Equestria in Conflict - Discovering Home

Note to everyone: This chapter will be primarily from the Changeling’s point of view.

-=-=-

Chrysalis was not happy.

The team she had sent to assassinate the Elements and the two Princesses, consisting of some of her best infiltrates, had simply disappeared. No messages through the Hive Mind, no signals through other sources.

Nothing.

It was as if they had disappeared off the face of Equis sixteen hours ago, with nearly no warning. They had sent a final message right before then that said they were about to begin their attack, and then nothing.

It was maddening to her. Chrysalis’s best infiltrator, Silent Though, had been in the group. If anyling knew how to survive in the hostile environment of Equestria, it was him.

Chrysalis gave an unhappy frown, and turned back to pacing around her underground chamber.

She had a second invasion to plan, after all.

-=-=-

Silent Thought was inside of a stone cell, the walls specifically coated to cancel out any magic.

In short, he was trapped.

They had chained his two holed forelegs to the wall, as if expecting him to be able to escape in any case. It would be possible if the walls didn’t cancel out any type of spell that he tried: He had enough energy from Seattle gathered to last him at least a year, more if he was careful. In short, he could last quite a while like this.

He just hoped that his Queen would find him before that point.

Above all else, he cursed himself for being defeated by those Humans. Why hadn’t he simply blasted them? He had enough energy to easily power a blast that would have taken the building down, but he had let overconfidence get to him, and assumed his powerful shield would protect him.

It had, just not from behind.

As the building had collapsed around him, and his prey escaped, his reflexes had erected a tiny shield dome just in time. Now he was starting to wonder if it would have been better to just let the ceiling concrete crush him.

At least, in death, he didn’t run the risk of a slow torture.

Nothing had happened in the time he had been in here. From his point of view, he had simply been left to rot, which was perfectly fine with him, compared to some… Alternatives.

The sound of the cell door opening went through his ears, causing him to open his bright blue eyes. In front of him was a sight no Changeling wanted to see.

Celestia herself.

Silent gave no outward reaction other than opening his eyes, but internally he was panicking. Why was she here? Had she come to finish him off? Why? Why? WHY?

He suddenly heard a voice in his head.

Cease your panicking, Changeling. The voice boomed. We are only here to ascertain your true intentions. We are going to cast a spell on you, and we will know if you are lying

With another bout of panicking, he realized the loud voice in his head was Celestia!

How can she speak into my mind? Silent asked himself. Only someling with the Hive Mind could do that! Unless...

Celestia gave a low smile. "Yes, Changeling, we know how to do that. It is a simple spell, really, one that you Changelings possess a passive and natural version of."

Silent simply stared at her in growing horror.

“Changeling, we have questions for you now, and you will answer them. Are we clear?”

Silent found himself nodding slowly.

“First off, do you have a name?”

The question took him aback. “Didn’t your Element of Magic tell you?” He asked.

Celestia shook her head.

“It is Silent Thought.”

Celestia gave another low smile. “We are off to a good start, I suppose. Silent Thought, what were you sent here with the two other Changelings to do?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Silent said. “Changing Whisper, Drone 3782, and I were all going to attack you and your Elements. We knew you would be doing a spell, so our Queen sent our best.” He said with a smug grin.

“Obviously not enough to do the job.” Celestia said, causing his mood to instantly plummet.

He looked at Celestia, as if expecting something. “Aren’t you going to kill me now? You know I was sent to kill you, yet you show no reaction.” Indeed, it surprised him. He expected a more… Brute-force approach.

Celestia looked at him. “We didn’t believe you deserve death, unless you have killed somepony, in which case you die. Have you killed somepony?”

Silent shook his head, knowing it would be futile to lie. “Not somepony, though I was sent once to kill a Human, when we were on that world. I succeeded.”

“Not worth my attention.” Celestia said. She was obviously interested, but wanted to get back on topic.

“How did you find out about our spell?” She demanded, her tone stating that she would get her answers, one way or another.

“I won’t tell you.” Silent said, although he knew he was probably sealing his fate.

Suddenly, a powerful force broke into his mind. He could almost feel it going through his head. In a flash, the memories from months ago played through his head: ‘Source in town’, ‘Close to Elements’, ‘Name is-’ The memories suddenly cut off as a sharp pain went through his skull, feeling as if an Earth Pony had bucked his skull.

Celestia’s eyes flared as she stared at the Changeling. Silent Thought tried half a dozen times to cast a spell to take off the lingering pain, to no avail. He started to pass out, his last sight before losing consciousness being Celestia, horn glowing, continually trying to get the name out of his mind.

-=-=-

Amethyst Star walked through the quiet little town of Ponyville. Not a care in the world. Her eyes scanned the crowds passively, not caring much to see whether anypony was looking for her. The arrival of the Humans in the city the day before had been quite a shock, but they seemed to be close friends of the Elements, so the citizens of Ponyville simply took the new visitors in stride.

After all, crazy things happened in Ponyville all the time, and all of them were centered around the Elements. It didn’t surprise her, though. She walked into her house, making sure to close the door.

And green flames surrounded her, leaving behind a familiar black creature.

“Hide where you will, Elements.” She said, not a trace of the normal Changeling accent on her voice. “We shall find you, even after all these years. And when we do, when I do, you shall meet your fate.”

Amethyst smiled. She had been inserted into Ponyville several years before the Nightmare Moon incident, and had happened to have the fortune of being in the town the Elements were located in. Over the past ten years, she had sunk deeply into her fake cover, her background absolutely perfect. If there was anything her kind was good at, it was infiltration, so they were easily able to create a forged birth record.

Such was the life of a long-term infiltrator.

And now the Queen’s planning – HER planning – was coming to pass.

Amethyst gave another, larger smile.

She couldn’t be happier.

-=-=-

Chrysalis was going over her plans for the invasion. She was going down a checklist, stating the most recent figures for her ambitious second invasion, and the preparations for it.

• Infiltrators in place? 68.2%

• Ponies in high offices impersonated or occupied? 5.2%

• Large swarm massed for assault? Current at 36,728 individual Changelings

• Elements of Harmony and Princesses taken down? Not yet

Chrysalis frowned. There was something new, something missing from the list. With a quick scratch of her quill, it was jotted down.

• Kill or capture ‘Humans’, and associated weapons? In progress

The Queen of the Changelings smiled. Her plan was in motion.

And nothing could stop her.