“He's not gonna make it!”
“Then we've got no choice, we have to leave him!”
“You'd let him die here, bleeding out alone in a cave?!”
“We're miles away from any sort of help, and if you haven't noticed we aren't doing so well ourselves!”
“...There’s nothing we can do?”
The second voice sighed before replying. “No, there is n-...”
“What?”
“...I just had a bad idea. Supposedly one of those pods could keep him alive, for better or worse. We'd just have to hope he gets discovered eventually.”
There was a pause, as the two voices considered that possibility.
The second voice broke the silence. “...I can't say I'd be too comfortable with just leaving him here either. I'd guess we've only got a minute until that thing finds us again. We'll have to work fast.”
There was a sound of something being sliced open, followed by a few drops of a gooey liquid splashing out.
The owners of the pair of voices lifted the third figure, who was barely holding onto consciousness. The first speaker leaned in and muttered “Sorry friend, this is the best we could do,” to the almost unconscious pony. His limp form was shoved roughly through the incision, his hearing suddenly muted by liquid and his vision fading from dim to completely black.
Some time later, the pony opened his eyes, returning to consciousness slowly. He stirred a little, finding his limbs were sluggish to respond, though the pleasant feeling of warmth that surrounded him and his general grogginess made him ignore any implications of that for the time being. He was almost tempted to fall back to sleep…
Wait a moment, when did he fall asleep? He couldn’t remember going to bed. The realization caused him to start, and his eyes snapped open. More awake now, he fully opened his eyes and took stock of his surroundings.
First thing he noticed was that everything was tinged green. Not that there was much to see, the only sources of light seemed to be a few small fungus, and all that seemed to illuminate was a small space on the opposite wall, which seemed to be made of some sort of slick, hard material and was shaped vaguely like a natural cave formation.
Trying to move again, the pony found that the sluggishness of his limbs wasn’t only due to his own drowsiness. He was immersed in some kind of liquid! He was going to drown!
The moment of panic quickly subsided when he realized that he’d previously fallen asleep here. If he really was going to drown, he would have done so long before now. For whatever reason, the liquid he was immersed was keeping him alive somehow, which included providing him oxygen apparently. In some ways they weren’t the most comforting thoughts, but at least this situation was better than the alternative. That did raise the issue of where exactly ‘here’ was however.
Trying to maneuver out of the alcove he was in, the pony encountered an immediate issue. He was able to ‘swim’ only a short distance forward before bumping into a barrier of some kind. Which he supposed made sense, it would probably be inconvenient to keep whole hallways full of whatever this fluid was, but it presented the pony with a problem. Prodding it with a hoof, he found the barrier was slightly pliant, but it nonetheless seemed very durable. Unable to get any good leverage, the pony’s admittedly feeble attempts to break it were resisted. He was stuck.
He wasn’t sure how long he spent waiting. He’d resigned himself to the idea that he’d have to wait a bit to recover his strength, but that didn’t make the minutes pass any faster. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. Not that he could tell its passage, but the feeling of sluggishness was still there. Or maybe that was just a side effect of the liquid. Who could tell?
Movement he spotted in the corner of his eye interrupted his line of thinking. No civilized ponies would build tunnels like this, so anything he encountered was unlikely to be friendly. The pony’s heart rate sped up as realized he wasn’t as alone as he’d previously guessed.
He gulped nervously, and peered out into the darkened tunnel.
Something had appeared in the nearby section of tunnel. The pony couldn’t get a good look at it, as it was crouched low to the ground and keeping away from the faintly glowing fungus, but it looked almost equine, except more jagged and light seemed to glint faintly off of it. The pony leaned closer to it to get a better look, pressing up against the barrier as his heart pounded in his chest.
All of sudden the thing moved again, taking a few steps forward, and causing the pony to recoil toward the back of the pod.
Which in turn caused the thing to notice him, its head turning to look straight at him and revealing its faintly glowing, solid-blue eyes.
The pony screamed, and flailed about in a feeble attempt to back away. Or at least, he tried to scream, though it was almost completely muffled by the liquid, coming out as a muffled burble.
The creature meanwhile dashed over to the pod, placing it’s hooves against the barrier as it looked inside, and giving the trapped pony a good look at it for the first time, and making him freeze in fear.
If a pony and an insect could mate, the result would probably look something like this. It had an equine body shape, but instead of the usual colourful coat it was covered in a glossy, black carapace. The lower portions of its legs were full of holes. It had a pair of translucent, featherless blue wings sticking out over a couple of large carapace plates along it’s back, which the pony could barely make out were coloured dark green. A single, smooth horn jutted out of its forehead, and unlike the gently spiralling horn of unicorn it was wickedly curved and ended in a sharp point. It’s ears were jagged, looking as though something had taken symmetrical bites out of each, and behind that a short fin ran down its neck where a mane might otherwise be. Finally, it had a pair of large white fangs sticking out of its mouth.
The word ‘changeling’ flitted into the pony’s mind as the name of this particular species, though he couldn’t say why he knew this.
The changeling was observing him intently, and said something which he couldn’t hear through the fluid. When the pony failed to respond, continuing to simply stare wide-eyed, it took action.
The changeling leaned forward and headbutted the barrier, puncturing a hole with its horn, then threw its head back the other direction to turn the hole into a sizeable gash before taking a couple steps backwards.
Fluid started to spill out of the hole, and immersed in it as he was the pony started to be pulled along with it. He flailed again, trying to stop his movement toward the changeling, but he was unable to find any purchase in the smooth alcove. The flow of liquid dumped him onto the floor of the tunnel in a heap, coughing up green liquid.
The changeling advanced, causing the pony to stumble to his feet and stagger backwards, his words coming out blended together. “Ahhh, pleasedon’thurtme!”
The changeling paused mid stride, an uncertain look on its face. The two stared at each other for an awkward minute, before the changeling finally spoke. Its voice revealed it to be female. “...I...wasn’t going to hurt you.”
“You...you weren’t?” Confusion crept into the pony’s mind again, starting to replace the his terror with something less immediately threatening, if no less disturbing.
“...Why would I do that?”
“Well...you’re a changeling aren’t you? I mean, not much is known about changelings, but I know you guys value secrecy and...aren’t exactly nice to ponies because of that.”
The changeling’s expression changed from mere concern to outright shock. The creature then coughed awkwardly into a hole-covered hoof. “You erm, might want to take a look at yourself before you say that.”
“...What’s that supposed to me-” the pony stopped mid-sentence. He was an earth pony. There was a lot he was confused about right now, but he was CERTAIN of that. So naturally he was surprised when he looked down at his legs and saw that what should have been covered by an ocean blue coat of short hair was actually encased in black chitin. And was full of holes. That couldn’t be right. He was an earth pony...wasn’t he?
Whirling around to look at the rest of the body, what the former pony saw only provided more evidence against that idea. His rear legs looked about the same as his front, and his whole form was covered in glossy chitin. He even sported a pair of light blue insect wings, which he could see twitching intermittently over a pair of large, coloured carapace plates.
“No...no, no. No. Nonononono-” the former pony backed up in a circle, in a futile attempt to run away from his own body. “It’s not right...It doesn’t make any sense!...why…”
The other changeling interrupted him by placing a pock marked hoof on his shoulder. “Listen. I can take you to Queen Spire, and she can sort out everything. But in order to do that I need you to keep calm, and work with me. Can you do that for me?”
He needed a couple of deep breaths, but as he was unable to think of any alternatives he finally nodded in response.
The changeling breathed a sigh of relief and visibly relaxed for a second, before suddenly snapping back to attention. “These tunnels aren’t safe. Be as quiet as you can, and follow me.”
Travel through the tunnels was tense. There was almost no sound, save for the faint tapping of hooves against the floor and an occasional, distant rumbling. Though the former pony could navigate well enough, between the intermittent glowing fungi and a changeling’s natural ability to see with limited light, the thick shadows gave the place an even more ominous appearance.
This was made worse by maze-like natured of the tunnels, and his guide’s apparent belief that every turn or opening was an ambush. Her need to stop and carefully check each one before waving him forward again ground on his already frayed nerves.
When a sudden grinding sound from down the tunnel ahead made him almost jump out of his skin, he was actually somewhat relieved that something finally happened, even if it meant bad things for them.
His guide meanwhile reacted in the opposite way to what he was expecting. She actually seemed relieved to hear a sudden grinding noise, and relaxed her guard and they travelled down a final passage.
It was only a couple seconds before he saw why. As they reached the end of the tunnel they passed through a small opening into a much larger chamber, whereupon a new changeling rolled a large, scorched boulder into position over the opening and gave the former pony a quizzical look as the pair passed.
The former pony now got his first look at an active changeling hive, or at least what he assumed was his first look With his memory as it was at the moment he couldn’t be sure.
He was torn between being impressed and disappointed. The hive was making very efficient use, of what was basically one large room. Given the numbers present it was a spacious cavern, if having a somewhat low ceiling, and there was no part of it that wasn’t in use. There were rough, short walls made of what looked like some sort of sculpted black rock, which were used to divide the chamber into several sections. These barriers were of inconsistent height, at some points stretching up to the ceiling while others barely reached former pony’s knees. More clumps of fungi were placed intermittently on the ground, spaced so as to bathe the whole area in a faint blue light.
Through gaps in the walls he could make out of few rooms or sections beyond. In one room it looked like a pair of changelings were tending to a few eggs, though the eggs didn’t even fill a quarter of the moderately sized chamber. Drones would periodically go into and out of another to either retrieve or deposit several varieties of fungus. There seemed to be a pair of sleeping areas, though the former pony found that odd since both were only sparsely populated by changelings who were currently sleeping.
A team consisting of three changelings were working on the walls, and he watched them spit and shape some kind of viscous goop for a moment.
“Hey!” the changeling who’d been guiding him here snapped, though she didn’t sound at all angry. More anxious, if anything. “Don’t stop here, we still have to see the queen, remember?” Having waited just long enough to make sure she had his attention, she continued through the chamber at a brisk pace, toward a tunnel at the back.
It took the outburst for the former pony had even realized he’d stopped. He shook his head and got himself moving once more. He had a lot of questions, but with so little to work with it seemed best to follow due process for now.
He followed down a side tunnel in the back of the chamber, which quickly lead into another, smaller room, although it seemed a little less cramped than the rest of the hive. Partly that was because what it contained took up less space, a small pile of loose scrolls, and a single pod of familiar green goop, though shaped into a cushion instead of a pod this time, built not to contain a pony.
The other part was the rooms occupant. The changeling residing here, at the moment perched upright on the ‘bed’ was at least two or three times the size of the average drone, and very slender. In fact, her proportions reminded the former pony of Princess Celestia, though it felt like a poor comparison. Further, unlike other changelings her eyes were had faint green irises with black, slitted pupils, and she had an actual mane where the other changelings just had a crest. Her mane and tail were purple, and hung down behind her in smooth lines except at the end where they were frayed. The former pony might have thought her attractive, if she wasn’t also radiating authority and giving him an intense, almost predatory glare. As it was, he was too intimidated to admire her form.
This must have been Queen Spire.
“So this is our survivor,” the queen said She stood up and strode over to the two of them, while his guide bowed. When the former pony didn’t, his guide motioned for him to do as she did with an urgency in her movements. For his part, it was all the former pony could do to not recoil as Queen Spire stalked closer to him.
Stopping just one pace in front of him, the queen scrutinized him for a moment. She frowned, though from thought more than disappointment. “Hmm, I can’t find you. What is your name?” The former pony blinked in surprise. He opened his mouth to speak, but no name came to mind and he just stood there with his mouth agape.
His guide attempted to provide an explanation, by giving her report. “I found him in a pod, in one of the compromised tunnels. I think somethings wrong with his memory, he didn’t recognize his species at first...”
The queen sneered. “So you brought me a broken drone. Wonderful.” Then she sighed. “I suppose it falls to me to fix this as well.” She fixated the former pony with an intense glare.
He was about to open his mouth to ask a question when a sudden crippling headache sent him toppling to the floor. As he writhed on the ground he could barely make out as the queen cheerfully say “Ah! There he is,” and began walking back toward her bed. The former pony felt a sudden pressure in his forehead, adding the to pain he was already feeling, though at that point all he could do in response is groan louder.
All of a sudden something broke. He felt sudden flood of fragmented thoughts and sensations fill his head, keeping him stunned where he lay. The headache faded a bit at least, decreasing from a stabbing pain to a dull throb, though it remained present in his mind.
“Scape.” Queen Spire spoke as she walked back to her bed. Her voice carried an odd reverberation as she said the word, which the former pony felt as much as heard. He’d been given a name. “We’re in need of infiltrators; you will have you next shift to recover, then you’ll begin infiltration training.”
Scape, newly named, simply lay on the floor still struggling to keep conscious.
His guide raised an uncertain protest, seeing something wrong but hesitant to question her queen. “Er, there aren’t any infiltrators to train him, my queen. They’re all occupied, injured or…”
Queen Spire silenced her with a glare. “Well then Naj, as the one responsible for bringing this time sink into the hive, you’ll just have to find some way to deal with that won’t you?”
Naj, clearly displeased by that, bit back a response. The drone gritted her teeth, and forced herself into another bow. “...Yes, my queen.”
Laying down on the bed once more, Queen Spire said “Take him to the infirmary, let him sleep for a shift, then take him to the feeding grounds and start his training.” She closed her eyes, and though her voice was still forceful some weariness crept in. “There, you have your assignments. Now get out.”
Scape tried to struggle upright, but he’d only made it to his knees before he felt something press against his side. It barely registered, but it eventually reached his brain that he was leaning against Naj, who was leading him and gently pushing them out of the chamber.
Between the headache which had only just begun to fade, and his overall confusion, The next several minutes passed in a haze for the former pony. With Naj’s help and prodding, he wound up in one of the sections he’d seen on the way in, and found himself laid against something soft. Something slightly wet was pressed against his mouth, which he leaned away from until he heard Naj say “Eat this, it’ll help the pain.” Still feeling the headache, he complied. Sure enough, the pain faded quickly, leaving behind only a sort of numbness.
That itself faded only moments later, when he drifted into blissful unconsciousness.
