as though she were expecting a gold star. He then noticed the smug Sunburst wore. “And ‘intelligent, thinking creatures’ is relative to ordinary animals. A lot of their prey are merely foolhardy and reckless and blinded by curiosity.”
Sunburst lowered his head abashedly.
Satisfied with sufficiently dampening Sunburst’s mood, Pharynx smirked and carried on with his explanation. “In the same way changelings devour a pony’s love - or used to, that is - mimics feed on a pony’s greed. Their lust for riches, or even just their anticipation of treasure, gives their flesh a flavor that is irresistible to any mimic. They can eat any kind of flesh, of course, but it’s the greed that ‘seasons’ their meals.
“Ordinarily, they would have been fairly rare throughout Equestria… they live a long time, they don’t need to eat that much, and one meal every few years will keep them fed, since they conserve energy by remaining stationary.”
The others nodded along with his explanation.
“Okay, that all makes sense,” Starlight said. “But it doesn’t really sound like they were any real threat to the changelings. It’s not like changelings were that interested in treasure, so why are your species enemies?”
Pharynx drew in a breath. “How many of you are familiar with the Necromancer’s War of 210 CYP?” he asked.
Twilight and Sunburst raised their hooves as the others looked like history students caught off guard.
“Well, since it’s just the nerdiest among you, I’ll fill you in,” he said, ignoring Twilight and Sunburst’s obvious irritation. “The long and short of it is that a powerful necromancer raised an army of undead and waged war on Equestria about 800 years ago but was eventually defeated. Actually, a few of our kind secretly joined the fight… zombies feel no love, so it wasn’t exactly in our best interest to see our primary food source turned into a bunch of mindless, shambling corpses.”
“Oh my gosh, I could write an entire research paper about this!” Twilight bubbled. “Quick, does anypony have a notepad so I can write this down?!”
“Yes, yes, there will be time to answer your incessant questions later,” Pharynx continued. “Look, the point is that there were a lot of ruined lands that needed to be reconstructed and repopulated. Lots of abandoned towns with abandoned buildings and a sudden rush of ponies wanting to either salvage whatever was left behind or even try to move back in. And there were enough of them so if a few scavengers and homesteaders suddenly went missing under mysterious circumstances, it didn’t result in a particularly exhaustive search for the cause.”
“Of course!” Sunburst breathed. “Mimics love ruins, so they moved into the abandoned towns and fed off the ponies who came back after the war!”
“And by that time, there were enough well-fed mimics to easily blend in when the areas fully recovered. They could hide as ordinary objects in ponies’ houses for years… until they got hungry enough, that is.” He smirked and made a chomping noise that made them all flinch. “And this time, ponies took notice. A few mimics were found, and a panic started. It’s hard to go about your day when you’re terrified of any random thing in your house suddenly devouring you and your family.
“Which is where my kind finally comes back into the picture: ponies were so paranoid, they started erecting large magical fields across the nation designed to do one thing: nullify transformation magic so they could detect the mimics and get rid of them. The only problem was that it didn’t just detect mimics; it also detected us. Thanks to those mindless eating machines, our whole strategy was in jeopardy! They essentially were ruining things for the rest of us transformation-based hunters.
“The revealing spell was difficult to cast and maintain, but ponies were willing to keep it up as long as they felt threatened. Therefore, we changelings decided to eliminate that threat. The Great Mimic Hunts of Eld,” he said with enough pride for them to hear the capital letters in his voice, “united changelings like nothing else had before, and we swept across the land to take down every single one we could find. We even developed an innate ability to sense them when transformed… but they quickly did the same for us, and it wasn’t long until they developed an instinctive fear of changelings as their primary predator.
“Once we eliminated them all - or almost all of them, it seems - we snuck certain operatives into Equestria’s ranks to convince them that the danger was over and the revealing magic fields could be taken down. Over the years, the spell fell into disuse, allowing changelings to once again feed on the hapless, ignorant equines of Equestria.”
He wiped a wistful tear from his eye before noticing the sharp glares from the ponies around the table.
“Well, not that we feed on ponies now, of course,” he said. “And that’s good!” he added quickly. “But regardless, that should tell you everything you need to know about our shared history. With that out of the way,” he said, getting to his hooves, “I’d like to finish my business in your Empire and destroy that monster you’re keeping in your dungeon, if you don’t mind.”
“Hold on,” Cadance said. “Just because your species were enemies a long time ago doesn’t mean—”
“Ugh, this is a waste of time!” Pharynx shouted, slamming his chitinous hoof on the table. “Mimics rarely reproduce, but they can do so asexually… so leaving even ONE alive is a risk of their population bouncing back. They’re a threat to your species as well as mine, possibly moreso, so let’s do away with it and move on with our lives!”
“Pharynx, we appreciate what you’re talking about,” Shining Armor said, standing alongside his wife, “but even so, ponies don’t believe in killing a creature unless it’s absolutely necessary. And it's not just one creature, it's the last of an entire race!”
“Well, the Hive has determined that it is absolutely necessary!” he snapped. “But very well… I’ll give you 24 hours to change your minds about this. And if you still won’t see reason, then I will have to go back to my brother and report that our Equestrian ‘allies’ have sided with our mortal enemy.”
Cadance and Shining Armor looked to each other, exchanging an uneasy glance.
“You have 24 hours, ponies. Hopefully, you’ll have seen the light by then.” He spread his insectoid wings and took to the air with an audible buzzing. “Farewell!”
He his wings hummed as he flew to the nearest window… and smacked into the glass with a loud thwack.
Then he backed up and smacked into it a few more times. "What the—" Thwack! "I can see the outside there—" Thwack! "Bah! Maybe if I try a little higher—" Thwack!
"Do they not have glass windows in the Hive?" Twilight whispered to Starlight.
Thwack!
"No, no they do not," Starlight whispered back.
"Pharynx," Twilight said, "maybe we could—"
"No, no, I've got this figured out. I'll just—"
Thwack!
"Gah! If you ponies think I'll be—" Thwack! "—intimidated by your attempts to keep me here, then you are gravely—" Thwack! "—Dammit!"
After smacking into the window hard enough to daze himself and fall to the ground, Twilight finally used her magic to undo the latch and open the window for him.
With a grumble, Pharynx got up, shook his head, and flew out the window with what he hoped looked like dignity.
“24 hours,” Twilight breathed. “What should we do?”
“Well, this sounds like a Royalty decision,” Starlight said, clapping her hooves together decisively. “In the meantime, since we’ve got 24 hours to kill…”
Her horn lit up and a box suddenly appeared on the table, landing on it roughly as its contents rattled.
“...Who’s up for a game or two of Dragon Pit while we wait?” She grinned and looked at Sunburst expectantly.
“Starlight,” Sunburst groaned. “Just… no.”
“Ugh, fine,” she grumbled, sending the board game back to wherever she’d summoned it from. “Stupid international interspecies genocide is always ruining my vacation plans,” she muttered sulkily.
To be continued...
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(raises hand slowly) I have a question. Um... No, never mind. Some minor plot points deserve to just be hand-waved so the major plot points don't get overwhelmed.
You know, the mimic seems to be doing fairly well after eating Starburst's tail and most of his mane. Maybe they can be sustained by the end products (sorry) of barber shops, and kept in captivity as historical examples. Since they apparently don't require a breeding pair, just the one for now (behind glass) should do.
11772241
Well, now I'm just curious to see if I have an adequate backstory for whatever plot points you mean or if I'll have to make one up on the spot.
Ah, someone else mentioned this, so maybe this is on me, but the gag is that Sunburst and Starlight were covered with the mimic's glue-like slime in chapter 1. After the mimic was knocked out, Sunburst tried to pry himself free from the glue, giving himself the equivalent of, well...
...that.
So the mimic hasn't really been fed all that well... but Sunburst is probably going to need some professional floor cleaners to get his "leavings" scraped off the floor of his attic.
i’m guessing the agents snuck in were enthralled ponies
So that's why it didn't try to attack the guards.
For a short moment I was afraid this box may try to eat someone.
...Well, maybe later.
Good chapter!
I enjoyed reading it.
"You were also killed on sight when discovered in Equestria," noted Shining.
"Please. The only thing you ponies can execute is choreography. You couldn't even kill Thorax."
(Note: Wrote this before I saw later developments contradict it.)
This is quite the fascinating dilemma. Life is precious, but how precious is the life of an artificially created predator who feeds only on sapient life and has no ecological role? I suppose the question is whether the mimic can be reformed... and that's making a lot of assumptions about its ability to make complex moral and ethical decisions. Looking forward to seeing where this goes.