Author's Note

This chapter was part of the reason for me reclassifying the story. I have a blood trail and for some reason thought it didn't need a gore tag.
Worry not everyone, there's no sad tag for a reason.

02. Preconceived notions shattered

AI ID: 0xFCC393E6 (Alias: Scootaloo)

Sunday January 19th 10 000 A.F.H. (January 19th 15017 C.E.)

Infiltration Scout Cyborg (Rev. 9.3)

Scheduled wakeup time reached (07:00): Resuming previous session.

Previous session resumed. Handing over control to Local AI

******

After the depressing news about Diamond Tiara yesterday, I'm ready for pleasant to distract me. So imagine my relief when I finish breakfast and step outside to find Apple Bloom walking her border collie Winona. I smile and run up to greet her.

"Hey Apple Bloom, nice dog you've got there, what's her name?" I ask.

"Oh hey Scootaloo, name's Winona, she's our work dog. She helps us round up the cows 'n sheep when they get panicked, which happens surprisingly often. I was just takin' her for a walk. Wanna join me?" She asks.

"Sure, I'd love to. Does she play fetch?" I ask.

"Sure does, if you want I can fetch a frisbee and we can play fetch after we're done walking her." She suggests.

"That sounds like fun! Hey, maybe we can get our cutie marks in frisbee throwing?" I suggest.

Apple Bloom's eyes light up. "That's a great idea, we should fetch Sweetie Belle and totally try it!"

"CUTIE MARK FRISBEE THROWERS YAY!" We cry, performing what is essentially a high five. This earns us an annoyed look from a passing mare.

We ignore her and continue our walk.

******

Thirty seven minutes later finds us in front of Carousel Boutique, which is where Sweetie Belle lives with her sister Rarity.

Rarity is a natural born Unicorn mare. Like her sister she has an immaculate white coat. Her purple mane and tail are both curled and appear to be meticulously maintained. She has inviting blue eyes and her cutie mark is a trio of diamonds. She represents the element of generosity, which is one of the elements of harmony, a powerful magical weapon that we have observed being used many times over the years.

I knock on the door and Sweetie Belle answers the door. Her face lights up when she sees us.

"Hey Sweetie Belle, we're gonna try and get our cutie marks in frisbee throwing! Wanna come with us?" I ask.

"I'd love to!" She turns her head and calls over her shoulder "Rarity, I'm going to go play with my friends!"

"Ok Sweetie, have fun and don't get dirty." Comes the response from inside.

"Awesome, we're going to Apple Bloom's place, her dog's gonna be fetching the frisbee for us." I say.

"Then what are we waiting for? Lets go!" Sweetie Belle cries, and takes off in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres. We aren't far behind.

******

Sixteen minutes into our frisbee throwing session we get bored throwing the frisbee.

"Girls, this isn't working. I don't think our cutie marks are in frisbee throwing. Lets try something else, do you girls have any other ideas?" Sweetie Belle asks.

"Wanna try lion taming?" Asks Apple Bloom.

"No, I already tried animal taming, trust me, you don't want to try it. Especially with Fluttershy around, she can be scary when it comes to her animals." I reply.

"Hey, what about diamond mining? My sister is gathering them all the time for her dresses!" Sweetie Belle suggests.

"Yeah, that sounds like fun! But isn't that a dirty job? Won't Rarity be mad if you come home all muddy?" I ask.

"Yeah, but if we do get muddy couldn't we just take a bath at one of your houses?" Sweetie Belle points out.

"Good, point. Then it's settled we're going to be..." I take a deep breath.

"CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS DIAMOND MINERS, YAY!" we all cheer, high fiving.

******

AI ID: 0xFCC393E6 (Alias: Scootaloo)

Sunday January 19th 10 000 A.F.H. (January 19th 15017 C.E.)

Infiltration Scout Cyborg (Rev. 9.3)

Initiating self diagnostics (14:23):

Grade 3 concussion detected

Both lungs collapsed

Heart offline

Liver offline

Kidneys offline

Foreign matter in chest cavity

All ribs shattered

Major fracture detected in front left radius bone

Front left carpus shattered

Major fracture detected in front left cannon bone

Self diagnostics complete:

Warning: System critically damaged

Warning: Damage sustained indicates 86% probability of inorganic parts being externally visible

Attempting to contact central AI

Connection established, orders received:

• Initiate repairs

• Retrieve any witnesses for memory alteration

• Return to base with witnesses

Dispatching repair nanites

Rebooting system: Complete

Handing over control to local AI

******

I wake up to damage reports and excruciating pain. I open my eyes and look at myself, My chest has been crushed by a large boulder, and my front left leg is broken in multiple places. Probably from the rocks that landed on it. My inorganic portions are clearly visible through the wounds in my leg.

I block out the pain and push the boulder off of my chest using my augmented strength and three remaining undamaged limbs. I then proceed to climb to my hooves, it further damages my broken leg but I have to find the others. Without my internal organs my organic portions will soon die. Thankfully my inorganic parts, excluding my front left leg, are intact so I am still able to move.

What happened immediately becomes clear, Sweetie Belle unknowingly compromised the structural integrity of the mine shaft we found when she pulled that diamond out of the wall with her magic. Strangely she isn't where she was just a few moments ago. Neither is Apple Bloom. What there is however is a blood trail leading away from the collapsed entrance and deeper into the mine. I decide to follow the blood trail.

After twenty seven minutes of following the blood trail I find them. Sweetie Belle is still out cold and Apple Bloom is beside her breathing laboriously.

I can see something sticking out of her back. It doesn't appear to be bone, in fact it kind of looks like a chunk of carapus...

I immediately set myself on high alert, that's not Apple Bloom, it's a changeling! The changeling looks my way and freezes. Changelings have excellent night vision so I'm sure it can see me.

"Sweet Celestia, you're one of those... things! You have to be, no pony could have survived getting crushed like that!" It cries.

I put a feral grin on my face. "Yes I am, and I've been waiting three years to take my revenge on your wretched kind!"

"P-Please don't kill me. I haven't done anything wrong!" It cries.

I can suddenly smell urine, did it just pee itself? That's strange, changelings normally don't show any fear when it comes to death. We've had changelings kill themselves rather than let us capture them. Why is this one so different?

I take a menacing step forward. "Why shouldn't I kill you? You've replaced one of my friends, seen what I really am, and your kind killed my father!" I yell at her.

"P-Please, I won't tell anypony, and besides, you never knew Apple Bloom, only me, so I didn't replace one of your friends."

I'm taken back at that declaration. I never met Apple Bloom? That actually makes sense, we've only known her for a day, and I didn't notice any weird behavioural changes normally associated with a changeling replacing somebody.

"Ok let's say I believe you, when exactly did you replace her then?"

"T-Three years ago." She replied.

Wait, three years ago? Thats when the changelings killed my father and kidnapped my mom... and when Apple Bloom came stumbling out of the forest covered in timber wolf bite marks several weeks later!

"I-I found her body deep in the Everfree. It looked like she had been mauled by a timber wolf. Our hive had fallen on desperate times. We had just recently failed at a kidnapping attempt. You see the husband had woken up and..." Her eyes went wide. "Th-Those were your parents? We always thought you were demons created by Celestia to thwart our efforts at feeding!"

Despite the circumstances, I actually burst out laughing at that remark.

"A-Anyway so because of that failure we were beginning to starve. So I couldn't believe my luck that I had found her body."

"Wait, why were you starving? You bloody changelings were constantly infiltrating the ponies' cities and towns and gathering love."

"T-That wasn't my hive, there are three major hives in this area: The Chrysalis hive, the Pupa hive, and the Ocelli hive, and then a dozen or so smaller hives. I belong to Queen Thorax's hive, one of the smaller ones."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"I was getting to that!" The changeling takes a deep breath. "Anyway as I was saying. The three major hives are constantly fighting over the privilege of feeding on the pony cities and towns, and they kill any changelings that intrude on 'their' feeding grounds. Since my hive is too small to fight the bigger ones we rely on stealing the occasional pony to feed on."

"That's horrible!"

"N-No it's not! We take great care of them! We need their love after all. We give them anything they want, except freedom of course."

"Oh of course." I reply snidely.

The changeling gives me a dirty look but continues with her story.

Anyway, since I was starving I immediately took her shape, careful to include some of her less fatal wounds so I had something to explain any odd behaviour, and buried her. I was terrified. I had no idea how she behaved, or even where she lived. I wandered through town until I ran into Rarity. I didn't know her, but it was obvious she knew me. When she saw the frightened look on my face and my "wounds" she immediately started comforting me. That's when I found out my name. She lead me to the hospital before retrieving Applejack. She took me home and nursed me back to health, her sisterly love keeping me fed."

I guess that explains where she came from.

"I guess that makes sense, but if it was so dangerous to stay why did you? You obviously knew you ran the risk of being discovered by not only a hostile changeling but by one of the ponies or one of us."

"I stayed because I had finally found somewhere that I wouldn't starve, and had ponies that would protect me from the hostile changelings. Do you really think the Apple family was going to let anything happen to me after I came stumbling out of the forest covered in wounds?"

"I see your point. Ok, one more question. How do you know the details of an event that happened three years ago that you weren't directly involved in?'

"We have a hive mind."

So it's confirmed. We always suspected that was the case. Now I have a dilemma. I've lost my drive to kill her, she is my friend after all, but I still need to contain the situation. I contact Command to ask for guidance. She's quick to reply and tells me to bring them both in. The changeling could prove useful and if we can get some nanites in her we might be able to tap into that hive mind she was talking about. Command also thinks we can get rid of the changeling problem if we can convince the changelings to fight amongst themselves, and infect them all with nanites to ensure they don't betray us.

With that in mind I say something I never thought I would say to a changeling.

"Fine, I'm not going to hurt you."

The changeling looks surprised at that announcement.

"With that said, we need to find a way out of this mine."

******

AI ID: 0xFCC393E6 (Alias: Scootaloo)

Monday January 20th 10 000 A.F.H. (January 20th 15017 C.E.)

Infiltration Scout Cyborg (Rev. 9.3)

Scheduled wakeup time reached (07:00): Resuming previous session.

Previous session resumed. Handing over control to Local AI

******

Yesterday was certainly interesting. Once we made it back to the scene of the accident we found it had already been cleared by some 1922s who then proceeded to escort us to the surface where we were transported directly to the medical bay (Think Star Trek).

Once in the medical bay Sweetie Belle's memories were altered so that she didn't remember the cave in and the changeling, who I will now go back to calling Apple Bloom, was infected with nanites, ensuring her complete compliance.

As an added bonus, infecting her with nanites really did connect us to Apple Bloom's hive's hive mind. Command then proceeded to negotiate an actual alliance with the changeling queen, no subjugation involved. That took both sides by surprise. In fact, Command gave them some drones to feed off of and in exchange the changelings promised to stop kidnapping ponies.

Anyway today I have to go back to school. It will be so weird to be going to class with a known changeling and not killing it, but I've seen and done weirder things during Discord's rule.

Opening my eyes I let loose a mighty yawn and stretch. My repairs were a complete success, you'd never know that I was damaged in the first place!

Getting to my hooves I trot down stairs and join my mom at the dinner table. Today we're having some oatmeal and fruit. I wolf it down with my usual gusto and say my goodbyes to mom before heading out the door to school. Along the way I run into Apple Bloom. Looking at us an outside observer would never be able to guess that we'd been anything other than friends.

Sweetie Belle joins us shortly thereafter and we begin talking about new ways of getting our cutie marks. Before long we reach the school, and that's when I see her, Diamond Tiara.

She looks horrible, her head is low to the ground and her ears are folded back. In all of the excitement yesterday I completely forgot about Diamond Tiara! It looks like not even Silver Spoon can cheer her up. Not surprising considering she has no idea what's wrong.

I send a low priority message to Diamond Tiara asking her how she's holding up. Her response breaks my heart.

"It's worse than either of us thought, Scootaloo. My personality's going to be completely deteriorated in a matter of years. Command's already begun the decommissioning process. My inorganic systems are being dismantled as we speak so that there will be no chance of discovery if something happens. I've got ten, maybe twelve years tops." She replies, her sense of devastation coming across the link. I send all the comforting feelings I can before severing the link.

"I wonder what's wrong with Diamond Tiara? She's not picking on anypony, not that I'm complaining of course!" Sweetie Belle comments.

"I'm not sure, she does kind of look under the weather, maybe she's sick?" I reply.

We continue on our way to class. My mood having taken a nosedive.