That was draining. I thought, as I took my first steps In a while away from Fluttershy’s chrysalis. The infestation had finally reached a stage where I no longer needed to guide It. So far what I was doing was like making a blueprint for It to follow, and cushioning her mind for the change.

Now that the hard part was done I started making way towards the cave entrance. Because now I had the free time to leave the chrysalis unattended.

Using the hive mind I called five drones to my side. Exiting the cave I looked for my target a mountain near ponyville. There was only about a dozen hoppers protecting the hatchery. I had lost about another dozen due to the manticores. I severely underestimated them because the and not having seen one myself.

They were much larger than one would expect, being around the size of myself. Strong enough to crush a tree. With a tough hide to wrap it all up. I was only able to kill one after I went with a group of sixteen hoppers. Though I still lost four of them. But I was at least able to take the essence of the manticore.

I started making my way through the forest, fortunately the mountain was a shorter walk than to ponyville. Despite what the show would have you believe the forest wasn’t that dangerous… well, you know except the giant manticores. But even then they stayed in the deeper parts of the forest. The timber wolves usually avoided us, because of my size and not being able to judge the capabilities of my zerg. So my zerg were usually safe from attack, In large enough groups.

On the bright side I had actually found out something interesting, when they got brave enough to try attacking some of my drones a few days ago. The timber wolves weren’t actually controlled by spirits, like most of the fandom thought. At least on this world.

When I broke one open I found out they were actually controlled by some form of sentient mold. I was already thinking of ways I could incorporate It into the swarm. Maybe some form of zerg mold spore, you spread over a battlefield after the fighting is done to animate/Infest the armor?

But still couldn’t fix the giant blunder I had made.

*Sigh*

“My queen, you appear to be distressed is everything okay?”

“No Abatha everything's not okay. I exposed us to unnecessary danger. I panicked after hurting Rainbow Dash, and kidnapped Fluttershy to remove the threat of the elements of harmony.” I stated not bothering to use the hive mind. Letting a little bit of exasperation into my voice. “But If had stopped for a few minutes to think instead of panicking, like a moron. I would have realized that If twilight has her castle. Then they’ve already returned their elements to the tree of harmony. So now I’ve made us a larger target for no reason at all.”

After finishing my rant I realized the sound of my steps had changed. Looking down I saw I was now walking on stone. Looking up confirmed my suspicions, during my rambling I had reached the mountain.

“Here’s hoping that dragon’s hoard Is still here. Faust knows I could use some good news.”

*Rarity Third POV*

The blaring noise of the train’s horn had woken up Rarity, after she had dozed off. Letting the passengers know they were approaching Ponyville.

Rarity slowly blinked her eyes as she righted herself. Stretching and yawning. Looking across from she saw Pinkie still asleep, having fallen asleep a few hours before Rarity. Pinkie was wearing her usual ensemble of a blue t-shirt and jeans. While Rarity was wearing a fabulous purple sundress.

Rarity thought back on their trip to Manehattan. While the “Pie Sisters' Surprise Swap Day” or PSSSD, had been a hassle. Everything was resolved in the end. Pinkie had gotten her party cannon back, and Maud had taught her that It was the thought and love that went Into picking the gift that truly mattered. In the end Rarity had also found the perfect spot for her new boutique. But It had all been quite tiring.

Now her and Pinkie were on their way home to Ponyville. They would be able to finally relax and see their friends again.

After a quick look through the window, Rarity saw Ponyville was quickly approaching on the horizon.

“Well, I guess that’s the end of my beauty sleep.” Rarity leaned over, towards Pinkie before giving her a few shoves to try and wake her up. “Pinkie, wake up darling. We’ve almost reached Ponyville.”

Pinkie merely turned to her left. “Umm… get back here cupcakes…”

“Pinkie wake up!” Rarity restated adding some more umph to her shoves.

She slowly started slowly blinking while sitting up. “Ummmm… Rarity where are we?”

“We’re pulling Into Ponyville station right now.” She said while looking outside their window.

Pinkie’s eyes shot open as she stood up In the blink of an eye, before she let out an earsplitting squeal of joy that made Rarity cover her ears.

“Um, Pinkie Pie dear, It may not be In your best interest to deafen everyone from here to Canterlot. Now help me the bags.” Pinkie’s grin turned Into a sheepish smile as she tried to hide behind her mane, while making her way over to their bags. Letting out a small giggle she quickly apologized.

“Sorry. I’m just really excited to see everyone again! I can’t wait to tell them how Pie Sisters' Surprise Swap Day went!”

Stepping out of the train car Rarity turned to Pinkie. “Speaking of friends, weren't ours supposed to meet us here when we got off the train?”

“Hey! That’s right where are they!” Pinkie exclaimed looking around the station. “Something Isn’t right here.”

“Let’s take our bags back to our places then meet up at Twilight's place to see why they stood us up.” Rarity said while making her way home, before splitting up from Pinkie. After dropping her bags off at the boutique and talking to Sweetie Belle. She made her way over to Twilight’s castle to only find Pinkie waiting outside.

“Pinkie darling why are you waiting outside?”

“I looked everywhere Inside and I couldn’t find anyone so I’ve been waiting for you!” Pinkie slightly yelled. Due to this being without a doubt one of the longest times she had ever had to stand still. “I went to Applejack’s, and well I couldn’t go to Rainbow’s place because you know. But Dash Is never at her place anyway.” As Pinkie mentioned her friends she counted them of her fingers.

“Well, maybe they’re at Fluttershy’s come on.”

Following the path out of ponyville to Fluttershy’s cottage. Soon they saw the cottage In the distance, and as Rarity had guessed she could see the silhouettes of her friends In the distance, though they weren’t alone. Are those guards? Rarity and Pinkie picked up their pace. Soon they were at the cottage and could make out the details. To the right of the cottage was a carriage from Canterlot. Standing around the cottage were at least three guard In their usual white plate armor. Meanwhile Fluttershy’s cottage looked to be surrounded by police tape.

As they got within a few feet of their friends, they turned around, and for the first time realized that Rarity, and Pinkie were back. As they finished turning around Rarity and Pinkie came to a stop In front of them. “Darlings what’s all this? And why didn’t you meet us at the train station!?”

Twilight was the first to speak up. “Oh girls, I’m sorry but with everything that’s happening we couldn’t come to pick you up.”

“What exactly Is, going on?” Rarity asked hoping to finally get some answers.

“Well I don’t know how to tell you this girls, but Fluttershy, and some of her animals have gone missing.” Rarity, and Pinkie both gasped at this.

“When did this happen, we were only gone for a few days!” It was shocking to them. It wasn’t normal for ponies In Equestria to up, and disappear. Especially their friend. “Do you have any Idea what happened to her!? Do you know If she’s okay?”

Applejack took this chance to join In on the conversation. “No to both. But I'm sure she’s fine. Everyone of us can handle ourselves In a fight, and It looks like she was taken by something In the Everfree, and we all know none of the animals would ever harm Fluttershy.”

Rarity had started to worry, edging close towards panic but Applejack’s words helped calm her. She decided to ask about the next thing that caught her attention.

“Rainbow darling, why Is your arm In a cast?” Rainbow was about a foot behind twilight hovering above her In the air. Around her arm was a noticeable lime green cast.

Rainbow let out a slight huff, before speaking. “I’ll tell you what happened, so I was just going about my business, when all of a sudden this huge monster comes out of the Everfree.” Rainbow threw her good arm to the side while making a variety of motions to make the story seem more exciting than It actually was. “So no one else was around, and It was up to me to fight It off. Fortunately I was able to beat It up with my lightning fast kicks! But not before It broke my right arm. Twilight thinks that might’ve been what took Fluttershy. But there’s no way It’d ever come back here after the smackdown I put on It.” Rainbow finished, with a smug smirk a adorning her face. Applejack just rolled her eyes.

Before their conversation could continue, two detectives walked out of Fluttershy’s cottage the larger detective moving the police tape for his smaller partener so she didn’t have to duct under It like him.

The larger detective who stood a good head above all the girls expect twilight. Was smoking a cigarette, and appeared to be an earth pony male, with a fiery red mane, and orange fur. His partner was a good three heads shorter than him. She looked to be a unicorn, with a snow white mane, and gray fur. They were both wearing trench coats. The only difference being that the larger detective’s coat was brown, while his partner’s gray like her fur.

They made their way over to the group of girls. The larger detective offered his hand for a shake. As Twilight accepted the offering the detective Introduced himself. “It’s a pleasure to meet you princess. You can call me Wilde. I’m the detective that’s been put In charge of finding your friend.” Twilight’s smile turned to a slight grimace at the reminder of her title. She had thought It had finally become wide spread knowledge that she didn’t like being called by her title.

“Thank you, and please just call me Twilight.”

“Sure thing your maj-Twilight. This Is my partner Hopps, she’ll also be handling the Investigation.” He pointed over his shoulder to Hopps who just happily waved. “You’ve got nothing to worry about ma’am we’ve never failed to solve a case.”

“Now from what we can tell, something during the night came out of the Everfree, and took your friend, and some of her animals.” Rainbow just rolled her eyes. Wow thanks captain obvious. “Fortunately It appears that there are still some tracks left.” He said while pointing to several deep Impressions In the dirt, as If someone had stabbed the earth.

“You!” He pointed to Rainbow getting her attention. “I hear you’re the captain of the weather team, correct?” She just nodded In response. “Well delay the next rain for a few days.”

“I’ve sent a scroll to the guard In canterlot, requesting a group of guards, and some search dogs If lucks on our side we’ll find your friend In no time.”

“Oh thank you so much, you have no Idea how much this means to us!” Twilight shook the detective’s hand with both of hers.

Wilde just chuckled at. “No need to thank us ma’am just doing our job.”

*Davara First POV*

I had finally made It to the previous residence of the dragon. But what I found was... disappointing to say the least.

“It’s almost all gone!?” From the look of It, It’s hoard had already been pillaged. There was still a few small piles of gold, and gems scattered about. But they obviously had giant swaths taken out of them.

There were only three reasons I could think for this. 1.The most likely. Once the dragon realised It left Its treasure behind It came back for It, and It didn’t care enough to come back for these small piles. 2.Twilight told Celestia about It, and she decided to take It. 3.Random people had been taking from It.

“Well, this Is a bit of a let down.” I mentally frowned.

“My queen, there Is still enough to morph at least a dozen larva to Hoppers.”

Well then, at least this hasn’t been a total loss.

I mentally commanded the drones to gather up what they could before exiting, now that we’ve got that out of the way, we should head towards the changelings as soon as possible. I don’t feel comfortable staying In one place for this long. Now that the elements are probably going to be after me… and the entire guard.

Everything was going smoothe till I realized we were near the swamp of the Everfree. I commanded the drones to go on without me, then I sent the command for the Hoppers protecting the hive to come to me. I knew the drones would be fine, nothing short of a manticore would mess with them.

It took awhile but eventually the Hoppers showed up. We set off Into the swamp. I know It will be a long time before I have another chance to do this, so I’m going to try, and collect the essence of some of the animals here.

After about half an hour of searching I had found squat. I was beginning to wonder where all the creatures till I remembered It’s the swamp. They’re all In hiding In the water.

I remembered the fact that crocodiles hide beneath the surface of the water waiting for prey to come, and drink. I wonder. I sent one of my Hoppers to the edge of the water, and had It splash Its claws like It was about to drink.

Nothing happened for a few moments, but then suddenly a cragadile “Jumped” out of the water. Wrapping It jaws around the head of the Hopper In seconds. I could hear the crunch of It’s carapace as It gave out a shrill cry of pain, before It started to thrash, and try to pull back.

Before the cragadile could go back to the water I ordered the other Hoppers to drag It on land. All eleven bite down and started dragging out of the water. My best guess was that It didn’t see us as a threat, because It didn’t let go of the one It had In Its mouth. It’d soon realize that mistake.

With my help, we were able to flip It on Its back. Like a regular crocodile, It had a softer hide on Its stomach. Taking the chance I disemboweled It with my claws.

It died seconds after. I started collecting Its essence. The hopper that had acted as bait was dead, I felt Its death In the hivemind moments before the cragadile died. The only thing coming from It being the occasional twitch.

Once I was done gathering the essence from the cragadile I moved on to the next one since the essence was Incomplete.

As I finished harvesting the essence from the second, another of my Hoppers wandered over to the water's edge. Out of nowhere a huge spout of water shot out straight Into the air near the Hopper. Looking down on us, was a towering hydra. SHIT run!

I’d done a lot of stupid things, like kidnapping someone close to Celestia. But even I knew I couldn’t take on a hydra like this. All I had was myself, and some cannon fodder.

I sent the order, and we all started running as fast as we could me being the slowest. The hydra let out a loud roar, and started chasing us.

I looked back for a second, and I saw It slowly gaining on us. Taking the shot I fired a spine at one of Its four heads.

Like I’d expected the cut was a minor Inconvenience. However, on the bright side I found out like the hydra’s of myth they do In fact regenerate.

It had finally got close enough to where It decided to take the chance to try, and take a bite out of me. Instead It smashed Its face Into the ground. The hydra stopped, my best guess being that It felt like It was getting to far from the water.

After we rentered the forest I felt like we were safe to stop running.

“My queen, we are currently not strong enough to kill such a creature.”

“I know.” We needed something to tip the scales. I saw a small canyon back there. That could work. But we also needed some type of zerg.

As I was thinking of what I could do other than waiting for the Rageling to complete, my thoughts were Interrupted by a loud buzzing. “What Is that!?”

I looked up, and above me was something I had forgotten even existed. A small blue parasprite. I was standing under a fruit tree the parasprite was eating from. As It was about to take a bite out of an apple, the fruit fell to the ground which the parasprite followed. Of course It Ignored us, I was pretty sure these things had no sense of danger.

“That’ll do.”

“How can this creature help us?”

“Just watch.” It ate the apple that fell on the ground, and In a few seconds It looked like It started to gag. Then It spit out a fully grown red version of Itself. I could practically feel the excitement coming from Abatha, due to the Improvements we had In mind for the Hoppers.

Deciding to not waste anytime with the plan I killed the parasprites, and sent the order to the hatchery to start morphing some more drones now that the treasure was back.

*One Hour Later*

I felt stirring In the hive mind, so I knew the morphing Hoppers were finally done.

Me, and the drones looked to the cocoons the Hoppers were In as they burst forth. Four from each cocoon. They were smaller than before, so to make up for It I had Increased their muscle density. Their teeth were actually larger, AND sharper. Other then that the only other noticeable difference was their slightly larger eyes.

“My queen you let me have very little Input, what exactly did you do to them?”

“Our refinement of their first strain was sloppy. I refined It farther. Using the reproductive capabilities of the rabbit, and parasprite five now hatch from a single egg. Not only that but after devouring three times their weight In biomass they barf up another hopper.” I realized I was thinking to simple with the first strain. I rushed them, and paid the price for It. “Because of this I’ve named them, the splinter strain.”

“A fitting name.”

Now for the canyon.

*Thirty Minutes Later*

I looked at the base of the walls to the canyon I was currently standing In. Right now they were only being supported by small stone pillars. Because I had ordered my Drones to dig them away till they were near collapsing.

Everything was set, now all I had to do was wai.. ROOOOOOAAAARRRR

Hey what do you know right on time!

Looking down the canyon, I saw the same hydra from earlier chasing six Hoppers I sent to bait It. It continued till about thirty yards when I decided to spring the trap, I ordered the drones to destroy the stone pillars.

It only took the drones seconds, and even less for the hydra to be buried In rubble. Unfortunately I could feel the drones as they were crushed. There was nothing but stillness for a few minutes. Making me wonder If phase two was even necessary. But then three of Its heads burst from the rubble, the fourth apparently having died.

Okay so phase two, still necessary!

At my end, and behind the hydra I had burrowed the Hoppers. I ordered them to kill the remaining heads, and they charged In. I didn’t want to risk getting crushed so I shot my spines at them.

It occasionally crushed some of the Hoppers In Its flailing. But the splinter strain was paying off. They were reproducing faster than It could crush them. They’d keep eating It, and moments later they barf up another that grew to full size In about ten seconds.

Then I noticed the heads starting to have trouble staying up, like they were falling asleep. The next minute they crash to the ground, with a sick *whap* from all the blood they were covered In.

I’ll spare you the details but I’d got the essence from two of Its head. While my hoppers consumed It leaving me with about ninety. I’d also discovered from Its size how lucky I was because It turned out to be a juvenile.

As I entered the cave holding my hatchery with my new little army, I saw through the eyes of one the Drones that there were guards In the forest.

Fuck that Isn’t good. Looking at the cocoons holding Fluttershy, and her animals I ordered some drones to carry them. Exiting the cave I gave the last of my orders to this hatchery.

It was simple I was sending It Into a form of hibernation while leaving the Overlords, and about ten of the Hoppers. Along with all Drones that weren’t carrying cocoons. The Overlords, and Hoppers so we’d stay smaller. The Drones because their last orders before going Into hibernation was to collapse the cave entrance.

Looking at my group of about eighty Hoppers, and roughly Drones. I only hoped we could stay ahead of the guard, and make It to the badlands before them.

Author's Note

I DID IT! I FINALLY GOT ANOTHER CHAPTER OUT!!! So I'm sorry If the ending feels a little rushed, and that's because It was. I was determined to get this out TODAY!