Clipper's story

``` Hatter awoke to screams, yelling and other noises that scared him, Clipper was struggling beneath him, trying to get out. Hatter rolled to the side, busting off the lid of the pod and landing on it in a heap. The scary noises were even louder out here, the screams no longer deadened by the wall of the pod.

Clipper jumped over him, landing on her hooves and pulling him up as a changeling, more specificity a guard with a hole in his side. Orange blood was pouring down his chitin, coating it and dripping onto the floor. “Run! T-they are here! Don’t… I don’t… I failed” He cried out, before he collapsed to the floor with a groan.

“Oh fuck, shit...” Clipper started to say, followed by so many curse words that Hatter could not even keep focus on them. During this time she had pulled Hatter forward, and begun to rapidly gallop away. Hatter might have had the mind of a foal, but he did understand danger, and e understood that he had to get away from said danger. He also understood that this mare, this wonderful, wonderful changeling, gave him the fuzziest, warmest feeling imaginable. He would follow her to Tartarus and back.

They both came galloping out of the shed sized space, onto the walkway that spiralled up through the centre of the hive. Most of the changelings had wings, so did not need a stairwell, it was more built for convenience and so that the workers could make repairs. The stairwell was a hive of activity at this time however, changelings attempting to fly away, and guards attempting to protect them as they did so.

The attackers were ponies, a mix of unicorns, like Hatter, earth ponies, which lacked horns and magic, but were far thicker built and much tougher, and a few pegasus ponies, which were lithe and had feathered wings to carry them into the sky and send any changelings that made it too close to the exit to their deaths.

The ponies all wore heavy metal armour, coloured in gold. The pegasus ponies wore lighter armour, and used their metal clad hooves in combat. The earth ponies were far more brutal, having heavy metals shields that covered their whole bodies strapped to the front of their armour, with slits in the side through they poked long spears, anyone who was not shoved over the edge by the shields, or attempted to fight back, was impaled with the spear.

The unicorns also wielded spears, and long wooden bows. They seemed to be using their magical reach to provide support. To changelings, the nauseating amount of colours the ponies came in was very strange, but they were more focused on trying not to die.

Clipper and Hatter were not stupid, and were heading down deeper into the hive. The guard changelings were not able to hold off the attackers, their thick chitin and long teeth being no match for the spears and brutal tactics the ponies used. Hatter was not very well built, but he was lithe, and having been fed on honey, he was able to run long distances that he never thought possible.

“Come on Hatter, there is an exit near the bottom of the hive we can use to escape!” She said, speeding up. Hatter matched her pace, but soon his breathing was becoming rapid. He did not have the endurance of a creature bred to travel long distances without getting tired.

They finally made it to the base of the hive, the end of the staircase without going underground. But there was already ponies here too, but there was also a lot more changeling guards, who were fighting a losing battle against the ponies. Clipper suddenly found herself faced with an earth pony who had snuck around the back of the guards. He marched forward raising his spear and stabbing it forward threatening

Clipper stumbled back, but the unicorn’s eyes were without mercy, and he stabbed the spear forward again, almost in range. Hatter did not know exactly what it was, but some wall in his mind broke down, it might have been the desire to protect his lover, but all of a sudden he found himself jumping forward.

Hatter’s front hooves shoved the area where the spear head joined the shaft, his teeth locking down on the wood just behind this. The earth ponies might have strong, but with his hooves, teeth, and the fact his hooves were digging into the ground, he managed to stop it.

“Hatter!” Clipper cried. And suddenly the spell that had locked away his memories vanished, and they all came flooding back to him. He had a pair of long knives in his jacket, and he had just remembered where they had come from.

Their were two main pony leaders in Equestria, both alicorns, ponies who were unicorns and pegasuses at the same time. A long time before Hatter had been born, there had been a terrible age of chaos and uncertainty, when the trickster god of chaos, known as Discord had ruled. It had been a very dark time indeed.

Nobody had quite known where the princesses had come from, but they had appeared one day and used a magical artefact to obliterate Discord. They had then returned these magical artefacts to where ever it was they had got them from.

A great age of peace had reined, before the younger of the two Princesses, known as Luna, had grown tired. She was the Princess of the night, in charge of raising the moon, and she was sick of ponies hiding away from the beautiful nights she worked so hard to create. But the thing she hated most was hiding in her sister’s shadow, of being treated as the lesser sister and of being shunned. The dark rage that had grown inside her had transformed her, she had become a dark goddess known as Nightmare Moon.

The other Princess, known as Celestia, the Princess of the day, in charge of raising the sun, had been attacked by here and barely managed to escape. She had attempted to use the same magical artefacts that had destroyed Discord, but they had failed to work. So it had ended up needing to be settled the old fashioned way. With soldiers and spears, blood and death. Princess Luna had set up a base somewhere in the Everfree, the forest had begin to slowly spread throughout Equestria for some unknown reason. No amount of axes or fire seemed to be able to stop it.

So where did he fit into all of this? He would have liked it if he had of been a great general, or at least of some kind of importance. But he had just been a grunt, a pony on the front line charging blindly forward and cutting down anything that stood in his way. He had served in the trenches, using the long bladed knives to stab through the gaps in armour and bring his foes down.

But then… He had run… He could not remember why, but he had been caught, branded a coward and then… He had ended up here. He did remember it was a way to kill ponies, wiping their mind and leading them into the everfree to be eaten by the monsters and other things that prowled the forest.

Along with all of this came his years of combat experience, he might not have been important, but he knew how to kill, and right now he needed to do that to protect his lover. His horn glowed, opening the downward facing holsters behind his shoulders and pulling the razor sharp blades from them. They had wooden handles carved from the trees of the Everfree, and high quality steel blades that had been well looked after.

All of this took him only four seconds. Then he acted. He moved behind the shield, as if he was going to pass him, then his knife had slipped into the space at the back of the ponies’ knee, sinking through the strap that held his shin protectors in place. Shield units were weak and slow on their own, breaking formation was a mistake. He gave a scream and slumped to the floor, not able to carry the heavy shield with a hole in the back of his kneecap.

Clipper stared at Hatter for a second before tugging him, heading towards a side exit the ponies had not yet reached. They begin heading down as the combat behind them became for more fierce as more ponies poured in like an unstoppable river. Most of the changelings had been asleep in their pods, and they had been lucky to have one that had been so low down, as now the guards were preventing almost everyone from escaping.

“I remembered everything! I know who I am now Clipper and I know I love you!” He said. Clipper gave a sort of chuckle as they turned down another tunnel, the layout of the hive still alien to Hatter. “That is great Hatter! I will celebrate with you if we make it out of here.”

Clipper was taking the situation calmly for that very reason. She was not focusing on all her friends dying, or the fact she was helpless to do anything about it. She was focusing on one simple instinct: Survive. She was going to make sure she and Hatter made it out alive and as unhurt as possible. It was the simplest instinct, and one every animal had, but it was also one of the strongest. She refused to die here and like this, not after she had found true happiness.

They passed into queen’s chamber, both of them out of breath. There were eight guards here, attempting to hold off any of the ponies that made it through while the rest of the changelings evacuated. The queen had likely already made it out of the hive, along with a hooful of guards.

“Quickly! Move!” One of the guards said, waving them down the tunnel with a hoof. Hatter had so many thoughts rushing through his head he was struggling to keep up with anything, but he still had the sense to go first. The apple green glow of his horn casting light down the tunnel as he held his knives in it. There was no glowing orange slime down here, so it was only possible to see a few feet, but if he saw anything gold he was going to stab first and ask questions later.

They walked for what felt like forever, down deeper and deeper into the earth, the darkness stretching on for what felt like forever. Finally it begin to slope upwards, their lungs and burning in the silent darkness, not a word being uttered as they focused all their energy onto escaping. The smell of earth surrounded Hatter, bringing back memories of crawling in muck across trenches and battlegrounds to bring down the enemy. The trenches stretched on for miles across the edge of the Everfree. They had not been able to defeat the bat ponies, so they had built trenches and trapped them inside.

Only, the forest had kept growing, pushing them further and further back, growing over their trenches and seeming never to slow. They could kill ponies, but trees were a whole different manner.

There was a light at the end of the tunnel, a small opening big enough for a single pony to fit through. Hatter’s throat was burning, like bile rising in his throat. He was sure that his legs were going to give out, they felt like jelly, and his lungs felt like he had been breathing in hot coals. Yet one thing stopped him from collapsing. It burned hotter then his lungs, and screamed louder then his muscles.

It was love, the love he felt for the mare behind him. The mare whose breathing was echoing in his ears, driving him forward, driving him to protect her. And then he burst into the light, squinting as the sudden bright sunlight filled his eyes, after days underground with only the light of that glowing orange gunk, his eyes needed a moment to adapt.

Hatterstumbled forward for a few seconds, and then another smell hit his nose. It was a smell that had only filled his lungs once before. It was the scent of burning flesh, like barbecue but far fouler. It was the thing that finally pushed him over the edge, and he begin to vomit all over the base of a tree, tears welling up in his eyes from the acidic burning that filled Hatter’s mouth and throat.

Black smoke poured into the sky from where they eere

Clipper held him tight as he emptied his stomach all over the floor. “Hatter! Are you OK?” Clipper asked, she did not suffer the same side effect from long periods of exercise, she just collapsed if the exercise was too much and recovered shortly after. She had no idea why this pony was emptying himself all over the floor.

Hatter took a few seconds to wipe the bile from his mouth and get his bearings, before his instincts as a solider kicked in. They were still in danger, they needed to keep moving “C-c-come on… We need to keep moving, just a little further to safety.” Hatter coughed, picking up his knives as they headed deeper into the Everfree, the only safe place for them now. They could set up camp somewhere and Hatter could look after them both with his survival training. ```