Extraterrestrial #51

by TundraStanza

Ch. 21: I Have A Plan - Attack!

---
"Mokuba, ready the thermal charges." ~Abridged Seto Kaiba

---{Cier's POV}

Smatterday

6:45 PM

Lounging Warehouse in Brooklyn

As it turned out, the rest of our makeshift Suicide Squad was resting in yet another section of the warehouse. I suppose with large enough sliders, a place can have all kinds of sections. Ninety-nine was nibbling on what looked like a protein bar. Thursday was eager to hop over and hug me. Neither Fifty-one nor I was completely comfortable with her particular touch, what with part of her being the changeling that had blasted our organs with magic on a regular basis.

Immanue was in a bit of a different state. When I found his spot, a small pillow had lodged itself into his mouth. He awoke with a muffled coughing fit before spitting the soft obstacle out. He patted his chest while clearing his throat. His eyes moved to look at me. I saw something a little more... serious.

"You look like spoiled chitin, Fifty-one." His voice sounded raspier.

Fifty-one took over and deadpanned. "Nice to see you too, Pharynx."

"Was the pillow your idea of a joke?" Pharynx glared.

"No, sir." Fifty-one held a hoof to the side. "It appears to be an effect that Discord inadvertently applied to signify the first time we shared a dream and control with our human... passengers, for lack of a better word."

That makes no sense at all. The telepathy sounded like Immanue again.

I forced a chuckle. "It's Discord. Making sense of his agenda is impossible." I glanced around. "Say... what happened to the changelings that were freed from Mab's control?"

Ninety-nine swallowed. "They're widely split on how to proceed. Some of them are in the next warehouse over, ready to take the fight to Discord once they have Queen Chrysalis's word. Others decided to flee, getting as far away from this city as possible."

"And there are a bunch that just want to sit by and watch," added Thursday. She shook her head, getting some mane hair over her pony-like eye. "I guess they had enough fighting when they were being controlled by a fake queen."

"Dumb cowards." Pharynx imitated the sound of a spit. "They're in too deep to not get involved. The things that happen during the next days will affect every last one of them."

"I don't think it's dumb." Ninety-nine shook his head. "They want to avoid making the same mistake of following a poser's fake hive mind. Holding a position gives less of a chance to mobilize and ruin things."

Pharynx slowly looked over at him. "Tch. How long have you been talking? I don't recall you being this chatty back at the hive."

"I got help growing a spine of sorts." Ninety-nine glanced over at me.

"Huh." Pharynx blinked. "I don't know if I like that."

Fifty-one ran his tongue over his left fang. "Like it or not, this world is changing all of us. We have to adapt if we want to survive in it long enough to get back home."

"You think I don't already know that?" Pharynx's wings buzzed slowly and emitted his scent of annoyance.

"He's talking to all of us, Pharynx," commented Thursday. "It's a general reminder."

"Hmph." Pharynx hopped off the couch and trotted around. "I'm going to work on debriefing the rest of the pack."

"Try to be gentle with them." Thursday leaned over and called out, "Most of them are being controlled by human minds."

"Whatever," he responded before trotting out of sight.

"Is he always this grumpy?" I tilted my head.

"Yes." Ninety-nine firmly nodded.

"Yes." Thursday hopped back onto a seat.

"Yes." Fifty-one rolled our eyes before sighing.

"And no one tried to cheer him up?" I rolled a hoof in the air.

Thursday massaged her temples. "From what Thirteen remembers, Pharynx was never the touchy-feely kind of changeling."

"Unless you count the times he teased his brother by making him hit himself," pointed out Ninety-nine while looking right at Thursday.

"After he roared away everyling else from a particular chamber," added Fifty-one. "Shape-shifted into a large monster form every time before doing that."

"I'm beginning to see why empathy was so hard to come by in your hive." I chuckled nervously.

Ninety-nine shrugged and his wings briefly buzzed. "We just ate love. We didn't start understanding it until we got dragged into this world."

"Yeah, I got that impression." I rubbed one hoof over the other front hoof.

----

Smatterday

7:30 PM

Some Warehouse in Brooklyn

Ericashy and James had left a few minutes ago after making sure everyone was settled. They had given us an address where they expected Nicole in Celestia's body to be set up when the Elements were all together and ready to start... whatever was meant to be done. The person bonded with Rarity was still missing in action. But with most of the bearers, their siblings, and Spike accounted for, she couldn't be too far off.

Meanwhile, I sort of sat back in my own mind while Fifty-one got reacquainted with the members of his hive that had chosen to stay. Numbers and names sort of flew over my head. In my not really staring into space, I imagined a place with stars above and a cavern floor under my hooves. This place was quiet, save for the distant conversation of changelings and their linked minds.

...

"What are you doing here all by yourself?"

My conscience turned and stared. "Who's asking?"

It looked like Ninety-nine. "Just a guy trying to survive in this unfair world."

I decided to guess it wasn't him. "I can only imagine what waking up and finding out you're in an alien body does to that perspective."

The other guy shrugged. "Still unfair, but with another food source added to the list of unfulfilled needs."

"Hmm." I kept my response to the short sound.

"You still haven't said what you're doing here." He sat down next to me.

I shook my head. "Everything I know about the changelings is second-hand information. Fifty-one would be better at interacting with them than I would."

"Come on, you're not living on the streets." He lightly tapped me on the side. "You can afford to chat lightly about pointless nothings. Most of these aliens have people in them too."

"I know, but... I'm not that great at just talking to people I don't know." I looked out at the imaginary space.

"Well... we don't know how long we'll be stuck like this." He grabbed some dust and let it float on some unseen wind. "Might as well make it comfy."

"You're certainly optimistic." I raised my nonexistent brow.

"I don't have a lot I can lose," he pointed out. "At worst, I break even no matter what happens."

I don't know why, but I chuckled right then.

"How about we start with each other?" He held out his hoof. "Name's Luxuri."

"Cier." I shook his hoof with my own.

The imaginary space faded away. The real room with real changelings came back into focus. I slowly pulled my hoof away from Ninety-nine's. I could still see Luxuri's kind gaze in his eyes. I blinked a couple of times.

That wasn't so bad, was it? asked Fifty-one via thought.

"How did you do that?" I muttered.

Hive mind, remember? He reached up our hoof and tapped his head. I can let the minds of other changelings and their proxies in and out.

"Oh." I moved the hoof he already had up to perform a face-hoof. "You think I'd be used to that by now."

To be fair, I don't have much control when someling like Queen Chrysalis wants a word. He smiled slightly. Say, why don't we go grab a bite from that snack pile over on the table?

My stomach decided to growl in agreement with the sentiment.

"Holy crud! I haven't eaten since breakfast!" My eyes widened before I made a dash for the food.

---

????

????

Lucid dream space

My black cloak flapped as I ran along rooftops. I summoned a couple of Kingdom Keys, then promptly transformed them into the Oathkeeper and Oblivion Keyblades. Thursday was jumping around in the same direction as I was going. I could see the yellow kunai knives in her grip. Ninety-nine was levitating a dark book next to him as he ran.

As for Pharynx, he had taken on the form of a giant gray spider. In addition to the expected limbs, he had several flying Nobodies at his side. Laser cannons were attached to his back. On top of that, he kept spitting acid, forcing us to constantly shift running patterns.

Thursday spun around, throwing a kunai at each of the floating Nobodies. She managed to destroy three, but the fourth one ducked and spun around. The motion smacked the cloaked changeling mare into a window, crashing through the glass and frame. Ninety-nine grunted and sent forth a trail of flying pages from his equipped book. The paper wrapped around the remaining Nobody, then promptly flattened it out into a well-illustrated picture.

I jumped around the spider's legs, slashing with one of my keys at each joint. The spider roared and shot lasers all over the place. I got hit a few times, but I still had some health to keep going. Ninety-nine held his book open in front of himself and cast a few Blizzard spells at the laser cannons. Since the shots were halted, I could jump up to the spider's back uninterrupted.

"You think you can strike me down?!" bellowed Pharynx.

The Limit Break's light surrounded me and my impractical swords. "Watch me!"

I felt myself darting around at impossible angles. My Keyblades sounded exactly like beam katanas as they slammed into the spider's back. I counted fourteen slashes, seven from each of my weapons. A web shot out of nowhere and pinned me just above the spider's merciless eyes. I struggled, but couldn't get out of the webbing. The laser cannons were starting to melt the ice around them. Ninety-nine tried casting fire magic at the webs, but it was slower than the ice was melting.

"Thundaga!"

Thursday made the play with the gigantic, magic lightning bolt. It shattered the laser cannons and a good portion of the target's backbone. Bright spheres surrounded each of us, granting the experience and the new skills that came with that.

...

When I looked around, multiple changelings were sitting in a circle around a campfire. From where I was sitting, I could see Fifty-one, two Ninety-nines, two Pharynges, two Thirteens and one Thursday. Seeing as how I no longer had hands in this dream realm, I imagined the extra changelings were actually the human minds, with Thursday being an extra conscience in Thirteen's composite body.

"I... so lost," commented the Pharynx with Immanue's voice.

"Cier must dream about a lot of video games." The not-raspy Thirteen chuckled (Ashley, I'm guessing).

I scratched the back of my neck. "The dreams about the video games are a more recent thing."

"They aren't so bad places to visit." Luxuri shrugged.

Pharynx crossed his front hooves. "Hmph. Well, at least you have some place where you can pretend you're not weaklings."

"It looked like you were having fun." Fifty-one tossed a loose stick at the fire before looking at Pharynx.

"I was just humoring you all." Pharynx looked away.

"Right..." The raspy Thirteen rolled her eyes.

"Anyway!" Thursday clapped her hooves together once. "Was there something we wanted to discuss as a group?"

"Yeah." Ninety-nine nodded. "When we head over to Celestia's base of operations, we should expect to run into some resistance from Discord's underlings and/or anti-pony gangs. We need a plan."

"Why don't we just wipe out every obstacle in our way?" Pharynx turned back to the group. "That'd be the most efficient."

"We just finished trying to stop a group of changelings trying to destroy anything and everything." Thirteen shook her head. "There's no point using a method that has already been tried and failed."

"Plus, it's kind of immoral to randomly beat up people without reason." I held one hoof out to my side.

Pharynx sighed and spat at the imaginary fire, causing it to release a puff of steam. "Do you have a better idea?"

The original Fifty-one nodded. "We need to stick together for safekeeping. That's the strength of our hive: numbers. We'll head toward the address and wait for further orders. If any of us get attacked, respond with enough force to drive the threat off, but not eliminate anyone that could potentially change their heart."

"Hopefully our queen is still in the right state of her mind." Ninety-nine fiddled with a small pebble. "Conflict with unusual enemies on top of empathy sickness could lead to an unpleasant madness."

"Discord could probably choose to make any of us go mad at any time," pointed out Thirteen. "We shouldn't let what we can't see halt our efforts to correct his destructive path."

"Yeah! Preach on!" Thursday lifted her front hooves high.

Ashley blinked her solid changeling eyes. "Is that... really what I sound like from the outside?"

"Well, it's possible that I've got some unique personality mixed in." Thursday chuckled nervously. "Kind of happens when neither of you are driving."

"Okay, any questions or comments about the plan as it stands?" I looked around.

"H-How far is... place?" Immanue looked like he was shivering slightly.

I looked at the piece of paper. "They said it was about twenty minutes on hoof. For the twenty-two other changelings that decided to stay with us, we might be looking at double that time to mobilize all of them."

"Okay... can do." Immanue nodded and sat back. The rest of the group held their peace.

Fifty-one pulled out a small bucket. "If that's all, we can break for tonight."

As he poured the water on the fire, a different man's voice started singing through the mental space.

~If you take a life, do you know what you'll give?~

---

Author's Note:

Yeah, so... I've completely forgotten the list of made-up days from the original PonyEarthVerse. I can remember as far as Smatterday, but nothing after that. I guess it was a good thing that I broke off "canon". Otherwise, I'd have some questions to answer in later chapters. Instead, let's create a completely different list of questions to answer. Makes sense, right?

Learn from my mistakes so you don't make the same ones.

Comments

[Horrible_Writer]

I thought all these story's died...

[YarnWeaver]

This is so great to see some continuation from this group! I might just dust off my old story, too!