Guardian Down

The cocoon holding the changeling had lost its glow, its color now a dull grey. A large crack suddenly appeared, and the shell burst open into several large pieces, spilling a foul smelling fluid all over the bed and floor. Vedalia groggily raised her head and opened her eyes. Her body felt really weak, her head was pounding, and her magical reserves were completely depleted.

Suddenly, she tasted disgust in the air and quickly turned towards its source. In the corner of the dark room was the human, who was scraping dirt from underneath his nails with a knife. "It's you!"

"Who, me?" Mordecai quipped, before going back to seeing to his nails. Vedalia knew she couldn't use her magic, so she coughed up some gel and shot it towards the human. The gel covered his hands and knife before hardening, causing him to sigh. Vedalia saw a chance to escape so she tried to get off the bed. The moment her hoof touched the floor it gave out, making her fall face first onto the ground. Her headache exploded, and she found it hard to move her body.

"Ya know, the same thing happened to me when I woke up from our fight. Didn't think it was funny until I seen it happen to someone else though." He snickered as she struggled to pick herself up. Her body not only felt weak, but extremely different than the body she had before. She was thrown off by how much larger she had grown, but now was not the time to be pondering things.

Raising her head, she saw that the human had disappeared. Still tasting disgust in the air, she knew that he had most likely turned invisible and was hiding somewhere. She got to her hooves and made a dash towards the door, only for Mordecai to reappear in front of her.

She accelerated towards him and lowered her horn, hoping to impale him. She was expecting for him to either dodge or try to counter her attack, but he simply stood there as she buried her horn deep into his stomach. She tried to pull out but he wrapped his arms around her head and neck, keeping her attached to his body.

"Damn, you didn't even buy me dinner first before moving on to penetration, how daring of you." He said painfully as he held her. Vedalia hissed and desperately tried to free herself from him but it was a losing battle as her strength left her weak body and she collapsed in his arms. Still holding her close, Vedalia felt him wrap a tight band over her wings, restraining them to her back. He let her pull her horn out a little before he also locked a metallic object around the base of her horn, most likely a magic suppressor.

He pushed her away from him, her jagged horn ripping out his intestines as she fell. Mordecai held his abdomen as he staggered towards a chair in the room near her. When he tried to sit down, she kicked the chair away from him and he fell on his butt, gasping in pain. "You bitch, can't even let me bite it comfortably."

"Die your final death humiliated, you alien monkey." She said as she laughed, happy to be rid of the human once and for all. She waited 10 mins until he took a final, pained breath, and he went silent. A large pool of blood had started to surround his body. Vedalia managed to get his intestines off her newly elongated horn before dragging herself to the door. She had just put her hoof on the handle when she felt a strong pulse of magic behind her, lighting up the room momentarily.

She turned her head in utter disbelief and saw Rain, hovering over a now revived Mordecai, who was smirking at her. "While you were getting some beauty sleep, I led a strike on your hive. Too bad I didn't get to kill your queen though." He said disappointingly.

He pulled a knife out and in a flash of light coated it and his body with arc energy, before lunging at her quicker than she could react. He stopped his blade mere centimeters from touching Vedalia, and held it there before clearing his throat.

"Alright, now listen up changeling. I don't know if you hit your head too hard when you fell, but I don't think you remember your situation all too well." He started. "Your queen tried to have you killed because you absorbed so much love in the Crystal Empire that it forced you to undergo a metamorphosis into a queen."

Vedalia clutched her head with her hooves as her memories of what happened started to replay in her mind. "Shut up!"

"She damn well almost succeeded too. The only reason you're alive is because I thought you could be reformed and Celestia assigned me the role of babysitter."

"I'm of no use to the Hive, I should've died." Vedalia said as she wept about her situation. "It's all your fault."

"Don't blame me for your mistakes, first of all. Second, now that you're a queen, can't you make your own hive now?" Mordecai asked.

"Why do you care?" Vedalia asked, sniffling. "Don't you want revenge for what I did to you?"

"I somewhat care because as a guardian, I've done a LOT of killing with no questions asked. However, now I can see that there is another route I can take." Mordecai pulled his blade away from Vedalia's throat and killed the arc energy erupting from his body. "Me and you are similar in the way that we have been thrown from our homes and are forced to survive in a new, hostile setting."

"The ponies don't seem that hostile towards you." Sneered Vedalia as she started wiping her eyes.

"I was close to getting into it with Celestia and Luna when we met, had I not told them the truth. While the changelings are on shitty terms with ponies, you can change that by making a hive that's on friendly terms with them." The guardian reasoned. "Friendly terms means you don't have to kidnap for food when it is being freely given to you."

"I doubt the ponies will get over their xenophobic views."

"Not at first. Their trust is something you're really gonna have to work towards, and I'll help you along by being your bodyguard, as well as your friend." Mordecai stretched his hand out towards her with the warmest smile he could muster.

Vedalia frowned before slapping his hand away. Instead, she leaned against him as support to help herself stand. Mordecai helped her to a couch on the other side of the room as her hospital bed was soiled from the cocoon. Once she was on, he crouched in front her and started going through his memories.

"You're hungry, aren't you?" He asked her. The changeling said nothing but opted to look away from him. Sighing, Mordecai finished compiling all of his happiest memories from his non-guardian to guardian life, along with the emotions he felt from each memory. "I know you are, so go ahead and feast before you die of starvation."

Vedalia flinched as a literal tsunami of positive emotions hit her, and she became truly aware of just how hungry she was. Transitioning from an infiltrator to a queen used up all the love gathered from the Crystal Empire, and for some reason the love from the Crystal Heart wasn't reaching her room. She hesitated at first, but caution was overcome by hunger as she began to siphon the emotions being presented to her.

The emotions she harvested from Mordecai were unlike any other, as his were mixed with his Light instead of Equis magic. She quickly had her fill, and ceased her draining. Having her stomach filled to the brim and overcome by both physical and mental fatigue, she fell asleep on the couch.

Mordecai also felt tired from having his emotions drained, but got up and went to a set of cabinets near the couch. He grabbed some sheets and covered the changeling with them. Mordecai knew that what happened to Rain wasn't entirely the changelings fault, as she had just been following orders from her queen like he had from the Speaker. Who was more justified, he couldn't really answer as he never knew the Speaker's true intentions or if anything he said was the truth or a lie. Either way, Mordecai did his job as a guardian and protected the Last City on Earth from those who would threaten it.

"Oh yeah, I forgot to ask her what her name is."