Lightning Bug

Twilight jolted upright as she heard something break a ways out from their camp.

It had been ten whole days since she and her friends had began their journey West, and so far, it hadn't gone too well.

Right off the bat, they had to abandon their carriage on the second day when they saw a Dragon swoop in and take it before unleashing fire over them. Before Twilight could stop it or Fluttershy could Stare it down, it flew off.

This wouldn't have been so bad if they hadn't been feeling the effects of the Western region weigh down on them heavily. Since the fifth day, Twilight and Rarity noticed that levitation and other spells that would normally be second-nature to them suddenly required much more focus and power, rendering their horns useless as they went further into the jungles.

Similar to their own magical problems, Rainbow and Fluttershy found themselves unable to fly as fast or as high as they used to. At that point, the yellow pegasus had insisted that they turn around. Twilight, however, insisted that they would be fine and that they should keep going. She showed them that she had packed emergency runes that they could use if they were in a life-or-death situation, which would take them all the way back to Canterlot if they needed to leave. After reassuring their safety, Twilight had led them down further into the Western world, eager to see what was next.

Oh, how naive she was then.

Twilight watched the shadows around her as she tried to calm her breathing, feeling her chest pounding from her higher heart-rate. She tuned out Rainbow's snores and Rarity's whinnies as she peered into the darkness that surrounded their camp. Only barely, she could make out some kind of movement coming from the tall grass.

Twilight reached out over the sleeping bags and nudged Fluttershy's shoulder.

"Fluttershy," she whispered.

The pegasus slowly woke up and stretched in her bag, a strap of her gown flowing down her shoulder.

"Twilight?" she yawned. "Wha... what's going on?"

"I don't know," Twilight said, "I just heard something in the grass and now I think I see something moving."

Fluttershy blinked away her sleep and slowly sat up before getting to her hooves.

"H-hello little critters out there," she called, "we're just passing through, trying to sleep right now. We're sorry if we disturbed you, but we need to-"

A screech penetrated the air as a black figure leaped towards Fluttershy.

"Get down!" Twilight shouted as she tackled Fluttershy onto the ground.

The other girls screamed and scrambled awake as they looked around for the source of the sound. They all turned to see a pony-like shape crawling on all fours as it hissed at them. Twilight illuminated her horn and saw that it was covered in chipped black chitin and stared at them with hateful blue eyes.

"Changeling!" she cried out.

More screeches reverberated through the forest around them as more and more shapes launched from the shadows. Their numbers and surprise attack overwhelmed the barely waking ponies, and began to pin down the former Element Bearers. Rainbow and Applejack tried to fight back but soon had too many Changelings covering them to even move. Rarity and Pinkie were held down similarly, Twilight and Fluttershy following suit soon after.

The Changelings above them began to cackle and chitter, smiling devilishly as they began to tie the blankets and sleeping bags around them to use as makeshift prison wraps. Once they were tied up, the former Bearers were lined up on their knees in a row, the Changelings ransacking their belongings and ripping apart their bags.

"Chrysalis is sure to give us plentiful rations for your capture, ponies," one Changeling muttered.

Twilight tried to retort with anything, but the nullifying nature of the West world bore down heavily through her senses, and she couldn't muster the will to blast them, and barely enough to make a muffled sound through her gag.

"Heh heh heh... looks like you were unlucky enough to get in our way. Saves us the trouble of tracking the other Hive that's out here, though. Now we can go back to our own Hive and ready to take down Equestria without having to worry about-"

"Clear to engage! Repeat, Clear to engage!" a metallic voice interrupted.

Before anyone could figure out what was happening, streaks of lightning burst from the shadows and cut through the Changelings. Crackling streaks of electricity struck Changeling after Changeling, striking without remorse. Those that were hit violently twitched about while the remaining Changelings tried to figure out where the shots were coming from.

"Shit! They found us! Get out o-" a shock struck him in the back of the head, sending him down without resistance.

Twilight and the girls panicked internally as they threw themselves to the ground, praying that they would avoid the sudden onslaught of lightning.

'Had a contingent of Royal Guards come after them for safety? Twilight thought. 'How did they even get thunderclouds to work at this level without hitting the trees? What about the humidity? There weren't any clouds in the sky earlier, how did-'

Her thoughts stopped when she felt a solid mass impact near her head. She turned her gaze up to see a group of figures closing in on the clearing. They wore massive suits of armor, clad in deep black with bright yellow outlines. The plates of what she assumed were steel were cleanly cut and seemed to be far too thin to fit over anypony's arms, almost as if they were molded into their limbs. Their legs were similar, being far too thin to be covering a leg. They hefted up a box-like object in their hands, taking out a brick and replacing it with another. It leveled the end of it at a Changeling that was trying to crawl away before unleashing a jolt of lightning.

Whoever these ponies were, they had limbs that were made out of metal, and carried strange objects that let them precisely shoot lightning in non-lethal doses. She felt something grab her bindings and lift her to her hooves before she felt her restraints loosen and fall from her arms.

She pulled the gag out of her mouth and spit out a few stray fabrics and backed up. These ponies (if she could call them that) appeared to be made out of metal entirely, the exceptions being their smooth manes.

"Are you six alright?" one of them asked with static in his voice.

The girls were too stunned to respond. They had just survived a Changeling attack and now were being confronted with something straight out of a science-fiction novel.

"Ma'am, are you alright?" one of them asked Twilight. "Are any of you injured?"

Twilight shook herself out of her stupor and forced herself to say something.

"Metal... you... bu..." she managed to say before promptly fainting.

"Twilight!" the other five shouted as she collapsed.

One of the metal ponies grabbed her before she could fall and hefted her arm over his shoulder.

"I got her. Someone contact the Gate Patrol, tell them we've got six unknown civilians in need of medical attention and thirty Chrysalis loyalists inbound for the Detention Center."

One of them began to talk to itself quietly as the five ponies stared in fear of their robotic savants.

"Alright, who the fuck are you? And why are you here?"

One of the metal ponies stepped forward, its head breaking apart and releasing a faint hiss. The plates pulled back and the girls gasped in shock.

Underneath the metal plating was the face of a Changeling with eyes similar to that of Chrysalis, only yellow instead of green.

"We're the Lightning Bugs of the Morphos Hive."