Collision

They'd alternated watch most of the night, though Gwyn had to fight himself not to tell her there wasn't any point, since the changelings weren't going to be back, and the animals had learned a long time ago to leave changelings alone.

He'd had the last watch, and shook Joan awake as the sun had just started peeking over the forest.

"Time to wake up. We've got a lot of ground to cover."

"Ugh. Fine."

They got up and packed the tent.

"There's a really nice waterfall we might end up seeing on the way there. It's enormous, and there's always a ton of birds nearby."

Joan grunted, and tossed a bag his way, which he pulled on.

"Plus, once we get to the pony settlement, I could show you around, since I've been there a few times myself."

Another grunt, and Joan started off without him.

"Not a morning pony, huh? Well, that's fine."

Gwyn was sure ponies enjoyed smalltalk.They always had when he'd impersonated them, and that hadn't been too long ago. He didn't think newfoals could be that different from regular ponies about something as simple as small talk, so he tried again.

"What was your life back on earth? Anything like Equestria?"

"Oh, of course, my friends got kidnapped by crazy monsters every day back home," she said, flatly.

"Not so different from here then, huh?"

She grunted, and kept walking, and ignored him the rest of the way there.

They emerged from the forest into a clearing a few hours later, and found the pony settlement they had been looking for. Unfortunately, it was on fire, burnt mostly to the ground, and there didn't seem to be any ponies left.

"Gwyn!" Joan shouted, "you said there'd be ponies here!"

"There were! The changelings must have got here before we did."

She jabbed him with a hoof. "Changelings burn towns to the ground?"

"Not normally, no, but if there was a fight it could have been an accident-"

"An accident? Really?" she said, and then pointed to her side. "You think this was an accident? You think burning a whole town to the ground was an accident?"

"We don't know what happened, yet, I'm sure there's a-"

"The changelings burned the town and kidnapped all the ponies. I think that's pretty obvious."

"Perceptive, isn't she?" said a tall changeling, stepping from behind some burnt wreckage, and twenty or so changelings followed her, "Shame she's not perceptive enough to not argue in the middle of a battlefield."

"Still not dead, pony?" shouted once of the changelings, who managed to look bruised up despite being totally black and covered in a hard shell, "we can fix that."

"You wish, hard-haunch!"

"Joan, run."

"We can take these guys. We did last time!"

"Still haven't told her, Squad Leader? A tragedy, really. Kill her."

"I'll explain later! Run!"

The group of changelings charged at her, and she ran into the forest, changelings in close pursuit. She had just made it back to the waterfall they had passed on the way in, when a few of the changelings caught up to her.

"End of the line, pony."

She climbed up a few of the rocks leading up the waterfall, and stuck her tongue out at them. They flew into the air, and she jumped, landing on them and smashing them against the ground with a thump. She got up and kicked the one who'd hurt her the most last time they'd fought in the head for good measure.

"Not bad, for a pony," said the Queen, stepping into the clearing around the waterfall, dragging Gwyn her magic.

"Bucking do something, Gwyn! They're going to kill us!"

"Going to kill you, darling," said the Queen, grinning sharply. She tossed Gwyn in front of her. "Because he's a changeling."

She stared at him for a second, and then glared. "And that's why you let them get away with my friends."

He nodded.

"Enough of this. You're going to drain her of her love, and I'm going to make you do it."

The remaining changelings leapt on her, and held her down, and Gwyn felt his body walk over to them, against his will. The green glow of his magic filled the clearing as he stood over Joan, and he lowered his head.

"I'm sorry."

His magic sparked across the gap, forming a connection across which his spell sucked her emotions, and she screamed, then fell silent, and lost consciousness.

"Well done, even if I had to force you to do it," said the Queen, and touched her horn to his, sucking away Joan's emotions.

"You lot, get back to patrolling. And you," she said, looking at Gwyn, "best have learned a lesson from this. Next time I kill you."

He nodded, quietly, and the changelings left him sitting in the clearing, with Joan's unmoving body.

The other changelings were gone, and had stayed gone. Joan hadn't woken up. He knew most creatures who were drained rarely lived, and those that did had their emotions returned, or had been converted into changelings.

Joan's emotions were long gone, he knew that, and almost impossible to get back. Either the Queen had them, which was impossible, or  she'd given them to the emotion workers to be processed, which was harder than impossible, since they'd be split up and distributed among thousands of other changelings.

There weren't really many choices at this point. Either he got himself killed attempting to get them back, Joan died of emotion-loss, or he converted her back at the hive.

At this point, that was the only thing he could see working. He lifted her onto his back with his magic, and flew off towards the hive. His trip there was uninterrupted, since the hive had heard all about what he had just done, thanks to a hive-wide broadcast by the Queen.

He sighed, the sound swept away by the wind past his face. The hive came into view, a cobbled together thing, that they'd set up after they'd been forced out into the forest far outside Equestria. The Queen was reluctant to fix it up, and said they'd be living in the Griffon Kingdom as soon as they defeated them.

He landed in front of one of the entrances, and it slid open, reacting to his magic. He walked down the hallway, his hooves and the black chitinous surface of the hallway clicking on contact. No changelings were passed on his way there, most either working in the deeper recesses of the hive, or on combat duty. He followed the twists and turns down the to chrysalis section, which had been recently expanded enough to hold an entire town, and found an empty one. Things had not gone well, he thought. He should have forced her to stay at the griffon camp, or maybe even have taken her in the other direction of the pony settlement entirely. Of course, he didn't think for a second that would have worked. Some ponies had spirit, and there wasn't any telling them what to do.

Not that there was much he could do about that, now. He placed her still body into the chrysalis, and its shiny green surface sealed around her, and the pod filled itself.

He stared at her face, through the translucent cover, closed, and unmoving, and knelt his head to hers, then left the room.

In the dimmed light of the conversion and love draining room, Joan opened her eyes. On the pod in front of her, she could see glowing lights, that flashed rhythmically, like heartbeats.

A year ago. A hospital room, cold and sterile, with only a vase of flowers to remind people that the room wasn't totally hopeless. On the bed, her father, unmoving, lights on a nearby diagnostic machine the only clue that there was still life in him.

She picked the old, dry flowers out of the vase and tucked the new ones into it, temporarily brightening the room again. She held his hand for a second, then slipped out of the room, down the quiet hallways, footsteps and the occasional cricket chirp of machines echoing in the air that felt thick, and still.

She nodded to the secretary on her way out, and the automatic doors slid shut behind her.

Joan wasn't dead. That was the important part, she decided. The less important part was that Gwyn absolutely sucked at draining ponies of all their love and leaving them for dead. And, she thought, he'd been a changeling this whole time. Led them right into a trap, and probably planned the whole thing himself. He'd what, wanted to keep her for himself? Suffered some sort of attack of conscience after he'd nearly got her killed, twice, and her friends kidnapped?

The chrysalis was full of something gooey she didn't want to think about, and outside she could see what looked like hundreds of other chrysalises. Most full. She was not panicking. She had to keep reminding herself not to panic, but she wasn't, Yet. Friends. She had to concentrate ton them, getting them out of this.

She pushed on the outside of the chrysalis, and felt it move a little bit. She kicked, and it bent. She put all her legs on the edge, and pushed as hard as she could, and tore a hole in the side, and the goop leaked out onto the floor, taking her along with it.

She heaved, sending gunk everywhere, and again, and she kept coughing until her lungs were empty and sore. She lay on the floor a moment, just resting for a moment. She was pretty sure the Princesses owed her an apology or a medal or something after a first week after conversion this bad. She peered around the corner, and saw that, thankfully, there didn't seem to be any guards watching.

She looked in the pod closest to her, and saw a tall unicorn. He didn't look like he'd been there long, so she figured he'd been part of the town. She looked on the other side, and saw Sour Kiss, Raspberry Delight, and Card Stock."

Joan took a deciding breath. She'd have to come back for everyone later, but she'd bust her friends out now. She jabbed a hoof through each of the pods, and watched as each of them went through the same coughing routine, albeit after taking slightly more time to  become aware.

"What..."

"What happened?"

"Why is everything green? I mean, I like green, but..."

Joan squeezed some leftover changeling goop from her mane, and gestured around her. "Changeling attack. They brought us here to turn us into changelings, or steal our love, or both. Probably both."

They looked terrified. She wasn't sure she was feeling anything anymore.

"But I'm busting you out, and soon we'll be home free."

"How do we get out?"

Joan dumped the body of the changeling guard in the hallway they had just come from, and came face to face with a small drone. She had the usual changeling spiked ridge and blue eyes, but her fangs were smaller than the ones she'd seen on the others.

"Tell me how to get out of here, or do the same thing I just did to that guy. And don't call anybody on the hive mind, we know about that."

"I am a tiny part of the hive mind. I h-have no fear. I am not an in... individual. D-d-d- your worst, pony," said the changeling who was doing her best to control the shaking in her knees and failing completely.

"Right. Way out, please?"

"I-I'll show you, follow me."