Unlikely but Possible

"So if we cross analyze this signature here." Ocean said, quickly writing notes down.

"And compare to the readings of older books." Fusion added.

"Then that means these surges of energy have been occurring for years, possibly decades or centuries!" Ocean could barely contain his excitement. This was beyond the find of the century. "Do you think these crystals are the key to entering the location of the source?"

"It's a possibly." Fusion considered. "But we would need to gather more of these crystals. Currently, there are no real manner to find these crystals and there is no way to calculate just how many there are."

"But I'm sure we can find something." Ocean suggested. "Maybe a scanner, or-"

CRASH...BANG...BOOM

The room, possibly the castle itself then shook.

"What was that?!" Ocean shouted in surprise.

"Fascinating." Fusion said, running to their monitors. "It seems a large force of something is attacking the Crystal Empire. But what force is large enough to accurately attack us but is small enough to remain hidden until the last moment."

Ocean was about to respond but felt a swift and hard force strike the back of his neck, knocking him to the ground.

"A force in need of your assistance Fusion." Stone said, standing over Ocean's unconscious body. "We considered him at first but felt you were the best for what we need."

"And what is it you need?" Fusion inquired cautiously.

"Those crystals, and you." Stone said, striking Fusion unconscious, then gathering all the crystals in a large saddle bag before making his way out the door; with Fusion slumped on his back.

Earlier

"So let me get this straight." Azer sat in the chair, facing Talon after he told his story. "You were traveling past Dodge Junction, got hungry, had no bits for food, this group of ponies offered to pay for your meal and now, despite being told you don't have to, you followed them all the way here to the Crystal Empire in order to repay your debt with them."

"Y-yes..." Talon nervously sipped tea. "I-I know it sounds a little hard to believe."

"More like unlikely." Butch said, laying on his back. "I get the whole wanting to help, but isn't this a tad excessive?"

"I don't think so Butch." Azer said. "I am amazed that there's still somepony that actually is willing to go out of their way to do what they feel is right. Unlike some brother of mine who's never did an honest day's work. So what will you do when you find them?"

"Well I haven't gotten that far." Talon explained. "I saw them enter the palace but I couldn't follow them before I...well..."

"Went from mare to stallion." Butch said. "I'm still trying to figure out how you did that."

"Butch. We promised to not pry into Talon's life if he doesn't want to talk about it." Azer snapped a little. "Maybe you should think before you-"

...CLICK...CLICK...CLICK...CLICK...CLICK...

"What's that, what's that sound?" Azer asked, opening the door to look outside.

Looking outside, Azer saw he wasn't alone, as other ponies looked out to see what looked like an oddly shaped cloud was heading towards the city.

"What's that?" Butch asked, looking out the window. "Some cloud?"

"No...it's too fast.." Talon added, looking at the cloud. "And moving against the wind."

At the exact same time

While Ocean handled his business with his colleague, Crescent and Ruby walked down the streets of the Crystal Empire. Not really a fan of the Empire, Crescent wasn't in the best mood; but he bared it, for Ruby's sake, who was currently enjoying a crystal ice-cream cone. It was rather cute to watch Ruby enjoying her frozen treat, she was like a filly in the big city. So full of happiness and so full of excitement. It made Crescent's stay that much more tolerable.

"This is so amazing!" Ruby was a happy as a schoolmare. "I never knew the Crystal Empire was just so big and shiny!"

"Yeah. Well it's not always like this." Crescent sighed, resting on a nearby bench. "Remember who's in charge here."

"Look." Ruby said sternly, looking Crescent deep in the eyes. "Cadance has been nothing but supportive, and I couldn't give a rat's ass about what Armor thinks." She then hugged her stallion. "I just care what you think. So. Don't. You. Worry."

"I know."Crescent looked away with a blush. "But it's just--What's that?"

Looking in the distance, Crescent, Ruby, and several other crystal ponies looked at the same strange 'cloud'.

"What's that?" Crescent asked, then he was grabbed at by Ruby.

"We need to go NOW!" Ruby said, almost dragging Crescent.

"What's going on?" Crescent said, following Ruby, who was in full gallop.

"That's not a cloud, it's an invasion!" Ruby said.

"How would you know." Crescent asked.

"No time, we have to warn the castle." Ruby said, then her thoughts started racing. 'Why are Misshapen here? They shouldn't even have a nest close to the Crystal Empire.'

Despite galloping as fast as they could move, Crescent and Ruby reached the castle but-

CRASH...BANG...BOOM

A large blast of explosive magic struck the castle, not damaging it severely but shaking the foundations. Before anypony could realize it, the mass of Misshapen Changeling had already reached the city limits. Pouncing and attacking anypony that couldn't run fast enough. Unlike normal Changelings, who can drain love without harming the victim, Misshapen lack such subtly and bite hard on the back of their victims' heads, hard enough to draw blood, but not enough to cause major damages, only inflict pain. From there, the Misshapen would drain all feeling out of the minds of their targets. Like bloodsuckers, Misshapen drained their victims of all emotion, releasing their fangs, and leaving the pony blank faced and dead in the eye, not dead but not much alive either. You could almost call it soulless.

"What the hell are those!?" Crescent said, charging at one of the Misshapen, knocking it off a pony. Crescent looked at the scared crystal pony. "Get to safety!" The crystal pony nodded and ran towards the castle, just like several other groups of crystal ponies. "Good. now for-" Crescent couldn't finish his sentence before the Misshapen he knocked down not only got up buck attempted to strike at his neck. Thankfully Crescent landed on his hooves quickly, his horn now ignited red in color. Crescent could feel his blood almost warm up from the small excitement that was building up. The slits in his eyes thinned as a fanged smile spread across his lips. "Looks like this trip just got better."

Back to Talon, Azer, and Butch

"What the hell are these things!?" Azer said, bucking a Misshapen's face off a crystal pony. "Changelings? But these look different."

"Less talky, more punchy." Butch said, punching an incoming Misshapen, there was a faint sound of bone and teeth breaking from the impact.

"Wait. So while we're working, you're lazy as all hell." Azer asked, kicking another Misshapen to the ground, stomping its head into the ground with a crunch. "But when it comes to some crazy invasion of Changelings, that's when you get off your flank to do something?!"

"Well I can't sleep in this." Butch joked, punching at the Misshapen. "So might as well hit the snooze button."

Right from behind a Misshapen knocked at Butch's head, sinking it's teeth deep into Butch. The his ears perked up as the faint sound of his flesh tearing. After the Misshapen latched on, Butch could feel something being drained from him, the color slowly leaving his face as the creature fed. Before the Misshapen could finish feeding, Talon came from behind and smacked the Misshapen off with one of the large basses from inside the music store.

"Butch!" Azer said, knocking Misshapen out of the way as he went to his brother. "We have to get him inside."

Azer and Talon were able to drag the weakened Butch into the store, quickly barricading the door with chairs, and large instruments. Bringing Butch to the counter, Azer tried to clean the wound with a rag.

"Doesn't look infected, but what did that thing do to you?" Azer asked, grabbing bandages and wrapping up the wound.

"I don't know." Butch answered, his breathing was exhausted and heavy. "It's like I ran a marathon and relived a lot of bad memories at once. I feel so flushed and numb."

"Well you should be fine." Azer washed the wound with a wet rag. "Just, and I can't believe I'm saying this, get some rest."

"On it." Butch chuckled weakly, before passing out.

"I'm sorry." Talon said. "If I was faster."

"It's not your fault Talon. You did what you could." Azer said. "For now all we can do is wait for this to pass." Azer cautiously looked out the window. "They seem to be only attacking ponies on the streets. So most ponies will either get to the castle or get indoors. Hopefully these Changelings leave soon."

Back to Crescent and Ruby

"This is just ridiculous." Crescent said, breathing heavily.

It's now been an hour the Misshapen attacked and Crescent was almost ankle deep in Changeling intestines. His hooves and most of his legs were coated with green blood, as well as a few small spatters on his face and body. Surrounding him were several hissing and fang bared Misshapen, and at his hooves were the hacked and hewed bodies of the Misshapen that got too close. Floating around his, coated in Misshapen blood were four, red hued, magical materialized swords. Keeping his eyes on the enemy around him, Crescent took a deep breath, focusing on each of the Misshapens' movements.

"At least it's not real Changelings I'm killing." Crescent sighed a bit in relief. "Here they come!"

From the left, two charged at Crescent, only to have a sword cut one through the head at eye level, and the other stabbed through the mouth and out the back of the head. Four more came in from the right an front. Pulling out the two swords he just used, thrust them both into a single Misshapen, then with a swift motion, cutting the screeching creature apart.As he finished off the other three, one tried to sneak up from behind. Before it had a chance to bite Crescent, it's both took a face full of Ruby's hoof; breaking the teeth and shattering the face into bloody fragments.

"Thanks." Crescent smiled, cutting down another. "These things are endless."

"Well at least since we got all their attention, nopony but us can get hurt." Ruby smiled, back kicking an attacking Misshapen.

"But we need a plan, or something." Crescent said before something caught the corner of his eye.

Running down the streets, Stone Cold, carrying Fusion charged past the horde, seemingly being ignored by the Misshapen.

"Well that's something." Crescent said, aiming one of his swords at the running stallion. Throwing the sword at Stone, to Crescent's disappointment, the sword didn't slow Stone down, but without him knowing, knocked one of his smaller saddle bags off. "Damn, I missed!"

"Go after it." Ruby said. "I got this."

"You sure?" Crescent asked.

"Who do you think you're talking to?" Ruby chuckled a bit.

"True." Crescent chuckled as well, running after Stone Cold. "Stay alive!"

"Of course." Ruby said to herself, knowing Crescent was out of earshot. Her focus now switched to the Misshapen. "Alright children." Ruby's eyes glowed a faint amber for a moment. "Let's dance."

Moving as fast as his legs could carry, Crescent was finally catching up to the large stallion. As he galloped, he summoned another two swords, all six now slicing through the Misshapen that dare try to block his path. His coat was becoming greener and greener with blood. Realizing he wasn't going to catch up with the large pony, Crescent decided on a different approach. Jumping in the air, Crescent kicked off a flying Misshapen and then off a nearby building, allowing him to pick up speed and charge at Stone, cutting off his path of escape.

"Caught you!" Crescent said in a semi-victorious tone. "Now where left to run."

"You assume I am some enemy?" Stone inquired.

"Well the whole carrying an unconscious pony, and not being attacked by those things kinda gave it away." Crescent pointed out.

"I see." Stone sighed. "It seems you are smarter than you appear. Can I convince you to simply step aside, I do not wish to crush you."

"Ehh no big guy." Crescent positioned himself in a ready stance, the six swords aimed at Stone.

"Your choice." Stone said, securing Fusion's body on his back. "Just remember, this was your choice."

Crescent charged in with a straight approach, slashing downwards between Stone's shoulder and collar; only to have the blade strike Stone's flesh and then stop. The sword didn't cut. Stone remained still and standing in place as Crescent jumped back and continued his assault, slashing and hacking at Stone's body with his swords, picking up speed and motion with each slash. Left, right, forward, behind, Crescent remained in constant motion, making any attempt to strike back difficult. But regardless of his speed and attack, the swords never broke Stone's skin.

"Why! Won't! It! CUT!?" Crescent said, summoning more ad more swords, throwing them and hacking at Stone's body. But the throws blades were only knocked off as if they struck a hard surface. Frustrated, Crescent gathered all the swords he summoned into a singular large blade, it was easily twice the size of Crescent's body, the edge of the blade was more serrated than smooth, and it glowed a a birght red and gold; he was to attack from the side. "What's with your-"

Crescent couldn't finish his sentence when he felt a hard force strike the side of his body, around the area of his ribs. A loud crack echoed through Crescent's body as he looked at what struck him. His eyes widened as he realized that the force was Stone's own crystal hoof. Despite Crescent's distance and speed, Stone's crystal arm not only managed to predict where Crescent would be but it even extended to over twice it's length to knock Crescent down; crashing into a nearby building, blood coughed from Crescent's mouth upon impact. Two, maybe three of his ribs were now either severely fractured or broken. The impact also numbed his body, he felt incapable of moving.

"Remember two things." Stone said approaching Crescent, his large mass overshadowing Crescent's battered, bruised, and bloodied body. "You chose to fight me, but I chose to spare you. Remember that." Stone then turned and continued running, but unbeknownst to him, during Crescent's attack, one of the saddlebags torn a small hole, allowing one of the strange purple crystal fragments to fall to the ground near Crescent. The last thing Crescent saw before his eye blacked out were the sight of the Misshapen flying out of the city like a swarm of mutated, insectoid birds.

A few hours later

"He's waking up." Was the next thing Crescent remember hearing as a familiar voice washed over him. His eyes opened up to see a worried looking Ruby looking over him. "Crescent. Can you hear me?"

"Ugh...Ruby?" Crescent said in a groggy tone, trying to look around. With his half awake eyes, Crescent saw he was in some form of infirmary. "What happened?"

"We found you beaten and half broken against a building." Armor answered that question, walking in Crescent's view. "Did you see a large Earth stallion with crystal forearms while you were fighting those...things?"

Though Crescent didn't want to answer Armor's question, one look at Ruby showed there was no harm in that. "Yeah, we found and he...got away."

"Great, just great." Armor said, his expression of disappointment did not escape Crescent, but currently he was too weak to argue back. "Did he have anyone else with him?"

"Some pony, covered in robes, and a lot of saddle bags." Crescent answered. "When I cut one open, it dropped-"

"A strange purple crystal?" Ocean answered, walking into view. "That stallion's name was Stone Cold, and the pony he took with hims was my colleague Fusion, and to make matters worse, he took the crystals we were studying."

"What would he want with those crystals?" Armor asked.

"I don't know." Ocean answered. "This Changeling attack came when we were trying to figure it out, and Stone proved to be working for someone else before he knocked me out."

"Those weren't Changelings!" Ruby snapped a little, a blush of emotion went across her face. "They were Misshapen."

"They're what?" Armor asked, his tone was so full of annoyance, that it was obvious he didn't enjoy Ruby's presence, let alone her talking.

"Those were reject Changelings." Ruby explained in a vague description and tone, avoiding eye contact with both Armor and Ocean. "Changeling that never lived in the Changeling Hive and thus don't follow Queen Chrysalis's orders."

"I don't care what the specifics are, they were Changelings and they attacked us." Armor gesture to the other injured and afflicted crystal ponies. Many had no color on them, others were half faded in color, covered in deep and bloodied bite marks. "I plan to find whatever cave they live in and burn it. As well as any Changeling that tries to stop me." Armor then stormed off in frustration.

'interesting.' Ocean thought adjusting his scarf to cover his mouth and tip of his snout. 'Shining Armor is usually known to be composed under pressure, but became so tense and agitated after Ruby talked. And what does he mean by "any Changeling"? And Ruby, how did she know these know these Changelings were a different grouping from the Changeling Hive? Hmmm.'

"What do we do now?" Crescent asked, leaning his head back on the infirmary pillow it was resting on.

"For now we recover." Ocean suggested. "You suffered several fractures, lacerations, bite mark, though odd how there are no signs of infection, so you need to recover. I was in the castle so these "Misshapen" as Ruby called them didn't bother me." Then he looked at Ruby. "And what about you? When we found you, many of those Misshapen seemed to flee from you rather than attack you."

"I'm not as defenseless as I look Ocean." Ruby rubbed the back of her head as she seemed to congratulated herself.

'Many of the bodies found near her had several burn marks, magical burn marks.' Ocean thought over. 'Crescent doesn't use fire based spells. So who burned those Misshapen?'

In the same infirmary, but in a different section

"He'll be fine right?" Azer asked the crystal nurse.

"Yes." The nurse smiled. "He's suffered minor exhaustion an loss of complexion, but he'll recover. Thankfully one of those things didn't stay on him for too long."

"Yeah...thanks." Azer said, looking at his resting brother, Talon was there besides him.

"I'm sorry I couldn't do anything." Talon said in a sad tone.

"No, you did what you could." Azer said. "Thank you for saving him though. I wouldn't have been able to get to him in time if you weren't there."

"I-I just wish I could've done more." Talon said.

"He's alive and will recover. That's good enough for me." Azer said. "But if you could, I need to go back to the shop, I need to grab something. Can you stay and watch him?"

"Sure." Talon smiled.

Azer went down the ruined streets, paramedic ponies grabbing victims of the Misshapen. Thankfully there seemed to be no fatalities,, but the damage to the streets and buildings would cost a lot to repair. As he turned a corner towards the music store, a small saddle bag caught Azer's eye.

Opening it, Azer found the saddle bag was filled with small fragments of the strange purple crystal. "What's this?"