Equestria in Conflict - Discovering Home

Wesley opened his eyes. The morning sun shone through his window, obviously the cause of his wakeup. With a loud groan, he lifted himself up off the bed and stumbled along the carpet towards the blinds. With a quick motion, he closed them, blocking off the light and casting the room into semi-darkness.

“Fuck you too, Celestia.” He mumbled out before collapsing into his bed again, content to sleep the day way. Suddenly, a knock at his door interrupted that. With an even louder groan, he lifted himself off of the bed and threw random cloths on before stumbling to the door. He opened it quickly and squinted at the bright light outside to find John standing at his door.

“What the hell do you want, John? It’s only eight in the morning, for fucks sake.” Wesley said slowly.

John grinned. “Wesley, can the BS and get out here. You can’t sleep inside forever.”

Wesley waited four seconds before answering, “Yes, I can.” And slamming the door shut, locking the deadbolt to be doubly sure he would get his rest. With that, he stumbled back into his bed and shut his eyes.

John stood outside the door to Wesley’s house for a moment longer before turning away. Sure enough, as soon as the chance came, Wesley slipped back into his sleeping antics. It had driven the drill sergeants nuts, but now, in Equestria, it didn’t really matter. Even though they could be called on at any time to solve a crisis or fight, there was little chance of either happening in the mostly peaceful kingdom.

John walked through the streets, noticing how hardly any of the residents gave him a glance now. He and the others had apparently found their way into the community easily, especially thanks to the efforts of certain ponies. Speaking of which, John spotted Twilight walking around the town and turned slightly to meet up with her.

“Hey Twilight.” He said.

She turned her head and noticed him. “Hi John!” She replied. “How are you this morning?”

He gave a small smile. “Well, great. I tried to get Wesley out of bed, but he continues to harbor down and sleep. I sometimes wonder if he’s a polar bear, since he sleeps like this whenever he gets the chance.”

“You know, I could turn him into one.” Twilight offered jokingly.

“Really?” John asked in mock interest.

“No.”

John rolled his eyes. “Twilight. Is there any way you can think of to drag him out of his bed?”

“We could ask Rainbow Dash.” She said. “She’s the best at this kind of stuff.”

“And where would we find her?”

“Either napping on a cloud or with Anton. Sometimes, I swear she’s just like Wesley when it comes to sleep.”

John grinned. “When do you think Anton and Rainbow will finally admit what we all know to one another?”

“Sometimes, I wonder that myself.” Twilight said.

At that point they had reached the edge of town. Sure enough, upon looking up they spotted a single cloud in the sky, with a rainbow tail hanging off of it.

John cupped his hands around his mouth. “RAINBOW DASH!” He yelled. “GET DOWN HERE!”

Twenty seconds later, an annoyed pegasus landed in front of him.

“What was that for? Why did you interrupt my awesome nap?” She demanded.

“Because we need your help to do the same to Wesley’s.” Twilight responded.

The blue pegasus paused in thought for a moment, before nodding eagerly.

“Count me in! How are we gonna go this?” She asked eagerly.

John gave a small smile. “I might have an idea.”

Twenty minutes later, all three stood in John’s house as he dug around his bag. Giving a small cheer in triumph, he pulled out a magazine for his AEK-971. He quickly removed a cartridge from it and set the clip back in the bag.

“Sooo… What are we doing again?” Rainbow Dash asked as John began to work.

“Simple.” He responded. “I am going to remove the bullet from the cartridge and replace it with some light paper, making a blank round that won’t shoot anything except tiny bits of paper remains, or maybe not even that. It’ll mostly just make a loud noise and scare the hell out of Wesley. By the way, Rainbow, could you get Anton for me? He needs to see this.”

She saluted. “Can do!”

With that, she quickly sprinted out of the house.

With his work done removing the bullet, he fitted the paper in the place where the bullet had been, the cartridge still facing up. With that, he grabbed his rifle and checked to see if a round was loaded. Satisfied that none was, he manually inserted the new cartridge into it through the feed and pulled the bolt back, loading it and double-checking to make sure it was on ‘safe’. Giddy with excitement, he slung it over his shoulder and motioned towards the door.

“We’re ready.” He said, and walked out, Twilight closely following him.

Outside, he met up with Anton and Rainbow Dash, who were both standing outside Wesley’s house. Anton raised his hand in greeting when he saw John.

“Rainbow told me that you were going to play a joke on Wesley, and that I must see it.” He said.

John nodded. “Yep! That’s the story. We’re going to fire a blank round five feet away from him.”

“How are we going to get in?” Twilight asked. “Wesley always locks his door.”

“He keeps a spare key under his fucking doormat. Can’t be creative all the time, I guess.” John said.

They walked up to the door, where John lifted up the doormat and held up a small metal key. He quickly pushed it into the keyhole and unlocked the door, the deadbolt automatically retracting. Some type of magic, John guess, but other than that he did not know. They slowly walked in, John pulling his rifle off of his shoulder. The balance felt different without the weight of the magazine, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t as if he would be holding it for very long.

Wesley lay openly on the bed in the bedroom, at the back of the house. He was obviously snoring, deep in sleep. John and the others moved around the bed on both sides (the bed was up against a corner of the room). John flicked the safety off, aimed it at the wall above Wesley, and fired the blank.

*BANG*

Wesley instantly shot up, covering his ears, to face the small crowd of ponies and humans who were cracking up.

A minute later, they finally calmed down and left, followed all the way by Wesley’s threats to gut them. Surprisingly, none of the ponies on the street seemed to notice, or so they thought.

-=-=-

Half a block away, Amethyst Star turned away from the scene. She had gathered a little intelligence for their mission from this trip, and picked up some food. While Changelings needed love to survive, they also could eat food if there was not love available. It could also sustain them longer in the absence of love, or when they couldn’t feed on it, like right now. Any draining of the ambient love would be easily noticed in such a small town, especially one that housed all six of the Elements of Harmony, and active feeding was out of the question.

Around her, conversation swirled. One interesting tidbit caught her attention.

“Did you hear that Mayor Mare’s sick?” Berry Punch was telling Cherilee.

“Yeah, I heard! She sent a letter to the office about it, and so far, only Raindrops has dropped by to see her, apparently about the weather schedule. Other than that, she hasn’t let anypony in.”

“Anything else?” Berry Punch asked the teacher, who nodded.

“Yeah. Apparently, Welded Seam got a new assistant from out of town, some pegasus or something.”

“Weird, you wouldn’t think the only electrician and maintenance pony in the town would need help, but there you go.”

Amethyst Star quickly moved out of hearing range. So, it appeared that all the drones had everypony confused. That was perfect. It meant that their plan would go off without any problems half a week from now.

-=-=-

Silent Thought stared at the walls of his cell. To think that he would be reduced from the top infiltrator in the Changeling Empire to this was astounding, but to think that it had almost gone perfectly was maddening.

It had been several days since he had seen Celestia. Ever since he woke up, he had presumed that she had failed to gain the name off of him, and her forceful attempt only caused him to black out, denying her the information.

He still held onto the hope that someling would find him here. When the blast of pure love had rocketed through Canterlot at the end of the wedding fiasco, Chrysalis and most of the Changelings had been caught unaware, but some had managed to raise barriers in time to protect themselves, preserving their deep-cover identities. With luck, one of them might find him and free him. It was nearly impossible, but he still had the hope to hold on to.

The door was unexpectedly unlocked and opened, followed moments later by Princess Luna striding in and the door closing. He had caught a tiny glimpse of the presence of the Hive Mind when it had opened, but there was still way too much magic-blocking material around him for him to ever do anything about it, not to mention the ring around his horn preventing him from doing any magic whatsoever, including natural Changeling abilities like transforming, and connection to a Hive Mind.

“Hello, Changeling. Or is it Silent Though?” Luna said, gaining his attention. “Which does thou deserve? A name or just a species? I do not care. What I do care about is what you know. Now tell me, before thou followed us, how did thee get into the castle?”

“Not telling.” Silent Thought instantly replied. “I will never divulge information like that.”

Luna frowned. “So be it.” She said, her horn lighting up.

An intense pain shot through his body, like nothing he had ever experienced. While he had obtained plenty of injuries over the course of being an Infiltrator, this was like none of them. He was not being harmed physically, but it felt like every nerve in his body was on fire. He could just barely keep himself from screaming out his pain to the world before it suddenly stopped. It had felt like hours, but had merely been five seconds.

“Anything to say now?” Luna asked.

“No.” He spat out.

The intense pain started moments later.

He struggled to remain conscious, although he was debating slipping off simply so that it could end. This was Luna, though, and there was no telling what she could do to him if he slept. She had power over dreams, so she could theoretically question him both in his dreams and in his reality until both blurred.

After what seemed to be minutes but was only ten seconds, it stopped.

“What about now?” A smug Luna asked.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Silent shouted, not wanting it to continue. “It was a pony close to a prince! She let us in!”

“And who was this pony?” Luna asked.

“Named Spring Blossom! Just don’t do it again!” He said. He knew he had spoken, but he wouldn’t have been able to endure another bout of pain like that. He wasn’t a soldier, trained to endure most pain. He was an infiltrator, and he didn’t have much of the training they did.

He slowly started to drift off as Luna simply stared at him. The memories of the pain were still fresh on his mind, and his body begged him for a rest. Slowly, but surly, he drifted off into a fitful sleep.

-=-=-

Luna walked out of the room, the door closing behind her. She quickly moved through the halls towards the throne room. She had to tell Celestia this, and hurry. Spring Blossom, as she and the rest of Canterlot knew, was a mare that Blueblood was ‘secretly’ meeting with. She had simply appeared on the scene when Blueblood had taken a liking to her and, as far as Luna knew, was a very private pony.

Luna magically opened the doors to the throne room and rushed in, stopping in front of her sister.

“Tia, we have a situation that warrants our attention.” She quickly said.

“What is it, Luna?” Celestia asked with some concern.

“Meet in my tower. We must discuss this in private.”

They both moved outside and lifted into the air, at a slower pace now so as not to make the guards nervous. They flew into the balcony and turned to face one another.

“The Changeling has given up the name of the pony that let them in the castle.” Luna said.

“Who was it?” Celestia asked.

Luna gave a small frown. “Spring Blossom.”

Celestia shook her head. “How am I not surprised?”

“Tis natural for our least favorite nephew to get himself into trouble, like at the gala several years ago.”

“I shall alert the guard.” Celestia said. “They shall observe her until they see positive proof, and then move in.”

Luna nodded. “Do so.”

The Princess of the Night frowned as Celestia went off to order the guards. A new element had been discovered in this.

And she was worried.