What lies in Treble’s basement
The door rattled slightly on its hinges, the sound accompanied by another noise, by the bizarre, alien chittering that had awoken one Moonlight Dancer bolt upright from sleep. Dreams involving a certain well known pop star, a saucy collection of stockings, panties, and garter belts, and making music that had nothing to do with singing had been rudely shoved aside by the sudden realization that something was moving around in the basement. This would have been an unnerving enough realization without adding in the troubling aspect that it wasn't her home she was currently sleeping in, adding an unsettling element of unfamiliarity to her surroundings to go with the unknown source of the sound...a source that had since migrated upstairs, and was even now prowling around right outside the bedroom door.
The petite pegasus was house-sitting for a friend...of sorts. Her relationship with Treble Clef was a little tricky to nail down exactly. She was a friend of a friend for certain, as well as the marefriend of a another friend, and sister to the marefriend of Moonlight's brother, and certainly the two were good acquaintances that got along well enough due to sharing a sense of humor that frequented the gutter. Moonlight and Treble didn't really spend much time together though, not just the two of them. They mostly mingled during group events hosted by the various individuals they both knew. Still, they knew each other well enough for Treble to feel comfortable in Moonlight knowing that she was not, in fact, a chocolate brown pegasus with supermodel good looks. She was in actuality an escaped changeling from the hive, a freeling, who merely pretended to be a pony and tried to live out a mostly normal life in Ponyville. Or as normal as life could be in that particular town.
Treble also trusted her enough to gladly let Moonlight crash at her place, even though she was going to be out of town. Moonlight's dance troupe was putting on a show in Ponyville the following day...or at least, they would be, assuming their lead performer for the show didn't end up getting eaten by whatever was lurking in Treble's basement. For a brief moment after waking up, Moonlight had almost managed to convince herself she had imagined the noise, or that it had been something more mundane that her dreaming mind had warped into something unknown and frightening.
That notion had gone flying out the window as the noise had repeated itself for her wide awake self to properly enjoy. The sound put Moonlight in mind of some creature's hunting cry, a trilling chitter meant to alert others of its kind that food had been found. Indeed, even as the thought occurred to her, fully formed and not just as an instinctual notion as before, Moonlight heard another such cry come drifting up through the floorboards, and then another, and then another. She counted five distinct calls, each slightly different from the one just on the other side of the door.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Moonlight slipped out of the bed, trying as hard as she could to be quiet. This was hindered greatly by the fact that she was currently unable to recall the exact layout of Treble's bedroom. Had the bedside table been on the left or the right? The dresser was against the wall across from the foot of the bed...or had that been wardrobe?
Busy as she was racking her brain, Moonlight was barely able to restrain the scream of alarm that tried to bolt up out of her lungs and out her mouth as she saw something move in the darkness. Only a supreme effort of will kept her silent, and a second later she remembered the vanity, with it's large mirror, which was set against the wall she was currently facing. Choking down the shriek her own darkness shrouded form had nearly birthed, she turned slowly towards the door, even as a tentative, probing thump made it rattle again. Whatever was there, it knew she was close by, she just knew it. Somehow, it had heard her moving, or else sensed her by some other means. Smell perhaps? Or some more alien, predatory sense such as by her body heat or the electro-chemical discharge of her muscles?
Not that it mattered really, all that matter was that it knew where she was, and that it was standing outside the only doorway out of the room. Moonlight would have tried the windows, only the damned things had security bars in place. There was a sickening sort of irony somewhere there, but she didn't have the time or inclination to ponder it at the moment, especially when she heard a new sound, one even more terrifying than any of those that had preceded it. It was the sound of the doorknob rattling, and then turning. Slowly at first, a mere fraction of a turn before it was allowed to spring back. But the next attempt went further, the mechanism clicking and creaking as various components spun and springs were compressed.
There was no more time, not for trying to be quiet, or to try and consider plans, or even to be afraid. The bolt cleared the doorframe, and the door creaked open a few inches. Moonlight heard a soft thump on the other side of the door, and then the hinges sounded the final alarm as the door was shoved open, and the thing on the other side came into the room.
Moonlight gave a sudden bellowing shriek, something that was part battle-cry and part terrified scream, as she darted forward to meet her attacker. Whatever her fate might be, she wasn't about to just cower in a quivering lump and take it. It something wanted to eat her, she would see to it that the thing choked on her in the effort. In the darkness she almost missed the thing, before she saw the black shape crawling over the floor. It was smaller than she was expecting, but still bigger than anything unknown she wanted to deal with in the dark.
Whatever it was, her yell seemed to catch it off guard, as it came to an abrupt halt at the sudden noise. Moonlight pounced on the opportunity, jumping forward and bringing both forehooves down in a double legged stomp. The thing sensed the strike coming, and it fell back suddenly, Moonlight's attack striking the floor with a thunderous impact, a surge of vindictive triumphant rushing through her at making the unknown beast back-peddle from her ferocious onslaught.
Then the thing started crying. Not some odd, alien cry either, nor like the crying of a frightened animal. It cried like a little foal. Confusion and alarm instantly swept aside Moonlight's sense of victory as she listened to the thing wail like a terrified child. Slowly, cautiously, she crept around the thing, moving over next to the doorway and feeling around with a wing for the light switch. She blinked swiftly as the light's came on, willing her eyes to adjust faster, until she was able to squint down at the thing that had terrified her from sleep.
It was small, the size of a young foal, maybe two or three years of age. It was shaped much the same as a foal even, with four legs and a head and body of equine proportions. Unlike a pony though, it didn't have fur, or a mane. It had a chitinous exoskeleton of an ebony black hue, and some kind of semi-transparent membrane of a teal color ran from the top of it's head down the back of it's neck. It had fangs, albeit tiny, actually rather adorable in a way, really.
It was a changeling, a very young one, and it was curled up in a tiny ball and sobbing.
"...what the actual buck..." Moonlight asked of no one.
What lies in Treble’s basement, part 2
Treble Clef was having a great day. She had woken up in the bed of her coltfriend, Night Stryker, after a long, blissful evening of bedroom calisthenics, and even managed to wring one last performance out of the big zebra/pegasus before he had been forced to hurry off to work to avoid being late. She'd then spent the better part of an hour just lazing around in Night's bed, wrapped up in the covers and enjoying the soothing warmth and the lingering aroma of the stallion on the sheets. Eventually she had worked up the energy to roll herself out of bed and throw together a bowl of cereal for breakfast. A very hot shower followed, mostly for the simple pleasure of the sensation of near scalding water soaking itself into her fur and coursing over her skin.
She didn't really need the shower to clean up, seeing as she wasn't really a small, brown on brown pegasus, but a changeling posing as such. Her photogenic good looks had nothing to do with personal effort towards her appearance, which was minimal at best. Instead she rather shamelessly abused her shapeshifting powers to ensure she always looked fantastic without needing to put in any real thought or effort towards the goal. Still, a shower every now and then was both pleasant, and did keep her from smelling funny. Changefire could only do so much about body odor unfortunately.
Thus having wrung every ounce of enjoyment she could out of her morning, Treble finally decided it was time to head home. Locking up with the key Night had provided her, by virtue of it having been left out where she could find it and not having been told she couldn't take it, she took a short flight across Ponyville to her house to see if Moonlight was still hanging around. The sky dancer's presence in her home had been a wonderful excuse to spend the night with her coltfriend, but now she found herself hoping Moonlight had already left for her morning rehearsal. Not because she didn't like the petite pegasus dancer, but rather because she liked her a bit too much.
Moonlight was something of a problem for Treble, in that she would normally be exactly Treble's type. Prior to Night, this wouldn't have been an issue, but unfortunately...or fortunately...or something, Treble wasn't exactly sure how to label it, but the point was, she was actually in a committed relationship with the big pegasus. It was something she was still trying to get used to really, after so many years of one night stands, casual lovers, and buck buddies, having just one individual she was sharing her love and affection with still felt a little off. Not that she would trade Night for anything, not even her best fantasy orgy, the entire current Wonderbolt's roaster all at once, but that didn't mean she wasn't tempted from time to time by the allure of others.
And Moonlight was definitely a temptation, with that lithe, toned, supply dancer's body and that dirty sense of humor to match her own. It was enough to make Treble wish she'd met Moonlight first...or to make her wish the petite pegasus was bi instead of a fillyfooler and that Night was open to the idea of threesomes. Now that would be a night to remember...
Caught up as she was with her self-indulgent fantasy, it wasn't until she had let herself into her house and was halfway through her living room before she even realized that her home was, in fact, not empty at all. Indeed, as she slowly pulled herself away from thoughts of unlikely but inciting positions, Treble realized that Moonlight was sitting right there on her couch. The little temptress however was looking less than her normally enticing self. It probably had something to do with the bloodshot eyes, the unkempt mane, and the greatly annoyed and possibly murderous look adorning Moonlight's normally playful features.
Also the clutch of changeling nymphs surrounding her, that definitely put a damper on the situation.
"Well, look who's home," Moonlight said, her voice a slow, unhappy thing. "And looking so very refreshed too..."
"Uh...hey Moony," Treble replied, a nervous laugh evident in her voice as she eyed the situation and tried to figure out a way to head off what was looking to be a thoroughly unpleasant conversation.
"Don't you 'hey Moony' me!" Moonlight growled, though before she could really get some conversational momentum going she was cut off by one of the baby changelings uttering an unhappy little whine. "No no no! Uh, it's okay Bitey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get upset," she quickly told the little nymph, trying hard to calm and shush the changeling with a soothing voice and gentle rocking motions.
"Bitey?" Treble asked, incredulously.
"Yeah, Bitey," Moonlight replied, annoyance creeping back into her voice even as she managed to keep her tone soft and even. "Go ahead, ask me why I named him that..."
"Is...is it because he bi..."
"It's because he bites!" Moonlight interrupted with a harsh whisper. "Oh and hey, this here is Crier, and this is Spitty," she went on, pointing to each one of the dozing little changelings in turn. "And over here we have Flailer, Drooler, and Dale."
Treble blinked slowly. "...Dale?"
"Dale's been good," Moonlight confessed in a reasonable tone, giving said changeling an oddly proud look. "Hasn't actually given me any trouble. Good boy, Dale," she added, rubbing the changeling on the head softly with a wing.
"...well alright then," Treble said, slowly making her way to the chair opposite the couch. "Uh, sorry about them. I honestly wasn't expecting the eggs to hatch for another month at least."
Moonlight let out a long, tired sigh. "Just...okay, just tell me...are they yours and Night's? I mean, I guess I don't actually know anything about changeling breeding, but I can't remember you looking like..."
"Ha! No! No no no!" Treble giggled. "I assure you, if Night ever knocks me up, I'll be letting everyone know about it as soon as possible."
"Okay then...but then why did you have six changeling eggs in your basement?" Moonlight asked.
Treble shrugged. "Because I rescued them, of course."
"...right, of course..." Moonlight stated dryly. "Rescued them from whom?"
"From the bitch queen's hive," Treble replied, slouching back in her chair. "They were being shipped over seas into gryphon controlled lands. Most likely they were supposed to be used to help set up a new sub-hive over there. It's why they were so loaded up with excess love."
"Right...that makes...sense?"
"Heh, sorry," Treble apologized with a chuckle. "Sometimes I forget what is and isn't common changeling knowledge. Uh, it's part of a process by which you can force a changeling to grow to adulthood in mere months. Good for when the hive needs new bodies in a hurry. However it's not done too often because it's costly. It takes a lot of love energy to pull off, like three times as much in total as it would take for a changeling to grow up at a normal rate. And you're trying to feed all that love into them over a very short period of time, so it's only even doable when the hive has a large stockpile of love to use. Plus you also need more energy for the mentalists to use."
"Okay, and you need mentalists because?" Moonlight asked.
"Because otherwise you'd have full grown changelings with the minds of foals," Treble explained. "The mentalists have to artificially accelerate their mental development and copy several years worth of memories and training into their minds over the few months it takes them to grow up."
"Wow...that sounds intense," Moonlight remarked.
"Yup," Treble agreed with a self-satisfied smirk. "So saving these guys not only kept them from having to be slaves to the hive, it also effectively stole a whole lot of spent resources. Very costly losses."
"Okay, well I can certainly get behind that," Moonlight said with a nod. "But, how come you haven't told anyone about this? Or, have you and I'm just out of the loop?"
"Uh...well..." Treble hedged. "See, the thing is...if I told anyone about them, then my sisters would want to hear the details...and if I had to tell them the details, I'd have to explain to them why it was I chose to do something really, really stupid that I promised them I would never ever under any circumstances do..."
"Oh...so, basically, you're about to be in a lot of trouble with Radiant and Goldie, huh?" Moonlight asked. She made a thoughtful noise. "So, how exactly were you planning on keeping this from them after the eggs hatched?"
"No idea, I figured I had another month to come up with some kind of excuse," Treble admitted. "But now that they're hatched, even if you keep your mouth shut...by the way, please please pleasepleaseplease!" She suddenly begged, before going back to her normal tones. "It won't be long before they find out."
"Relax, I'm not going to rat you out," Moonlight said, a smile crossing her face at the look of relief on Treble's. "But you're right, there's no way you can keep this hidden for very..."
The rest of Moonlight's sentence was cut off by the sound of the front door lock turning, and before either mare could react, Night came walking into the room, the large pegasus/zebra holding a pair of brightly colored bouquets of flowers under each wing. He skidded to a halt as he spotted Treble, his eyes going as wide as her own shocked expression.
"Oh! Whoops..." he muttered. "Uh, I was really expecting you to still be back...at...my...place?" He trailed off slowly as he caught sight of Moonlight, half buried in a mound of baby changelings on the couch. He just stared at her for a long moment. It was clear his mind had just thrown a gear, and was busy trying to get things back into working order.
Treble sighed, facehoofing. She then glance at Moonlight, shrugged in a 'well, what are you going do?' kind of manner. Underneath the casual surrender to fate though, Moonlight saw a glint of mischievousness light up in Treble's eyes.
"Hey honey," Treble started in a overly reasonable tone of voice. "So, surprise! You're a father!" she declared with enthusiastic brightness and a huge grin.
Night blinked at Treble, the resulting mental 'crunch!' of his mind's machinery imploding on itself practically audible in his expression.
"Oh...father...ha...haha..." the big stallion managed. Then there come a soft, double 'fwoomp' of the flowers dropping, followed by the much more substantial 'thud' of Night's unconscious form hitting the floor as he passed out cold from shock.
