Illuminating Aegis: Tales of the Changeling King

Wind whipped through the night air as a creature that was shaped like a pony pulled its cloak tighter around its body, the fingers clinked a little together even as it kept up the illusion of being real. Even the dull blue glow from its eyes had been reduced to keep its old travelling companions from getting suspicious. The time for travelling with others was over though and it had a message to deliver.

At this pace it would arrive before the Sith that it had picked up on its sensors, with any luck it would be able to infiltrate the town just before the Sith arrived so that the warning could be prepared.

The pony-creature let out a metallic version of a frustrated huff when four Timberwolves stalked out of the underbrush to surround it. Without even hesitating the pony-creature extended its metal right arm which clicked and whirred for a few seconds before sending a quick and powerful plasma shot at the Timberwolf in front of it. A loud, pained yelp was the response that the metal pony got as the burst struck the lead wolf in the face and sent the burning hunk of wood to the ground. With a series of growls that the remaining three Timberwolves seemed to understand that the metal pony was not a creature to be messed with as they began to back off. The metal pony gave a small nod as it continued on its journey to Ponyville, more specifically... the Changeling Hive beneath the town.

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Patina sat in her personal chambers with an incredibly worried aura about her, less than an hour ago she had been informed that Namiro had been suffering a case of energy starvation which promptly led her to be reasonably panicked. Luckily one of the recent clutches had a drone that specialized in medical knowledge and had immediately seen to the curious case. Even without Namiro the hive was flourishing... but if she were to lose him...

She refused to think about it as she went back to pacing, it was strange but she could have sworn there hadn't been a groove in the floor a few minutes ago. Perhaps it would be best... if she didn't worry. After all, Namiro was hooked up to the Changeling equivalent of medical equipment... the hive was in great health... and for some strange reason Namiro had been stripped of his bond to the Force... Oh wait, that last one was bad...

With a deep breath Patina sat at the foot of her bed. She closed her eyes and thought back to a few of the exercises that Namiro had taught her for calming down, ones that definitely helped as they seemed to be fixated on reaching for something just outside of her reach. She had a good feeling that it was The Force that Namiro had explained to her about...

But if it was that easy to sense, why couldn't everyone be proficient in it? It certainly seemed like unicorns were, though Namiro had said that the Unicorns did it without realizing the connection. It was possible that his original teachings had been wrong... that was the biggest lesson that he had tried to convince her as they had made the move to Ponyville, he wanted to go back to the original Je'Daii teachings.

"There is no Light side... there is no Dark side... There is only The Force..." She mumbled to herself as she steadied her breathing and tried to gather her thoughts. In a way it was a lot like the changelings, they didn't want to take sides... they just wanted to survive, and her hive was Flourishing now that they had to expand the storerooms in the lower part of the hive to keep up with the sudden upswing in love harvested... love freely given...

Even now, the tantalizing scent of the willingly-given love seeped through the entire hive. It was too faint for ponies to smell, but even the most dull-witted of changelings could taste and smell the scent given off by the stores of love that these ponies had begun paying to give. Her mind drifted to a few of the requests her changelings had lately and promptly shuddered as she stuffed those memories back into the pit that she cleared specifically for them. Her mind worked to clear itself of anything that wasn't absolutely required...

...The voices of her children became background noise...

...The feeling of the floor under her faded away...

...All that was left... was a void... and the feeling of The Force just out of reach...

...She would be patient though, she had waited this long to thrive as the hives long ago once had, she could wait longer. Let it come to her instead of the other way around, let it flow naturally. It arrived as a trickle at first, like someone slowly turning a faucet on, but soon enough she could feel the new energy that seemed so familiar to her. She could taste how it had tasted, understood that this was what she had been feeding on when her children consumed love.

It felt like she was breathing for the first time as she inhaled deeply, The Force had finally reached out to her, with its new embrace she actually felt full. "So this is what he goes on about... I can't say I blame him..." She giggled as she felt her vision glaze over a little.

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Trixie smiled darkly as she noticed the town ahead of her, her fingers played with the amulet around her neck as she let The Force flow through her and get a lay of where Twilight normally was. Without another word the unicorn made her way down the path and into town. Electricity seemed to dance across her light black cloak with each step, her dark smile slowly morphing into a more and more manic one as she could feel the anticipation building up in her skin. The Force wanted to be used and it was her job as a tool of The Force to use it, a crazed giggle nearly escaped her throat as she continued picturing every way imaginable she could use to listen to Twilight scream... but she finally settled on something a tad simpler...

She would cut Twilight off from her precious friends, banish her from the town. The unicorn shivered as she felt The Force agree with her decision. "This is going to be fun..." Trixie growled with a very dark smile.

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Namiro grit his teeth he deflected several blades away from him. Neither he nor his opponents wasted time with words as the phantoms had lit their crimson blades and rushed the changeling. With a more tenuous grasp on what little emotional energy he had left he shifted his stance to mimic the Soresu fighting style, emphasizing smaller movements and defense over offence. It wasn't taking up too much of his energy to be on the defensive, but five phantoms against one changeling that had little to no energy left in his system certainly had the odds stacked against the changeling.

"Why won't you assholes tire out already?" Namiro groaned as he continued his defense, a few times the blades had managed to graze him but his chitin still seemed to work properly even in the nightmare so even the grazes didn't do any significant damage. It was only a few more moments before it felt like the Changeling King accidentally took a step back into a hole and began to fall, Namiro quickly stowed his blade as he felt some sort of resistance build up around him. "There's no doubt that this is going to hurt..." He managed to groan internally before a deafening bang assaulted his ears.

Before a second darkness blinded him he saw the flash of something that looked like a cat that was on fire.