Back to the Swarm

by PointlessGizmo

Rating: everyone
Tags: Changelings, Trixie, Queen Chrysalis, Adventure, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 34507

The sequel to The Braggart and The Bug. Leech is recalled by his swarm. Doesn't go well, of course.

NOTE - this is the sequel to my other story, The Braggart and The Bug. This won't make much sense if you haven't read that first (sorry about that!).

Leech the Changeling is enjoying his new life as The Great and Powerful Trixie's assistant. Exiled from Pony civilization, they travel across the non-pony lands of Equestria, astounding and sometimes annoying the natives as they go. Leech certainly wouldn't ever want to go back to life in a Changeling hive now, even if his swarm wanted him to.

Of course, they'd probably never want him back anyway... would they?

Art once again supplied by ackdari.deviantart.com/ and butchered by me.

Published 2012-06-16 04:14:02 UTC
Last updated 2012-09-20 22:14:49 UTC

Chapter 2: Departure

Leech awoke early the next morning, after a sleep which had offered no benefit to him whatsoever. Still incredibly tired, he peered out of the wagon's windows. The sun had not yet fully risen, with only the merest hint of sunlight radiating from the horizon brightening the sky. Sleep had not bought Leech answers as he'd hoped - he usually had his best ideas whilst asleep (like that dream he once had about drizzling peanut butter onto apple slices - a taste sensation! Nopony else had agreed with him thus far, but he knew he was onto a winner.)

Still thinking about the feeling he got whenever Liebesauger was present, he got up and stretched his legs. Being careful not to wake Trixie, he headed over to the wagon door and stepped outside, hoping that the cool, clear early morning air would refresh him enough to get through the day. As he slowly walked around the still-sleeping village, passing by the silent huts, he once again buried himself in what little capacity for thought he had. The feeling he got... it was familiar somehow. He got the impression he somehow knew Liebesauger from somewhere, despite the fact he'd never been to Ger-mane-y, nor had any in-depth interactions with anypony other than Trixie. Being so lost in thought, Leech did not notice the figure standing directly in his path...

Bump!

Leech suddenly snapped out of his thinking-induced trance and quickly began to apologize.

"Leech izz zzsorry! Leech did not zzsee you..." he trailed off as he looked at the figure he had bumped into.

There before him stood Liebesauger, looking down at Leech with a serious expression on his face. The serious expression soon gave way to an unsettling smile.

"Oh it's quite alright..." he said quietly, minus his usual accent. "Perhaps I shouldn't have been standing in your way... right, 1017?"

Leech gasped. Nopony knew his swarm rank number. Heck, even he had trouble remembering it, since it was so long since he had used it himself. His mind finally put two and two together, and he realized what the feeling had been. All changelings had the capacity to sense the presence of others in the vicinity even when disguised. It was how they were able to differentiate their own kind from whatever creature they were disguised as. Leech, being of the lowest possible rank and naturally dimwitted, had only partially developed this sense, and had left the hive so infrequently he'd rarely had to use it. Leech hadn't recognized this sense activating during the times that Liebesauger had been within range.

"L-L-Liebezzauger izz changeling like Leech?" gasped Leech.

With this prompt, Liebesauger smiled as a familiar green aura surrounded him. As it subsided, the stereotypical Ger-mane-ic pony was gone, and in its place stood a changeling. Standing a full head taller than Leech, its body clad in a more heavily armored exoskeleton and possessing the normal changeling blue eyes, it looked down at Leech once again.

"Oh, I'm a changeling alright, 1017," it whispered maliciously, leaning in closer to the smaller changeling's face. "But make no mistake... I'm NOTHING like you, you feeble wretch!"

"G-G-General S-Switcher!" stammered Leech, backing away instinctively.

"Right you are, hatchling!" sneered Switcher. "And it's only taken you several months to figure it out! Your sickening abandonment of your swarm and palling around with that pony has dulled whatever changeling instinct you may have had. Not that a useless laborer like you would have had much to begin with."

Leech immediately forgot to be scared, and instead glared angrily at the General.

"Trixzzie izz not juzzt 'that pony' - Trixzzie izz Leech'zz bezzt friend!" Leech snarled, taking Switcher aback somewhat. The senior changeling soon gathered his composure and grinned smugly.

"Abandonment of the swarm, being friendly with the enemy and now answering back to a senior... you're racking up the charges thick and fast, 1017!" he laughed cruelly.

"Why are you here, ZZSwitcher?" asked Leech, backing down somewhat. "Why hazz General been following Leech?"

"First of all, stop calling yourself by that ridiculous name." Switcher began. "Only higher ranks get their own names. Names are a mark of respect and status, of which you have neither. You are a maintenance drone, and as such you are known by your number. You are 1017 - refer to yourself as such!"

Leech looked dejectedly at the ground as Switcher continued.

"As for why I am here - as unbelievable as it may sound, 1017, your hive needs you. I am on a mission from Queen Chrysalis herself to round up those who are still lost or have sought new lives away from the swarm. You aren't the only one I've been tracking these last few months, I've taken scores back to the hive and scores more still roam. The Queen is especially interested in you for some reason." he explained, disdain permeating his speech during the last part.

"ZZSorry. Leech not interezzted in going back to hive." Leech said plainly. "Leech hazz new life here now, not ever go back to zzstupid zzswarm!"

"I'm sorry." said Switcher coolly. "Perhaps I didn't make myself clear... you don't have a choice in the matter."

"What?!" exclaimed Leech.

Switcher leaned in closer to Leech once again. It seemed that Liebesauger's personal space issues weren't an act after all.

"I said..." he seethed through gritted teeth. "You are coming with me. I am authorized to use lethal force to bring you in if necessary - not that it'll make much difference in the long run..." Switcher quickly stopped himself, realizing he had said too much. Fortunately for him, Leech was too shocked to notice.

Leech, his mind still racked with shock and fear, considered his position. He had a choice - he could die here and now, or he could abandon his only friend and his new life in exchange for his old one. Either option was a losing choice, and so he ultimately decided for the lesser of two evils.

"Give Leech chance to zzsay goodbye to Trixizze..." he pleaded, attempting to fight the lump in his throat. "... and Leech will come with you."

"You have ten minutes." replied Switcher sternly. "Any longer than that and I'll be looking for you. If you try to run, I WILL find you."

As Leech trudged sadly away, Switcher once again reverted to his Liebesauger disguise and concealed himself behind a hut. A green aura once again appeared around his head, and his eyes closed in concentration.

"My Queen, 1017 has been apprehended. We will begin our journey back to the hive shortly." he reported.

The aura pulsated brightly, as the General received a telepathic reply to his message.

"As predicted, he utterly failed to see through my disguise, despite it being hideously out of place in every environment I wore it in. Additionally, his innate changeling senses are severely blunted. Add this to his low rank and previous record of incompetence, and I don't think there's any need for further testing. " he continued.

More pulsating magic signaled a response from the changelings' ruler.

"Of course I'm not questioning your judgement, exalted leader. I merely think that we're wasting time on this one. Whilst some of the others may have uses, I think this idiot should be immediately assigned to the N.R. After all, we're nearly out of casualties and don't yet have enough Necr-"

Switcher was cut off at this point by an even more intense round of pulsating magic.

"Y-yes, my apologies. It is not my place to think on your behalf, you must do what you believe is best. I shall bring 1017 to you by sundown today." Switcher ended his message, and began to walk to the outskirts of the village to wait for Leech.

Leech stood outside the wagon. He could hear movement from within, indicating that Trixie was awake. His mind raced with exactly how he was going to tell her he was leaving, possibly forever. He didn't understand why the hive was so desperate for him anyway, he'd caused nothing but problems there since hatching. With this thought, the vestiges of a plan began to formulate in his mind. He smiled to himself and buzzed his wings with excitement.

"Yezz!" he said to himself. "That'zz what Leech will do, Trixzzie not be upzzet and Leech get away from hive again in no time!"

With this, he threw the wagon door open and went inside.

A few minutes later, Leech had explained to Trixie that he was heading back to the hive, but only on a temporary basis.

"So let me get this straight," enquired Trixie suspiciously. "You say you're going to visit your old swarm?"

"That'zz right." buzzed Leech. "They're still in ruinzz after Canterlot invazzion, Leech want to lend a hoof to help them get up and running."

"Oh, well, why don't I come and help?" asked Trixie. "As the greatest practitioner of magic since Starswirl the Bearded, Trixie is sure she can fix the hive up before their very eyes!"

"N-no!" responded Leech in alarm. "Changelingzz don't like poniezz knowing where hivezz are."

That part at least was not a lie - the few ponies that had stumbled across changeling hives in the past had suffered a terrible fate, one which Leech didn't even want to think about.

"And you say you'll be gone for a week maximum?" asked Trixie.

"Yezz, shouldn't take too long." said Leech with a smile. "Trixie could stay here with zebrazz for the week, they zzseem friendly enough."

Trixie tapped her hoof to her chin. An entire week of being near-worshipped by the Zebra as an honored guest? What was not to like?

"Very well then." she conceded. "Trixie wishes you the best of luck on your mission, and if in doubt - ask yourself what Trixie would do, and you will not go far wrong!"

The two friends exchanged a gentle hug, and Trixie stood on the wagon steps, waving her hoof until Leech had flown out of sight. She turned and headed back into the wagon, and began to prepare for her week's worth of admiration and praise from her Zebra hosts, giggling happily to herself just thinking about it.

Leech felt somewhat guilty for lying to Trixie like that, but needs must - if he had told her the truth, she would have been heartbroken. Worse yet, she may have tried to challenge Switcher - of all Chrysalis' generals, Switcher was by far the most fearsome. He was a cold, calculating sadist, and had absolutely no qualms in using deadly force against opponents, be they changelings or ponies. Leech could not allow Trixie to put herself in harm's way like that.

"Eazzy part of plan izz done." thought Leech as he flew towards the outskirts of the village. "Now for harder part - Leech muzzt make sure he gets out of hive in lezz than a week!"

The scatterbrained changeling had an idea to ensure that this would happen, and in theory it wouldn't be too difficult either. Presently, he saw Switcher waiting for him, hidden among a small group of dusty desert rocks. He touched down next to the General and addressed him.

"Maintenanzze Drone 1017 reporting for duty, General ZZSwitcher!" Leech said enthusiastically, standing to attention.

He figured he could make the flight back to the hive more bearable if he simply toed the line and acted as the General wished him to.

"You are four full seconds late, maggot. " replied Switcher gruffly. "So we'll have to fly even faster to make up for lost time. Get those wings moving, you worthless runt! Go! FLY! NOW!"

Leech quickly buzzed his wings again and took off, Switcher doing likewise and flying slightly ahead to lead the way. He called back to Leech.

"You call that flying? Stop dawdling and put your wings into it! Flap harder! Hup-down, hup-down, hup-down, hup-down!"

Leech rolled his eyes, and resigned himself to having to put up with Switcher's drill-sergeant routine for the whole journey back to the hive.

Hours later, the two changelings touched down in the barren, rocky wastes of the Badlands. Ahead of them was what appeared to be a huge ball, crafted from a green-hued substance, not unlike paper in texture. The key difference was that it was around a foot thick, and was easily strong enough to withstand the harsh climate of the changelings' home nation. It was attached to a large cliff face composed of black and grey rock. The nest itself, with its green tint, stood out among the otherwise bleak scenery. Changeling drones of all kinds buzzed in and out of the various entrances and exits, each focused on nothing but their assigned tasks. A scout drone emerged from one of the exits and touched down near the two new arrivals. It saluted and addressed the General.

"General Switcher!" it began. "Queen Chrysalis is expecting you. Please go to the royal chamber immediately, and bring that maintenance drone with you." it finished, gesturing towards Leech.

Switcher nodded, choosing not to say anything as his voice was still hoarse. As Leech had predicted, he'd been barking orders at the little changeling for most of the flight.

Flapping their wings once more, the two changelings flew into one of the nest's entrances. Making their way through the various corridors and chambers of the nest, they finally came to the grand-looking entrance to a chamber which was larger than most. Two Sentry drones, one at each side of the entrance, stood to attention as General Switcher and Leech passed by.

Leech gazed upward, a mixture of fear and trepidation coursing through his body. There, upon a raised throne, was Queen Chrysalis herself. She looked down upon the comparatively tiny drone that had been brought before her and smiled wickedly.

"Ah, 1017. So nice of you to grace us with your presence again."

Chapter 3: On The Job

Chrysalis rose from her throne and made her way down the steps leading up to it, towards the now paralyzed-with-fear Leech. The royal chamber's only lighting was a hole in the ceiling directly above the throne, illuminating it and the surrounding area like a huge natural spotlight. The outer edges of the room were almost completely dark - when standing inside the light it was impossible to see anything that wasn't illuminated. Leech looked around frantically, but couldn't see Switcher or the sentry guards, who were all standing in the darkness by the room's entrance. Nothing outside of the circle of light seemed to exist - it was just Chrysalis and himself. She reached the bottom of the steps and approached Leech.

"Well, 1017" she began. "My faithful General tells me you've been having quite the adventure. You've been all around Equestria and beyond, and even discovered friendship outside of the swarm! My my, you've led an exciting existence indeed these last few months."

"Um...it... was... OK, Leech guezzezz..." mumbled Leech, attempting to avoid eye contact with the Queen.

Chrysalis chuckled and placed a hoof under Leech's chin, tilting his head up and forcing him to look at her.

"OK? It sounds pretty thrilling to me. Living a carefree life of traveling, gorging on all the love you can eat..." she continued sweetly.

Then, her smile vanished as her face crumpled into a scowl, and her tone became increasingly harsh.

"...ignoring the plight of your swarm, abandoning your queen, TURNING YOUR BACK ON YOUR KIND AND YOUR VERY NATURE AS A CHANGELING! HOW DARE YOU!" she roared, her face getting progressively closer to Leech's until their noses nearly touched.

Leech, trembling with terror at this stage attempted to give a response.

"Leech didn't......um.......er......but you...and then..." he fumbled nervously.

He was cut off by the Queen's hoof releasing his chin, and then fiercely batting him across the face, causing the beleaguered changeling to fall onto his side. He quickly used his tongue to check that his newly-regrowing fang was intact - luckily, it was. As Leech raised a hoof to rub at his now-sore face, he was sure he heard a muted sniggering emanating from the surrounding darkness. He didn't know for sure, but Leech thought the voice sounded like General Switcher's. He didn't have time to dwell on this however, as green magic surrounded him, and Chrysalis levitated his fallen form from the ground. She turned him upright and held him up level with her own face.

"NO EXCUSES!" she thundered, setting Leech back down on the ground, standing on his hooves.

She then seemed to regain her cool as she addressed Leech once more.

"However, there is still a way you can redeem yourself and help your swarm - a special job that only a changeling of your caliber is suited for." she explained. "But, you will need to be tested for competence first - I understand that you do not have a great track record for this. I can only hope your outside experiences have improved your abilities since then. You will return to your previous maintenance duties, and General Switcher will assess your performance and report back to me. Understood?"

Leech just nodded. He'd agree to anything to end this discussion.

"Then it is settled." said Chrysalis, a slight smile returning to her face. "Guards - take 1017 to the extension site so he can begin his first task. General Switcher will join you shortly."

With this, one of the sentry drones stepped into the light and gestured to Leech to follow him. Leech was only too keen to leave the royal chamber at this point, and eagerly raced off after the two guards. Switcher stepped out of the darkness and approached Chrysalis. She turned to the General, with a twisted smile across her face.

"So, what do you reckon his chances are?" she sneered.

"Of passing his 'test'? Very likely, I'd say." affirmed Switcher.

"Excellent." responded Chrysalis. "If he does turn out to be suitable, we can continue with the next phase of the plan. Now, leave me be. I have preparations to make, and you have a drone to monitor."

With this, Switcher gave a salute to his Queen and flew out of the royal chamber, bound for the site where Leech would be working.

Leech and the two guards had walked through a seemingly endless maze of narrow hive corridors, until they approached the entrance to a cave in the cliff face itself. The hive had been deliberately built in this location because it backed onto a part of the cliff that was littered with caves and openings. This meant that the changelings could expand their nest into the caves themselves when the time was right.

The three entered the cave, and came to an area lit only by lanterns that burnt with the same kind of green flame that changelings produced when using their magic. The guards explained to Leech that this cave was to be converted into a storage area, to store supplies that would be used in the swarm's upcoming second invasion of Canterlot. Leech looked and sure enough, all around them drones worked hard removing stalagmites and stalactites, constructing storage chambers from rocks, mud and wax, and tunnelling through the rock to create light and ventilation channels. There were far fewer maintenance drones than Leech remembered working with previously - the losses from the Canterlot invasion were greater than he had thought. Scout, solider and even siege drones had been roped in to help with the construction.

Presently, General Switcher arrived. He spoke to the two guards.

"You two are dismissed." he said briskly. "Resume your duties at the royal chamber. I will handle things here. Now GO!"

The guards wasted no time in scurrying out of the cave and back into the hive. Switcher's attention turned to Leech.

"Very well then, 1017. As per the Queen's orders, I shall start you off on something simple. Even you should be able to handle this. Your first task is to remove that large stalagmite over there." he explained, pointing his front hoof to a thin but very tall stalagmite which protruded from the dry, dusty cave floor near the entrance. "And make sure you do it right - remember, I am watching your every movement, hatchling!"

Leech approached the stalagmite, and chuckled to himself. Now was the time to put his plan into action - Chrysalis seemed incredibly mad at him already, so it wouldn't take much to make her so angry that she would exile him forever. All Leech had to do was foul up every task he was given. Then he would surely fail his test, be deemed unworthy of the special job, and be kicked out and free to go back to his life with Trixie.

And fortunately for Leech, fouling up was something that came naturally to him!

"Thizz will be eazzy!" he buzzed delightedly, being careful not to let General Switcher overhear.

Using his solid front leg spurs, he carefully chipped away at the base of the stalagmite. He walked in steady circles around the rocky projection, chipping evenly as he went. After some time and many circumnavigations of the stalagmite, he had chipped away the base so that it was only a couple of inches thick in the middle. Now all he had to do was give it a little push with his magic, and make it fall down. It was a lot like felling a tree in many ways, except using his feet instead of an axe. And it wasn't a tree. And it was made of stone. And it was in a cave. But apart from that, just like chopping down an Oak.

Making a note of where General Switcher was standing, and his position relative to the now unsteady stalagmite, Leech lit up his horn, and its aura enveloped the pointed rock. With a quick flick of his head, there was an almighty crack as the last remnant of the stalagmite's base gave way and the stone structure began to topple...

...straight towards General Switcher. The General caught onto what was happening just too late to get out of the way.

There was an ear-splitting crash, and a thick cloud of dust was kicked up by the stalagmite falling onto its side. As the dust began to settle, Leech heard shouting and cursing coming from where the stalagmite lay. When the dust cleared, Leech saw the source - a very irate General Switcher, who had been pinned underneath the end of the stalagmite as it had fallen. His thick exoskeleton had protected him from any real injury, since it was only the tip of the stalagmite that had him pinned. Leech had planned for this - he didn't want to hurt the General. Well, not seriously, anyway.

Whilst the General wasn't badly hurt, he was extremely annoyed. After squeezing out from underneath the fallen speleothem and giving Leech one of his trademark verbal beatings, the fuming Switcher took Leech to where the storage chambers were being built

"Well, you're off to a lousy start." growled Switcher, rubbing his bruised carapace. "Perhaps you will fare better at this. My hopes aren't high, mind you. All you need to do here is mix the mortar that the other workers will use to build the walls for these chambers."

Leech observed, and could see that several maintenance drones and a siege drone were arranging rocks from broken-up stalagmites and stalactites to form walls. To adhere these rocks together, they were using a mixture of mud and changeling wax, a thick, yellow fluid that was produced by certain classes of drones. Leech had worked with this type or mortar many times in the past - it was meant to be an 80/20 mixture of mud/wax respectively. He'd also gotten these ratios mixed up many times before, producing a mostly-wax mortar. This of course never hardened properly and immediately liquidized whenever the temperature increased sufficiently. This had led to several walls collapsing, on one occasion even onto the Queen herself!

"Leech mezz thizz up zzso many times already without trying - will be eazzy to do thizz time!" he said inwardly.

Collecting the ingredients together, he decided to go for a mixture that absolutely would not work - he quickly concocted a batch of mortar that was 90 percent wax and just 10 percent mud. The mud gave the mortar most of its structural integrity, whilst the wax merely acted as a hardener - with so little mud, this mixture wouldn't hold anything together! Leech couldn't help but notice that it looked a little off-color, so he scooped up some dust from the cave floor and mixed it in to give it a more convincing hue and texture.

He passed the freshly-made pot of mortar to the nearest drone. The drones, so engrossed in their task, didn't question the slightly odd consistency of the adhesive and slathered it between the rocks. Before long, the wall was finished and the drones had moved onto their next task. General Switcher approached the wall to inspect it.

"Well, this seems in order." he said, almost sounding disappointed. "Seems like you mixed the mortar decently enough." He gave the wall a firm prod with his hoof, and was alarmed when it flexed.

"1017, what in the name of Chrysalis did you..." he froze in horror as the wall wobbled, teetered, and then began to fall... straight towards him.

He didn't have time to say anything before being levelled by a barrage of falling stone.

Leech couldn't help himself and fell about the cave floor, buzzing and laughing like Pinkie Pie after an extended pranking session. He quickly recovered and put on a serious face before Switcher emerged from the rock pile, even more angry than before. Leech received another hoof around the face for his trouble, and the now outraged general grabbed Leech by his wings with his teeth and dragged him away from the construction site.

Now out of the cave and back in the hive, Switcher dragged Leech to a chamber filled with many ball-shaped, cocoon-like pods around half the size of a changeling drone. These were filled with a thick, translucent olive green fluid. Leech recognized this substance immediately as Necrosia. Leech had heard of Necrosia before - it was usually a rare substance, said to contain the very essence of a changeling's body structure.

Leech found Necrosia unnerving - whilst it could be used to heal injured changelings faster (this was its most common use, though it was generally only used on the Queen and elite ranking individuals), it also had a much darker purpose. By immersing a non-changeling creature in it - for instance, a pony - the changeling essence would permeate that creature's body and create a synthetic changeling. These tended to be stronger and more durable than natural changelings but required constant mental conditioning to keep them loyal, since the base creature's consciousness and memories survived the alteration process.

Due in part to this, conversions were very rare - only a small number of ponies had ever met this fate, with the process usually overseen by Switcher. Those that did were converted because they had discovered the hive's location - and this becoming public knowledge could be disastrous for the swarm. This was the main reason Leech had been so keen to keep Trixie away from this place.

General Switcher, who by now had a stagger and a limp to his step, angrily pointed to the pile of pods.

"Some of the new storage chambers are finished. These Necrosia pods are to be stored within them - be careful with them, as these are vital for the Queen's new strategy." he snapped.

Leech nodded. This much Necrosia would make the changelings much harder to defeat, since they would be able to recover from injuries far more quickly than normal. Leech didn't quite understand where the hive had managed to acquire this much Necrosia, however. Very few changelings knew how it was made or what its ingredients were, and there was a key ingredient that was supposedly hard to come by. Those that did know tended to keep the recipe a highly guarded secret.

"Your job is to move these pods from here to the new storage chambers. I trust I don't have to show you how to do that? Just pick a pod up and walk with it until you reach the storage chamber. Then deposit it there and come back for another. IS THAT REALLY SO DIFFICULT?" he snapped sarcastically. "Now, I have to go and get these bumps and bruises tended to - I want the first pile transferred by the time I get back. Clear?"

Leech saluted and nodded his head quickly, giving the bedraggled General his biggest grin. Switcher snorted and turned to leave the chamber. He hobbled away down a sloping corridor towards the infirmary.

Leech gazed up at the towering pillar of pods. He grinned impishly as his eyes were drawn to the bottom of the pile, to a pod which seemed to be holding a lot of the others up. Seeing his chance to mess up even this most basic of tasks, he wrapped his hooves around the load-bearing pod and began to pull.

"Leech... thinkzz... he... will... zzstart... with... thizz... one..." he grunted.

With a jerk, the pod came free and the entire pile came tumbling down. Due to a slight incline in the chamber's floor, they all rolled across the room and down the sloping corridor that Switcher had entered before. Within seconds, dozens of the spherical pods had disappeared down the corridor's entrance like pool balls going into a pocket. Leech couldn't help but giggle as he thought of what would happen when General Switcher found out about this.

Switcher was still walking down the long, thin, downhill corridor when he swore he could feel the floor vibrating beneath him. He stopped and pondered what in Equestria it could be. Then, a low rumble filled his ears, its volume increasing with each passing second. It seemed to be coming from... behind him. He turned around, and the sight that greeted him caused his jaw to drop. There, bearing down on him, was a tidal wave of Necrosia pods, the width and height of the corridor. There was nowhere to dodge, and they were rolling much faster than he could move. Switcher didn't even bother attempting to evade the spherical onslaught, he merely closed his eyes and awaited the inevitable. With a despairing whoop of horror, the wave of pods hit him full on and swept him away down the corridor.

Later, after the pods had been cleared up and stored in their proper places, Leech found himself in the Royal Chamber once again, standing before Queen Chrysalis. The two guard drones stood behind Leech, and a fuming General Switcher stood beside the Queen. His hackles were raised, and he was glaring and snarling at Leech as if he wanted to pummel the little changeling into dust. He had bandages on his head and front legs, a splint on one of his back legs and a poultice on his carapace. He looked so comical, even the Queen herself had been unable to suppress a laugh when he had entered the chamber.

Her attention soon turned to Leech. Leech himself was still nervous, even though his plan was going exactly as he had intended. He wasn't looking forward to the fierce scolding he was surely about to receive, but he was certain he'd done enough to get himself exiled. Chrysalis cleared her throat and addressed him.

"Maintenance Drone 1017... General Switcher has informed me that you have comprehensively failed in every single task that you were assigned. Your previous record of incompetence pales compared to the indescribable lack of skill and judgement you have shown during the last 24 hours."

Leech attempted to look ashamed. He was so consumed with keeping up his act, he hadn't noticed the total lack of venom in Chrysalis' speech.

"From this, I can conclude that you are not fit to be a maintenance worker for this swarm." she continued coolly. "Your experiences with the outside world have clearly made you lose any sense of commitment or focus, and your already feeble mind has been weakened further."

"Well, lookzz like Leech izzn't needed here." jabbered Leech hurriedly. "Show Leech exit and Leech will never trouble Chryzzalizz again."

"Exit?" enquired Chrysalis. "But why would I want to let you leave?"

She leaned in towards Leech, her eyes boring straight into his own. Leech began to tremble as another wicked smile appeared on her face.

"This is exactly what I was expecting. Your record of incompetence is the stuff of legends, there really wasn't any other possible outcome!" she grinned, her eyes narrowing.

"You have passed your test, with flying colors."

Author's Note

AUTHOR'S NOTE - Yes, the concept of Synthetic Changelings is another borrowed idea from Smoke and Mirrors. It was a pretty original concept, and one I liked - so I decided to do my own take on it and expand on the process a bit (I hope TeaPartyCannon doesn't mind!). I should make it clear that this still isn't a crossover with TeaPartyCannon's universe, but a separate yet similar one. :D

Chapter 4: Kept in Reserve

The dumbfounded Leech attempted to find the right words to sum up his feelings on this revelation. But he couldn't - he simply could not believe that after making an effort to fail, he'd somehow still ended up being given this special task. He didn't want to do any tasks, special or otherwise! He just wanted to go home - or rather, his real home, back at the wagon. Attempting to articulate his disbelief, Leech simply stood in front of the Queen making stuttering, unintelligable sounds.

"Queen...bu-but....you........Leech means, he.....no.....uh?" he rambled, the shock rendering his mind unable to string together a cohesive thought on his situation. Queen Chrysalis simply laughed.

"Oh yes indeed, 1017 - you are definitely the kind of changeling I am looking for. You see, I have created a special squadron whose sole purpose is to create Necrosia. You may already have noticed the above-average amounts of it already present in the hive, thanks to this squadron's valiant efforts. Now you, 1017, will have the honor of serving me in the N.R." she explained.

"N.R.?" asked Leech, his voice returning. "What doezz that mean?"

"It means," interjected Switcher, "Necrosia Reserve. That is the name of the new squadron."

His eyes then looked to Queen Chrysalis, who gave him a harsh glare for interrupting her speech. He immediately looked at the floor and shuffled his front hooves. Chrysalis turned her attention back to Leech.

"As my General says, you are to be a part of the Necrosia Reserve. Necrosia is absolutely vital for my new invasion plan for Canterlot and beyond - so those who are part of this squadron should consider it an honor to serve me in this way!" she said grandly, turning her nose upward.

"But... izz Chryzzalizz not worried Leech mezz up like Leech mezz everything elzze up?" enquired Leech, shakily.

"Ha! I think this job is one even you could not fail at! In fact, your previous failings make you more suited for this job than most other changelings!" replied Chrysalis, with more than a hint of menace to her voice.

She turned to face General Switcher.

"General! You and the guards take 1017 to the Necrosia Reserve headquarters, then return to me. I have another aspect of the invasion plan that I wish to consult all my Generals on." she ordered.

General Switcher nodded to Chrysalis, then pointed to Leech.

"Guards, grab that idiot and follow me!" he barked, before turning and flying out of the Royal Chamber.

The two sentry drones dutifully grasped Leech using the aura from their horns then took off, with one either side of Leech, in pursuit of Switcher. As Leech floated helplessly between the two guards, he shouted back to Chrysalis.

"But Leech doezz not want to go to rezzerve.....!" he yelled, his voice trailing off as he became more distant.

Chrysalis did not notice the little changeling's plea, and most likely would not have cared if she had. She nonchalantly strode through another of the chamber's exits to work on another phase of her invasion plan.

Switcher, Leech and the guards flew seemingly for hours, through a maze of hive tunnels. They passed through various chambers where the remaining drones worked, then out of the hive and back into the cliffs. Leech deduced that this was a different cave than before - this cave was far damper and mossier than the storage cave, and had many smaller dead-end caves branching off the central one. It must have been towards the top of the cliff face, as it was dimly lit by natural light coming through cracks in the ceiling. He could see that the majority of the dead-end caves had a translucent blue-green webbing material over the entrances, although most were empty. To Leech, it seemed more like a prison than a squadron headquarters. Presently, the four touched down at the entrance to one of the smaller caves.

General Switcher's horn glowed, and an opening appeared in the webbing material covering the mouth of the cave that stood before them. Switcher walked around behind Leech and gave him a brutal shove, sending Leech stumbling through the opening and into the waiting cave. His horn then ceased to glow, and the opening closed up, leaving no way out.

"Wait here, maggot!" sneered Switcher. "You'll be called up when it's your turn to help with production."

With this, he and the guards took flight once more and left the cave, Leech watched them through a gap in the webbing and began muttering to himself.

"Wait here." he buzzed bitterly, attempting to mock Switcher's voice. "Azz if Leech hazz choice, cave hazz no exit!"

He turned around and surveyed what, if anything, he was sharing the cave with. Narrowing his eyes in the dim light, he noticed five changelings laying in various places around the cave. To Leech's surprise, they were all of moderate to high rank. There was an Espionage drone, three Scout drones and a Siege drone. Leech looked closer, and noticed all of them were sporting injuries of some kind, mostly severe. All had at least one leg held at an unnatural angle, the Siege drone's horn was broken and two of the Scouts also sported torn wings. He approached the Espionage drone, as it was the closest to him, and tried to strike up a conversation.

"Zzso... been here long?" he asked, attempting to break the ice.

"It is beneath me to speak with you, laborer!" sniffed the superior drone haughtily.

"Yeesh." remarked Leech. "Tough room."

His attempts at conversing with his other four roommates were met with similar disdain. All simply lay still with their heads held high and their eyes closed. Leech slumped near the mouth of the cave and wondered what to do. Being part of the Necrosia Reserve seemed a pretty boring job, there was nothing to help pass the time!

Leech gazed through the webbing into the main cave, but saw no activity other than occasional drips of water from the ceiling. As his mind began to wander, he wondered if he could make an opening in the webbing the same way that General Switcher did. His horn glowed, and Leech concentrated his hardest, but sadly to no avail. The webbing remained as solid and secure as ever. His attempt at creating an opening had however produced some sniggering from the back of the cave.

"That webbing will only part for a General!" laughed one of the Scout drones. "A useless hatchling like you can't make an opening! And why would you want to anyway? Necrosia duty is the absolute highest honor a changeling can have!"

The other high-ranked drones muttered in agreement.

"But if izz zzsuch an honor, why webbing needed?" asked Leech, believing himself to be making a valid point. However, more mocking laughter met this question.

"The web is necessary to contain little fools like you who do not appreciate the magnificent honor that has been bestowed upon them!" hissed the Siege drone fiercely.

More muttering from all five drones followed this. Leech couldn't make it all out, although he did pick out several insults aimed in his direction.

"ZZStill" thought Leech. "At leazzt zzsnobby dronezz talk to Leech now!"

With this in mind, and nothing better to do, he began telling the other drones stories of his and Trixie's exploits. Leech thought that he could perhaps win them over and get them to open up a little bit. However, after several hours, Leech's unwilling audience were gritting their teeth, and the ones with intact front legs were attempting to cover their ears.

"And...and thizz izz bezzt part..." giggled Leech, telling yet another story. "Trixzzie dropped the combuzztible lemonzz she wazz juggling and one rolled under the Griffin King'zz throne! Then it exzzploded, and zzent him 20 feet in the air! Trixie and Leech get chaszzed out of Griffin Kingdom after that!" he finished, in fits of laughter.

Leech's hysterics were interrupted by General Switcher entering the cave through an opening he had made in the webbing. Several Sentry drones followed behind him. These were different to the guard drones that had accompanied him before. They possessed vacant, cold eyes set into expressionless and emotionless faces.

"Alright." he said gruffly. "You five are up next." he nodded towards the five higher-ranked drones.

To his surprise, they all immediately got to their hooves, despite the multitude of broken legs, and began to walk towards him.

"Yes!"

"Please, let's go!"

"Anything's better than staying here with him!"

"I'm ready!"

"Get us out of here!"

The drones were desperate to not spend another minute listening to Leech's stories of his life outside the hive, and willingly followed Switcher and the guards as they exited the side cave and walked deeper into the main cave. As the party of changelings departed, Switcher stopped and looked back at Leech.

"Don't get too comfortable, 1017." he said, sealing up the webbing once again. "You're up next!"

Leech once again sat down and let out a long sigh. The superior drones hadn't been very good company, but at least they'd been some company. It had been months since he was last alone - Leech was really missing Trixie by this stage, and longed to return to his life of travelling. He began to make plans of how he could foul his Necrosia production job up, when a sound interrupted his thoughts.

"Pssst!"

Leech looked around, but couldn't see where the sound had come from. He could have sworn it sounded like a changeling voice. The "Psssst" came again, this time louder, and almost sounding desperate. Leech had been able to get a better idea of where the sound had come from this time, and walked over to the webbing. He peered through a gap and noticed an elite-ranked changeling in the cave opposite him. He had a much bigger body than most of the other drones, with ornately carved off-white armor upon his head, shins and thorax.

"Psssst! Over here!" called the voice once more.

"High General Clone!" gasped Leech.

He began to think the Necrosia Reserve really was a high honor, if he was sharing duty with changelings of such rank! Leech noticed that Clone's horn was broken, and appeared to have been for some time.

"What happened to High General'zz horn?" asked Leech from across the cave.

"General Switcher happened, that's what!" snarled Clone. "He and his goons broke my horn, and then had me assigned to the N.R. for being a 'traitor'. My only crime was investigating an issue of great importance to the swarm! Switcher and Chrysalis, they're the only traitors around here!" he spat, bitterness dripping from his every word.

"What did High General do to dezzerve that? And why High General so upzzet about being in N.R., Leech hazz been told thizz izz great honor!" asked Leech, confused.

"Being in the N.R. is no honor!" began Clone, urgently. "It's..."

"Silence, usurper!" bellowed General Switcher, returning from the deeper part of the cave.

He opened the webbing at the front of Leech's cave, strode inside and levitated Leech in his magic aura.

"Come on, 1017. Your turn to help make some Necrosia." he said darkly.

"Let him go!" yelled Clone, making a futile attempt to push through the webbing. Alas, the thick, rubbery substance held firm against his efforts.

"Don't worry, High General." said Switcher, mockingly. "You'll get your turn soon enough."

With this, he marched deeper into the cave, with Leech in tow.

After a short walk, Switcher took Leech into a much larger side cave, once again illuminated with lamps that burnt with a distinctive green flame. In the center of the cave was a large Necrosia pod, much bigger than the ones he had seen back at the hive. This particular pod had an open top, and was filled with a thick, almost colorless, green tinted fluid. Next to it were a multitude of regular sized, but empty, Necrosia pods. Leech wondered what it could all be about, as Switcher set him down next to the large pod.

"Where are other dronezz?" asked Leech.

"Let's just say they're doing their bit for their Queen as we speak." Switcher replied with a wicked grin.

Something about his tone made Leech feel even uneasier.

Leech's breathing quickened, and his eyes began to dart around the room to see if he could get an idea of what he'd be doing as part of this special job, but couldn't see anything else apart from the pods he'd seen on the way in. He didn't want to continue any conversation with the General, he just wanted to get on with his job so he could get out of the hive.

"ZZSo, what will Leech be doing?" he asked, his voice wavering slightly.

"You'll be assisting me in adding the secret ingredient to the Necrosia" replied Switcher. He pointed to the large pod. "This fluid here is called Necrosia Base. It's produced by certain members of the hive, but is almost useless on its own. It needs an active ingredient before it can be used properly."

"Where izz ingredient..?" asked Leech, even more nervously, unable to see anything in the room that could possibly be used as an ingredient.

Switcher laughed a hearty laugh, and put a mock-friendly hoof around Leech's withers.

"Oh my Chrysalis, 1017... you still don't get it, do you?" he said between chuckles. "You weren't being tested for your usefulness yesterday, we were making sure you were useless enough to spare for this job!"

"Tezzted for uzzelezzness?" thought Leech, the last part not sitting well with his tendency to buzz. But why would...

Leech suddenly felt his blood run cold, as his slow wits finally put the pieces together. Things he had seen and heard during the last 36 hours flashed through his mind...

...Far fewer drones than usual working on the storage chambers... this meant that injured drones hadn't been going back into service....

...All the other changelings in the N.R. holding area were either severely injured or supposed traitors... in other words, useless to the hive...

...Leech had been tested, and was also deemed useless...

...Necrosia supposedly contained changeling essence... lots of it was present in the hive... and there were fewer changelings...

No! It couldn't be!

"It's just common sense!" continued Switcher. "Making the useless useful! We started with the injured, but we worked out that they wouldn't be sufficient for the plan. That's when we started tracking down the deserters, the mutants and then... the incompetent!" he grinned, looking Leech straight in the eye on the last word.

Leech cried out as Switcher's aura surrounded him, and lifted him into the air. He was unceremoniously deposited into the pod filled with Necrosia Base, and the General's magic sealed the top. Leech looked on in horror as the General's horn glowed brighter and its power began to engulf the entire pod. Leech felt the surface of his exoskeleton begin to tingle, as he thrashed around uselessly in the gel-like fluid.

"So to answer your question, 1017" laughed Switcher, "The active ingredient..."

"... is YOU!"

Chapter 5: The Mysterious Monolith

"Wait! WAIT! Leech fail uzzefulnezz tezzts on purpozze! Leech can be uzzeful drone! General, pleazze, lizzten to Leech!" wailed Leech, as he felt Switcher's transformative powers coursing through his body.

To his amazement, the fiery green onslaught ceased, Switcher opened his eyes and took a step towards the pod that held Leech. He rubbed a hoof to his chin, as if in thought.

"So..." he began. "You threw your tests, you say?"

Leech nodded as best he could from within the fluid that surrounded him.

"You openly admit attempting to deceive our Queen... a serious charge indeed, 1017. You understand there will be sanctions for this?" asked Switcher, gravely.

Another round of vigorous nodding from Leech greeted this.

"Leech do any punishment Queen likezz!" he jabbered, desperately.

"Very well then." conceded Switcher, turning away from Leech and taking a few steps. "Now, my knowledge of changeling law is by no means comprehensive, but I believe I know what the sanction for deceiving a hive leader is."

Leech waited, his heart almost in the back of his throat with anticipation. Switcher turned to face Leech once more, his face the very picture of deranged, sadistic glee.

"The penalty is death. Death by Necrosia." he cackled, before firing up his horn, and the aura again enveloped Leech's pod.

The tingling sensation resumed, as Leech curled himself into a ball and waited for it to all be over.

Several tingly minutes passed, and Leech noticed a distinct lack of being dead on his part. Uncurling and taking a glance at his forelegs, he couldn't help but notice that his body still retained a somewhat undissolved quality to it. Presently, the green aura died down, and a frustrated Switcher approached the pod, his face a mixture of surprise, disappointment and disgust.

"I gave you enough juice to make Necrosia out of at least seven drones! Why aren't you a changeling smoothie by now?" he grumbled, annoyed.

He rubbed his chin once again, his eyes widening after a few moments.

"There must be another type of magic which is interfering with my own." he concluded. "Maybe it's because you wasted several months of your life larking about in the presence of that unicorn!"

Leech, in an uncharacteristic show of intelligence, had already deduced what the cause of the magical interference was. It wasn't residual magic from being in proximity to Trixie, but the tooth regrowth potion the zebra tribe had given to him. It contained a basic type of magic, and was still active within his body. As such, its magic energies had conflicted with those of Switcher, temporarily rendering him incompatible with whatever power Switcher was invoking. Leech wondered how much more it would take before the zebra magic broke down and left him vulnerable to the Necrosia process - not that much, he guessed.

His tiny mind in overdrive, Leech desperately attempted to conceive a way to escape his pod-shaped prison - fortunately, his chance came sooner than expected. Switcher's horn glowed gently as he received a telepathic message from Chrysalis.

"Yes, my Queen? What is it?" he answered.

His horn pulsated in response.

"Now?" he asked, moodily. "But I'm in the middle of somethi-"

An immediate, intense burst of light followed this.

"Y-y-yes! Of course my Queen! I shall be there right away!" Switcher promised.

He turned and glared at Leech, who was still floating helplessly in the pod, occasionally twitching with sparks of green magic emanating from his body.

"My Queen requires me urgently. But mark my words 1017, I'll tend to you later!" snapped Switcher, flying off into the darkness of the cave.

This was Leech's chance.

"Leech nearly forgot..." thought Leech to himself, "Leech is maintenanzze drone!"

He looked at his digging spurs and smiled. These were designed for going through rock and mud, so they'd have no trouble with the rubbery walls of this pod!

That was the theory at least. In practice, the pod wall just flexed every time he pushed his spurs into it, and being suspended in a gel he was unable to get much purchase - pushing against the pod simply propelled him backwards. Slamming his front hooves into the pod didn't help, the rebound from the pod resulting in Leech punching himself in the face several times. After a few minutes of futile attempts to push his spurs through the pod, he tried a different approach. He used the sharp tips of the spurs to make horizontal slashing movements, scoring the pod's lining. After several increasingly desperate slashes, he finally weakened one part of the pod enough for it to come apart with a satisfying ripping sound.

Leech was propelled out of the pod and onto the ground, riding on a thick torrent of Necrosia Base. He stood up and quickly shook the remnants of the fetid fluid from his body and wings. Finally, he was free.

"Leech better hide himzzelf!" he buzzed, looking around him. "Or even more better-er-er, Leech better ezzcape!"

As he readied himself to leave, Leech remembered that another changeling was in the holding area when Switcher dragged him away - High General Clone. He decided he'd better go and rescue the apparent 'traitor' - anyone he was able to get on his side would be an enormous advantage at this point! He remembered Clone from the days before he was separated from the swarm - he'd been one of Chrysalis' personal advisors, but a reasonable authority figure with it. He'd often calm the Queen down when she was in one of her fits of rage, and was firm but fair with the underlings. Leech liked him, and wondered what in Equestria he could have done to earn the title of traitor - Leech didn't think Clone had it in him to betray his swarm.

Leech quickly zipped back to the holding area, as fast as his wings would carry him. He landed outside the cave where Clone was being kept, and peered inside. The High General was very pleased to see the little maintenance drone, and motioned for him to come closer to the webbing that covered the front of the cave.

"There's no time to lose!" he said quickly. "Put your hoof where my horn once was!".

He lowered his head to reveal the stump where his horn had been broken off. Leech, a hundred questions whirling through his mind, decided not to ask and just did as Clone had told him. He placed his hoof through a gap in the web and onto the superior changeling's head, and immediately felt a warm sensation in both the hoof and his own horn.

Leech watched in amazement as Clone created an opening in the webbing, using his own powers focused via Leech's horn. Clone stepped out of the cave, and Leech removed his hoof from his superior's head.

"Many thanks, 1017. Whilst my powers are strong enough to manipulate this stuff, I'm about as much use as a scout drone with no legs if I haven't got a horn to focus them with! Now, hurry, we've got to get out of here before Switcher gets back." he said, again with a tone of urgency.

Leech nodded. Whilst Clone ordinarily outranked Switcher, no changeling would heed his word now that he was classed as a traitor - least of all, Switcher. And without the use of his powers, Switcher would easily be able to defeat the deposed High General. Whilst Clone was at least a head taller than Switcher and far more powerfully built, Leech somehow doubted the wicked General would attempt to engage them in a bare-hoof fight.

Noticing a crack wider than most in the ceiling of the cave, through which daylight poured and provided the dank area's primary source of illumination, Clone pointed upwards. The two changelings flew vertically towards the light, with the crack only being millimeters wide enough to accomodate Clone's bulk. The two emerged from the other side of the crack, out into the warm winds and overcast skies of the Badlands.

They flew for some considerable distance before setting down among an expanse of jagged rocks, around half a mile from the hive. They both gasped for breath after such an intense flight, and Leech's legs began to feel as much like cheese as they looked, as the adrenaline rush wore off.

"A fine piece of work indeed, 1017." congratulated Clone warmly, placing a hoof on Leech's shoulder. "You're a credit to your swarm."

Leech was amazed - this was the first positive response he had received since returning to the hive. Heck, it was only the third or fourth one he'd ever had in the company of his brethren! Now that the danger was over, Leech plucked up courage to ask Clone some of the questions that were troubling him.

"High General Clone... can Leech call you Clone?" asked Leech. Clone nodded, and Leech continued. "Clone, why doezz General think Clone is traitor to zzswarm?"

Clone took a deep breath, and let out a heavy sigh.

"In truth, 1017... I mean, Leech... things have been extremely strange around the hive since the failed invasion of Canterlot. Queen Chrysalis seems to have become obsessed with conquering the pony capital and she's had a massive restructure of the swarm's hierarchy. Switcher is her new personal advisor, and rumor has it he's second-in-command of the entire swarm now!" he explained sadly.

Leech nodded, as Clone continued.

"Whilst Chrysalis is bad tempered at times, and occasionally revels in the defeat of targets a little too much, she's no monster. Ultimately she cares for the benefit of her subjects, and our raids are for the purposes of sustaining ourselves rather than conquest. So I'm mystified as to why she's seen fit to make Necrosia out of nearly a fifth of the surviving swarm - many of those injured could have recovered! It used to be that Necrosia was strictly a method of recycling our dead, or as an act of mercy to those injured beyond recovery, if they so chose." he said, slowly shaking his head. He composed himself, and continued explaining his situation.

"Around a week ago, I began to receive a strange telepathic signal - it was very weak, but definitely present. It was far too distant to identify positively, but I attempted to track it nonetheless. My search eventually led me to a cliff face in a valley roughly three miles East of here. As I landed, the signal's strength became greater, although I was still unable to see its source. The next thing I know, Switcher and those four Sentries that follow him everywhere jumped me. And let me tell you, there's something not right about those Sentries..." he muttered, going off into deep thought for a moment.

"I fought them off for a while, but Switcher got a lucky hit on my horn, and destroyed it." he continued, as he gingerly felt the spot on his head where it had once been.

"Without that, I was easy prey against the five of them. Switcher and his minions took me back to the Queen, who proclaimed that I was trespassing in a restricted area and sentenced me to the N.R. for treachery. To this day, I have no idea why... the only possibly explanation is that there was something in that area. Something that neither Switcher nor Chrysalis wanted anyone to find, and I came too close to be allowed to live." he finished, his previously sullen face taking on a look of grim determination.

Leech looked quizzically at Clone, his head cocked to one side.

"What izz Clone thinking?" he asked. "What'zz our next move? Should we get azz far away from here azz we can?"

"No, Leech." replied Clone uneasily. "Something serious is ahoof, something which could destroy our very swarm as we know it. And it's up to us to get to the bottom of it. I'm heading back to the valley where the signal came from, I HAVE to know what is there." he finished, with a steely gaze to the East horizon.

Leech gasped, and nearly fell over with shock.

"Hazz Clone gone crazzzy?" he yelped. "What if ZZSwitcher and hizz goonzz get you again?"

"I'm afraid that's just a risk I have to take." sighed Clone. "Whatever disgraces I have against my name, justly or unjustly, I will not stand by and watch my swarm perish before my eyes." he said grimly as he looked down at Leech.

"I understand that you have built a life for yourself away from this place, Leech? That being the case, I would recommend that you return to it - you have loved ones to think of." he advised.

Leech pondered hard. He thought of Trixie, and their wagon, and all the special places he'd been and the creatures he'd met. Sure, he wanted to return to this life as soon as he possibly could, but ultimately he was a changeling. So whatever was happening elsewhere, and as much as he'd tried to ignore it, he still had a loyalty to his swarm. And although he didn't want to live with the swarm anymore, he certainly didn't want to see it destroyed. He turned back to Clone.

"ZZSo we go Eazzt to cliffzz? Leech izz down with that!" he smiled, putting on his bravest voice.

Clone patted a hoof on Leech's head.

"I'll say one thing, you may not be the most intelligent but you're one of the gutsiest little drones I've ever met." he said, genuine admiration in his voice.

In reality of course, Leech was probably just a little too dense to fully realize the danger.

With this, the two took off and began to head East. After a short flight, the valley came into view - neither Clone nor Leech could see any of Switcher's Sentry team, nor Switcher himself. Constantly looking around them, the two touched down at the foot of the cliff where Clone had traced the signal to previously.

"Can you sense anything? I'm not much use at this without my horn. Fly up and down and cliff and see where the signal is strongest." Clone whispered to Leech.

Acknowledging the request, Leech took off and began to methodically scan the cliff face. He thought back to the 'vibe' he'd gotten from Switcher, back when Leech knew him as Liebesauger. Though his changeling detection sense was underdeveloped and vestigial compared to most, Leech was eventually able to pinpoint where this signal was strongest.

"It'zz here!" he called down triumphantly, landing heavily on a rock jutting out from the cliff.

Too heavily.

Leech leapt off the rock in horror as he felt it move beneath his hooves, but it was too late. The rock continued to slide out of place, and the dozens of rocks above it followed suit. Slowly at first, the sliding stones soon gathered pace, and before they knew it Leech and Clone were flying for their lives away from a massive rockslide. If Switcher and his minions were within a mile of the place, they'd certainly have heard this! The two took cover behind some especially large rocks, as Clone began to question the wisdom in bringing this well-meaning but ultimately hopeless little drone with him.

The rocks settled, the dust cleared and the two changelings waited. Hardly daring to breathe, they occasionally peeked out from their hiding place to check for any hostile forces. After several minutes, Clone was satisfied that nobody had heard them, and he led Leech back out into the open. The two looked up at the cliff face - where the rocks had fallen away, an opening was now visible. A faint green glow was emanating from within. Wasting no time, they flew up to the now-uncovered cave to investigate. The two made their way through the narrow opening, and into a much larger 'room', deep inside the cliff.

In the center of the room, stood what could only be described as a large, green monolith. Measuring around 20 feet in each direction, it was vaguely block-shaped, and appeared to be constructed of the same material changelings made cocoons from, except it was solid rather than filled with liquid. It gently pulsated with a dim green light, in a rhythmic pattern of increasing and decreasing intensity.

Leech followed his horn, and told Clone that this was definitely the source of the changeling signal, although neither could explain what it was. It was definitely changeling-made, but what in Equestria was it? And why was it giving off a signal? Clone decided that he would need time to figure out its purpose and - perhaps against his better judgement - sent Leech to watch the entrance.

They needn't have worried, however. Switcher and his Sentries were miles away, flying into the West of the Badlands to investigate reports of an intruder on changeling territory...

Sure enough, amid the desolate landscape, a blue unicorn with a wagon in tow wandered the wastes, looking for her friend...

Chapter 6: Where is Thy Sting?

Trixie paced through the barren and rocky landscape, with the overcast sky hanging moodily overhead and the constant winds buffeting her. She didn't like this place at all, but she felt compelled to find Leech. It had taken her nearly two days to complete the trip, even going as far as to modify her wagon's limbers so that she could pull it properly. She thought about what Leech had told her, and pondered whether he was telling her the full truth.

"Trixie does not understand!" she muttered to herself. "Leech always said how much he hated living in a swarm whenever we talked about his life before Canterlot. Why in the name of Luna would he suddenly decide he needed to go back? Whatever the cause, the Great and Powerful Trixie shall surely find out!"

With this, she strode on, towards a strange-looking cliff in the distance.

It seemed to have some kind of massive, greenish ball attached to the face of it. Little dots were constantly exiting and entering this ball - could this be a changeling hive? Maybe she'd find Leech near there - it was certainly the only clue she'd found in this Celestia-forsaken place. Her curiosity piqued, Trixie quickened her pace towards the strange structure. Her attention was so taken with investigating whatever it was she could see, she hadn't noticed five shapes hovering a hundred or so yards behind her.

Switcher had taken his team above the clouds to avoid being seen, they'd flown right over Trixie and then dropped down behind their target to take her by surprise. Switcher signaled to the Sentries to attack and seize the pony that stood before them, blissfully unaware of the danger she was in. The Sentries saluted, their unusually emotionless faces remaining as harsh and frozen as ever.

"And please," requested Switcher with a slight sneer, "try to take the pony alive. I've yet to test upon a unicorn - I can see these being a problem. Pegasi and Earth ponies weren't an issue, but then they had no innate magic."

Giving no indication of whether they'd understood the order or not, the four drones dived to intercept their target. Trixie heard an unfamiliar buzzing, and wondered if one of her wagon's wheels needed its axle oiling. She stopped, but still the buzz continued. Before she could wonder what it was, four changelings did a low pass over her, causing Trixie to yelp and duck involuntarily. The four sinister shapes doubled back, two going off to the left and two to the right. All four streaked back towards the helpless unicorn, who by now was attempting to undo the harness so that she could ditch the wagon and make a run for it. Alas, in her panicked state, she just couldn't focus her powers sufficiently to release herself.

"No! Get back! Stay away!" she screeched, as the four expressionless drones touched down and surrounded her.

She attempted to back away, but was stopped by the heavy wagon attached behind her.

"Now, now, calm down my dear!" said a smooth voice from behind the wagon, as General Switcher sidled up beside Trixie and put a hoof on her shoulder.

"Theres nothing for you to fear, we just need you to come with us for a moment!" he oiled, with an unsettling undertone to his voice.

Trixie was having none of it. She knew straight away that these changelings did not have good intentions. Thinking fast, she was just able to focus her remaining magical energies into a panic teleportation spell. Before the assembled changelings' eyes, she vanished in a bright purple puff of magic, causing the now-empty harness to drop onto the ground.

Trixie rematerialized in an unknown location. She grinned and began to congratulate herself.

"HA! Changelings are no match for Trixie's amazing teleportation powers! I bet I'm a hundred miles from those creeps by now!" she laughed.

She looked around her, but could just see the same old plains and rocks that she'd seen everywhere else during her time in the Badlands. Looking ahead of her, she could see a similar cliff and changeling hive to before. In fact, it seemed to Trixie that they were almost exactly the same as the cliff and hive she'd seen previously. She tapped her hoof on the wooden boards beneath her as she attempted to make sense of it all...

"... wait. Wooden boards?"

Trixie looked down at the roof of her wagon that she'd teleported onto, and began silently cursing herself for not practicing her teleportation spell more. Presently, Switcher rose from the ground and joined Trixie on her rooftop perch.

"Teleportation... impressive!" he approved. "But as a little tip, you may want to work on your range."

He gave a laugh, and then ordered the Sentries to take Trixie back to the hive. Trixie was unable to fight back any further, having exhausted all of her magic, and so had no choice but to go with them.

Back at the valley, Clone and Leech were having no better luck. Clone had called Leech away from guard duty to help decipher the mystery behind the glowing green monolith, but neither had figured anything out. Leech was getting a continuous signal from the smooth, solid block but due to his lack of experience didn't know what it meant. Clone probably could have worked out what the signal was if he still had his horn.

The two slumped against the unknown entity, Clone mentally exhausted from attempting to work out what the object was, and Leech mentally exhausted from having to think about more than one thing at a time. Leech suddenly remembered something from before.

"Clone... remember back in zzscary hive place, Clone uzze Leech's horn to focuzz hizz own powerzz? Why Clone not do that again?" he asked.

High General Clone's eyes widened, and he immediately got to his hooves. He turned to Leech with a smile on his face.

"Leech, why in Equestria didn't I think of that? I must've been so preoccupied trying to work this whole thing out, I missed the simple solution!" he exclaimed.

"Leech izz geniuzz!" buzzed Leech happily, unable to be more wrong if he'd tried.

As before, Leech placed his hoof upon Clone's head, and the elite changeling began to focus his energies through Leech's body and out through his horn. Clone's eyes closed in concentration. Making sense of the signal would still be tricky, as it was weak and he was interpreting it via another changeling's horn. Nevertheless, as Clone focused as intensely as he could, a message eventually began coming through to him...

"Help..." he whispered hoarsely, in the throes of fervent thought.

"What'zz wrong?" asked Leech with alarm. Clone stopped channeling his powers, and removed Leech's hoof from his head.

"Nothing, my friend." responded Clone, recovering his breath. "I was interpreting the signal. It says 'Help'..."

A glowing block in a remote cave that now appeared to be calling for help. Clone and Leech looked at each other in bewilderment - they'd hoped that finding the meaning of the signal would help them. As it was, the mystery made even less sense!

In the hive, Switcher had organized a meeting with Queen Chrysalis and his fellow Generals. The Queen looked on as Switcher addressed the gathering.

"Your royal highness, and my fellow gentlelings." he announced snootily. "Having established a plentiful Necrosia supply with the Queen's ingenious new Necrosia selection criteria, we are now ready to unveil the second phase of our plan to conquer Canterlot once and for all!"

The Generals muttered among themselves for a moment.

"How are we meant to invade now that there are far fewer of us?" asked one. "Even with the Necrosia healing us, we can't withstand a sustained assault with our numbers as they are."

Switcher laughed. "Because, my ignorant comrade, the Necrosia isn't meant for healing. It's meant for converting. Our plan is to forcibly convert the entire population of Canterlot into changelings like us. Not only will it bolster our ranks with new, stronger, more durable troopers, but with the ponies' top brass under our control, the surrounding towns and villages will be easy pickings!"

Many of the Generals present became uneasy at this idea. Some looked towards the Queen who simply smiled and nodded to Switcher to continue. The Generals became less doubtful when they saw the Queen approving - she was their leader after all, and knew what was best for the swarm.

"Having experimented with several 'test subjects', I've deduced that converted ponies can, with sufficient patience, be brought under the direct mental control of a General, thus eliminating the need for mental conditioning." continued Switcher.

He nodded to his private Sentry troop, who stepped forward with the same blank looks as usual.

"These four were once ponies, who I have been... umm... forced... to convert at various points during the last 12 months when they discovered our location. Now, they operate solely under my control. All of you could have the same! Just imagine, your very own troops - troops who never question your judgement, and will perform commands before you've even said them!" he finished.

The Generals chattered among themselves again, some of them not especially fond of this idea. Synthetic changelings had always been a divisive subject among the swarm - even the Queen herself had not been sure of the practice until the failed Canterlot invasion, after which she seemed to be far more keen.

"But Switcher! Converting a pony takes many weeks in a Necrosia cocoon! How will we get the entire population of Canterlot into the hive and into cocoons?" enquired another General.

Switcher smiled. "Simple. We're not. My experiments have proven that it's also possible to convert a pony by implanting a dose of Necrosia directly into them. The process is far quicker, since there's no absorption time, and it means we don't even have to bring them back here to do it!" he explained, his face turning into an increasingly maniacal smirk.

"And how do you plan to do this?" Another voice piped up from the crowd.

"May I present to you the first in a new class of changeling drones..." responded Switcher, "... the Vector drone! A revolutionary hybrid changeling, created merely by immersing a common hornet in Necrosia."

From a corridor, a changeling flew into the room. The Generals gasped - this wasn't like any other changeling drone they'd ever seen before. It had very little armor on its body, possessed dark orange eyes and sepia-hued wings. A row of small, sharp spikes ran down its back, stopping at the beginning of its bulbous abdomen. Perhaps the most striking feature was the long, stiff, needle-like appendage protruding from its back end, where its tail would normally be. Four stubby fangs protruding from its upper jaw completed what would have been a very intimidating picture...

... if the creature had not been roughly the size of a domestic rabbit. Several of the Generals burst into laughter at the tiny drone, as Switcher scowled crossly.

"When you've QUITE finished..." he snarled. "Allow me to demonstrate... you see, being this size, Vector drones are ideal for sneaking into a populated area undetected, administering Necrosia to several targets and then fleeing. When a sufficient number of targets have been affected, ground forces can move in and secure the area." said Switcher proudly.

The Vector drone, which Switcher referred to as 'Vek' for short, simply stood looking up at the Generals, its eyes occasionally blinking at staggered intervals.

"Switcher... is this thing even alive?" asked yet another General.

"Oh yes." replied Switcher "However, I've deliberately limited its development to its base instincts. Due to this, it can be controlled in a similar way to my Sentry drones. Plus, if it had the capacity for decision making, it may catch on to the... morally dubious nature of its mission." he added.

More mutterings greeted this. Many of the Generals present were horrified, but dared not speak up against their Queen and her second-in-command. Switcher grinned at their subtle discomfort and proudly continued.

"But, enough talk. Allow me to demonstrate Vek's abilities to you. Sentries, bring out the test subject!" he ordered.

Two of Switcher's team, with some difficulty, dragged a kicking and bucking Trixie into the room from another corridor, eliciting another round of gasps from all present.

"My Queen, please! This disgusting display has gone too far, and-" began one General.

"SILENCE, FOOL!" came the stern reply from Chrysalis.

"Y-yes, your Highness." replied the General meekly.

The General shrunk back into the crowd, barely able to watch. Many of the others had concerned expressions on their faces.

Vek flew over to a pod of Necrosia resting on the ground by Chrysalis' hooves. He jabbed his stinger into it, and began sucking up the dark green fluid, his own abdomen swelling up like a balloon. When his sac was full, he pulled his stinger out of the pod and flew to Switcher's side, where he hovered. Switcher pointed to Trixie and simply said:

"Convert."

With this, Vek raced towards the struggling unicorn, his stinger poised and ready to strike. Trixie, who had been able to recover some of her power in the intervening time, prepared for another panic teleport. Her horn glowed with a bright aura, causing Switcher to widen his eyes.

"What are you doing?" he asked crossly.

"Like you said earlier..." strained Trixie, "... I'm working on my range!"

With this, Trixie vanished once again in a puff of purple magic, just as Vek reached her. Switcher howled in frustration, as Chrysalis glared and some of the Generals mopped their brows in relief.

In the monolith's cave, Leech and Clone were still no closer to figuring out the monolith, nor the meaning behind its message. They were distracted somewhat by a purple haze materializing directly above them, out of which dropped a rather disheveled Trixie.

After Leech's initial shock at meeting his friend here, Trixie explained to Leech how she'd not believed his reasons for returning to the hive, and had followed him to find the truth. She explained her capture, and everything she'd learned from overhearing Switcher's demonstration - Vek, the plan for Canterlot, and the synthetic changelings. Leech was mortified, not only at Switcher's plans, but at the fact his dishonesty had put Trixie in such deadly danger.

"So Switcher's goons are actually ponies?" snarled Clone, visibly upset at the revelation. "I remember him being asked to deal with four trespassers about a year ago - Chrysalis ordered him to wipe their short term memories and deposit them away from the hive. He did NOT get clearance from myself or Chrysalis to change them like this!"

"Leech remember ZZSwitcher zzsaying he wazz protecting hive at the time." recalled Leech.

"Well he wasn't! And apparently everyone knew about it but myself and the Queen! Why didn't you say anything at the time, Leech?" Clone asked sternly.

"All dronezz azzume Queen gave clearanzze, nobody wanted to question Queen'zz judgement." replied Leech ruefully.

"There was a time many years ago that the technique was used, I admit." continued Clone. "It is a regrettable period in changeling history. But synthetic changeling production has been banned for generations! And yet the Queen has cleared him to convert an entire Pony town?! The world has gone crazy, it's official!" he said, morosely.

Trixie however, hadn't been listening to the debate. She was staring at her left hindleg, a look of sheer horror on her face.

A small puncture wound. Vek had seemingly managed to catch her with a glancing sting as she'd teleported. The fur around the wound was already beginning to darken in color, and take on a chitin-like sheen.

Leech and Clone soon stopped discussing the ins and outs of synthetic changelings when they too noticed the teary-eyed unicorn staring at her injury.

"I..izz...th-that...?" Leech shakily asked as he swallowed at the rising nausea in his throat.

Trixie simply gave a tearful nod.

Clone hung his head sadly, as Leech simply stared at his friend's injury. The usually passive changeling began to tremble, his jaws tensing and pushing together, his hackles raising and his breathing becoming heavier. Trixie blinked the tears from her eyes and took a cautious step back from the wildly enraged Leech.

"ZZSwitcher take Leech away from good life...." he panted, "but Leech can forgive that. ZZSwitcher put Leech in a prizzon. Leech can forgive that. ZZSwitcher try and make goo out of Leech! Leech can even forgive that."

His breathing became even more labored as his anger intensified.

"But ZZSwitcher hurt Trixzzie... LEECH NEVER FORGIVE!!" he shouted, his voice losing its usual high-pitched buzz and degenerating into a throaty roar.

Leech buzzed into the air, and began to dart around the cave in a bezerker frenzy, continuing to roar as he did so.

"ZZSTUPID ZZSWITCHER! ZZSTUPID ME! AND MOZZT OF ALL..." Not considering his actions in his rage, he gave an almighty double-rear buck to the monolith.

"...ZZSTUPID QUEEN!"

Clone and Trixie - the latter of whom had stopped crying by this stage out of pure shock at Leech's outburst - watched as the monolith began to split where Leech had kicked it in his fury-addled state. Strange energies began to pulse and radiate from the crack. Leech, realizing what he had done, immediately calmed down and meekly began to back away from the strange object, which began to pulsate more vividly, and the crack seemed to grow taller and wider by itself. A brilliant flash of light momentarily blinded the three observers - when it died down, the three could see that the monolith had become dark. It was now split completely in half vertically.

All three watched, dumbfounded as a figure attempted to make its way out from between the two halves of the monolith...

"Switcher........ Aurora...... I will.......erase them.....from......existence.....for.....this!" it croaked, its voice barely audible.

Finally, after using what little energy she had left, the monolith parted, and the exhausted and bedraggled form of Queen Chrysalis slumped out onto the cave floor.

Chapter 7: Showdown, Part I

The two changelings and one increasingly-close-to-a-changeling couldn't believe what they were seeing. By all accounts, the unconscious being before them appeared to be Queen Chrysalis! But she couldn't be - Chrysalis was back at the hive, preparing to enact Switcher's plans!

Clone, Trixie and Leech stood in silence for a few moments, glancing at each other and then back to the black shape slumped on the ground. Clone eventually broke the silence.

"If this really is Chrysalis, she's in trouble!" he said at last, crouching down to examine the fallen ruler's comatose body. "She's severely depowered. Whatever that thing was, it was constantly draining her powers and her life force. Leech, come over here - I need your help again." he said briskly, as he beckoned Leech.

Leech stepped forward and asked what he could do. Clone simply motioned to his broken horn, and the prone Chrysalis' horn. Leech rolled his eyes and let out a sigh.

"Leech izz zzsick of being magic jumper cable!" he complained, but complied anyway.

He placed his hoof on Clone's head, and touched his horn with Chrysalis'. Clone released some of his considerable power, making it flow through Leech's body, out through his horn, and into the horn of his Queen. Chrysalis remained unresponsive. Clone attempted the procedure another five times, his concern and desperation growing with each successive try. As he began to mourn the loss of his Queen, he noticed Chrysalis' eyes open into tiny slits.

Encouraged, he let out a seventh, far more intense blast which seemed to bring Chrysalis around... although he failed to warn Leech. The sudden burst of power running through him caused the little drone to leap into the air and hit his head on the cavern ceiling. Trixie, forgetting her own problems, ran over to where he landed to check he was alright - fortunately, he was.

"Leech hazz thick zzskull!" he beamed proudly, being closer to the truth than he realized.

Clone attempted to aid Chrysalis in getting to her hooves. She was still very weak, and surprisingly heavy given her slim stature and the number of holes in her legs. Trixie trotted back over and helped lift the limp-limbed leader into a sitting position with her magic. Trixie noted that her magic was becoming harder to control, and her usual mauve aura was beginning to take on a sickly green tint. She had some trouble keeping the tears at bay as Chrysalis began to speak.

"How... long... have I been gone?" Chrysalis whispered between short, shallow breaths.

"That depends, my Queen." Clone answered gently. "What is the most recent thing you remember?"

"Let me see... I... I remember now. We'd failed in our invasion attempt of Canterlot. I was injured and my power was low. I had been thrown all the way to the far side of the Badlands, and was making my way back to our hive when..." Chrysalis paused as her brow furrowed in anger. "When... those two treacherous pieces of slime ambushed me! I couldn't fight back in my weakened state."

"Who?" asked Clone angrily. "Who attacked you?"

"General Switcher, and Aurora!" snarled Chrysalis, the very thought of the two turncoat changelings enraging her. "They imprisoned me within this monolith, which Aurora had constructed. It siphoned my power away as fast as it could regenerate, and sent it directly to her, that worthless, backstabbing hatchling!"

"Aurora!" breathed Clone. "I thought she was ancient history!"

"Who izz Aurora?" asked Leech, confused.

"Aurora was one of my top Generals, many years ago, long before you were hatched 1017. She was excellent at her job, but despite her privileged position within the swarm, coveted more. Specifically, she wanted the throne, but lacked the power to overthrow me." explained Chrysalis breathlessly. "To further her own ends, she began studying dark arts and non-regulation magics to enhance her powers..."

Trixie, who was listening to the conversation, thought these arts must have been pretty dark if changelings considered them to be dark! After all, they considered stealing a pony's place and feeding on love to be normal routine!

"She mastered a forbidden spell - the power to take the form of other changelings. This ordinarily isn't supposed to be possible... not anymore, at least. I had no choice but to exile her from the swarm permanently for this. " Chrysalis continued to explain. "Long ago, this magic was common among our kind as a method of confusing enemies further during battles. It was later forbidden due to it being open to abuse, and was thought to have died out."

"Like zzsynthetic changelingzz?" asked Leech.

"Yes, much like..." began Chrysalis, "...wait a minute, 1017 - synthetic changelings were deemed unethical even by our standards long before you existed. How in Tartarus do you know about them? They haven't existed for years!"

Clone, Leech and Trixie exchanged worried glances. Clone spoke up first.

"My Queen, do you want the bad news... or the worse news..?"

Chrysalis raised a questioning eyebrow at the High General, as the latter continued to speak.

"The bad news is, from what you've said, you've been trapped within that siphon monolith for around four months." he said, causing Chrysalis' eyes to widen in shock.

She hadn't expected it to have been that long!

"The worse news is..." he began, with a pained expression on his face.

With this, both he and Leech explained that Aurora had seemingly taken Chrysalis' form, and taken command of the swarm. Using their unquestioning loyalty and the powers she took from Chrysalis, she had been able to persuade them to set up a plan that she and Switcher had been concocting. They told her of the experiments into synthetic changelings that Switcher had been doing right under Chrysalis' nose, months before the Canterlot invasion. They also explained the massive increase in Necrosia production, and how the selection criteria had extended far beyond the dead and dying. By the time they'd gotten to the part about Vek and the second Canterlot invasion plan, Chrysalis was agape. Tears had begun to form in the corners of her eyes.

"My swarm..." she quietly sobbed. "What have they done..? Or worse yet, what have they done in my name? And more to the point, what are they ABOUT to do?!"

"What I don't get," Trixie said, adding to the discussion for the first time, "Is what Switcher is getting from all this?"

Chrysalis turned to look at the slowly-metamorphosing hybrid - she hadn't really paid her much attention until now.

"Switcher never liked the way I ruled." she started. "He always believed that changelings should be creatures of conquest, as we once were. Whilst I admit our methods are questionable at times, and we sometimes unnecessarily toy with our targets, our general motivation is sustenance. Switcher was never interested in any of that, he'd often suggest more aggressive strategies for the swarm's spread and expansion. He was ignored, of course - so I assume he's teamed up with Aurora because she too has a war-like spirit."

Trixie nodded. This made sense - although none of it was going to help her present condition. She felt her teeth with her tongue - she could feel two at the front beginning to take on fang-like points. Chrysalis looked at her again and, with some effort, got up onto her hooves and approached the fearful former unicorn. Chrysalis looked down at Trixie, and spoke in an unusually gentle tone.

"Your fear is quite understandable, my little pony. However... although it's not a quick or especially pleasant process, synthetic changeling metamorphosis is reversible." she said, causing Trixie's increasingly ragged-looking ears to prick up.

"Really? Are you serious? Can Trixie be Great and Powerful once more?" she asked, desperation permeating her voice.

Chrysalis gave a surprisingly warm chuckle.

"I don't know about Great and Powerful, but yes - I can return you to your previous form. And I will, along with the other ponies that Switcher has twisted to his will. However, I can't do it at the present moment." she replied.

Trixie's heart sank a little at this news. Noticing her crestfallen face, Chrysalis explained further.

"I am still severely depowered - I need to return to the hive to renew my strength." she said. "Plus, it's not as simple as using my powers alone - I need another component to change you back, and there's none in this place."

Trixie forgot to be distressed about her condition. She stood up straight, and turned to Leech and Clone.

"Gentlecolts... we have a hive to reclaim!" she said, a determined smile appearing across her face, showing her newly-protruding fangs. "No metamorphosis is enough to keep the Great and Powerful Trixie out of action!"

All present in the cave were immediately cheered by Trixie's newfound confidence, especially Leech. He buzzed to the entrance of the cave and hovered, looking back at the others.

"Let'zz go kick zzsome flank!" he shouted, intent blazing in his eyes.

After checking that Chrysalis was well enough to fly, Clone grabbed Trixie in his front hooves and all four of them left the cave. They quickly took to the skies, heading straight for the hive. Chrysalis assumed it would be easy enough, even in her depowered state, to out Aurora as a fake - she just needed to get within range of the scheming exile.

However, this wasn't going to be as easy as it sounded.

Back in the hive, Queen Chrysalis - or rather, Aurora - was pacing nervously about the Royal Chamber, with Switcher and his squad watching. Finally, Switcher could take no more.

"What in Equestria is wrong with you?!" he asked, at the end of his wits.

"Chrysalis' powers... I'm no longer receiving them. If I don't start receiving them again soon, I won't be able to mask my identity to the drones - they'll be able to sense that I'm not who I look like. Something's happened to the siphon, I just know it." she said, her voice becoming shaky.

"Then there's nothing else for it, Queen Aurora." said Switcher firmly. "We'll have to stage the invasion now. The sooner we can get more synthetic changelings on our side, the better our chances will be if the swarm does turn against us."

Aurora tapped a hoof to her chin in thought. If Chrysalis really was free, it would only be a matter of time before she arrived at the hive. Despite her massively-enhanced power, Aurora still secretly feared Chrysalis as an opponent in a one-on-one battle. Aurora decided she'd rather not be present at the hive if Chrysalis did indeed show up!

"Very well." she decreed. "Summon a battalion of Solider drones, and get them to carry the Necrosia pods to our destination. We'll take all of it, just to be on the safe side. Alert me when we are ready for departure."

Switcher saluted his twisted Queen, and quickly darted off to make arrangements. Within minutes, three dozen Soldier drones had been scrambled, and all were busily gathering Necrosia pods from the storage caves. Using a secretion to adhere a Necrosia pod to each of their sides, much like a hideous set of saddlebags, they lined up outside the front of the hive. Switcher, his Sentries and Vek were waiting for 'Chrysalis' to finish addressing the remaining changelings.

"You will all remain here whilst I lead the first wave in our attack." she commanded, addressing all the Generals and drones who were to stay behind. "You will be summoned as, if and when you are needed."

With this, she strode outside the hive to the waiting Switcher.

"Let us go, for the glory of the Swarm! For the glory of the hive! For the glory of me, Queen Chrysalis!" she bellowed, her rallying cry being greeted by cheers and salutes from the gathered Soldiers.

The invasion party then took off for Canterlot, their combined buzzing making a deep roar that seemed to shake the very atmosphere.

As the real Chrysalis, Leech, Trixie and Clone approached the hive, they could see the invasion party heading away.

"We're too late!" cried Clone.

"No." said Chrysalis. "You three follow them, attempt to delay their invasion by any means necessary. I will return to the hive and regain command of the remaining swarm. With their help, I shall restore my powers, after which I will join you in the battle. All you have to do is stay alive long enough for me to regain my strength." she finished, making it sound much easier than it was going to be.

None of the would-be invasion crashers were sure of this plan, but in the absence of anything better they dutifully set off in pursuit of Aurora and Switcher whilst Chrysalis landed at a hive entrance. Taking a deep breath and steeling her gaze, she forcefully strode inside - her Generals were in for the verbal punishment of their lives!

After around an hour of flying, the invaders set down in a wooded area a mile outside of Canterlot's city walls. Their plan was not a direct assault initially, instead allowing Vek to administer the Necrosia to the unsuspecting ponies inside. When enough of them were transformed, Aurora and the rest of the invasion party would storm the city in order to secure the remaining ponies. The unusually overcast evening sky contrasted with Canterlot's gleaming white buildings and golden spires. A hint of rain was in the air, but it did nothing to dampen the spirits of Aurora or Switcher.

Many months of planning were about to come to fruition - the changelings were about to retake their place as the dominant force in Equestria's hierarchy!

As Switcher briefed the Soldiers, Vek had his barb jammed into a Necrosia pod, and was greedily sucking up the foul substance, ready for 'distribution' to the ponies of Canterlot. Aurora, still in her Chrysalis disguise, gazed towards the waiting and unaware city. Her attention was drawn by a buzzing sound coming from behind her - she whirled around to see three shapes flying towards them.

Aurora rolled her eyes as Leech landed before her, and Clone set Trixie down before landing himself. Trixie's entire coat was now a dark slate color rather than its usual blue, but she didn't care at this point. She was determined to foil their plan and get herself cured.

"You again?" asked Aurora, wearily.

Noticing the commotion, Switcher, the Sentries and the Soldiers had walked over and were now gathered behind her, all their eyes fixed on the three invasion crashers. Leech leapt into the air and hovered over the crowd of blissfully ignorant Soliders.

"WAIT!" he implored. "Don't follow Queen'zz orderzz!"

"Why?" asked one Solider from the back of the mob.

"BECAUZZE QUEEN IZZ A CHANGELING!" he yelled, with a completely straight face.

All of the invasion party stood in a stunned silence. A cricket seemingly crawled out from nowhere and began to chirp. Everyone was just staring at Leech, seemingly unable to comprehend his justification for not invading. Leech looked behind him - even Trixie and Clone were facehoofing in unison. Finally, the silence was shattered by uproarious laughter from the Soldiers.

"Of course she's a changeling, you idiot! We're all changelings!" shouted one Solider before returning to his hysterics. Even Aurora let out a chuckle.

"And in other news, grass is green and the sky is blue." she mocked.

Switcher had been less than amused, and stood stony-faced as the others around him finally managed to stifle their giggles. He boldly stepped forward, and stood at Aurora's side.

"Well, well, well." he said flatly. "The half-breed, the traitor and the fool. A persistent fool, but a fool nonetheless. We have no further time to play games with any of you."

He motioned to the Sentries and Soldiers that stood behind.

"Crush them."

Chapter 8: Showdown, Part II

With Switcher's command, thirty-six Soldier drones and the four Sentry drones began to race towards their targets. Trixie, Clone and Leech stood firm and readied themselves for the coming battle, with determination in their eyes but trepidation in their hearts.

"Never back down!" said Clone quietly, narrowing his eyes.

"Never zzsurrender!" agreed Leech, scraping a front hoof on the ground.

"Never mind!" cried Trixie, who turned and began to run in the opposite direction.

Forty against three? There was no way she was staying around for that!

Clone and Leech looked at the fleeing Trixie, and then to each other. Both gave a nod, and also began to flee - Trixie definitely had the right idea on this one!

Trixie ran into the increasingly dense woodland, with Leech and Clone not far behind. Fortunately, the sheer number of trees in the area meant that their pursuers also had to run rather than fly, to avoid hitting any of them - this slowed their advance considerably.

Switcher, who had stayed back with Aurora, motioned to Vek who had by now finished filling his abdomen.

"That half-breed is morphing far more slowly than I had anticipated. I can only presume that this is because of the natural magical energies in her body interfering with the transformation process. Go and give her another dose - the quicker we can fully change her, the quicker I can bring her under my control." he commanded.

Vek gave a little nod, and the tiny changeling-hornet hybrid whizzed off through the increasingly dark evening sky to find his target. Due to his diminutive stature, he could easily zip between the trees, allowing him to quickly catch up with and overtake the changelings on the ground.

He streaked over the stampeding crowd of Soliders and Sentries and flew ahead. He soon caught up with the three fleeing heroes, and readied his stinger to give Trixie another shot of Necrosia. As the trees began to thin out, Vek flew high above her and went into a steep abdomen-first dive. Unbeknownst to Vek however, High General Clone had spotted him out of the corner of his eye.

Judging his moment, Clone waited until Vek was mere feet above Trixie's back, then leapt into the air and held a front leg out over Trixie and directly beneath Vek. Unable to stop himself, Vek's stinger plunged through the relatively thin exoskeleton of Clone's foreleg and gave him a decent-sized dose of Necrosia.

Clone quickly pulled his leg back in before he landed, with Vek still struggling to pull his barb out. Clone winced at the tiny changeling's struggles at first, but the pinpricks of pain soon subsided as the Necrosia began to spread through his body.

Being a changeling already, the substance had no ill effects on Clone - much the opposite, in fact, since changelings used Necrosia for healing themselves. Clone grinned as he felt the tingling warmth flow up his leg, through his torso and neck until it reached his head. An aura of green appeared around his forehead, as the Necrosia set to work, causing his broken horn to regenerate before his very eyes.

As the trees thinned more and gave way to a clearing, he stopped running, and turned around to face his pursuers. Using his newly-healed horn, he pulled Vek out of his leg and held him in front of his face.

"Thanks, you creepy little flank-hole!" he laughed, before swatting his miniature foe with a hoof, sending him spiraling through the air into a nearby bush. Leech and Trixie, noticing that Clone had stopped running, turned around and headed back to stand alongside him.

"Clone hazz horn!" Leech noted with surprise.

"Yep." said Clone proudly. "Now it's a whole new ball game!"

As a High General, Clone had been second-in-command in the swarm prior to Aurora's takeover. This had meant he was the second most powerful changeling after Chrysalis herself, which was one of the reasons Switcher had been so keen to get him out of the picture. With his horn now whole once again, he'd easily be able to subdue the Soldier drones, who by now were emerging from the trees and heading towards him.

"Well, I hope you know what you're doing!" said Trixie, her horn starting to glow with an increasingly off-purple aura. "Because it looks like it's too late to run again!"

"You and me both..." thought Clone.

As the baying mob of Soldiers approached, some still running and some taking to the air, Clone channeled his power through his horn, and with considerable effort managed to encapsulate the entire battalion within a pulsating, green force-field. The Soldiers shouted and buzzed around angrily within their glowing prison, attempting to break free. Some charged their own horns and blasted at the luminous energies that held them, but to no avail. Since the Soldiers were merely being misled rather than acting out of their own malice, Clone had wanted to trap them rather than hurt them.

Clone concentrated hard as his horn began to glow brighter, sending a steady stream of waves into his force-field - a sleeping spell, which would hopefully sedate the soldiers enough to nullify the threat they posed. Until it took effect, however, he would have to maintain total concentration on the force-field and wouldn't be able to help Trixie and Leech.

Help was certainly something Trixie and Leech could have used, as Switcher's Sentry team circled menacingly above them. They'd managed to avoid being trapped by Clone's force-field and, acting on Switcher's telepathic orders, sought to destroy Leech and take Trixie back to Switcher so her conversion could be completed. Trixie and Leech stood flank-to-flank, their horns glowing, looking up at their would-be assailants.

"Remember Trixzzie... ZZSentriezz are juzzt innozzent Ponies really." reminded Leech, knowing that Trixie had a harsh temper. He'd once seen her win an argument with a buffalo over parking their wagon using nothing but a single right hook.

"It's OK, Trixie will try not to hurt 'em... too much!" replied Trixie with a slight laugh.

She didn't feel so confident inside though - she'd already lost one battle with the Sentry team, and that was before her powers had been reduced by her partial transformation. Her horn, now jet-black and beginning to take on a slight curve, glowed brightly and fired a bolt of energy towards the enemies in the sky above her.

It rocketed upward, just missing one of the circling Sentries. Trixie didn't mind, however - that was exactly what she had planned. The energy bolt stopped in the air just above the Sentries and quickly changed into a small, hazy purple cloud. A bolt of lightning shot down from this cloud and struck one of the synthetic drones in the back, causing it to fall from the sky and hit the muddy ground, rolling several meters as it did so. It lay, dazed and surprised, as its fellow Sentries continued their assault.

One dived down at the pair, almost ramming into Leech. However, the little changeling dodged to the left with surprising dexterity. As the divebombing drone turned around for another try, Leech turned to face it and was able to produce a blinding flash of light with his horn, a spell he'd learned from Trixie previously. The Sentry, unable to see, careered off-course and slammed into the one that Trixie had downed, who had just managed to get itself back to its hooves. The two went sprawling to the ground, as Leech and Trixie exchanged wicked grins.

"Two down, two to go!" exclaimed Trixie, joyously. Her joy was short lived, however. Both of the remaining Sentries dived at the same time, both at Leech. Leech managed to dodge to avoid one of them as before, but moved straight into the path of the other. With a sickening crunch, the Sentry impacted with Leech's side full-on, flinging him across the clearing. He came to rest face-down in a muddy puddle.

Clone grimaced as he witnessed this, still unable to intervene due to his job of containing the Soldiers. They'd calmed down a lot and some were becoming quite woozy, but Clone knew if he dropped the force-field now, the sleep spell would wear off too quickly and the Soldiers would rejoin the assault. With Clone having used so much of his power already, he may not be able to stop them a second time. He had to keep the force-field going until all or most of the Soldiers were too sleepy to fight.

With Leech out cold on the wet, muddy ground, the two remaining Sentries moved in closer, their horns glowing, ready to administer the killing blow to him. Trixie looked around frantically - her magic was becoming too hard to control thanks to her continuing metamorphosis, so she couldn't produce another stormcloud. She noticed a pine tree nearby, and using what little control of her powers she had left, snapped off a thick branch and quickly ran between the advancing Sentries and Leech. She brought the heavy branch down on the head of one Sentry with a satisfying crunch...

... but nothing happened. The Sentry shrugged off the evergreen-based assault thanks to the thick chitin plating in its head, and continued to solemnly march towards Trixie and Leech. Thinking fast, Trixie tried a new tactic - she turned the branch around so that the freshly-broken end faced the Sentries. Then she swung it back and forth, flinging thick, sticky sap from the weeping wood into the Sentries' faces. As the amber-colored goo splashed into their eyes, the Sentries stopped their advance and began to rub at their faces with their hooves.

Back at the invasion site, Switcher became aware of his underlings' discomfort via his mental link with them.

"The half-breed is sapping my Sentries!" he growled crossly to himself.

His horn glowed again, as he attempted to establish communication with the two semi-conscious Sentry drones that Leech and Trixie had dispatched earlier.

"Get up and help your comrades, you useless hatchlings!" Switcher hissed telepathically. "Forget the traitor and the idiot, just get the half-breed back to me. They'll back down once I have her on my side! We need to start the invasion soon, and we do not have time for this messing about!"

Aurora stood behind him, an increasingly impatient look on her face.

"What's taking them so long? What has happened to the Soldiers? Where is Vek?" she asked crossly.

Switcher shuddered as the angered would-be Queen loomed over him.

"I'm sure they'll all be back soon!" he quickly said. "After all, there's only three of them, nothing could have gone wrong!"

"For your sake, they better had be." warned Aurora. "My patience grows thin - I allied myself with you so that we could reclaim our species' status as Equestria's most feared and respected predators, with me as their leader. I did not come here to mess about with petty annoyances like those three."

Switcher gulped, and hoped that his message to his drones would have its desired effect

.

Some distance away, Trixie's branch-flicking strategy still seemed to be working well. Pines contained plenty of sap, so she'd be able to keep the two Sentry drones busy for some time, hopefully long enough for Clone to finish his job so he could help them. Alas, unseen by Trixie, the two Sentries that were downed earlier had struggled back to their hooves, rallied by their General's communique. Clone saw them, but he'd still not managed to render the Soldiers into a state where he could release the forcefield.

"Trixie, look out!" he called, desperately.

But it was too late.

The two recovered drones ran up behind Trixie, and grasped her in their forehooves. The two Sentries she'd been holding off with the branch wiped the sap from their eyes and joined their squadmates in subduing the mare. With all four concentrating their horns on her, they levitated Trixie and took off, flying in a square formation with Trixie floating helplessly in the center.

Clone silently cursed himself, before looking at the limp, black shape on the ground some distance away.

"Leech!" he cried. "You've got to snap out of it, they've taken Trixie!"

Leech lifted his head, and opened his eyes. The world seemed to be spinning around him, as he groggily dragged himself to his hooves. He looked at the side where the Sentry had hit him. A large puncture wound from the Sentry drone's horn greeted his eyes. He grimaced, but resolved to rescue his best friend if it killed him.

He knew also, that if his wound wasn't treated soon, that would be exactly what would happen.

Putting the pain to one side in his mind, Leech slowly took off and headed over the tops of the trees, back towards the invasion site. He was sure that this was where the Sentries would be taking Trixie. Clone watched him go, and concentrated harder than ever on getting the Soldiers pacified so that he could help.

The Sentries touched down in front of Switcher and Aurora, depositing Trixie at Switcher's hooves. Switcher smiled, and gave the Sentries another order.

"Now... go and find Vek. We need to begin, and we cannot start without him. I assume he isn't conscious, as my link with him is currently severed. Search the forest floor, and bring him back to me at the double!" he barked.

The Sentries dutifully shuffled off, into the woodlands, their eyes scanning the floor for the tiny Vector drone. They last remembered seeing him just before they got to the clearing where the battle had occurred, so headed in that direction.

After watching them leave, Switcher and Aurora's attention turned to Trixie. She still looked like a cross between a changeling and a pony; far too pony-like for Switcher's liking. His other test subjects, the Sentries, had fully transformed far more quickly than this. Switcher didn't mind though; he knew exactly what to do.

"You've held out pretty well, all things considered." he said to Trixie, trotting over to a bush and snapping off a twig. "But I'm afraid your life as a unicorn is soon to be over, and your new life as one of my squadron begins tonight." he continued, whittling the twig down to a needle-sharp point with his magic.

Trixie, who didn't even dare to blink, never mind make a run for it under Aurora's gaze, watched as Switcher levitated the half-empty Necrosia pod that Vek had been filling up from earlier. She felt the rising panic as she saw him come towards her with the pod and the sharpened twig. A silent scream stuck in her throat as he dipped the twig into the olive-green gel and held it in front of her face.

"Not the most advanced technique." he said cheerily, a sadistic smile plastered across his face. "But don't worry. It won't hurt a bit... well, it won't hurt me anyway." he cackled, even managing to unnerve Aurora a little with his disturbing enthusiasm.

Just as Switcher was about to jab the twig into Trixie's skin, a buzzing black missile came rocketing over the treetops. Switcher dropped the twig and looked upward.

"ZZSWITCHER NOT HURT LEECH'ZZ FRIEND!" the aerial blur roared, before crashing into the startled General, sending both Leech and Switcher rolling across the ground and through a nearby bush.

Aurora facehoofed.

"I'm surrounded by incompetence!" she sighed, as she looked down at the terrified Trixie. "You are nothing but a distraction - I can't have Switcher wasting my time playing with his little toys."

Her horn began to glow, ready to evaporate the hybrid Pony that trembled at her hooves. Before she could, however, a voice boomed from the sky.

"How about picking on someone your own size?" it bellowed.

Aurora's horn stopped glowing as she turned to where the voice had come from. She took an involuntary step back as a fully powered and healed Queen Chrysalis landed nearby.

Chrysalis hadn't bought any of the changelings from the hive along to help - she had come alone after being restored to full power by her Generals. This was her fight, and she was going to end this personally. She stared at her nemesis, a mirror image of herself. Aurora stared back, each of the two powerful changelings sizing the other up.

As the rain began to fall harder from the darkened night sky, and Trixie took cover behind a tree stump, Chrysalis broke the silence with just two words:

"Face me."

Chapter 10: On the Brink

Those gathered at the former invasion site just stared at the sight of the battered and exhausted little changeling, laying on his side with his eyes closed and taking short, shallow breaths. Some looked on with sad eyes, others with indifference. Many of the gathered Soldiers couldn't see what the fuss was - he was just a maintenance drone, after all.

Leech's tongue hung limply from the side of his mouth, whilst Clone examined the gouge wound in his side. After a few moments,he turned his head to face Chrysalis, and slowly shook it from side to side. Trixie looked at Clone with a quizzically raised eyebrow, and then turned to Chrysalis.

"What does that mean?" she said numbly, still in shock from seeing her friend like this.

Chrysalis hung her head and let out a heavy sigh.

"It means... he's too far gone." she whispered. "That injury isn't going to heal by itself, it's too deep and he's lost too much energy. He needs Necrosia if he is to survive it."

Trixie swallowed hard at the lump in her throat, and tried not to let her feelings get to her. She breathed deeply and attempted to sound optimistic.

"Well, that's alright!" she said, almost-brightly, putting on a forced smile. "There was tons of it brought here, let's just grab some of that!"

This was met with yet another shake of Clone's head.

"What is it with you and doing that head-shaking thing?" spat Trixie crossly, the emotional floodgates beginning to part. "If you've got something to say, just say it! Or better yet, help!"

"You frustration is quite understandable, my friend." he responded, calmly. "But Leech destroyed Aurora's entire Necrosia supply by dropping it in Two-Mile Lake. He used his very last ounce of energy to do it." he added, admiringly.

Trixie looked around, her mind a blur. All she could see wherever she turned were faces looking at her, some with confusion but many with sadness and sympathy. She wasn't interested in any of that for the moment, she just wanted to find something that could change what was happening! Her eyes darted up and down, left to right until... she caught sight of a half pod of Necrosia. It was still left over from when Switcher had attempted to forcibly complete her transformation. It lay on a nearby patch of grass next to the sharpened twig that Switcher had planned to use a delivery method.

New hope in her eyes, Trixie quickly darted away from Leech's side and, using what little of her unicorn magic was left, levitated the pod over to where Leech lay. Setting it down and looking around, however, Trixie noticed that neither Clone or Chrysalis shared her enthusiasm.

"Let me guess..." she sighed, her hope fading and a sickly feeling rising in her stomach, "... there's some reason why I can't use this?"

"Unfortunately, there are two reasons." Chrysalis began to explain. "Firstly, it's not a matter of immersing the wound in Necrosia - there's internal damage, and absorption will take too long to fix it in time. If you were to use this on him, we'd need a way of administering it internally - and that twig would cause more damage than it solved."

Hearing this, Clone put looked to the sky thoughtfully as Chrysalis continued her explanation to Trixie.

"Additionally, I've already got plans for this Necrosia. It is the element needed to revert both yourself and the Sentries back to your pre-changeling forms. By my estimate, there's just enough here to treat the five of you. If we treat Leech, one or possibly several of you won't get to return to your previous bodies, possibly for a long time." she finished.

Upon hearing this, Trixie went into deep thought for what seemed like an eternity.

Could she wait until more Necrosia was available before going back to her old form? Exactly how long would it be before more was made? It could be years - after all, only dead and dying changelings were used to make it under normal hive rules, and Switcher had gotten rid of any changeling who had so much as a sniffle. It was likely to be a long time before any more dead or dying changelings came along.

But then even if she did give up her share of the half-pod that sat before her, Chrysalis said there'd be no way of administering it to Leech without killing him even sooner. If her only friend DID die, maybe she'd be better off staying as a changeling anyway - at least she'd have company!

Her train of thought was derailed by Clone, who stopped rubbing his chin and suddenly stared straight ahead, as if an idea had hit him.

"Wait here." he suddenly said, urgently. "Try and get him to hang on just a little bit longer..." he added cryptically, before hurtling away through the trees.

Chrysalis wondered where in Equestria he was going all of a sudden, as Trixie put a hoof around her catatonic companion, in a sort of half-hug. At that moment, the four former Sentry drones appeared from the forest's darkness, and stepped into the moonlit clearing. Chrysalis greeted them warmly, before taking them to one side and explaining the situation with Leech and the remaining Necrosia.

One Sentry in particular was deeply saddened by the sobbing half-changeling he saw before him - he was the one who had driven his horn into Leech's side. He had of course been operating under Switcher's direct control, and had been unable to stop himself. But that did nothing to erase the memory of the event from the synthetic changeling's mind.

The Sentry looked across at Trixie, who was talking to Leech and attempting to revive him using the love from their friendship, not knowing the little changeling was too damaged even to feed. He shook his head and sighed, before turning back to Chrysalis, who was still talking to his fellow synthetic Sentries. Like Trixie, he then offered to give up his share of the Necrosia to save Leech - he felt that he owed it to him. Alas, once told by Chrysalis that this wasn't possible, he simply closed his eyes. He couldn't bring himself to look in Trixie's direction again. He began to wish that he and his comrades hadn't almost totally vaporized Switcher - otherwise they could have used his remains to make more Necrosia. He couldn't help but chuckle internally at how fitting such a fate would have been, before bowing his head once more.

Clone ran through the darkness, through trees and bushes, branches and twigs hitting his body from all angles. But he didn't care - he had to find what he was looking for, and quickly! The woods looked different now that it was totally dark, and he hoped with all his heart that he was heading in the right direction.

"I hope I didn't kill it... I hope it hasn't wandered off..." he gasped quietly to himself.

Finally, he came to the same clearing where he had engaged the Soldiers, and where Leech had acquired his wound. Glancing around the darkness, he couldn't see anything... but a twinge in his horn told him what he sought was nearby. It was the signal that a changeling was near, although this signal was far harder to pinpoint than usual. A wave of excitement rippled through his body as he began to fervently search for his target. After much rooting through bushes head-first, and accidentally shoving his snout directly into a sleeping hedgehog, Clone finally found what he'd come all this way for. His horn glowed, and he levitated his objective in front of his face.

Vek simply gave the High General a blank look as he floated in midair. Now that he was no longer under Switcher's control, he'd reverted to his base instincts. As he hovered before Clone, he attempted to scratch behind one of his ears with a hind hoof, before giving up, and looking at Clone again. He blinked his eyes, ever-so-slightly out of sync.

Clone cared nothing for this, however. All he was interested in was the state of Vek's abdomen. He smiled as he inspected the tiny Changeling hybrid's stinger sac.

"Still got a dose in there!" he said to himself, his attention turning to Vek's stinger barb. "And a suitable internal delivery system to boot. Come on, you pesky little freak - I'm going to put you to good use!"

He hurried back through the trees with a nonchalant Vek in tow. All he could do now was hope he didn't get back too late.

Meanwhile, Chrysalis had sent all the Soldier drones back to the hive. They needed rest and recovery from their own ordeal, and had also been ordered to brief the rest of the swarm as to what was happening. She'd also caught a couple of them trying to get a sip of the love Trixie was attempting to pass to Leech. They had both received a telepathic message from Chrysalis informing them that they were now on latrine duty for the next month. The only changelings present around Leech now were Chrysalis, the Sentries and Trixie. Trixie was still talking to her unaware friend, vainly hoping that something, anything would get through.

"...and then when you're better and I'm me again, we'll go back on tour. I'll even do my fair share of pulling the wagon! Things will be just as they were..." she continued, beginning to doubt whether her own words would come to pass.

An eerie silence descended over the clearing, as if all present were listening for Leech's last breath. The tiny, rasping wheezes were all that was audible in the stillness of the night. Until, there was a rustling sound - it sounded like a changeling attempting to run through bushes in the pitch dark. Which of course, is exactly what it was.

Clone burst out from the undergrowth, with Vek hovering in his magic aura not far behind him. Everyone present turned to look at Clone.

"I'm not too late, am I?" he gasped, agitated.

"No, he's still with us, just." began Chrysalis. "But I'm afraid it won't be..."

"...it won't be happening!" cried Clone, excitedly. He levitated Vek over to where Leech lay and, using incredible control of his powers, pushed the Vector drone's barb into Leech's soft underbelly, causing far less damage than the twig would have. Then, he gently squeezed Vek's abdomen, and a dose of Necrosia flowed into Leech's body.

Pulling the stinger out of the injured Leech, Clone then set Vek down on the ground nearby. Vek immediately sat down disinterestedly and started scratching his ears again, completely none the wiser as to what was going on.

Everyone watched, with baited breath. At first, nothing seemed to happen - Leech still lay perfectly still, the only motion in his body being the fast but slight rising and falling of his torso as he struggled for each inhale and exhale. Clone began to grit his teeth, willing the Necrosia to work, and inwardly began to convince himself he'd taken too long and gotten back too late...

Then, Leech's breathing began to slow. But not in a bad way - the breaths were less frequent, but they were also longer, and deeper. His tongue retreated back into his mouth, and his eyes opened into tiny green slits. He slowly picked his head up and looked around him, everything a murky blur against the backdrop of the darkened night sky. He turned his head to look at his wound - his eyes suddenly shot open as he watched the wound begin to glow green. The brilliant green glow began to get smaller as the wound closed up, and eventually died down completely, leaving nothing but a small mark on Leech's exoskeleton. New energy coursed through his body, and soon he was able to stand. As he did so, he stretched, yawned and took a deep breath in. He exhaled contentedly, before turning to Trixie with a little smile on his face.

"That wazz worzzt nap Leech ever had!" he remarked with another yawn. "And what'zz more-"

He was cut off by Trixie grabbing him into possibly the tightest hug he'd ever received. Although he was very happy to see his friend, he soon began to feel a pain in his side again.

"Ow ow ow, Trixzzie hurting Leech!" he yelped. Trixie immediately jumped back, apologizing profusely and hoping she hadn't undone any of the healing. Clone stepped over to inspect the mark left behind by the injury.

"Hmmm." he said thoughtfully. "It seems that wasn't quite a large enough dose to heal you completely... but, you're out of danger. The remaining injury should clear up with a bit of rest. Welcome back, Leech!" he said with a broad smile.

Chrysalis observed the scene before her, with Trixie, the Sentries and Clone joyously welcoming Leech back from the edge of oblivion, with an introspective smile on her face. The events from the last couple of days had definitely given her pause - she had much to think about, especially in relation to the way she ran her hive and the methods she used for collecting love. She now knew what it was to be replaced and have others do things in her name, and it wasn't something she'd wish on anypony anymore.

Her thoughts were distracted by a tiny orange-eyed changeling sitting nearby, chewing on one of its own legs. Chrysalis approached it, and gently lifted it with one of her front hooves.

"Who's this?" she asked.

Clone turned around and responded.

"That's the Vector drone prototype we were telling you about, the one that was going to be used to infect the ponies of Canterlot. It doesn't seem harmful without Switcher's control and nothing in its stinger sac, but nevertheless, maybe we should consider humanely destr..." Clone stopped speaking as he beheld what was happening before him.

Chrysalis was holding the tiny drone up to her face and nuzzling it. Vek seemed to have a smile on his face, and was doing the same back to Chrysalis!

"Maybe we should consider keeping him!" she cooed. "Who's the cutest widdle crime against nature? You are! Yes you are! So Switcher called you Vek, eh? I too shall call you Vek, and you shall be mine, and you shall be my Vek. You are the most adorable harbinger of doom ever! Yes! Yes you are!"

Trixie, Leech, Clone and the Sentries all watched speechlessly as the regal ruler of the changeling race was nuzzling and talking to this tiny drone like a filly playing with a puppy! Chrysalis eventually noticed their disbelieving faces and smiled.

"What?" she asked "Can't a Queen have a pet?"

Clone tried to think of a suitable answer, but eventually gave up and said nothing. Leech thought it was rather sweet - and was very pleased, since now he was only the second most unintelligent changeling in the swarm!

Chrysalis placed Vek on her back, and quickly regained her royal demeanor.

"Very well, everyling." she announced. "We've all been through a lot these last few days - it is now time for us to return to our hive, and begin to repair the damage that Switcher and Aurora have done. Starting with the five ponies present - restoring you to your former selves will be our top priority." she promised.

"Leech help! Leech will carry Necrozzia back to the hive!" he said enthusiastically.

Chrysalis, Clone and Trixie's eyes all went wide with horror, remembering Leech's less-than-stellar record when it came to looking after things.

"LEECH, NO!" they all cried in unison, diving between Leech and the Necrosia pod.

"Umm, that is.... you're still hurt. We don't want you to strain yourself." Trixie quickly lied, which seemed to appease Leech.

"You're the bozz!" he shrugged, before taking off and heading for the hive.

Clone soon followed, carrying Trixie in his front hooves. Chrysalis came next, with Vek seeming to enjoy the flight on her back, and finally the four synthetic Sentries took off, in a square formation and the precious Necrosia pod being levitated in the center.

As the cavalcade of changelings took off and headed for home through the starry skies of Luna's night, the last lights went out in Canterlot, as the sleeping city remained none the wiser to the catastrophe that had so very nearly befallen it.

Chapter 11: Back on the Road

The next few weeks within the hive were a time of both sadness and of hope. Sadness for those that had been lost during Aurora and Switcher's plans, and also much regret among the Generals for not sensing that something was amiss. But there was a new hope for the future of the swarm, as the birthing chambers worked double-time siring new hatchlings to bring the swarm back up to its previous strength. Whilst nothing could replace the individuals lost before, these new changelings would also herald the beginnings of an entirely new way of life for the swarm.

Now that Chrysalis knew first-hoof the trauma of being replaced and having someone else living her life for her, she had decreed that the staple changeling tactic of abduction and replacement was no longer permitted under changeling law. Chrysalis had taken much interest in the dynamic between Leech and Trixie, and had learned that Leech had stopped feeding on Trixie's self-love some time ago. He now subsisted solely on the love he gained from his friendship with the showmare. Chrysalis, Clone, and many of the higher-ranked changelings were fascinated at the idea of having love willingly given to them rather than merely stealing it.

Of course, achieving such a goal wasn't going to be an easy ride - changelings had a fearsome reputation among many of the other civilized species of Equestria, and their recent invasion of the Royal Wedding hadn't helped this in the slightest. It would be many generations before changelings could cease using their disguising powers and walk openly among other civilizations.

Instead of theft, the swarm's new tactics involved creating totally original pony disguises and personalities, rather than stealing the identities of existing ponies. Using these new forms, the disguised changelings could potentially form friendships of their own among society, and bring the willingly-given love back to the hive. Whilst there would certainly be less love to go around, willingly-given love was far sweeter tasting and more nourishing than stolen love. No changeling knew why this was, but it definitely seemed to be the case.

As a knock-on effect of this, Chrysalis also reduced the intensity and rigidity of the swarm's social structure and hierarchy. Whilst every changeling was still born with a function and their own role to play, it was decided that drones should be allowed to cultivate at least a rudimentary sense of individuality. Being granted a personality of their own would help the drones construct far more convincing personalities when using their original pony disguises.

Trixie marveled at the rapid changes taking place around her. The hive was almost a different place compared to the dank, unwelcoming ruin she had entered a few weeks previously. Changelings would now chat amongst themselves whilst working, rather than performing their designated tasks in a trance-like state as before. Sometimes they'd even stop for a few minutes to talk to her before whizzing off to complete their next job. The Necrosia production and storage caves had been sealed up forever, with a direct order from Chrysalis that they were not to be used next time the hive required expansion. The hive itself was in far better repair than before, as the new drones began to help with the repair work. Trixie admired the relatively clean floors and the freshly-repaired corridor walls as she went for her morning stroll around the hive.

Trixie often took walks around the hive - partly because there wasn't all that much else to do, and partially because it was integral to her treatment. As she paced forwards, she could feel the weight of a small but heavy Necrosia pod. This particular pod was made of a semi-permeable membrane and was adhered to her back, just behind her shoulders. Chrysalis had placed a spell on it, so that instead of infusing changeling essence into her body, it was instead drawing the essence out, in a fashion not unlike a magnet. As more of the changeling essence was sapped from her body, the Necrosia in the pod became darker, and was almost black by this stage. Light exercise helped to speed the process, so Trixie had been sure to exercise at every opportunity.

She paused to admire herself in an especially smooth and reflective part of a hive wall. If it wasn't for the black pod on her back, one would never have known she had once nearly been a changeling! It hadn't been an especially pleasant journey - some of the internal changes hurt even more backwards than they did forwards! But now her fur was its usual bright blue, she no longer possessed fangs or vestigial wings, and her horn was back to normal with access to her full range of unicorn magic. She sighed happily as she continued to gaze at her reflected form.

"Trixie truly is the greatest of all unicorns!" she fawned, her usual bluster returning along with her normal appearance.

Being a unicorn had definitely not worked to her advantage over these last weeks, however - the four Sentry drones had undergone similar treatment and were all restored to their previous forms within two weeks. As it turned out, they were originally three Earth ponies and a pegasus, and by the sounds of their voices, all from higher-class society. Just as Trixie's innate magic had slowed the mutation process, it also interfered with the reversal spell meaning that her restoration had taken far longer. The ex-Sentries had already long since said their goodbyes and left the hive to try and return to their previous lives, although it was anypony's guess how easy this would be after being missing for a year.

Presently, Trixie cantered into the Royal Chamber, where she found Clone chasing Vek across the room. The tiny hybrid drone had adapted well to life as Chrysalis' pet, but did cause some difficulties. Trixie watched in amazement as Vek scooted across the floor with his hind legs in the air.

"Stop him, he's dragging his stinger across the ground again!" screeched Chrysalis from her throne. "I've only just had the gouges in the floor repaired from last time! Has he got grubs or something?" she asked wearily.

Her attention was drawn by Trixie.

"Ah, good morning!" she greeted, casually. "And how is our patient today?".

Chrysalis rose from her throne and trotted down the steps towards Trixie. She called to Clone to stop what he was doing and join her next to the newly-restored unicorn.

"Clone, could you do the daily check-up?" asked Chrysalis.

Clone nodded, and his horn glowed. An aura slightly lighter than the usual Changeling green enveloped Trixie, although she felt nothing. Clone's horn soon stopped glowing and he raised his head with a broad smile on his face.

"Well, Trixie." he began. "I've looked you over, and it would appear that your body has finally been cleansed of all changeling elements. Whilst it's too early to speculate whether there will be any lasting effects, for now at least you are well enough to leave." he explained, beaming.

Chrysalis also had a smile on her face as she gently removed the now-saturated pod from Trixie's back. It stung a little as it came off, but Trixie didn't care. She was truly her Great and Powerful self once more! She whooped and frolicked about the room, much to the bemusement of the two changelings watching. Trixie thanked both of them profusely before running off to find Leech. Chrysalis and Clone just looked at each other and smiled, before Vek scooted past once again with his backside rubbing across the floor. Both immediately stopped smiling and quickly ran after him.

Trixie galloped through the narrow corridors of the hive, dodging working drones as she did so. She'd gotten to know the layout of the hive pretty well during her stay - it was nowhere near as complex as she had initially feared. She came to a stop in a chamber leading to one of the hive's larger exits. She found Leech clinging upside-down to the ceiling, grafting a repair section into it. He quickly flew down to greet his friend.

Leech had rested for around a week after returning to the hive, to allow the remainder of his injury to heal fully. After this, he had resumed his duties as a maintenance drone, performing odd-jobs and repairs around the hive. He'd been sure to visit Trixie every day, however, when he was off-duty. He'd been overjoyed to witness her gradual transformation from hideous cross-breed back to the Unicorn he knew and liked. Unbeknownst to Leech, most of the jobs he'd been given were in fact pointless tasks designed to keep him out of trouble - many of the surviving drones were familiar with his previous record when it came to repairs! Fortunately, it never occured to Leech to ask just why pebbles needed counting or why the diameter of every tunnel required measuring, he'd just done it. This ceiling repair was the first proper task he had been entrusted with.

"Trixzzie izz normal again!" he buzzed delightedly, before giving a cheeky sideways glance. "Or at leazzt azz normal as Trixzzie ever wazz!" he added with a laugh.

"Watch it, you!" laughed Trixie, pretending to ready her horn. "Or else I'll turn you into a bullfrog!"

Leech grinned at this threat, and quickly bathed himself in green flames. After this died down, a large bullfrog sat in his place.

"Ha! Leech can already do thizz!" he said, before changing back and bursting into laughter again.

Trixie quickly joined in, and the two friends were laughing together for several minutes. Slowly, they regained their composure and stretched their aching sides. Trixie looked happily towards Leech.

"I had my final check-up today." she said merrily. "And Clone says I can go at any time! So what say we move on out of here and get back to life on the road? I've had enough death-defying adventure for one lifetime - and there are so many more audiences out there who have yet to marvel at The Great and Powerful Trixie!"

Trixie was surprised to see Leech's mood fall somewhat at this news. She had expected him to be happy and begin to make preparations for departure. Instead, the little changeling had turned away from Trixie, and was beginning to make little sniffing sounds, as though he were about to cry. Trixie quickly put a hoof around her friend.

"What in Equestria is wrong?" she asked.

"Leech izz pleazzed Trixzzie izz well again." Leech smiled as he fought back the tears. "But...b-but... Leech cannot go with you. Leech zzstill hazz duty to zzswarm. Chryzzalizz would never let Leech leave of hizz own accord."

"But you saved the entire swarm from certain destruction! You helped pave the way for a new future for changeling kind! Surely allowing you to leave is the least she can do!" said Trixie, somewhat indignantly.

She noticed that Leech was looking behind her rather than at her. She turned her head to see Chrysalis and Clone standing in an entryway, watching the scene. Trixie immediately backed down.

"I.. um... I didn't mean it like..." she mumbled. Chrysalis gently nodded her head.

"I understand your concerns," she said, with a slow nod of her head.

She strode over towards Leech, and looked down at the still-sniveling maintenance drone. Leech slowly looked up at his Queen and gave a small salute.

"Maintenance Drone 1017." began Chrysalis. "Although your efforts towards the upkeep of this hive have been somewhat below average over your lifetime here, you have done your swarm a great service. As your friend says, you saved our kind from irreversible damage to both our numbers and our long term standing among other societies. The combination of these factors would almost certainly have led to the destruction of both our hive, and possibly changeling kind as a whole."

She paused impressively.

"In addition to this, the life you pursued after the initial invasion of Canterlot has shown both myself and your fellow changelings that perhaps there is another way for us to get what we require. Thanks to you two, the future of the changeling race is set to be vastly different to anything our species has seen before - a real change for the better."

Leech had stopped weeping and was by now wearing a proud grin across his face. He'd never been so showered with praise in his entire life! Especially not by his Queen! Chrysalis continued her speech.

"Taking all of this into account, I am giving you a new role, 1017. You will act as an ambassador for our kind, and will show those you meet on your travels that we changelings are not monsters, but merely victims of our natural feeding methods. You will demonstrate to them that we are indeed capable of empathy and rational thought, and are making a concerted effort to change the way we do things. To allow you to fulfil this role effectively, you are hereby honorably discharged from this hive." she finished.

Leech couldn't believe what he was hearing. An honorable discharge! These were the stuff of legends among changelings - they were so rarely issued that many changelings doubted that such a thing existed. Even Clone, who had seen more than most changelings in his lifetime, looked surprised. Queen Chrysalis simply gave him a knowing look, and ordered him to begin making preparations for Leech and Trixie's departure.

Within hours, Trixie and Leech were standing outside the exit to the hive. Their wagon had been retrieved from the Badlands wastes some days previously by a squad of Solider drones - it had been checked over and was ready to go. Noting that Trixie was still a little worse for wear from the restoration process, Leech offered to pull the wagon first. He was soon harnessed up, and Trixie had taken her usual seat with the wagon's front window open. Leech turned his head to face the hive one last time, and looked towards Chrysalis who was standing in the exit's opening.

"Best of luck in your travels... Leech." she said, bidding her subject farewell.

Leech gave one final salute, before turning to face away from the hive. With an intense flapping of his wings, some straining of his legs, and a push-start from a passing Siege drone, Leech towed the wagon away into the desolate plains that lay ahead. Trixie moved towards the back of the wagon, and waved to Chrysalis and the gathered changelings until they were out of sight.

Finishing her waving to the departing heroes, Chrysalis turned and headed back into the hive's exit chamber, where Clone was waiting.

"An honorable discharge? It's been decades since I last heard of one of those! Do you really think Leech will make a good ambassador for our race?" he asked.

"Possibly." mused Chrysalis. "I mean, whilst we obsessed over greed, power and acquisition, he was out enjoying the simpler pleasures of life. It certainly makes me wonder who's got the right idea sometimes." she added.

"Maybe so." responded Clone. "But let's face it, he's hardly the brightest fire-fly in the forest, is he?"

"This is true." conceded Chrysalis. "And if I'm honest, the main reason I allowed him to go..."

With almost perfect timing, the repair section in the chamber ceiling that Leech had been working on began to crumble. With a piercing crack, the heavy lump of hive material fell out of the ceiling, re-opening the hole it had been plugging. With a thud, it landed mere inches away from where Clone and Chrysalis stood.

"... is because it's safer for everyling else!" finished Chrysalis.

Chapter 12: Not Just a Drone

As evening descended over Equestria, and Celestia's blue sky began to give way to Luna's moon and stars, Trixie and Leech had parked up their wagon to settle down for the night. They'd made good progress that day - they'd managed to get clear of the wastes of the Badlands, and were now approaching the edge of a desert area.

Their next destination was Appleoosa - although a pony town, Trixie figured that its populace were so far out of touch with the rest of society they would not yet have heard of what happened in Ponyville.

What Trixie didn't know of course was that the Elements of Harmony had friends and family in the remote settlement, and almost everypony there knew about it. Trixie and Leech would definitely be in for a surprise when they arrived in the town the next day!

Trixie had been sulking for much of the journey - for the first time in her life she had genuinely been a hero, and helped to save both changeling and ponykind alike - and alas, nopony was around to acknowledge it! Sure, she had the gratitude of Chrysalis and the swarm, but what good did that do her? It was the adoration of her own kind she craved, and she knew that nopony would believe her if she told them about the events of the last few days. Leech reminded her that they were both safe and well - although more by luck than judgement - and that was what really mattered. Trixie couldn't help but agree, and presently her mood improved. She exited the wagon, trotted down the steps and joined Leech who was sitting on a small dune.

As the the unicorn and the changeling sat admiring the sunset over the sandy plains, the cool evening breeze blowing over them, Leech decided to question Trixie's logic in heading back into pony society.

"Why are we going back to poniezz?" he asked. "We should finish tour of Zzebrezzi Valley first! ZZebras were friendly enough, and zzseemed to like uzz!"

Trixie looked away awkwardly, as her mind wandered back to the day after Leech had left her with the zebra tribe...

Trixie ran as fast as her hooves would allow her with the heavy wagon hurriedly hitched up to her. A mob of zebra followed, cursing in their own language and hurling sticks and rocks at the fleeing Unicorn. Trixie didn't quite understand why they were so angry - she'd only been telling them the story of how she single-hoofedly defeated Discord using nothing but a paperclip and a banana peel! Her story had just entered its seventh hour when the entire tribe turned on her! As she exited the Zebrezi Valley, her pursuers ceased their chase, satisfied that they had driven her off. It was at this stage that Trixie had decided she'd better go and find Leech...

It seemed that even the infinitely amiable zebra had their limits, and Trixie had managed to surpass them in less than a day!

Quickly snapping back to the present, Trixie hurriedly made her excuses.

"Er... well... Trixie got bored in the Zebrezi, as much as the residents loved her. We shall return there at a later date, maybe." she said, only semi-convincingly.

Leech seemed none the wiser.

"Leech underzzstandzz." he nodded, not really understanding. His gaze was taken by a tiny dark shape flying over the deep orange horizon. Trixie had noticed it too.

"Celestia's beard! What's that?" she gasped, as the little dot zig-zagged across the sky, getting closer and closer to their camp.

"Izz it a bird?" asked Leech.

"No, it looks more like a comet, although comets don't fly in zig zags. Or at near-ground level. Coming straight towards us." she answered, with some nervousness.

Trixie needn't have worried, however - it wasn't a comet, but a pegasus! A gray pegasus with a blonde mane and slightly crossed eyes landed in front of the amazed duo. In her forehoof, she clutched an official-looking scroll.

"Hello!" greeted the delivery mare brightly. "Are you Trixie Lulamoon?"

Trixie blushed deeply as Leech muted a snigger. She absolutely hated her surname, and never used it, especially not in front of her friends.

"I prefer to be addressed as The Great and Powerful Trixie, if you don't mind!" she replied haughtily.

"Oops, my bad!" answered the mailmare, her good cheer undiminished. "I have a letter for you, it's apparently very important!"

Trixie's horn glowed, and she levitated the scroll out of the mailmare's hoof and placed it on the steps of the wagon. She turned back to the wall-eyed pegasus.

"Umm... thanks." she began. "Before you go, can I ask a couple of questions? First of all, how in Tartarus did you find me when I don't have a fixed address?"

"Oh that's easy!" replied the mailmare, bouncing cheerfully on the spot. "I just flew around and around, all over Equestria until I found you! It only took eight days!"

Trixie and Leech looked at each other, neither sure of what to make of this.

"A commendable work ethic, I guess..." replied Trixie. "Speaking of which, why have I only ever seen you delivering mail? Doesn't the postal service have any other delivery Ponies?"

The gray pegasus muttered something about postal budget cuts and her being the only delivery mare willing to be paid in muffins before merrily bidding Leech and Trixie goodnight. She took flight and disappeared over the horizon, just as quickly as she had appeared. Leech finally found his voice.

"That wazz... different." he buzzed, confusedly.

Trixie trotted over to where the scroll lay, and levitated it up to eye level. With a delivery time of over a week, she was certainly glad she wasn't paying for the postage on it! She unrolled the parchment, and began to read. As she did so, her face began to drop, her ears became flat and her voice turned increasingly shaky.

"L...Leech..." she shuddered. "This is-is from the R-R-Royal Castle! It's a summons from Celestia herself!"

Leech trotted over and peered over Trixie's shoulder at the still-levitating piece of paper in front of his friend's face. During their previous travels, Trixie had taught him some basic literacy, and Leech was interested to see if he could make sense of the letter.

From the Royal Household of Princesses Celestia and Luna

Dear Trixie Lulamoon and her Changeling associate,

The Royal household has received several reports of your recent activities, and as such I feel compelled to request your immediate presence at the Castle as soon as you receive this communique. I have placed a spot teleportation spell upon this scroll - please touch the Royal Seal at the bottom of this message with your horn, whereupon you will be immediately transported to Canterlot. My guards will escort you from there.

Regards

Princess Celestia

Below the message was a glittering golden seal bearing the official insignia of the Royal household. Trixie began to panic as she read the message over and over again.

"Oh no! She knows about what happened at Ponyville! She wants to get us to Canterlot so we can be put on trial! She'll banish us forever! Or throw us in a dungeon! Or maybe even both! Twice! Us, the saviors of Canterlot, locked up!" she wailed, increasingly hysterically. "Leech, we've got to get out of here, we'll have to go on the lam! The Great and Powerful Trixie is NOT about to become a common prisoner!" she continued urgently, not entirely sure where they could hide from a near-omnipotent sun goddess.

Leech was much calmer - although it wasn't clear whether this was because he didn't understand the implications of Trixie's words, or because he'd given up trying to read the letter after the word 'Princesses'. Either way, he strode up to the floating letter, his chest puffed out with pride.

"Leech will fix thizz!" he said cheerfully. "Leech izz ambazzador now, remember? Leech take Trixie to Canterlot and will uzze hizz 'ambazzading' zzskillzz to get uzz out of thizz mezz!"

His eyes turned back to the scroll as he strained to find a clue as to how to get to Canterlot from their current location, so he could go and make things right. Eventually, he was able to decipher the part about the teleportation spell within the royal seal.

"Perfect! he buzzed. Before Trixie could stop him, Leech gently touched his horn against the royal seal.

"Leech, NO!" cried Trixie, but it was too late. A blinding flash enveloped the two, and when it subsided both they and their wagon were in the gardens of Canterlot Castle.

Trixie grasped Leech's face with her front hooves, moving her own face mere inches from the changeling's.

"You numbskull!" she said, panicking even more. "Now we'll never be able to hide from her! We racked up a charge sheet longer than a griffin's tail back in Ponyville, and now we're almost certainly going to the dungeons!"

"It'zz OK!" reassured Leech. "Leech izz changeling ambazzador azz Leech zzsaid!"

Trixie facehoofed.

"Leech, changelings don't have any sort of political representation in commonwealth Equestrian society! You're classed as a feral species, like ursas or manticores, you don't have any sort of real power! It's just a ceremonial title, not an official one! The idea is that you keep acting like yourself to prove changelings aren't all bad, not to act in any sort of official capacity!" she explained, panic still present in her voice.

Leech's eyes widened as he took in what Trixie was saying to him.

"Zzso... Leech cannot negotiate for uzz?" he said slowly.

He then began to join Trixie in running around the lawns of the castle gardens, yelling in a frightened frenzy.

"Leech doezz not want to go to zzslammer!" he buzzed. "Leech doezz not like prizzon food!"

"My career is over... nobody will want to watch a show put on by a convict!" wailed Trixie.

From a tower overlooking the gardens, a dark alicorn with a wavy, ethereal mane watched the two strangers hurtling about the gardens in their despair. She chuckled gently to herself, and opened a line of telepathic communication with her horn.

"Celestia, I think your guests are here!" whispered Luna to her sister.

She received a confirmation from the sun goddess, and her horn ceased to glow as she resumed her duty of watching over the night.

Four royal pegasus guards soon approached the two terrified outsiders, causing them to cease their dashing about and stare in horror.

"Trixie Lulamoon?" enquired the lead guard. "Princess Celestia has requested the presence of you and your shapeshifting friend in the throne room, immediately." he said, gruffly.

Both Trixie and Leech, after very briefly considering making a break for it, decided to accept their fates with a heavy sigh. There was no backing out now, they may as well get it over and done with.

As the guards led them up stairs and along corridors, both the unicorn and the changeling's hearts were beating like bongo drums. Adrenaline coursed through both of their bodies, making their minds race and their legs feel weak. With beads of sweat forming on Trixie's brow and Leech wondering if it was possible to vomit despite not eating physical food, the two arrived in the throne room. Celestia was waiting for them - she approached them as she thanked and dismissed the guards.

When the throne room doors closed and she was alone with Trixie and Leech, Celestia addressed them.

"I see you received my summons." she began with a smile. "I trust that your journey here was not too unpleasant?"

"It...was... okay...." Trixie choked, shuffling her hooves awkwardly on the room's marble floor. Celestia's attention shifted to Leech.

"And you... you must be Leech, yes?" she asked.

Leech looked up at the Princess for a moment, before flinging himself forwards and wrapping his forelegs around one of Celestia's.

"Pleazze! Don't zzsend Trixzzie and Leech to dungeonzz! Ezzpecialy not Trixzzie! It wazz all Leech'zz fault!" he begged, attempting to protect his friend.

Celestia let out a soft laugh, before gently levitating Leech away from her leg and back onto his own hooves.

"I am aware of what happened at the Gemstone Festival" she began, a hint of sternness in her voice. "And I was certainly displeased to hear of it. However, this isn't what this is about. The citizens of Ponyville dealt with that particular incident, and I see no need for further action." she continued, her warm tone returning.

Trixie felt a wave of simultaneous relief and confusion wash over her.

"So if you're not going to put us on trial... why exactly have you brought us here?" she asked, gathering her thoughts together and recovering from her previous panic.

"All will become clear in the morning." explained Celestia, with a suppressed yawn. "However, it is now extremely late. You will doubtless be tired from your travels - I have guest quarters set up for you. If you prefer, you may sleep in your wagon although I do ask that if you sleep there, please don't try to leave during the night."

Trixie tapped a hoof to her chin for a few moments. She sometimes missed having a proper bed to sleep in, and she was certainly tired after the events of the last few days!

"Trixie will take the guest quarters." she beamed, her confidence returning. Celestia nodded, and showed them to their room before bidding them goodnight.

"Get plenty of sleep." she instructed. "You have a big day ahead of you tomorrow."

Leech didn't need telling twice. After dragging all of the sheets and blankets off his bed and forming them into a makeshift basket at the foot of it, he was soon curled up and sound asleep. Trixie watched him snore for a few minutes, shaking her head at his inability to comprehend furniture. She then lay back in her own bed, before drifting into a troubled sleep. She wondered what the summons was all about, but was really too tired to stay up thinking about it.

"Good morning!" said Celestia cheerily the next morning, cantering into the guest quarters.

Leech and Trixie were already awake, and had just finished their breakfast. Trixie had enjoyed an apple smoothie, and Leech a massive gutful of a powerful love source that seemed to be coming from immediately outside the castle. Both were surprised to see four ponies following Celestia into the room - ponies whom they recognized immediately.

The three Earth ponies and the pegasus stood smiling at the stunned Leech and Trixie - they were the ponies who had been the synthetic Sentries! After the greetings, hugs, and the how-do-you-dos, Celestia properly introduced the four ex-changelings to Trixie and Leech. She nodded towards the Earth ponies first.

"These three are Sage, Savvy and Shrewd, the Wisdom brothers." she said, each of the Earth ponies nodding as their name was mentioned.

All three looked almost identical aside from their mane colors, even having the same cutie mark of an abacus, the beads being color-matched to their manes. All had light brown fur, Savvy had a mint green mane, Sage's mane was an ultramarine blue whilst Shrewd possessed a medium gray mane.

"The brothers form a large part of my team of trusted personal advisors." explained Celestia. "Things have certainly been more difficult for me since their disappearance twelve months ago."

"We wanted to thank you properly for your efforts." explained Sage Wisdom, stepping forwards. "We didn't see much of you back at the hive, and wanted to meet you again." His brothers nodded in agreement.

Her attention turning to the pegasus, Celestia continued.

"This is Snap Happy, one of the top journalists for the Canterlot Chronicle." she explained. "Despite his brainwashed state, he was the one who managed to get a warning out to us shortly before the changelings' Royal Wedding invasion."

Sure enough, the off-white pegasus possessed a cutie mark of a camera and a quill in addition to a short mane and tail of an unusual turquoise hue. He addressed the changeling and unicorn that stood before him.

"What they said!" he grinned, nodding towards the Wisdom brothers.. "Thanks for everything. We couldn't let your deeds go unrecognized - whilst we couldn't stop ourselves doing what we did, we still remember every detail. So when we eventually returned to Canterlot, we told the Princesses about everything - the invasion plans, the experiments, and the battle that took place outside the city walls. And as a journalist, I made sure the good news traveled fast!" he finished, with a wink towards Celestia.

Celestia beckoned for Leech and Trixie to follow her. All seven present trotted out of the bedroom and down a long, grand corridor. Guards saluted the party as they passed, eventually stopping at a large set of double doors at the end of the corridor. A nearby Unicorn guard opened the impressive entryway for them, and the assembled ponies (and changeling) went through it. The doorway led onto a large balcony overlooking the main courtyard of the castle...

... and the sight that greeted them made Trixie and Leech freeze with surprise.

Hundreds, if not thousands of cheering ponies filled the courtyard, many of them calling and waving to the two individuals who had saved their city from Aurora's terrible scheme. Snap Happy had, during the last week or so, been spreading the news of Leech and Trixie's heroics throughout the city and beyond - and it seemed everypony was gathered to give them a heroes' welcome!

Trixie and Leech scanned the crowd, dumbstruck and in disbelief. It seemed everypony who was anypony was there - they even recognized a few Ponyvillians in the crowd, including all six of the Elements of Harmony near the front. All were joining in the cheering, except for Rainbow Dash, who seemed to have a disgruntled scowl on her face.

"Yeesh." thought Leech out loud. "Zzsome poniezz really hold grudgezz!"

Celestia stepped forward to address the gathered ponies.

"Citizens of Equestria!" she called across the sea of faces before her. "I give you Trixie Lulamoon and Leech the changeling, the heroes of Canterlot City!"

Trixie was very briefly mortified - Celestia just announced her dreaded surname to everypony! She soon realized however, that the cheering crowd didn't seem to care, and continued to whoop and holler for both her and her unique friend. Very soon, her theatrical instincts took over and she began to drink in the cheers and praise - she'd waited her entire life for a moment like this!

"Yes, that's right! The Great and Powerful Trixie is here, Canterlot!" she called, her voice mostly drowned out by the cheers.

Leech looked across to Trixie. Whilst he was pleased that his friend was having a good time, Leech wasn't so keen on the attention. He shrunk back and tried to hide behind Celestia.

"What's the matter?" she asked, kindly.

"Leech izzn't sure he likezz thizz." he said nervously. "Leech izz juzzt a drone, Leech doezzn't get recognition like thizz!"

Celestia could only smile at the little changeling's modesty.

"You are far more than just a drone, Leech. More than you'll ever know, most likely. Whatever status you held back in your hive, you're in Canterlot now - and here, everypony counts!" Celestia reassured him.

Encouraged by the Princess's words, Leech strode forward and stood beside Trixie, and lamely attempted to join her in waving to the crowds, his shyness still getting the better of him somewhat.

At that moment, everypony's attention was drawn by a pink blur zipping through the crowds, seemingly defying gravity as it raced up the wall of the castle and came to a stop on the edge of the balcony, in front of Trixie and Leech.

"Alright, everypony!" called Pinkie Pie. "Let's REALLY get this party started!"

Another eruption of cheering greeted this, and Celestia led Trixie and the still-shellshocked Leech down to the ballroom, where Pinkie had arranged one of her trademark parties. The celebrations continued throughout the day, and well into the night.

During the party, Celestia had noted that Trixie and Leech had no permanent residence in which to live, and had offered them the use of an apartment in the heart of Canterlot itself. Trixie had been delighted at the idea, and after some consultation with Leech, had agreed to live in the city for a while.

As the celebrations finally began to subside that night, Trixie was seated at a table with several ponies gathered around listening in awe as she told her version of the story.

"Sho I shaid to Aurora and Shwitchher..." slurred Trixie, a little worse for wear from a day of continued cider consumption, "... I'll take you on with three hoovesh behind my back! He ssshtarted crying, and she tried to run away but she wassh no match for Triksssshie! I shaid to her, 'It'sh on! It'sh on, like...' zzzzzz."

The ponies cheered and stomped their hooves at the unicorn's story, and wanted to hear more. Unfortunately, Trixie was sound asleep in her chair at this stage.

A short distance away, Leech was gazing thoughtfully out of the ballroom window, at the shining full moon that Luna had skilfully raised as usual. He'd just finished giving what felt like an interview with Twilight Sparkle, who was desperate to know if he'd learned any friendship lessons from his experience. With some help from Twilight, Leech had managed to reach the conclusion that everyone can make a difference, no matter their status or how insignificant they may feel. And just sometimes, the least likely individuals can have the biggest impact on the world around them.

Despite the happiness of the occasion, much uncertainty still ran through his mind.

Was he really much more than the drone he was born to be? He chewed over Chrysalis and Celestia's words - he'd saved the hive and Canterlot too - so maybe there was something to it. Even if most of his 'heroics' had in fact been accidents caused by his own incompetence. Nevertheless, maybe he really did have a destiny beyond that of a maintenance worker.

He also had some reservations about living in Canterlot - he enjoyed his life traveling with Trixie. But he knew how much getting into high society meant to Trixie, and didn't want to ruin her big chance for her.

He smiled as another thought entered his mind.

"Whatever doubtzz Leech hazz, one thing izz for zzcertain..." he whispered to himself,

"...Canterlot izz never going to be the zzsame!"

END

Chapter 1: A New Way of Life

AUTHOR'S NOTE - as per the description, this is a sequel to my other story, The Braggart and the Bug. This story probably won't make a great deal of sense without reading the first story, so if you haven't already, check it out here:

http://www.fimfiction.net/story/30120/The-Braggart-and-the-Bug

Thanks for your continued support!

Celestia's sun shone at its highest point in a cloudless sky, with the arrival of midday bringing the most intense heat to the semi-arid, yet reasonably populated plains of the Zebrezi Valley. In a small settlement on the banks of the Zebrezi River, a familiar wagon was parked among the native huts. Inside, a pair of travelling performers were desperately attempting to keep cool in the uncomfortably warm daytime weather...

"Remind me again why we came here..." gasped Trixie, lying on her bed and fanning herself with her hat.

"Azz I remember, you zzsaid the zebrazz had never heard of uzz, zzso we'd be zzsafe." replied Leech, standing in the center of the wagon and rapidly buzzing his wings in an effort to fan both himself and his unicorn friend.

"I know why we're here, Leech. It was my idea!" Trixie responded, with a half-hearted roll of her eyes.

"But I thought Trixie azzked..." Leech began to protest.

"It was... I mean I didn't actually... I know why... actually, just forget it. It's too hot to argue" Trixie sighed defeatedly, slumping her head back onto her pillow.

For all its intense heat and occasional dust storms, the Zebrezi was probably Leech's favorite of all the places they had visited so far on their non-pony world tour. The local zebra population were a calm, peaceful civilization, and very hospitable to boot. They didn't seem to carry around any of the emotional baggage that ponies seemed to, instead appreciating everything they had to its fullest. So peaceful were the zebra, Leech was able to walk around freely without disguising, despite the fact that many zebra elders knew what changelings were. The zebra cared not for an individual's species or heritage, instead judging one by their actions and their heart.

They were far more in-tune with nature than any other civilization Leech had come across, using their environment to its greatest potential whilst simultaneously nuturing it. They seemed to have a herbal remedy for just about anything, from hoof-itch to ingestion of Baked Bads. One local herbal doctor had given Leech a tooth regrowth formula, a widely known recipe among zebra herbalists. With ponies and other equines, tooth regrowth was instant. However, Changelings had a vastly different metabolism, and the formula had taken far longer to act. Leech's broken left fang was around a quarter of its previous length, and it had taken a week to reach this stage. Its end was less jagged and beginning to take on a point to match his undamaged one.

Leech had begun to wish that he could live a similar way of life to these zebra - although in a much cooler climate! However, he knew that Trixie was a travelling performer at heart and would not want to stay in one place. He had sworn to himself that he would go wherever she went, and it was a pledge he planned on sticking to. Whichever life he led, it had to be better than the miserable existence he had endured in the hive. He hadn't realized how how poor a lot he had back with his fellow changelings - he'd never known any different. Now however, with all his new experiences, he would never willingly return to them. He had become something far more than just Maintenance Drone 1017. He no longer held the single-minded ideal of serving the swarm that all of his kin had been born with. Leech lived for himself and his friend now, and he would have it no other way.

Presently, Trixie exhaustedly hauled herself up from her bed and stood up on her hooves.

"Come on, you." she smiled at Leech "It's time for us to get ready for tonight's spectacular!"

Leech ceased his fervent wing-flapping, and followed Trixie out of the wagon and to a makeshift stage which had been erected in the hut village. Its construction was primarily logs held together with dried vines, with a layer of planks across the top to create a flat surface on which to perform. Trixie wasn't used to stages where there were no provisions for fireworks, or trapdoors to use for tricks, but she'd managed to put together a show which did not require either of these elements.

Since embarking on her world tour, her magic had improved considerably. She had more time to practise and fewer places to acquire props, the latter forcing her to use more genuine magic in her shows rather than relying on special effects and parlor tricks. She did, however, remain incredibly boastful and contemptuous of those she considered beneath her in any way. That is to say, pretty much anyone except Leech.

As the pair began to set up for the show, another outsider greeted them. He was tan-colored Earth pony with a white mane and a short tail, one that Trixie and Leech recognized.

His name was Liebesauger, a pony from Ger-mane-y who had followed Trixie and Leech's tour wherever it had roamed. He'd seen their shows in the Griffin Kingdom, Mule Country, and had even braved the volcanic land of Draconis when they'd put on an ill-fated show there. (It turns out dragons aren't especially impressed by pony magic, and definitely weren't impressed by Trixie's tall tales of defeating a dozen Wyverns with a single spell. It took two weeks for Trixie's scorched tail to grow back after that performance.)

"Guten tag!" greeted Liebesauger warmly. "Getting ready for anozzer spectacular, ja?"

"What gave it away? The stage, or the fact we're getting it ready?" Trixe grouched. Normally she loved having fans, but she'd lost patience with the Teutonic equine some time ago. She didn't understand why he was at every one of their shows, no matter where they were or how dangerous the terrain was. Heck, she didn't even understand how he managed to get around - he looked pretty old, and there was no way an elderly Earth pony could cover the kind of distances Trixie and Leech did. She found him somewhat unsettling, and just wished he'd leave them alone.

"Someone got out ze wrong side of ze bett today!" chuckled Liebesauger. He turned to Leech.

"And how are you, mein little shapeshifting freund?" he asked.

"Juzzt fine, thank you." replied Leech, attempting to be polite. There was something deeply troubling about this pony, but Leech just couldn't put his hoof on it. He turned away and continued to help Trixie with the preparations.

"Vell, I shall see you bosz later at ze show! I am certain it vill be excellent! Lebewohl for now, mein freunde!" he said, trotting away as he did so.

"Ugh. Just what is that fool's problem, anyway?" wondered Trixue aloud. "He must have seen every one of our routines a thousand times, isn't he bored yet? Whilst I am The Great and Powerful Trixie, greatest pony magician alive, there must be a point where one must get bored of even me!"

Leech didn't answer, instead attempting to make sense of the strange 'vibe' he got whenever Liebesauger was present. The thought soon passed however, as a crowd of local zebra were beginning to gather.

Evening descended, and the crowd slowly became larger. Since arriving in the Zebrezi, Trixie's shows had been held exclusively in the evenings, when it was cool enough to perform. The young zebra formed the first couple of rows, chatting excitedly among themselves and looking up at the stage with wonderment upon their faces. Immediately behind them were the tribal elders, who sat upon a raised seat and had several zebra attending to their needs. Either side of the raised seat, groups of assorted Zebra milled about and talked among themselves. Their attention was soon drawn to the stage, where Leech had walked on and was standing in the center, looking out at the crowd.

"Zebrazz of Zzzebrezi!" he buzzed. "Pleazze put your hoovezz to the ground for.... The Great and Powerful Trixie!"

Thunderous stomping of hooves and cheering, especially from the zebra foals, accompanied this. With a flash, Trixie appeared on the stage, this time using a genuine teleportation spell. Unfortunately she hadn't quite gotten it pinned down yet, and had materialized facing the rear of the stage, with her audience being given a view of her backside. This raised some giggles, again especially from the foals, and earned one zebra a steely gaze from his wife.

Trixie looked around. "Where the horseapples are they?..." she muttered before looking behind her, She quickly turned around. "Aha, yes, you're there. Trixie knew that." she babbled, attempting unsuccessfully to make it look like a part of her act. The zebra cheered and stomped their hooves once again, a testament to their welcoming attitude. They looked on kindly as Trixie continued.

"I am the Great and Powerful Trixie, the greatest magician in all the land!" she announced in her usual grand and over-dramatic manner. "And tonight, citizens of Zebrezi Valley, I stall astound and mystify you all with my incredible acts!"

The show progressed without a hitch from this point. Trixie used genuine magic in most of her act, except for the card tricks. Then she just utilized a deck of marked cards and the foals' incredibly inattentive nature.

Many of the adult zebra knew how and why many of Trixie's tricks worked - indeed, many were capable of basic magic themselves. The foals were enthralled, however, so the adult zebra decided not to ruin the magic for them and played along. They "ooohd" and "aaahd" in all the right places! As ever, Leech proved to be a star attraction, as many of the zebra had never seen a real life changeling do shapeshifting tricks. All of the zebra were genuinely interested in Trixie's assistant and only friend, and many were amazed. Changelings were supposed to be ruthless, single-minded love harvesting machines. Yet this one seemed amiable, if a bit simple minded, and the bond he had with Trixie was plain to see.

The show drew to a close, and all of the zebra gave Trixie and Leech a round of hoof stomping even more riotuous than the one the two performers had been welcomed with. As the two took a bow, Leech noticed Leibesauger watching fron the back left of the crowd. He seemed to be watching Leech rather than Trixie, and he was not stomping his hooves. If anything, he seemed to be glaring at the little changeling.

Leech quickly looked away and tried to put it to the back of his mind, as the zebra led him and Trixie away for an after-show celebration around a large bonfire. The tribe elders congratulated them on a most entertaining act, and even put on their own show for their guests, with traditional zebra tribal song and dance.

Afterwards, Trixie regailed them all with the story of the time she travelled to Tartarus and beat Cerberus at a game of Paper-Scissors-Rock. The zebra, being as good natured as they were, simply smiled and nodded politely during Trixie's outlandish tales.

The celebration continued long into the night, and by the time Leech and Trixie got back to their wagon they were truly exhausted. Despite her tiredness, Trixie chattered happily to Leech.

"Did you see the way they worshipped the ground Trixie stepped on?" she exaggerated. "I could definitely get used to this treatment! It's so nice to finally be in a culture that appreciates Trixie's greatness! Even better, they didn't all speak in rhymes as I had expected them to. Not like that annoying Zecora we met in the Everfree that time!"

"Yezz, zebrazz zzseem like good folkzz!" Leech said, only semi-interestedly.

It made him very happy to see Trixie in such a good mood - she'd been low after they'd left pony society behind, despite her initial optimism for their world tour. However, the brief staring contest with Liebesauger was still playing on his mind, and he just couldn't figure out what it all meant.

Trixie levitated the headdress the foals had given her from her head, and gently placed it in a chest where the duo had gathered mementos from their travels. Closing the chest, she bid Leech goodnight and was soon in a deep, contented sleep.

Sleep did not come so easily to Leech, however. Although he was tired, he felt troubled and writhed uncomfortably in his basket, attempting to remove the thoughts from his head until morning. Sleep did eventually find the little changeling, although it was a light and restless sleep as the worrying continued.

Outside the wagon, a pony form stood in the night's shadows, gazing at the wheeled dwelling and thinking about its occupants - one in particular. Liebesauger narrowed his eyes and concentrated hard, as though he were attempting to focus on something. A green magic aura surrounded his head, and he began to talk, seemingly to himself.

"My mission is still going to plan, and I am continuing to track 1017's movements. Is the time right, yet?" he whispered, his accent immediately disappearing. A moment of silence came as the aura surrounding his head glowed brighter, almost as if it were replying to his words.

"I see." he whispered again, a crooked smile coming to his lips.

"Consider it done, my Queen."

Chapter 9: The Price of Victory

Aurora stared furiously at Chrysalis, gritting her teeth and pawing a forehoof at the ground. She'd come too far now - there was no way she was going to let the Queen she sought to replace spoil her plans at this crucial stage. Her horn glowed with the usual changeling green-colored aura - although it was slightly wispier than normal flame-like changeling magic. It resembled the natural phenomenon known as the Aurora Borealis, and as such was the reason she had chosen her name.

Though it looked different, its effects were no less deadly. She shot a thin, concentrated beam of energy at Chrysalis, who quickly dodged to the right. The beam hit a nearby tree, burning a hoof-sized hole through it almost instantaneously. The same fate befell the 13 trees immediately behind it - Chrysalis turned around and looked down the hole. She could see straight down through all 14 of the thick trunks and out of the other side, smoke and glowing embers clearly visible in the increasingly dim light. It seemed that Aurora's powers were significantly stronger than she had imagined.

Quickly shaking off the moment of doubt, her own horn charged its magic, and she unleashed a wide sheet of translucent green flame which enveloped Aurora - a forcible de-disguise spell. After the flames surrounding her died down, Aurora stood before Chrysalis in her true form. Her body shape was that of a royal changeling, despite being born a drone. Her stature was slightly shorter than that of Chrysalis, with a deep crimson tint to her wings and her eyes, despite her previous rank of General, had irises and pupils like Chrysalis'. All of these physical mutations and abnormalities were a direct result of her years of experimenting with, and absorbing, dark and forbidden magics. She shot Chrysalis a piercing glance, her pupils shrinking to pinpricks within her blood-red irises.

"What is the meaning of this?" she snarled.

"You've done enough in my name for one lifetime!" snapped Chrysalis in response. "At the very least you can fight me as yourself!"

Aurora didn't need any further prompting - she charged headlong at Chrysalis, who stood her ground and lowered her head. Aurora likewise lowered her head and braced for impact - the two changelings violently locked horns, a sickening crack echoing through the nearby woods. The two pushed against each other with all their might. With the remnants of the power she stole from Chrysalis' plus her own considerable strength, Aurora proved to be more-or-less evenly matched with the Queen she battled against. Neither was willing to back down, and both kept pushing, ignoring their bodies screaming at them to stop. Both could feel the pressure building on their skulls, and the muscles in their legs on the verge of tearing. As they stood in their stalemate, both combatants occasionally flicked their heads upward, in an effort to break the other's horn.

Though this particular strategy didn't work for either of them, Chrysalis had begun to tire. It seemed that she hadn't been as comprehensively re-powered as she'd initially thought. Trixie watched in horror from her hiding place as Aurora seemed to gain the upper hoof, and pushed the straining Queen backwards several steps. Trixie wanted to help, but her joints were becoming increasingly painful to move - the transformation was beginning to have internal effects.

"This is why you were never fit to lead!" growled Aurora to Chrysalis between shoves. "Not only did you allow your species to lose its status, but you yourself are weak! Changelings need a strong leader to look up to, like me!"

Chrysalis sniggered at this.

"There's more to strength than cheap tricks and power siphons." she retorted, her voice straining. "If it's real power you want to see, try this!"

With this, her horn flashed with a sudden burst of green-yellow light, as Chrysalis activated a repulsing spell. Aurora was thrown back several meters, the suddenness of the impact momentarily disorienting her. Chrysalis immediately followed this up with a fast-moving ball of destructive energy aimed directly at Aurora. She just managed to avoid the projectile by ducking, although the top of her horn and her carapace bore scorch marks from the fireball. Enraged, Aurora fired another beam of energy back at Chrysalis, this time a solid orange color, and far more powerful than her previous efforts. This was apparently one of her many non-changeling magics.

Chrysalis, unfazed, emitted a string of changeling-green flame from her own horn, far brighter than any she'd fired previously. It collided with Aurora's orange beam of destructive energy, causing a brilliant white light to pour from where the two beams met. Both changelings readied themselves for what would almost certainly be a protracted stalemate, each continuing to fire their beam in the hope that they could overpower the other.

Meanwhile, not far from where the changeling leaders dueled, Leech and Switcher were struggling to their hooves. They'd crashed through a bush, and slid across the muddy forest floor to yet another clearing. This clearing in particular had several interesting features - firstly, a body of water known locally as "Two-Mile Lake". Although less than a mile square in surface, this particular oddity of the terrain was an entire two miles deep. To all intents and purposes, it was a bottomless pit that happened to contain water. Additionally, this clearing was where the Soldier drones had deposited the rest of the Necrosia pods for safekeeping during the invasion. They stood in a gigantic stack near the bank of the lake, similar to how they had been back in the hive.

The tumble through the woodland had done Leech's wound no good whatsoever. Now that the additional motivation of preventing harm to Trixie was gone for the moment, Leech felt the pain far more acutely than he had previously. As he made one final, painful effort and got himself into a standing position, he heard a maniacal laughter from behind him. Leech didn't even bother turning around as Switcher approached him.

"I must say, 1017, you've been far more trouble than I'd ever have given you credit for! I'd be impressed if you weren't such a joke in every other respect." he chuckled, surprisingly jovially.

Leech said nothing, he just looked at the floor and waited for Switcher to make his move. However, the General wasn't done with his taunting - Switcher had always liked the sound of his own voice, and often took delight in tormenting enemies before finishing them.

"I still don't know how you survived the Necrosia creation process, but I won't make the same mistake twice. I'll annihilate you with my own hooves this time, and then I'll make a Sentry out of that disgusting little pony friend of yours." Switcher continued.

Leech tensed at hearing Switcher mention Trixie again.

"I honestly don't get your bond with that creature, anyway. Changelings aren't meant to form bonds with lesser beings, we are meant to dominate them! You've lost your way 1017, you and all of the changelings under Chrysalis' command. But soon, myself and Aurora will change all that. Too bad you won't be around to see it." Switcher finished, and waited for a response from Leech.

Leech however, did not respond. He simply continued to look at the floor, his eyes narrowing and a look of concentration on his face. Switcher was mildly annoyed at this.

"Well, go on then!" he smirked, prodding Leech's shoulder with a hoof. "Let's have your usual buzzing nonsense about how I'm not allowed to touch that stupid unicorn buddy of yours!"

Leech finally raised his head, and turned around to Switcher, an uncharacteristic snarl adorning his face.

"Buzz thizz..." he whispered, before following it up with a surprisingly powerful front-hoof sucker punch to Switcher's jaw.

The blow took the General by surprise, and he staggered back several yards. Feeling his chin with his hoof, Switcher noted he'd been wounded where Leech's digging spur had impacted with his face. Leech was also surprised - he'd never thrown a hoof like that in his entire life. It looked as if he was going to have to throw a few more, as the furious Switcher rushed him, his own forehooves swinging wildly.

Leech attempted to take to the air to dodge the windmill-like flurry of hooves that Switcher was dealing, but was no longer able to fly due to his injury. A massive swinging blow caught Leech on his left cheek, sending him sprawling to the muddy ground again. As he picked his head up, he felt a familiar sensation in his mouth. His re-grown left fang was gone. Again.

His rage now amplified tenfold from its already considerable level, Leech immediately picked himself up, ignoring the damage he was doing to his wound by doing so. He lunged towards Switcher, landing two more front-hoof hits to his face, and then quickly spun around and caught the General with a double back-hoof buck. As Leech crushed his hindlegs into the General's thorax, Switcher's chest armor split with a substantial crunch.

As Switcher dropped to the ground, bent double and clutching at his fractured exoskeleton, Leech saw a chance to gain the advantage. Noticing the Necrosia pods stacked at the far side of the Two-Mile Lake, all he had to do was make one last-ditch effort to fly over there. He could grab a pod from the stack and use it to repair the wound in his side. Even better yet, he could grab a pod from the bottom of the stack as he'd done back in the hive, and cause the rest of the pods to fall into the lake. He could fix himself up and ruin Switcher's plan for good!

Leech mentally congratulated himself on forming a coherent plan. Twice in one lifetime! He was definitely on a roll!

With the General still having difficulty with his chest injury, Leech agonizingly buzzed over to the far side of the lake, and landed heavily between the edge of the bank and the Necrosia stack.

Once again, however, Leech had landed too heavily.

The banks of the lake had been softened by the falling rain, which by now had begun to ease. The earth beneath Leech's hooves began to crumble and slide into the shimmering depths of the lake. Leech leapt out of the way as the land he'd been standing on disappeared. He couldn't risk falling into the water - changelings were generally poor swimmers due to the holes in their legs.

He stumbled and hit the ground with a painful thud, then turned his head to watch what was happening. The bank near the Necrosia pile continued to disappear, great chunks of soil falling away and disappearing beneath the ripples. Before long, the Necrosia pile itself became unsteady as the collapse of the land continued underneath it. It wobbled to one side... teetered to the other... then with an almighty splash the entire stack fell forwards, the mass of pods throwing up a wave of water as they hit the surface. The pods spread out and floated for a few seconds, before gravity took effect and slowly dragged the heavy spheres into the darkened depths - never to be seen again.

Leech briefly lamented the loss of the swarm-mates contained within the Necrosia, but knew they definitely wouldn't have wanted to be part of Aurora and Switcher's vile scheme. Whilst he was pleased that the plan was now thwarted, he couldn't help but feel disappointed that he hadn't managed to secure a pod for himself. With his wound worsening, he really could have used it.

Switcher had managed to stand up just in time to see everything. He stood agape on the other side of the lake as he helplessly watched several months' worth of planning, toil and sacrifice sink into the watery void. He was frozen in place as his mind attempted to comprehend what he had just witnessed. With a shake of his head, he put the shock aside, quickly took to the air and whizzed around the surface of the lake, his horn glowing like a minuature green sun, desperately attempting to levitate at least some of the pods back to dry land. But alas, his powers had no effect - the water simply diffused his magic as soon as it hit the surface.

"No... no... nonononono! Not now, not when we were this close! No! NOOOOO!" he roared. His attention turned to Leech, his eyes burning with the fury of Tartarus itself.

Leech lay on the remnants of the lake's far bank. He'd given it absolutely everything he had, and could no longer pick himself up off the ground. As he began to lapse to unconsciousness, possibly for the last time, he hoped that Chrysalis and Clone could finish defeating the invasion party. He hoped Trixie would ultimately be cured, would be able to continue with her traveling shows without him, and that Chrysalis could rebuild the swarm. His eyes suddenly jarred open as a flash of green magic made a crater in the ground next to his head. He quickly shifted his glance to see Switcher, who was flying towards him with a deranged scowl and a glowing horn.

"You... you have ruined everything! Our plan, our destiny to further our species, reduced to nothing! And all by a substandard maintenance drone and his misfit friends!" he screamed. "But rest assured, even if we cannot take Canterlot, I will console myself with the pleasure of destroying you, Leech!" he added bitterly, using his enemy's assumed name for the first time.

Leech had no fight left in him, and was utterly defenseless. Or rather he would have been, had it not been for yet another timely intervention. A green energy bolt shot out from the surrounding trees and took Switcher out of the air. High General Clone stepped forward. He'd finally managed to put the Soldier drones into a stupor, and had immediately headed off in pursuit of Switcher. He'd witnessed the continuing energy tug-o-war between Chrysalis and Aurora, and had wisely decided not to intervene. That was his Queen's fight.

Switcher, on the other hoof... Clone definitely had a score to settle with him.

Switcher went swerving out of control, slamming head-first into a tree. He picked himself up almost immediately, so driven by pure hatred and fury that even head injuries did nothing to slow him down. Upon inspecting the tree however, he noticed something which made him shudder. His horn was still embedded in its bark, the impact having broken it off. Injured, his plan foiled, and now unable to use his powers, Switcher was too enraged to care.

"I'll destroy you both, with nothing but my hooves!" he laughed, clearly in the throes of a mental breakdown.

With an insane laughter, he began to run towards Clone, when he noticed that the High General's gaze was not focused upon him. It seemed to be looking around him. Switcher momentarily halted his advance, and quizzically turned around. His eyes lit up to see his four Sentry drones calmly walking towards him.

"Ha! You're for it now!" he shouted to Clone. "My troops will make short work of you both!"

He focused his energies, ready to give the order to attack, when he suddenly remembered he no longer had a horn. Switcher's laughter very quickly faded as he realized the full implications of what was happening. The loss of his horn also meant he was no longer giving off the subliminal brainwashing that kept his Sentries loyal to him. Which in turn, meant that these Sentries' own pony personalities would reassert themselves. Switcher turned to face the Sentries again, and sure enough their usually emotionless faces were contorted with anger.

"Sorry, General." said one.

"I'm afraid we don't work for you anymore." added another.

"For a year, you ordered us about, fully aware of what we were doing but powerless to stop ourselves." continued a third, through gritted teeth.

"And now, YOU are the one who is powerless to stop US." finished the fourth, as the Sentries closed in around their former commander.

Switcher looked around in desperation. He saw Clone watching with interest, and called out to him.

"Clone! Help me!" he implored. "We can let bygones be bygones, right? Destroy these four fools for me, and we can rule together! I'm sure Aurora won't mind!"

Clone grinned, and said nothing. His horn glowed as he gently gathered the unconscious Leech up in his aura and flew away into the night without another word, leaving Switcher to the tender mercies of his ex-slaves.

Switcher spun around within the circle of Sentries he was trapped in the center of, his eyes desperately searching for an exit. But wherever he looked, all he could see were faces twisted with an unstoppable desire for vengeance. The four synthetic drones' horns began to glow in unison, each building up a powerful bolt of destructive magic.

An intense flash of green, followed by eternal blackness, was the last things that Switcher saw.

Back at the invasion site, Trixie still was hidden behind her tree stump, her joint pain beginning to ease as the muscle structure of her legs finished reforming itself. She felt two bumps beginning to rise near her shoulders - she shuddered as she realized that eventually her changeling wings would sprout from these. Forgetting her own problems, she stood up and checked how the continuing struggle between Chrysalis and Aurora was progressing.

For nearly half an hour, the two determined changelings had stood face to face, their beams of power continuously streaming towards one another and cancelling each other out. Occasionally, one of them had seemed to gain the advantage and had pushed the beam of the other back. But it had never lasted, and now the stalemate seemed to be as solid as ever, with the brilliant white light almost perfectly central between the Queen and her usurper.

Aurora, despite her concentration, attempted to engage in verbal combat once again in a bid to distract Chrysalis enough to defeat her.

"Some Queen!" she scoffed, being careful not to lose her focus on her own magic. "You couldn't even protect yourself against a General and an exile!"

"I....was....depowered....at....the....time!" snarled Chrysalis, the taunt having its desired effect and causing her concentration to wane.

Aurora's beam pushed forward as she began to gain the upper hoof.

"And what's worse than a Queen who can't protect herself? A Queen who can't protect her swarm!" continued Aurora.

"My... swarm..." Chrysalis thought sadly, her beam becoming even weaker.

"Once I'd taken your form and powers, it was NOTHING for me to take over your wretched hive!" Aurora mocked. "An entire fifth of your swarm, reduced to Necrosia! What does that say about you as a Queen?"

As Chrysalis mentally digested Aurora's words, a new fire began to burn within her mind. A fire of fury. A fire of vengeance for her fallen subjects. Despite the swarm's somewhat clinical social dynamic, Chrysalis cared for each and every one of her changelings, and had been distressed to hear of what had happened under Aurora's rule. Thinking of them, she drew new power from this fire in her soul, and with it Chrysalis redoubled her efforts. Her fiery beam grew stronger and more vivid than ever.

This hadn't been the intended effect on Aurora's part. She became increasingly concerned as Chrysalis' power seemed to suddenly grow a thousand fold. Chrysalis' beam was now pushing her own back, with the burning white light almost touching her horn. She desperately attempted to stand her ground, but the force behind Chrysalis' attack was too strong, and she began to stagger backwards.

A smile appeared on Chrysalis' face.

"So, Aurora, you fancy yourself as a Queen, do you? Well then, you'd better be able to handle the power that comes with the responsibility..." she began calmly.

With one last effort, Chrysalis' fire engulfed the exiled changeling before her. There was no scream from Aurora - there hadn't been time.

"... otherwise, it will consume you." Chrysalis finished, her aura fading.

Where Aurora once stood, there was nothing but a patch of burnt earth, and a few ashes that fluttered away in the breeze like charred rose petals.

Physically and emotionally exhausted, Chrysalis stood still for a few moments to regain her composure. No matter the reasons, she never enjoyed destroying one of her own kind. Presently, Trixie slowly crept out from her hiding place.

"...is it safe?" she enquired.

Chrysalis turned to her and smiled.

"Yes, it's quite safe now." she said reassuringly.

Both her and Trixie's gazes were drawn by the Soldier drones emerging from the trees, yawning and rubbing their heads as the effects of Clone's spell left their bodies.

"Status report?" asked Chrysalis.

The battalion leader saluted his Queen and responded.

"All soldiers present and accounted for. We're not sure where General Switcher is, but other than that, everyling is OK!" the drone reported.

At this moment, a morose-looking Clone gently landed beside Chrysalis and Trixie.

"No." he whispered. "Not everyling, I'm afraid."

With this, he set the limp and barely-breathing form of Leech down onto the wet soil and hung his head.

Author's note - Blatant Self Promotion!

Hello once more, my FIM-Fictioning chums

Some of you might have found it already, but I'm just dropping this in here in case anyone happens to be interested. If two volumes of Leech-based, tedious, mediocre, badly written droning weren't enough for you, there's good news! A third is now online, after a couple of months' hiatus.

You can see it here: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/51912/Bug-In-The-City

Alternatively, you can not read it, and frankly I wouldn't blame you. :D But once again, just thought some of you might like to know.

Goodbye for now!

- PG

Oh and as before, if this sort of thing is against the rules, just let me know and I'll take it off.