Blacklight; Mantis Chronicles.

The day I joined, was the day the most important insect in my life died. My great uncle, an insect the hive will only remember as "The Bug". A soldier the hive had immortalized in its hall of champions as a statue. Told me the most important thing I ever heard as his last words.

"It's not about changing the world my child. It's about doing our best to leave the world for others...A far better place then the way we see it is. It's about respecting the will of others to do good and trusting in them to do it, and believing in your own ability to inspire them. Above all remember. As long you see borders and rules that only exist to limit. They exist for you to pass through them... And this.. This is good? Is it not? Yes.. This is good"

I remember those words when ever I feel my self failing or doubting... The words of the worlds greatest changeling.

That was 3 years ago.
******

“It’s, no not just that....everything is gone!” The Televid sparked out as an idiotic mare started to panic in the grainy black and white feed.
My fellow teammates, others of the boat crew and I, where watching the Televid hack in the lobby of "Regal claw" The sea born combat platform of the north eastern seas. The ponies where having a stupid celebration in memory for the insult of a regent they worshiped when it happened. In a flash all of new Canterlot was just, gone. Not destroyed, blown up or magically warped to another point on the world, just gone, zip, poof, divide by the zero sum, literally defying all of Nypha pillbugs laws of matter energy transfer. 300years of changeling meta-logical psychics violated in a nanosecond, and no mega spell on record could do that, not even the mass Trans-Dimensional Time Displacement spell made by Dr hooves before the great war.

In an instant the wall speakers threw up its klaxon scream. But my team "Mantis Team 6" was already tromping down to our bunk area and gearing up, after all if shit went down the mantis teams would be first with hooves on the ground with in figurative moments.

We each strapped into our sneak-suit armor barding and helmets, had picked out gear, had weapons checked and tactical packs stored. In less then 5 min since the klaxon sounded off we stood ready, standing on the deck in a straight unison line, we did not wait long though, as soon as I got on my spot in the line, the bulkhead swung open, and our commander strode out.
******

Lt. "BOOM BOOM" Boonaker.
He wasn't even a Lt. anymore, by all rights he should be commander in chief of the entire military, he just refused every field promotion and pip handed to him. He held more respect for seeing his unit accomplish the mission with courage duty and honor, then any desire for personal advancements. The best of the best of the very best the changeling operations group had, for field commanders.

He tromped out with his helmet slotted back across his face to show his grizzled scarred facial carapace, chomping on the butt of a still smoldering cigar its smoke illuminated the glow from his missing left eye, recently replaced with a glowing green lenses of bionic source, that I can honestly state, made him even more terrifying when you looked right at him. At this point he looked more machine then insect, his left front hoof constantly hissed and whined in strain and effort with each step, the hydro-electric servos purposely tuned to an insane degree of precision that no bug but him could control.

For a second that 'charm' we only saw when the shit hit the fans broke through.
"Hope I didn't keep you waiting" Was all Boonaker said. But the sneer of confidence behind it, made us all feel better despite the weather and the suicide mission we all knew we where about to embark on. In an instant it faded and the sight of a grizzled vet who had seen the worst and weirdest shit Equestria had to crap the barding with, was grinding into us like a high pressure water cooled power drill comprised his eyes.

His voice drown out the storm like a parent castigating a disobedient larvae.
"GENTLEANTS! WE HAVE A NEW MISSION! As of 15min ago we have lost contact with multiple facilities across the New Equestrian Confederation! Our target point is facility "shield buster" in new Detrot city, one of 5 projects. Understand we are going into a city currently under full lock down by a magical anti dragon shield, a mega spell resistant shield, multiple interdiction fields, a crack anti mega fauna unit, the entire New Detrot police department and a sizable contingent of new royal guards. The shield buster facility has over 25 hard working brain-bugs and dependent mates and larvae, and we are going in to ensure the safety of the bugs, BUGS! We will recon the outer shield, locate a way in, secure the facility and extract the brain-bugs. Non changeling casualties are for this mission acceptable. Live fire orders are on, we are going head long into a genuine war zone, filled with dragons, psycho ponies, and queen mom knows what else. When your hooves hit the ground you shoot anything that moves holding what even looks like a gun, you check IRV for orange every chance you get, you do not wait for orders, you will not hesitate, anybug who dares to endanger this mission will be shot by me personally. NOW sound off!"

Each of us said our Code name and our position on the field. Down the line

"District Junker, demolition. Heavy weapons are my mission."
"Sonic Definitions, sniper. Lethal from any distance. "
"Foxhole Buster, engineering. Ready to go full bore."
"Strip Wire, communications. Public relations expert."
Finally me. " Juniper postal, insurgent. I bring the panic."

"Its good to serve with you maggots again. NOW GET TO THE CHOPPER!" Boonaker's last words where punctuated by a crash of thunder from the early afternoon storm. Without word we loaded up into the hornet attack gunship, it would transport us to the coast of Old Detrot and from that point we would seek out an infiltrate through the shield. Flight would be 2 hours to the LZ then we would go up into the bay area of Old Detrot till we arrived at the docklands of Detrot proper. The chopper trip always was a way to give me time to think... about the mission, my career... A lot of things really.
******

In theory it was no different from any other smash-dash mission. But the fact that all of the New Equestria Confederation, was on lock down merited real worry and caution, we were not the only chopper moving out. It was all feelers on deck, every bug was on hoof to absolutely evacuate any changeling personal on the mainland back to the main central hive of black-light. All projects stopped, all data collated to emotion crystals and hard digital copies wiped, all facilities to be scrubbed clean, total complete evacuation and clean up, no evidence left for even a electro-arcana microscopic scan. Absolutely utterly nothing at all left for the pegasi enclave or the Steel rangers to find.

Above all, no bug left behind- alive. Any bug left behind is a bug who could spill the baked beans on the projects, so our core goal was extraction, and if failing that. We all knew but didn't like to say it - "Assassination". It was nothing new to us, mantis teams often had to make the hard choice of "sacrifice" for the greater survival of the hive, it never made it any easier on us however. "We all go home or no bug goes home" was the old addage.

No bug likes to put cross hairs on another and pull the trigger, knowing they are killing some bugs' son or daughter, a loved one who had family friends hopes and dreams. They give us psychological training to deal with these emotions- CSFD- Combat Stress and Field Dismay is the long form, I guess it sorta works. But it never makes it easy the first time, see no amount of head questioning by some white coat brain-bug can fix that feeling you get the first time. But that is slotting a fellow bug, for some reason it is easier when Ponies wander into the sights. Ponies treat us like less then alive whenever they rarely spot us, so we treat them in kind, so much easier to put down an enemy that refuses to see you even as sentient as it. Yet we still fight to save the moron equines from the hubris of the self.

The team sat on our helmets during the flight, back when I was a newbie I asked why, and foxhole had told me " So we don't get our legs blown off from an rpg!" It was a common rule of thumb with raiders getting better tech, now a days even our chopper pilots often tossed the flak jackets they where issued on the bottom of the chopper floor for extra protection against snipers wired on chems.

Here we are using high tech gear, operate with advanced digital technology, had top of the line training and medical nano machine enhancements, and worked as an organized multi-role machine of warfare using weapons enchanted with spells nothing would suspect. Going off to fight Ponies who could hardly scrap together a gun from rust and junk and spent most of the time fighting like animals over a can of dog food with sharp sticks.

Ponies like to say "War never changes"

******

But for us...

For us 'War' has changed.

It's no longer about nations, ideologies of which princess or ethnicity of species. It's an endless series of proxy battles, fought by maniac warlords of the wastelands and our precise war machine. War, and its consumption of life, has become like a well-oiled machine: ID tagged Changelings, carry ID tagged weapons, wear ID tagged barding, use ID tagged gear. Nano-machines inside our bodies enhance and regulate our natural insect abilities. Its control: Genetic control, information control, emotion control, battlefield control. Everything is monitored, and then kept under control. The pony age of mega spell deterrence has given way to the changeling age of digital control, all in the name of averting catastrophe from mega spells of mass destruction again.

Of course the Ponies also say, the one who controls the battlefield, controls history. But when our battlefield is under total control, war... and its consumption of life, it all just becomes routine to us.

Even before the days the mega spells came and our queen sacrificed her self for the shield that still protects and hides the hive to this day. She for saw what would come, so she spied and collected technology, had us "industrialize & modernize", seeing a need to one day return to a mainland that would be a living hell. She reformed the massive swarms, into colonies, and her 5 daughters own swarms, into the regent houses: Pilosula, Clavata, Solenopsi, Matabili, and Dorylini. She took all that and forged it into a true military international force. She lovingly called her new formation of the hive a 'Militaires Sans Frontières' (The prance phrase for "Soldiers Without Borders"), it combined the best aspects of a standing state army and a special forces operations unit, augmented and supported with robotic drones and highly mechanized vehicles and technologically advanced weapons. All of these and more, ideas culled from centuries of spying on Equestria as it spiraled into inevitable obliteration of the great war, along with the work of some of the smartest brain bugs around, bugs like Nypha pillbug, katydid kyeson, and Scorpion hammerstien to name a few, helped the queen bring about the advancements of the hive.

Her goal was to have a military that with in 2 hours of a distress signal could be at any hive outpost ready to re enforce and fight back any enemy. She succeeded.

******

The chopper landed just 14 miles down the coast. We would have to trot it from there- Because the assholes back on the 'Regal claw' forgot to load a raft into the chopper.

In 14 days a large patrol fleet would pass by. That was our evacuation window, 14 days to scour a city on lock down full of the insane and afraid ponies out for blood, find an entire hives worth of brain-bugs and dependents, then bring them all home safe. Sweet juicy ovipositor of our queen. Who the hell would ever wanna become a soldier professionally? Morons like us apparently, with no usable skills save a willingness to risk life and limb for a sheer thrill and a callous regard for the life of those with in our cross hairs. What the hell has this done to us? Technology has changed us and how we see war, but was it always this bad? I often wonder that right before my hooves hit the mainland dirt, right before I slot it out of my mind for the mission.

******

The operation was Procure on site. Ammo was easy since our guns where enchanted to warp to what we needed from any shell. But things like vehicles for transport back to the Evac LZ would need to be done on our own, with any luck though the brain-bugs would have at least a few trucks in working order. As the chopper dusted off we activated our sneak suit cloaks, the dust silhouetted our near invisible forms as microscopic lenses sewn directly into the tight reflexive bullet resistant fibers of the sneak suits reflected and blended light around us to match our surroundings. Better then any stealth buck without any mental disruption- at least to us, infinite as long as there was enough photo voltaic energy to be drawn from the sun, but in the sort of pitch black night that render the battery cells useless. Well... a good Mantis doesn't need a cloak to do the job right Just a sharp shank of metal.

No one spoke during the long trot. This was after all supposed to be an "easy mission" but nothing survives first contact not even us. But we where lead by Lt. Boonaker, 3 years of serving under his command taught me one absolute thing, changelings always find a way, nothing can beat us, we change to meet the challenge. Even when I dragged his ass back to a PT boat 5 months ago after he got his left eye blown out by a small revolver round. He was still barking orders between spitting up blood and demanding to be let go to scalp the pony that shot him. The Lt. was the only bug I ever met who reminded me of my Great uncle. He was a real Big Bug all his own, I knew it everybug on the boat knew it, even the captain of the helm often differed to boonaker's consulations.

We moved in classic webbing formation, each bug had a section of the clock to watch with boon in center working as constant Heads up monitor. It was a slow track through the wasteland. Wandering through the remains of a world that went and shot its self in the head. Skeletons in sand, rusted luna highway carts, was all to be found, no signs of life save the odd roach, giant ant or radscorpion, these creatures wisely scuttled off when they sensed our presence, that of the better APEX level insect.

How Equestria could bring its self to this, yet call us the monsters back then, it almost made me chuckle. Suddenly there was a flurry of movement occurred to my left as Sonic snatched up a small sort of snake in his hoof barding cuff. With the ease of a trained predator my comrade crushed its head in a swift motion into the dirt, then with in a second he had sliced it into bits with his combat knife and was magically levitating out the slices to all of us. We all had some, slotting back the panels to our helmets to eat, the tangy gritty meat wasn't bad raw. Another rule of thumb for a mantis team was "eat what you can, when you can" raw bloody snake meat wasn't much of a chore for us, after all when the only real food you get is on ship, plus whatever you can pocket from the galley, in addition to S ration Wafers, you make do.

Mantis teams went through some the most hellish training, most of it just to survive off the land through anything, waste water, or radioactive mutated flesh, it does not matter. Our nanites suppressed any negative effects, save a very bad reputation among the Pony locals for our "exotic tastes", but the way we saw it, fuck them. They are ponies, the ones responsible for blasting the world to shit and leaving us the most hated enemy to pick up the pieces.
******
Who the shit would ever wanna be a soldier? ,My thoughts where cut short by a sharp few words of the Lt.

"Foxhole, your vitals spiked, whats up bug?"

"Thought I saw something in the dust sir, a child- or- illusion? Uh... - Just an odd sun glare sir." Foxhole shook his helmet like he was trying to shake off a bad dream.

"Well keep your eyes on clock bug, this is enemy territory". Boonaker didn't even turn to look at him, he kept his eyes and head on a constant rotating bead of the horizon on watch for anything that might be a raider, legion or enclave group, only tossing his helmet view down to his wrist holo map to confirm position. He wasn't wrong though for all the good we tried to do, we where ALWAYS in enemy territory when on the mainlands, even after nearly 300 years. Ponies still feared us.

******

We arrived at the edge of New Detrot city just as nightfall hit, the increased time to arrived was due to needing to move slow and ensure our camo cloaks didn't disrupt from too swift of a movement compared to the background, but when we finally reached the docks of New Detrot we let them fall. Letting the natural aspects of the ruined beach and our suits more adaptive -Mantis camo, bend into the colors and texture of the surrounding to cover us, that adaptive camo was how the mantis operations group gained the name, our ability to hide and strike was akin to the praying mantis. But that was not of any matter at this moment. Even with my helmet on telling me it was a illusion, I still slotted back the visor to see with my own eyes.

"Sir. Its-!" I was agog, I truly admit that, I couldn't help but stare straight up.

"Gone. I know postal. This isn't right-" Boonaker tapped the side of his helmet and shook his head as if he took a shellshock hit. "IRV isn't working! Everyone Comet formation, District you are on point, Sonic your on second, the rest spread out 3 meters."

"No sir not that" I raised a hoof at the skyline, which for some reason as we got to the beach started to mirror the ground scape and bleed into a pinkish red. "I was talking about the piece of barding shitting non euclidian geometry hanging over us and violating laws of nature science and reality in a way involving a light socket, a glass rod, and a hammer."

For the first time Boonaker noticed the deformation of the city that was reflected into the skies. But he wasn't as shocked as the unit, why would he be, he was Lt. "Boom Boom" Boonaker. The Bug who killed 2 Ponies that called them selves "god" because they merged with a mega spell. To boonaker this, wasn't even a drop of piss in the rain. He slotted back his helmet visor to see for sure that it was not a glitch in the optical sensors, and did a slight double take when he figured that the sky scape was real. "Well isn't this just a new, interesting and totally unwanted addition to the universe... Well it isn't falling on us or folding up into the shape of a butterfly, and laughing. So I think for now we can just ignore it Juniper. Get on your spot, we still got a mission."
******

I silently nodded and stood to my point like the rest hefting up my highly customized heavy rifle, the weight in my magical levitation field giving me some comfort. The main enchanted receiver like all core receivers for changeling guns was magically enhanced to adapt any round fed into its firing chamber- if it was fed through an equally enchanted magazine, which mine was enchanted to implant a toxic influenza spell onto. The combination of these two spells would adjust and adapt any round into a proper size and likewise amount of charge. The barrel, stock, mag, muzzle flash break, and sights where all chosen by me for my particular needs, a powerful bore gun, highly stable and sighted for close to medium range encounters, the perfect thing to tear up a super stallion face, or turn a mob of raiders into greasy paste. Each of us had a gun customized to our needs, from "Betsy" Boonakers highly modified drum-fed super long range, assault rifle, to the stubby bolt-action "murder beast" Foxhole carried for room breaching. Customizing a gun or even barding was one of the habits of changeling of all types, after all "standard issue is always insufficient" as "The Bug" once said in an old training Holo.
******

We made our way into the city from the shoreline and docks.
It felt weird though, the docks and onward where empty, but the remaining refuse showed signs of a highly active city. Veggie-dogs where still roasting, well make that burning - on the spit, poppin' corn carts still well, again burning rather then popping. But no life signs, no signs of nothing, an entire city of about 2000 creatures, just silent. Like less then a few hours ago the dock was a lively sight of life and peace, then suddenly just vanished. At least if the shield was up it was likely that there would be some sort of guard near the edge. But this the sky, the quiet, the way it looked like everything just evaporated. None of it 'tasted' right, all as the strange geometric violation of reality hungover head. I tried my IRV again nothing.
******

IRV was the changeling scientific research and development castes' attempt to reverse engineer the E.F.S. or Eyes Forward Sparkle tech of the pipbuck made for stable-tech. The brain-bugs couldn't get the constant overlay to properly work without damaging the eyes, so instead decided to used that spell-work concept to piggyback the sensory spell that gave us what we called IRV. INSECT REALITY VISION. A holographic overlay to the eyes that could project through solid walls to display an individual based on the electromagnetic impulses made through the nerve system just like an insect would see its see prey through dirt, stone, wood, or leaves. We could see everything through walls steel-even solid rock within 500 meters as long as we had a sub orbital sat-scan, or a scattering of beacon balls, turning our encounters into more deadly tight conflict zones rather then wide scale front line grinders. The downside was it could only activate for a very short time on average about 5 seconds maybe 6. The effort needed for a helmet CPU to process the entire battlefield in IRV was way to difficult to keep going at all times, so we learned to pre-fire with them, or as we called it "tap, confirm, react". The IRV was how we commanded the seaboard of our island pelgos and protected our hive projects and outposts on the mainland, it was a true pinnacle of changeling ingenuity and technology.

******
But with IRV down, we where reduced to how it was when "The Bug" first served almost 5 decades ago. A hoof full of Beacon balls, using topographical points for landmarks, confirmed suppressing fire to prevent ambushes, room by room sweeps, close quarters combat. It was considered barbaric but absolutely needed when all technological aspects of our army failed, we would fall back on the classic "Claw, Mandible, Stinger," or CMS style of fighting.

So we figured not to bother, we would ether save the brain-bugs, or destroying the cause of the effect that reduced a once bustling city to a realm of ghostly silence. Radio signal connection to the "Regal Claw" was still active but very weak. So we asked for the improvised IRV drop. A robotic flight drone would be sent out from the "Regal Claw" loaded with 6 missiles all containing 600 IRV beacon-balls, each orb about the size of a shotglass, these missiles would air-burst across the city turning the entire landscape into a active IRV field. The issue with it's use was it reduced the active time from the average 6 seconds, to 2, due to the additional strain for the helmet to process. But they could be collected and activated by ID-tag confirmation to self destruct like little scanner grenades, so they could be used to scan rooms that normally would be missed in the air burst as well as help clear them, the beacons would effectively nullify whatever the shit that strange skyscape was doing to our sat-scans and give us back the tech edge.
******

"IRV still down, whats the ETA Strip?" District snarled.
He was sweeping each window with his recon LMG and helmet double-takes as sonic kept his Burst-fire rifle trained on every alley corner and doorway. The two where like a machine, nothing got past the eyes on front, I kept slowly trotting backwards eyes on rear, Keeping an eye mostly on the roofs giving the ground a swift eye sweep occasionally I could hear the shuffling hoof steps of Foxhole Strip & Boonaker. Comet formation ensured all points where covered in a possible ambush situation.

"We got ETA on IRV inbound, 2 hours. Sonic find us an empty place to have some lunch, that snake got me hungry." Strip muttered, we could almost not hear him over the sounds of our own stomachs as he griped.

We swept what looked like a small brownstone two level, confirmed it was clear, then bickered for a moment over who would take first watch. Foxhole lost the coin toss and begrudgingly took first watch downstairs in the main entrance area, as we set down for a meal in the largest bedroom after moving aside from old broken furniture.
******

Boonaker took off his barding and splayed it out for a sort of table cloth on the dirty floor, and we all tossed over what we had stolen and stashed from the boat onto it, which included a lot, spiced summer sausage and a large bag of dried berries with granola, a couple hard boiled eggs, a tomato and a cucumber, a few bagels and a block of cheese, a small jar of ketchup and mustard mix, one burno can of instant camping heat, and 6 bottles of Nuvo-Matabili brand beer- District had the oddest skill of stealing that particular brand from the Officers club without being caught, I thought they tasted a bit like paper-pulp but in a war zone it was a nice drink none the less.

As we all looked over the nice cunningly procured and rather large repast, that would prepare us for the mission better, we all felt strangely proud. I prepared sandwiches cutting up the veggies and eggs and cheese with my machetes' tip, with Sonics' assist in warming the meats and egg slices on his breech hammer's side and toasting the bagels, with the "burno" can. Sonic was the youngest in the unit. Only at the tail end of his first year as a mantis. So he got to do the "bitch work".

In the background I could here boonaker and the others move to the stairwell still with in earshot and start to tell the story of when he and "The Bug" once Beetle rushed the former NEC president out of a bar in Pairadice back when he was a rank maggot on a regular scout mission lead by "The Bug" for his mantis initiation.

Now you might wonder why the hell we, a crack unit of special operations insects. Would take time out to have a nice dainty little picnic mid mission, like the foals in the book "We all go mad in sea saddle". Well with IRV down for a while and it being the middle of the queen damned night there was not much point to trying to do CMS fighting house to house in a place without any power or light. Sure we could see plain as daylight but IRV let us determine what a civilian pony was compared to a genuine lethal threat.

At least after the airburst we could do it with the small bit of IRV support. Also when your searching an entire city, and skipped lunch, good dinner can make all the difference moral wise, see moments like this, off the boat and surrounded by enemies and only with your team at your back, you tend to savor the precious quiet moments together like eating or telling a story during the luldrums between combat encounters.

This was also linked with the reasoning that you DO NOT want to be outside during a IRV Beacon burst, because those fuckers hurt when they hit you.
******
ACCESSING RECORDS. Diary entry saved.