Equus Bravo - Equestria - Ponyville - Golden Oaks Library

Thomas gazed out the window and sighed.

‘Just do it already,’ Slither grumbled, making his left hand twitch. The Aristotle-loving man calmed magical mind infection the best he could, but Slither had lost all patience with him.

Thomas reached out his hand and then pulled back.

‘It won’t be the end of the world,’ Drafty commented over his telepathic connection to the buffalos in Bitaly.

He made a compromise and closed his eyes while he reached out with a foot. He pushed a few times and then there was a loud thump.

“Bah!” a tall dryad yelped as she fell off the upstairs bed. She summoned her staff and pointed at her attacker only to find Thomas. “Ugh! What time is it?”

“Noon.”

“Why didn’t you wake me sooner? The builders are here!”

Autumn nearly tripped on herself as she got her clothes all sorted.

‘Was it really that hard to do that?’ Slither complained.

‘She didn’t wake up when I yelled at her,’ he defended.

‘I mean you could have just shoved her sooner.’

‘I don’t feel comfortable touching her without her permission.’

‘You don’t need to ask permission to wake someone up.’

‘She was indecent. We are not related.’

‘You are related now. As far as everyling is concerned, you are hatchmates.’

‘The problem is over now. We have a lot to do today. We got fifteen new changelings drones that need to integrate into Equestria society. We have to hold an audition for new adventurers. Rarity and Autumn have to design uniforms for the adventurers. Bodo needs to prepare for his concert tour. I need to form a contract between the Diamond Dogs and Rarity in exchange for magic crystals for our flying nimbuses….”
His list went on and on for about three minutes while Slither wish she had the ability to ignore him. The man liked order and lists gave him that.

Equus Bravo - Equestria - Ponyville - Streets

Roxanna had tagged along with the dryad on her way to the buildsite once she realized Autumn had awoken. The other changelings didn’t sleep, and Autumn’s mimicked sleeping habit had only gotten worse. The Mater-class changeling believed that Autumn would be a good ‘friend candidate’ as her fellow female in the group of former humans.

“Where is the buildsite?” Roxanna wondered.

“Eastern Fields,” Autumn answered.

“But isn’t that the other way, and why don’t we just fly there?” The mater turned her gaze behind her and used her binoculars she carries with her to spot the the construction manager amongst his workers. They had already begun work on what would become the adventurer guild, academy, and the changelings’ new home. ‘I was told these humans had a unique way of getting results as compared to the classical approach the Queen had used before they arrived, but going in the opposite direction to get their destination seems a bit extreme.’

“*yawn* I know and my dryad form doesn’t have wings, so we are going this way. Just a little further.”

The electronics engineering student didn’t question the adjunct accounting professor about their counterintuitive direction, but she still wanted to understand a few things. “So how did you get a big business like Barnyard Bargains?”

Autumn sniffed a few times before she gave her answer. She made sure to speak softly, so nopony could overhear. “We devalued their company by turning them into a villain. It wasn’t hard. After we set them up to steal our blueprints, we made sure to befriend as many ponies who would side with us, which would help the journalist to construct a story that made us look like the victims as they inevitably only interviewed people who sided with us. It also helped that we became ‘the heroes of Ponyville’. That wasn’t planned though.

“While Filthy was a good salespony and could sell his case to the public, Spoiled lacked any empathy for the common pony and wouldn’t keep quiet after they lost the first part of the trial. The ponies of Equestria were quick to turn on them, and Barnyard Bargains suffered for it. With investors pulling out in droves, the prospect of net losses in the coming holiday season, and being permanently labeled thieves, they took our offer to settle by letting us to buy their company at a bargain price.”

“So you entrapped them,” Roxanna stated matter-of-factly. She was new to the whole changeling thing and had only really been awake for a month. The engineer lacked any real field experience, so she just stated things as she saw them.

“Sympathetic for the Riches? I don’t blame you. They aren’t bad ponies really — not even Spoiled despite her rotten attitude. However, think of it this way: what if I came to a country where it was okay to mug an outsider as long as they were not a foreigner as long as they didn’t possess a tail? What if I went into town wearing pants, hiding my tail knowing someone would mug me? Who is more in the wrong: the mugger who takes advantage of law or I who will make muggers think twice before they mug an outsider? By the way, what Filthy Rich did was basically the white-collar version of mugging us.”

Roxanna didn’t really care. She just took the long view, not caring what happened to the non-changelings as long as it reached Her Majesty's most noble dream. The Queen had not cleansed Roxanna of her results-oriented morality during her reconstruction into a Mater. [For pronunciation, think alma mater.]

“How did you get enough money to make this adventurer’s guild building?” the engineer asked, trying to change the topic.

“We took a loan from the Magistry of Generosity. Being heroes does wonder for your credit score,” Autumn joked which earned her a weak laugh from her fellow human. “We also gave Magister Iron Pockets and his sister Magister Red Iron tickets to all of Bodo’s concerts on his upcoming tour.”

“So you bribed them?” Roxanna clarified nonchalantly like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“We didn’t offer them the tickets,” the accountant defended. She was still a CPA at heart and didn’t want to see herself as being unethical in matters of business. “They demanded them from us. Who would have guessed the Iron twins would become metalheads after hearing only a little bit of Bodo’s music?”

This joke didn’t even get a smile from the engineer. It was all business as usual for her.

“Um, anyways, we are here,” Autumn stated and stopped moving. “Take my hand.”

Roxanna obliged and took her hand. She worried a bit about splinters but took the long view and accepted the risks. Autumn awarded the highly-clothed human with a fire portal. They quickly sunk into the ground and reappeared in the Eastern Field where Thomas had first experimented with fireline magic and Bodo had his concert.

“What was that?!” Roxanna gasped.

“Lo-Costs’ patented fireline technology, *yawn*,” Autumn explained nonchalantly, trying to look cool to the new human in their group. “We call this particular setup a Rapid Deployment Grid or RiDGe for short. With this, we can quickly move those trained as adventurers to threats all around the town. Adventurers are really a hybrid between mercenaries, militia, and first responders. Now we have enough changelings working for us, we not only have the capacity to cover the entire village in portals, but can think of connecting all of Equestria in firelines. Also, we can supply any changeling in need of love the excess stored in the grid.”

The potential of these firelines staggered Roxanna. While the new human contemplated firelines, Autumn greeted the manager.

“Mister Gett, thanks for coming to meet me on such short notice.”

“Anything for one of the heroes of Ponyville,” Gett R. Done responded.

“While I am not one of the heroes, the sentiment is appreciated,” she said before putting on a serious face. “I would like to know why you are trying to cheat me.”

“I have no idea to what you are referring.”

“You didn’t think I would notice you tricking my colleagues by asking them if they were okay if you only used new equipment.”

“They obviously see the benefits of using only the best.”

“If only that was the problem here; however, we both know you have a cost-plus contract with us. By using only new equipment, you intend to expense all its depreciation, a theoretical value associated with the wear and tear of fixed assets, on us. We both know had you used older, fully depreciated equipment, we would have had less of your costs to reimburse.”

“How….?”

“Your public books were made available to me through the Magistry of Honesty. You also gave me permission to oversee how you managed your costs. Your colleagues were happy to help a ‘hero’ get all the information she requested. Now it would be a shame if it got out you were attempting to cheat the ‘Heroes of Ponyville’ by playing crooked with accounting. That didn’t end too favorably for Barnyard Bargains when they stole our patent.”

The stallion began to sweat visibly. “Now you don’t have to do that.”

“No, I don’t, and you don’t have to charge us for the bulk of your company’s depreciation.”

Autumn handed the manager a paper proposal, which outlined how she expected the costs to be adjusted.

“Now if you could do your namesake, and get’er done.”

Roxanna blinked her eyes in confusion at the whole conversation. The former human had been an engineering grad student, but she didn’t know anything about cost-plus contracts or depreciation. It all seemed very abstract. Roxanna had expected someone in business to speak in more concrete terms. She trusted her inventions and things the human could see with her own two eyes — enhanced as those eyes may be. It also didn’t help that the dryad came off as a bully. Roxanna, despite her morality, couldn’t abide this behavior, so she wrote Autumn off her friend candidate list. The engineer was a hell bent on giving her Queen control of the world, but she knew she didn’t have to be a jerk about it. It was the only rule that went against from her ‘ends justify the means’ approach to problems.

Equus Bravo - Equestria - Ponyville - Golden Oaks Library

While the changeling drones handled the customers downstairs, Thomas took a moment to give a short lecture on the research he had completed to anyone who wanted to hear. The library thankfully had a chalkboard, which he promptly filled with equations and questions.

“Bodo had me look into earth pony and pegasus magic for the purpose of better utilizing their powers when we recruit them into our adventurer guild,” Thomas began. The makeshift classroom had as many of the new drones they could spare and some curious ponies. The former engineering student Roxanna and the accountant Autumn also attended.

“Not to interrupt,” Roxanna said while raising her hand. “But what is she doing out there?” She pointed to a pink pony hanging from a branch connected to the treehouse by her tail. She was visible through the window. The party pony swung back and forth, having the time of her life.

“Pinkie is being punished,” the professor answered in a way that meant no more questions about it. “My first volunteer was Rainbow Dash. We found that she can accelerate from standstill to fast enough to break the sound barrier in ten seconds exactly. This puts her acceleration at 34.3 meters per second squared. Her mass is 215 kilograms, which is on the low end for ponies. I used a simple field technique for calculating her surface area relevant for determining air resistance….”

Roxanna zoned out as she once again stared out the window to find Pinkie bouncing a ball against the library’s wall, causing a soft thump that no one else seemed to hear.

“...We were not able to calculate how much excess energy is expended for the rainboom that occurs for surpassing the speed of sound, but we have concluded that Rainbow Dash far surpases any unicorns we know in terms of the amount of energy she can exert on the world,” Thomas concluded. “Roxanna, am I not interesting enough?”

“No, I didn- I will pay better attention,” Roxanna apologized to the professor who didn’t actually seem bothered by her loss of focus.

“What I want to know is how you got RD to perform a sonic rainboom in the first place,” Autumn commented.

“Well, there is a story behind that.”

Yesterday before Bodo and Autumn came back in the Eastern Field

“Rainbow, I have it on very good authority that you can still do sonic rainbooms,” Thomas told the athletic mare.

“How in the world do you even know that I performed that?”

“Didn’t everyone see it across Equestria? Is it such a stretch that people outside Equestria also saw it and learned about you?”

Playing to her ego soothed Rainbow Dash’s suspicions.

“Wait that rainboom was Rainbow?!” Pinkie exclaimed as she put getting her Cutie Mark and Rainbow Dash’s sonic rainboom together.

After getting that revelation taken care of, Rainbow attempted to pierce the sound barrier again. She looked like she was just about to succeed, but the telltale signs of the harmony barrier trying to keep her from moving too fast appeared.

Thomas frowned as he wasn’t sure if he could convince the athlete to try again if this failed. Pinkie thought quick and came up with a solution.

“Fluttershy is lost in the Ghastly Gorge!” the party mare shouted to Rainbow.

The cyan mare’s eyes went wide as she instantly broke the sound barrier and produced a giant rainboom as she sped towards the crevice on the other end of Ponyville.

“Jiminey Crickets, Pinkie,” Thomas muttered with a sigh and a hand on the bridge of his nose.

Back in the present at Golden Oaks Library

“-and so that is why Pinkie is being punished. We discovered thanks to this experiment that there is a harmony field that spans across all of Equestria, except the Everfree Forest, which is like a hole in the ozone but for this harmony field. In fact, this field acts like a geographic boundary that Equestria used to determine its borders. Anyways, the harmony field is what keeps nature static in Equestria, which is why there isn’t any natural wind without pegasi making it. I am glad I am not a human anymore, or I would probably be having an allergy nightmare.”

Roxanna once again got distracted by Pinkie who was happily eating a cupcake. The engineer hadn’t seen how the mare had gotten it.

“The field also interacts with anyone whose speed approaches the speed of sound, and the resulting rainboom is a reaction that occurs to overcoming harmony’s pull to stillness. When Rainbow performed her sonic rainboom over the Everfree Forest, the rainboom was greatly diminished as the harmony field is torn there.”

Autumn nodded in vague understanding of what the more science-oriented philosopher explaining. “What did you learn about earth ponies?” the dryad wondered.

Roxanna turned back her attention to the lecture for this and started writing down notes based on what she vaguely remembered the professor saying.

“Earth ponies also possess a lot more strength than ponies in general give them credit for,” the eldest professor continued. “After working with Rainbow, I had realized a lot ponies have mental inhibitors in them that prevent them from using their full potential. For example, Big Mac had more than enough strength to move an entire building after I used my mind magic to remove the limiter. One of the fillies in Cheerilee’s class also could lift the entire school building. If we design a way for these earth ponies to use their super strength, they would be quite fearsome. Right now, I think they would all be as strong as Gladius without their inhibitors, which scares me. Here’s to hoping the ponies we train don’t turn against us drones.”

Roxanna snorted. She was a mater-class changeling now. If a praetorian guard was as strong as a super pony, then a love-fed matres (plural of mater) were as strong as combat-trained alicorns (not that Equestria had any since the Princesses just sat around most of the time and looked pretty). Combat strength didn’t even matter because changelings don’t do direct combat. They got rid of Nyantsu and her gang of anti-changeling fighters by tricking them into attacking the three professors who had the ponies protecting them. When Roxanna got a chance, she would show these ponies to fear human-changelings.

“Did you find anything else out?” Autumn inquired, ignoring the engineer’s dismissive attitude towards the ponies.

“Well, I tried to figure out Pinkie’s power,” Thomas began. Roxanna took a quick glance at the pink pony out the window and saw she was now holding a ballpoint pen. “It seems connected to earth pony magic, but it is still very extreme.”

“What do you mean?” Roxanna wondered.

“She seems to be like a quantum particle in a sense,” the professor began. The engineer tried to write down another note but found that her pen was missing. Roxanna looked around her desk to see where she might have dropped it. “Her powers somehow makes her interact with vibrations in the harmony field that pass through time, causing her to involuntary twitch as her body (the focus of earth pony magic) picks up on these temporal interference. She can use this power to predict near the future and calls it her Pinkie Sense. More frighteningly, if you are not looking directly at her, she is everywhere at once within a field that takes up the whole of Ponyville….”

Autumn rubbed her chin at the new information, and the engineer continued her search for her pen.

“Roxanna, if you are not going to pay attention, then you don’t have to be here,” Thomas stated. “We are all very busy.”

“No, I am interested. I have notes.”

Thomas raised an eyebrow at this. Roxanna looked at the table in front of her to find her notes missing. Turning towards Pinkie outside the window, heavily-clothed mater found the pink party pony taking notes with her pen on her paper.

The professor dismissed the slackjaw engineer so that he could continue explaining his findings to the more attentive accountant. The rest of the class started asking a barrage of questions. The ponies mostly wanted to know if they could be ‘superheroes’ too. In all honesty, Roxanna didn’t want to get in the middle of the mess the class became after she left anyways.

Equus Bravo - Equestria - Ponyville - Streets near the Schoolhouse

Roxanna’s next friend candidate was Bodo. School was out. Bodo had given the class a demonstration of changeling powers, mostly consisting of some basic transformations, how changelings feed, and how the firelines worked and protected Ponyville. Roxanna had left the library to find him and came across the rockstar professor standing in a crowd.

She brought a little golem with her that she had made after studying magic tech in Cowbelgrade. The golem resembled Eve from WALL-E but behaved like a Pokemon. (Basically, it said its name over and over again while acting cute.) Roxanna believed they could bond over a shared love of making magic constructs.

“You,” Bodo said while pointing at Golden Harvest. The mare jumped with glee and then came to the front of the herd to stand next to the professor. Bodo scratched at his beard for a few moments before flames overtook him and replace the man with a human version of Golden Harvest. Roxanna rolled her eyes at some of the ‘artistic liberties’ Bodo had taken.

“What are you doing?” the mater inquired.

“Just a moment,” Golden-Bodo answered. A stallion with a polaroid camera took Bodo and Golden’s picture and then hoofed the latter her picture.

“Yes!” the mare cheered. “I got my very own humansona. My is so much better than yours, Rose.”

The mare known as Rose did not look amused.

“Okay everyone, that is it for today,” the professor announced. The herd groaned. “Don’t worry I will be here for the next four days before I go on tour. Until then I will try my best to make sure you all get your very own human version of yourself.”

The herd dispersed, allowing Roxanna to approach Golden-Bodo.

“What is that all about?” she asked.

“Well, I was explaining to the ponies about humanity, and it got out that I could show ponies what I think their human versions would be.”

“But you are giving them false expectations of what humans actually look like.”

“It is not like there is some portal lying around that will let them actually see real humans,” Golden-Bodo countered. “I can just tell them whatever I want and they just have to accept it. The feeling of power I feel is overwhelming.”

“I don’t know how I feel about you wielding ‘overwhelming power’ to define humanity,” Roxanna muttered. She cleared her throat and tried to make small talk, which was not her forte. “So you must be happy being a hero and a rockstar?”

Golden-Bodo frowned. “I don’t perform for the adulation.”

“You seemed to enjoy all the attention earlier.”

“I can’t help it if appreciation tastes good.”

“Then why do you perform?”

“To send a message. I haven’t gotten a chance yet since I have only gotten to play pleasure pieces so far; however, Equestria won’t be the same when I play real music. ‘I rebel; therefore, we are.’ That is the message of my music, and I want these ponies to know it.”

“‘I rebel; therefore, we are.’ I don’t get it. Is that Descartes or something?” Roxanna asked in confusion.

“While it is based on Descartes, that comes from Albert Camus, a favorite philosopher of mine. He said in his book The Rebel, where that quote comes from, that ‘every rebellion implies some form of unity.’ I will form a unity in the hearts of ponies that transcends the harmony they experience today through a rebellion of all they know. It only starts with metal,” the postmodern philosopher explained.

“I am like the Pied Piper,” Golden-Bodo added after a moment’s thought with a rueful chuckle.

"I never heard of Albert Camus," Roxanna mentioned.

The philosopher frowned. "You never read The Stranger."

"I can't say I have. It isn't ringing any bells. Is this Camus fellow still alive in our world?"

"No, he died in a car accident at the height of his career...."

"Well, that is probably why I don't know him. I only read the most cutting edge research. There really is no point in wasting your time with the past as it is already obsolete. We need only concern ourselves with the future because that is where we are going," the Mater stated with the certainty befitting her age. The philosopher stared at her in utter befuddlement, so Roxanna decided to change the subject again. “Why are you still in that form? Don’t you feel weird being someone else, especially someone of the other sex?”

Golden-Bodo blinked a few times. “At first it was weird, but I liked weird. I transformed into everyone I could. However, after more than two hundred years of not having a body, I am just happy to move around. It helps that I shared a body with a mare for a long time.”

“Two hundred years?! Didn’t you come with us when our interdimensional puncture device worked?”

The postmodernist’s eyes went wide. “You are those students who were doing those experiments in our building! How many others are there?”

“Didn’t someone tell you?” A look of surprise and confusion in the philosopher told Roxanna no one had. “There were four more other than you three and I when we arrived. Two of those died. One when Queen Chrysalis ate him for trying to defect. The other was taken in the field when ambushed by Bitalian Royal Knights. We assume she died because there was no quarterly report. All the rest in the building either didn’t cross or died on entry. That just leaves us with six humans. Your group left before Queen Chrysalis figured out what happened. She turned Bessus, Oxyartes, and me into matres and paters for the purpose of controlling the northern Equus region after pilfering our memories.”

Bodo resumed his normal form and sat down on a nearby bench. The Clover construct sat next to him and acted as a shoulder to lean on.

“Why didn’t I hear about this sooner?” he muttered.

“You guys were so busy with your own stuff and taking care of your fifteen new drones,” Roxanna explained. She whispered the rest so nopony could hear them. “You know as drones yourselves, having drones work underneath you is completely unheard of. The other praetors and matres have high hopes for you three — Queen Chrysalis, especially. With us humans, the Queen believes we can finally realize her dream.”

Thomas leaned deeper into Clover and had her hold him. He had been running on a kind of whimsical high ever since they had their victory over Barnyard Bargains. He could continue their little plan to continue to grow their enterprise and influence in Equestria. Now things were changing. It was catching up with him. He was kind of hoping to forget about the Queen and just spend the rest of his days palling around with ponies. Hearing that his coworkers back on Earth, with whom he shared the Liberal Arts building, might have died weighed down on him. Part of him wanted to be just happy that he had another human with whom to talk, but he didn’t want that to come at the cost of others dying.

Roxanna’s golem walked up to Clover and started jumping up and down to get Clover’s attention. He was not successful as the Bodo’s transcendent illusion lacked a mind of her own.

“His name is Toto,” the engineer told the despond

“Toto!” the golem said proudly.

“He is just like your magic construct.”

Bodo muttered something inaudible. Roxanna put on a strained expression at the bizarre and new behavior. ‘Is he depressed or something?’

“I mean they are both our creations like pets — little friends to have in this strange world.”

Bodo’s eyes lost their sheen as he separated from his magic construct.

“Thanks for telling me about the other humans, Roxanna,” Bodo stated crisply. “I will be off then.”

“Oh, Goodbye then. I will see you tomorrow for your lecture,” the engineer replied with a worried tone.

Bodo walked off with Clover towards the town’s graveyard. Roxanna took Bodo’s vacated seat on the bench and patted her lap to get Toto to sit there.

‘What did I do?’ she wondered completely clueless.

Equus Bravo - Equestria - Ponyville - Carousel Boutique

*Beep*

Fleur and Rarity turned to Penny whose armor had made a sudden noise.

“Excuse me,” the knight said as she went to the bathroom. There she pressed the diamond in her chestplate, which then projected an image of a stallion knight. Penny gave a salute. “Honor Sir Haysworth.”

“Honor Dame Honest Penny,” the stallion returned the gesture. “We have made use of the information you have gathered. A prototype is already in production. Have you shared your idea with the Equestrians?”

“I have not told them anything — not even their Princess.”

“Good. We don’t know where the enemy could be hiding.”

“Aside from the prototype, have you made any progress on Project Round Up.”

“Is the asparagus green?” Haysworth asked.

“No, it is white with our mourning,” Honest Penny replied, concluding the secret phrase.

“The Project is going as planned. The changelings won’t know what hit them. They think they are invincible because of their disguises, but without those and the love they can steal with them on, they are weaker than a hornless foal. If all goes well, they will be forced to flee Bitalty and most of the southern continent with all of their bases forfeit to kingdom. Even if that fails, we have ‘it’ as a back up thanks to your intelligence gathering. Let us hope that we never have to use it.”

“Won’t Round Up just drive them all north?”

“That will make them Prance and Equestria’s problem, and by the looks of it, they are already putting their pieces into play. Celestia is one of the longer-lived monarchs and has access to that blasted destiny magic to keep her kingdom forever safe supposedly. It is not like there is anything that could disrupt destiny.”

“And what does King Lupine think of this? Will he simply let Equestria face the changeling threat alone? We have the Roaming Accord.”

“The King is concerned with the needs of Bitaly first, and you best to do the same. Remember our duty as Royal Knights is first to Bitaly. Make sure not to grow too attached to the friendly Equestrians or those human changelings you are ‘protecting’. The enemy aims to control the entire continent, and if any nation has any right to rule the entirety of Equus, that is Bitaly, the inheritors of the Roaman Empire.”

“I understand, Sir Haysworth,” Penny stated coldly.

“Do you have anything to report about the humans?”

“They have acquired an Equestrian business by bending the law and public opinion in their favor.”

“Have they already infiltrated the Equestrian courts?”

“They had, but Celestia scared off the changelings in the responsible court. It was Celestia that ruled in their favor. That isn’t in doubt. In fact, it was the same corrupted court that attacked the humans.”

The image of Haysworth hummed in thought. “I need you to find out if there is any infighting among the changelings. Is there anything else to report?”

“The number of human changelings has increased. The new one is called Roxanna. She is apparently an engineer of some sort. I have seen her taking apart and remaking Equestrian magic tech. However, she seems extremely docile — lonely even. Additionally, she came to Ponyville with fifteen drones and one minotaur.”

“A minotaur you say,” Haysworth repeated. “I need you to find out where that minotaur comes from. This is a significant development — more so than even than the drones and new human.”

“Understood….”

“Do you have anything else to report?”

“Only that they are developing a paramilitary group to defend small earth pony villages, recruiting primarily from the earth ponies and pegasi. That is all Sir.”

“Very well then. Continue your good work, Dame Honest Penny, honor!”

“Sir Haysworth, honor!”

The transmission ended. Transmission technology was not widespread in Equus, reserved for the elites who could afford the most expensive magic tech. This included the illustrious Royal Knights of Bitaly whose combined might could make armies tremble.

Penny took a long breath and clutched at her horn which she now wore around her neck on a necklace. A mythril ring went around the horn tightly and a silver chain was attached to either side of the ring to complete the necklace. Rarity had helped in its design as a gift to make the knight feel better. As a result, the two had become friends.

‘I can’t be friends with the Equestrians,’ Penny reprimanded herself. ‘Bitaly must come first ... even if that means Equestria must fall in the process.’

Penny washed her face and then returned to two ponies downstairs.

“Work?” Fleur de Lis inquired.

The knight didn’t answer, telling them that it was.

“You should really get a vacation, darling,” Rarity commented with a flick of her mane.

“A Royal Knight never rests,” Penny countered. “We are our country’s main defense against those who intend to do us harm. When we blink, innocent die. When we sigh, villages burn. I will do my duty even if that means I must sacrifice myself.”

They had both heard what Penny had said in the hospital and understood the gravity of the situation.

Fleur took this moment to break the tension by conjuring a package. “I got you this.”

“Another gift?”

“Officially, it is a gift from Prance for protecting their ambassador,” Fleur explained.

Penny attempted to unwrap it with her hooves but found them too uncoordinated for the task. The now hornless unicorn was still used to doing such tasks purely with magic. The failure only served to remind her of how much she had lost and how important it was to push herself to become strong enough again to be worthy of the armor she wore.

“Let me get that for you,” Rarity offered as she instantly unwrapped the package to reveal a rapier.

Penny held it by the hilt, weighing its handle. The non-unicorn Bitalian Royal Knights all had weapons of their own. It fit that she now wielded her own. Applejack had offered her a farming scythe, but that proved too unwieldy to use effectively in combat. While Penny had no experience with this kind of combat, she could tell it was a quality rapier.

“So what do you think?” Fleur asked with sparkles in her eyes. “I got it enchanted and it even has slots for more enchantments you can add later when you find the crystals for them.

‘It is perfect,’ Penny wanted to say but bit her lip instead. The sun began to set.

Equus Bravo - Equestria - Ponyville - Golden Oaks Library

Autumn felt warm — toasty even. She had the sensation of being in the air. She didn’t want ever lose this feeling.

Then the smell of smoke met her nostrils. Professor Wright didn’t feel toasty anymore. Adrenaline ran through her body as mimicked dryad instincts went off.

“Fire!” she shouted as she tossed and turned to get up. Instead Autumn found herself hung by her talon-like feet above a covered fire.

“Calm down,” Thomas soothed. “There is no danger.”

“Why am I strung up?!” Autumn barked as bark fell off her chaffing ankles onto the stone below her. “Get me down.”

The stoic philosopher nodded to Rainbow Dash who untied and got the dryad down. She almost didn’t drop her once. It was good Pinkie broke her fall.

“We have concluded that you are going into a winter hibernation,” Thomas explained. “Obviously, this is bad, so please drop the dryad disguise. I know you prefer it, but work comes first.”

Autumn grumbled as she obliged. She didn’t like being a changeling, so she took one of the ponysonas called Crystal Harp, which she and Penny had made with Penny for The Buzzing Host Cafe.

Their restaurant was still in the library, but it would soon have its proper place inside the new adventurers guild when the building was completed. Fortunately, Gett R. Done was making quick progress.

“I am sure you can make another one of those ‘DC’s’ just for the season,” Thomas added with an encouraging tone.

“There called ‘OC’s’,” the former dryad grumbled.

Equestria Bravo - Equestria - Ponyville Outskirts - Western Field

Drone Thirteen continued her patrol around town with her assigned partner and hatchmate Seven.

“You don’t have to show off,” Seven said as Thirteen started skipping around the disguised changeling.

“It isn’t my fault you haven’t mastered walking on two legs yet,” Thirteen countered as she continued to flaunt her skill. She prided herself in being the first of her hatch to fully adapt to the human form.

“I don’t even know why our Love Makers require us to be humans anyways,” Seven complained on shaking legs and with her arms holding a walking stick for balance. She was referring to the fact that Queen Chrysalis had used the love extracted from the three professors during their love tax as a base to create them. Love Makers were changeling infiltrators that the Queen wanted to mass produce their unique characteristics. By using love collected by a specific changeling, some parts of the bug pony’s personality would transfer into the drone as the Queen poured it into the mold.

“Isn’t it obvious? They want us to be recognized as ‘good changelings.’ The ponies trust humans. We are seen as their protectors, which is why we wear this armor too.” Thirteen pointed to her chainmail and overcoat. The overcoat had the Lo-Costs’ colors. It was a four squares of green and black in a checkered pattern with a symbol on each square. The symbols were a guitar, a wooden staff, a bowl of curry, and a golden triangle, representing each of the leaders of the changeling drones in Ponyville. Thomas had made it very clear to all the drones that they were to give Dame Honest Penny their utmost respect and treat the pony like any one of their Love Makers, and Autumn had simply commanded them to only refer to the knight as ‘Epona’.

“I think the emblem has too much happening in it. Why couldn’t they just stuck with one idea or theme?” Seven grumbled. She was born of the love collected by Thomas and Autumn, and the drone wanted things to make sense before being creative.

“I like it. It reminds us that every one of them gives their own part to our mission. If that means it is complex, so be it,” Thirteen replied. She didn’t complain much and could find joy in nonsense, being born from the love collected by Autumn and Bodo.

Before they could get any more meta, the two bickering bugs heard the sound of someone else talking in the distance. Thirteen was excited just to do something different, and Seven was naturally inquisitive, so they approached the speaker. Changeling instincts instructed them to do this stealthily. Thirteen sidestepped from tree to tree while Seven waddled slowly, which was no different from usual for the clumsy bug-human.

They eavesdropped from behind a boulder.

“So you think we can’t get all the loot out of here before Riches call on the Royal Guard?” one voice said.

“Absolutely, Pick, Ponyville is leagues from Canterlot,” another voice explained. “By the time they know, it will night and we will be in Fillydelphia. I even got a fence lined up to received the goods.”

Thirteen poked her head around a boulder to spy four ponies with baklavas over their faces and burlap sacks full of silverware and the like.

“We got to do something,” the enthusiastic drone whispered.

“It is too dangerous. They outnumber us, and we don’t have any nearby source of love to give us an advantage,” her cautious companion added.

“Then let’s summon help. Use your finger trick.”

Seven looked at her finger and then lifted it up to the sky. She tried to fire it, but only sparks came out. “I can’t.”

Thirteen rolled her eyes. “Let me help you.” She grabbed the changelings arm and pulled on it like she was cocking a gun while pushing in some spare appreciation into her friend. Thirteen then took Seven’s thumb and pulled it like a trigger, causing a flare to fly out into the sky.

“What was that?!” one of the thieves said.

“We got some snooping weird creatures.”

“I saw them in the papers. They are called hoo-mans.”

“It doesn’t matter what they are called. Let’s get out of here before they can get friends.”

Thirteen knew she couldn’t let the thieves run away, so she threw rocks at them.”

“Okay, if you are going to make this tough, Miss, we are going to have to-,” one of them warned before taking a rock to the face, breaking a tooth and cutting her lip.

“Git ‘em,” the leader told her fellow thieves.

The two changelings in human disguises ran back towards town. Well, Thirteen ran but Seven more of waddled like an adult-shaped toddler.

A single pegasus among the thieves flew straight at them. Seven knew she couldn’t outpace a pegasus in her human form so dropped it in order to transform into a copy of her pursuer. The two identical pegasi swirled around each other and the thieves tried to help. A unicorn among them sent a kinetic blast but accidently hit his comrade instead.

An earth pony thief charged Thirteen who kept her human disguise on. She did, however, give herself white wings and a halo (the latter because she could).

“You have been a bad girl!” Thirteen shouted as loudly as she could in order to help the other changelings in town might hear. The playful changeling jumped into the air and descended upon the earth pony mare and rode her bareback. Thirteen fused her legs together under the pony’s barrel with another burst of magic and then started flapping her wings for all they were worth. The earth pony’s bucking stopped as she was no longer on the ground.

The unicorn aimed to knock Thirteen out of the air with another kinetic blast, but his boss stopped him. “Don’t you dare! You will hit Pick. Do you want to kill her?” The unicorn shook his head emphatically. “Look she can’t maintain her flight for long. We will get her when she descends. Focus on the other one.”

Seven didn’t need any more encouragement to take evasive actions after the first kinetic blasts. The cautious changeling decided to hide behind Thirteen.

“What are you doing?” the enthusiastic changeling huffed as she struggled to fly.

‘Using you as a shield,” Seven responded, which earned her a glare. ‘I will trade a glare for a blast to the face any day.’

The two other thieves chased them but didn’t attack. The pegasus had yet to recover from the friendly fire from earlier, which told Seven she definitely didn’t want to get hit.

Eventually, Thirteen ran out of steam literally. Seven wasn’t much better, having used a good portion of her magic on that flare.

The unicorn and the earth pony thief leader closed in on the grounded and exhausted pair. The earth pony whom Thirteen had carried fainted as she wasn’t used to flying at all.

The two returned to their human forms and held up their arms in surrender.

“You lose hoo-mans,” the thief leader stated as she approached cautiously with club in hoof. “Any last words?”

“Just two,” Seven answered. “Turn around.”

“Wha-.” Before the two ponies could do so, they were tackled by thirteen other changelings disguised as humans in armor. They had just used Thomas and Pinkie's Rapid Response Grid (aka RiDGe) to portal in. Thirteen and Seven had made sure to get the thieves as close to one of the gateways as they could.

An hour later, Thirteen and Seven carried the stolen goods back to the Riches’ mansion. The other changelings took care of the thieves. Since the two had done the hard work, they deserve the reward of seeing the ponies’ happy faces when they got back their metal doodads back.

Thirteen cheerfully knock on the door. She could already taste the appreciation. Filthy Rich answered the door.

“Leave. Your kind are not wanted here,” he commanded.

“But we have your stuff,” Seven responded.

Filthy eyed the burlap sacks full of his family’s possessions. “Of course, you do.” Disdain radiated off the earth pony.

Spoiled came to the door. “I bet they stole it just so they could trick us into feeding them. Changelings know no limits to their deception.”

“Must your kind put salt in our wounds?” Filthy added. “Give us those and get lost.”

The two ponies took the burlap sacks and slammed the door on Thirteen and Seven. Changelings tried to leave but instead collapsed. They were too out of juice. They had been counting on the Riches’ appreciation to refill them and now they were paying for that miscalculation.

Bodo had been in a nearby cemetery visiting a large unmarked grave for all those who died during the concert including Nyantsu. He noticed the two prone drones as he left.

“What mess have you two gotten into?” he wondered and went through the disappointing experience of feeding them until they could walk on their own. “I think we should respectfully give these ponies some space.”

The two changelings agreed with their mutual love maker.

Equus Bravo - Equestria - Ponyville - Golden Oaks Library

“No,” Thomas said. The minotaur inched forward. “No.” He moved forward another inch. “Please, no.” The minotaur glomped the philosopher in a hug in the middle of the kitchen for all the changelings to see. Fortunately, no ponies were around.

“Tommy,” Kraghorn crooned.

“Okay, what is wrong with him and why is he even here? Isn’t he the Mayor of Iona?” Crystal-Autumn asked.

“He is brainwashed.”

“What?...Chrysalis. What happened to Iona?” the unicorn disguised changeling questioned with clear concern.

“It is a ghost town,” Roxanna answered.

“Chrysalis killed them all!”

“Well, not all of them,” the engineer answered. “Some were taken as love batteries like Kraghorn. You should be happy. Getting your own love battery is an honor.”

“This is terrible. What the heck is the benefit of killing all those people?!” Autumn raged.

“To build up our army, obviously,” Roxanna returned nonchalantly. The emotions of the ‘bully’ changeling didn’t make sense to her at all. “We need a lot of drones if we are to realize Her Majesty’s dream. Force draining them is the fastest way. While you three do your thing up here with just a few drones, the rest of the Praetors and Maters will do it the old fashion way.”

“Is there anything to do about him?” Autumn asked both former changelings.

“I don’t know,” Thomas stated as he uncomfortably comforted the almost mindless minotaur.

“You feed from him,” Roxanna offered as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Thomas felt a bit sick at the thought. He tried to not feed off Kraghorn, but it was like holding his breath. Eventually, his changeling senses would kick in and force him to breath in his admittedly delicious love energy. With this extra power, Thomas could probably overpower a Royal Guard on his own.

Imagine that one of your best friends went fell hopelessly in love with you to the point that you couldn’t have a conversation with them anymore without it devolving into them repeating how much in love with you they are. The feeling isn’t mutual. You stop being friends after they refuse to stop, but then they start stalking you. Now imagine that you can’t get a restraining order and are obligated to take care of this friend now they are so hopelessly in love they are incapable of taking care of themselves. That was basically Thomas’s situation.

“Okay, this has to stop,” Thomas declared. His left hand flared in flame, removing his fake glove. He pressed his hand on Kraghorn’s head and found the mind control magic.

‘Yes, take it out,’ Slither cooed. Thomas ignored her as he pulled out Chrysalis's magic; however, he discovered that he had to put the magic somewhere else. ‘Give it to me.’

Thomas didn’t have any other good option as he didn’t want to the magic turning him into a mindless thrall. Slither fed on Chrysalis’s spell and the black chitinous corruption grew on his arm. His once large left hand became slender and effeminate as Slither claimed it as part of her body. Her expansion stopped right below his elbow.

The minotaur slumped to the ground unconscious from the indelicate raking of foreign magic from his mind. ‘He wouldn’t come out the same, but at least he isn’t a mindless slave,’ Thomas rationalized.

‘You won’t do that to us, will you Thomas?’ Drafty asked on behalf of his thralls in Bitaly.

Before he could answer her or the changelings in the room with him, the door opened to reveal Bodo and two drones walk in. It looked like they all had a long day.

Thomas averted his gaze from Bodo, which Crystal-Autumn noticed right away. Once the three changelings who had just entered went upstairs to presumably get some rest, the unicorn-changeling spoke up.

“You haven’t told him about Iona either,” she stated.

“He doesn’t need to know yet.”

“But I thought you were all about people accepting death.”

“Yes, but he hasn’t accepted losing Clover to time not to mention something as abstract as philosophy. He took the death of Nyantsu and the other attackers very badly. He still hasn’t forgiven himself for what happened to Penny’s horn.”

“He looked happy to me when we were at the trial,” Crystal-Autumn mentioned.

“That is because he was escaping his emotions. I know Bodo better than you. Anytime things like this happen, he escapes into his music or goofing off or perversion as if nothing happened. It is all a facade, and at this point, he is doing all three, which can only mean that he is at his limit.”

“He did look really sad when I talked to him earlier today,” Roxanna added.

“Why don’t you just let him have Clover,” the unicorn-changeling suggested.

“Because that would only make things worse.”

“You let Apple Bloom and those other ponies get to see their loved ones.”

“That was different. That was for closure. This would be permanent. He would be replacing her with an illusion. That isn’t a healthy way to deal with loss.”

“And we can’t afford to lose Bodo to his depression.”

‘Why is it that I must always decide between two rights? Is this world just trying to turn me into a contradiction of everything I believe in?’ he pondered ruefully.

‘That is because you have pesky morals to be conflicted about. It would be so much easier if you just gave in and did whatever was necessary to make the world into one you want to live in,’ Slither offered, trying to be helpful but failing.

“Wait Clover is not just some magic construct?” Roxanna inquired with confusion in her voice.

“Yes.” “No.” Autumn and Thomas contradicted each other respectively, which didn’t help ease the engineer’s confusion.

“You are going to have to do something about this, Thomas,” Autumn ordered.

“I...will think about it,” Thomas answered. “I will have an answer by the time I am done starting up business with the Diamond Dogs with Rarity.”

“You better,” Crystal-Autumn muttered. “Let’s all get some sleep. Tomorrow Bodo is giving his lecture and then you are off on your business trip Thomas. Get it done quickly because it won’t take long for Bodo to put two and two together and figure out why Kraghorn was here in the first place.”

“If anything, he probably already figured it out but is in denial,” Thomas mentioned, earning him a sigh from his fellow human-turned drone.

Roxanna didn’t know what to make of the whole conversation. ‘Why can’t they just be happy with the gifts our Queen has given them? Aren’t they happy they are succeeding in their mission?’ she thought.

Author's Note

There are probably a lot of problems with this chapter, but I tried my best for a preliminary edit. I will comb over it tomorrow. Anyways, I have a question for you:
What names would you give Thirteen and Seven?
I plan on using them more often as side characters when one of the three protagonists go on missions and need back up.