One Hug Bug

Chapters

The best intentions: Unlucky number
The best intentions: Alone for the first time
The best intentions: Expected result
Imprisoned: Day one
Imprisoned: Making... friends.
Imprisoned: No evil allowed!
Imprisoned: Fragmented story.
Imprisoned: Prisoner transfer
Imprisoned: Common denominator
Imprisoned: The next step.
Imprisoned: Preliminary preparations
Imprisoned: Step two
Imprisoned: So close...
Imprisoned: Fresh outlook on life
Imprisoned: Plan in motion
Imprisoned: The only way out
Imprisoned: Fresh air
Go east: Guidance
Go east: Temporary safety
Go east: The imperfect daughter
Go east: Entering Canterlot
Go east: The perfect daughter
Go east: Everyone's uncertain
Go east: Tutorial finished!
Sweet home: Enter the Empire
Sweet home: Uneasy dreams
Sweet home: Train-ing
Sweet home: Almost there
Sweet home: Obligatory combat encounter
Sweet home: Reunion
Sweet home: Recovering
Bloodline: Grip of the past
Bloodline: A dumb idea
Bloodline: A visitor
Bloodline: Awakening
Bloodline: Saving private Magpie
Bloodline: Proper planning
Bloodline: Blood for blood
Impossible odds: New boss.
Impossible odds: War crime
Impossible odds: Setbacks on all sides
Impossible odds: Chaos
Impossible odds: Family matters
Impossible odds: Black Ops
The best intentions: Situation report
The best intentions: Party member acquired
Go east: Glowing again, if only a little.
Go east: Another kind of prison
Go east: The alicorn of Extreme Exposition!
Impossible odds: Second wind

The best intentions: Unlucky number

“You’re back early, Two,” says boss when the lightning-based, short-range teleportation spell culminates, leaving behind Two and black shadows on the inside of Three’s eyelids.

It’s only been a day since her last report, although here in the tunnels no one without a clock or incredible sense of time would know it.

“I got lucky when I took a break in Vanhoover general hospital, and I saw a pretty weird thing.”

“Are they sowing tentacles on ponies in secret like in those scary books miss Gem brought from Canterlot?” Three peeks out from under boss’ dark blue mane, and shudders, “I… mean… scary only to small drones who haven’t been through all kinds of bad stuff like I have. Iwasn’tscaredatall- yaah!” he jumps and looks around as he hears a hiss. He breathes out a relieved sigh when he notices it was just a dwarf pony opening a portable heater to let out the built-up steam.

“No illegal medical experiments, no,” Two shakes her head, expression so passive it’s clear to anyone with any observation skills that she’s fighting with all her might not to burst out laughing, “I saw a strange orange wave appear on the horizon and spread through the sky. No idea where it came from, but it warmed everything up for a while.”

“Maybe the unicorns have figured out a spell to stop the cooling down of the planet?” boss offers a quick guess.

“Got it in one, dad!” Two nods, “I checked with Vanhoover town hall officials, and they explained things… after some persuasion,” she gives boss a seductive eyebrow wiggle.

“You bit them, didn’t you?” says One, unimpressed, which makes Two grumble to herself.

“...stupid...mom...know-it-all...”

“I’m not just a dumb punching warrior, Two,” One snickers, “You’ve never been one to bother with seduction. Venom and hypnosis magic, that’s you.”

Two looks away.

“Well, I guess you can be pretty observant if you want to be,” she begrudgingly admits.

“Besides, you don’t have the figure to pull it off like Gem or me,” One’s cocky smirk makes Two’s eye twitch, and the stones under the smaller infiltrator’s hooves start smoldering.

“I can outseduce you in my sleep you musclebound freak,” blurts out Two,

“Oh puh-lease,” One waves her foreleg dismissively, ”I’ve been melting brains with my crotch while your dad was still an egg in Chrysalis’ hatcheries.”

“A-hem!” boss clears his throat, “A declare this a tie, because while One is technically correct, I still recall that our last date night of roleplaying strangers in a bar started with her sensual greeting of ‘Come with me if you want to bang!’,” he looks at One now fully interested in examining the floor between her forelegs, and proving that, despite all biological evidence to the contrary, chitin can blush.

“Did she do the accent?” Three’s beaming from ear to ear, which isn’t just a figure of speech with changelings.

“...yes...” whispers One, “...I did...”

“Aaaand just like that, I think I won’t be needing a hatchday present this year,” says Two in a smug, singsong voice. The look of amusement on her face fades quickly as she returns to her report, “Jokes aside, though, the unicorn I got talking was a Hex Guard medic. According to military reports, the food situation is worse than we though. No one was ready for food situation this rough in late summer. Harvests are late and crops are screwed all over Equestria. Everyone is rationing what little they have, but within a month there will be a deadly famine, and by deadly, I mean a wipeout. And Equestria is the place in a good shape thanks to magic. Griffon Empire is crumbling already with all the states splitting off and raiding their neighbors.”

“Holes damn it...” boss breathes out and grits his teeth.

“Boss,” Three taps the king’s shoulder, “Did you talk to mister Hard Reset yesterday? When I asked him about helping, he told me ponies could stuff it.”

“Yeah, I did, with some more success,” he nods, “He’s willing to share some simpler blueprints, be he won’t let us lend ponies any prototypes or supporting tech.”

“That’s good enough, right?” Two tilts her head.

“Everything is in dwarvish, Two, and we can’t print them out in ponish, their devices simply don’t support that language in written form. We’d need someone to bring the blueprints to someone with the global resources to build the underground mushroom and moss farms, and quickly. Someone who is close, which means Cadance, and she knows us the best. Anyone trying to stay there, explain, and translate the measurements and everything in the process will be detained. I have zero doubts about that.”

“Ooooh! Oh oh oh oh oh!” Three raises his foreleg, bouncing up and down on boss’ back now.

“Send one of the infiltrators,” Two shrugs, “Hundred-and-four wouldn’t mind giving his life for the hive, I heard.”

“Two, I know exactly who would give what for whom,” boss frowns, “but I don’t feel like sending one of us to potentially die-”

“OOOOOOOOH!” Three raises his voice higher.

“You know that he’s-” Two nods towards Three, which makes boss lower his head.

“Yeah… I know.”

“You know he’s the best one for it. Pretty much the only one who won’t be nuked on sight, really.”

“I know, Two.”

“The tunnel is safe all the way to the Crystal Empire.”

“I know...”

“And, surprisingly, he’s been working with Six a lot, so he can read the blueprints, even though he doesn’t understand them.”

“Hethinksyoucanfixtechnologywithhugs!” boss hisses at Two.

“In Three’s defense,” One adds her two bits to the conversation, “I did see him fix a motorized power drill like that.”

“I know,” grumbles boss, “That’s the worst part.”

“Come on, boss!” Three grabs the back of boss’ neck, and pull himself to his ear, “It’s just a few days’ trip for me, and even if the food princess keeps me around, the Crystal Heart is still there, so I won’t get hungry, and we’ll do so much help with those breathing and shroom machines.”

“Oh right!” Two taps her hoof against the floor, “There is one piece of good news that’ll make this an easier sale for Hard Reset. It turns out that oxygen won’t be that big a deal. The medic said that, for some reason, corrupted vegetation is faring pretty fine even with the lack of sunlight in that respect. It’s just the food that’s going to be the critical problem soon.”

“See? I don’t even need to carry anything other than the print-outs. You don’t even have to risk anyone else-”

“Enough!” boss raises his voice, not into a scream or anything, but with the usually quiet king it is more than enough to silence everyone around, “If we’re doing this, and I’m starting to think there really isn’t any other way, then you’re definitely, one thousand percent not going alone,” he flips his wings shortly to dislodge Three who gets the message and hops off, “Hard Reset may have refused your idea yesterday, but I’ll go tell him that this isn’t up for a discussion otherwise the whole council won’t budge, especially after having to leave Brauheim due to Twilight’s unicorns sniffing between the Crystal Empire and Rift. Can’t blame them for being ticked off, though.”

With that, he pushes through the endless procession of dwarves backwards through the tunnel. Two teleports away immediately after, leaving Three walking side by side with One.

“Can I ride you, miss One?” he looks sideways at the warrior over three times his height.

“Are you my king?” she answers with a smirk, “If not, no rides for you right now.”

“Aww, but I want to write into booksy,” Three waves the foreleg with the journal firmly set inside a leg hole.

After a short staring contest, One capitulates, sighs, and says:

“Fiiine, hop on.”

Three flies up on her broad back, and nuzzles the back of One’s neck for good measure.

“You know, I could go for a back rub,” says One out of nowhere as Three settles down on a right spot where he can stretch.

“On it!” he perks up immediately, salutes, and begins walking and turning around on One’s back like a cat getting ready to sleep.

He’s nowhere near strong enough naturally to properly knead One’s back muscles even with her chitin softened to maximum, but the genuine love pouring from his hooves pressed against her is more than even the best trained masseuse could achieve with a changeling.

Short time later, a tall, lanky changeling mare with messy brown mane and tail looking as if she chewed it down to size herself approaches the duo leading the dwarf procession in silence. In contrast to the dwarves singing drinking songs echoing through the endless tunnel and sipping beer from mugs while slowly plodding along, the mare, while taller than them in her size of a changeling infiltrator, simply doesn’t exude any relevant presence to her surroundings.

“Umm,” she says with a nervous shaking of her voice, “mom?” she raises something up in her hoof. It looks like a small, black block of wood with four nails protruding from the bottom, one on the top ending with a small ball made of flame spider silk and few strands of the same silk sticking from the other side. The spider silk is dyed wine-red, and there are two green blotches in front of the ball and a downwards bending line identifying the painting as a frowny face, “I made you this.”

One levitates the flimsy and makeshift changeling figurine up, narrows her eyes, and lets it drop on the floor.

“Ah!” the quiet changeling mare’s eyes go wide-

-as One crushes the figurine under her hoof. Not even stomping at it, just walking over it in a picture of perfect dismissal.

“Hey!” Three stops massaging One’s back, even going so far as to give it a loud smack.

Frowning, One looks at the other mare.

“You can do better, Thirteen.”

“I tried-” says Thirteen, her eyes watering.

“Then try harder,” One picks up the pace as Three jumps off of her back. It’s too late already, though, because Thirteen is nowhere to be seen anymore.

With a sigh and a lot of apologizing, Three pushes between the dwarves, picks up the mangled and broken figurine of One, flies up to the ceiling, and follows the faint tug of Thirteen’s hive link while scribbling into his journal.

[Hi, booksy!]

Poor Thirteen. If only miss One would understand how much Thirteen loves her and dad.

You see, booksy (or you don’t because you don’t have eyes), last year miss One gave birth to something she called a ‘royal egg’ within a normal clutch. They all looked the same to me, but the itsy bitsy buggo inside this one didn’t come out as a larva. Instead, she started off as a full changeling, though tiny. Don’t worry, she grew into normal size later, now she’s kinda Five’s size, although a bit on the skinny side when compared to a warrior changeling like Five. Unfortunately, Thirteen doesn’t seem to be good at… anything, really, and I think that’s why miss One is always so mad with her.

OH, I KNOW WHO SHE REMINDS ME OF NOW! She’s like Gem used to be - lanky, skinny, uncoordinated and… I wouldn’t say it to in front of the boss, but miss One said Thirteen had the brain like if Cryo reverted to an egg and then got dribbled with. I think that’s really mean, but that’s miss One for you, never one to mince words. Thirteen is the sweetest and kindest changeling I know, and our hive has the best hug bugs, I dare anyone to dispute that!

And if they do, I’ll never hug them again. See? I can be mean too, but only to the meanest of the meanies. Too bad that when Thirteen is involved, miss One seems to be one of those.

[See you later, booksy!]

The best intentions: Alone for the first time

The slow walking never stops, although this time there are three more changelings walking side by side with boss, One, and Three. One of them is is a visibly nervous infiltrator distinguishable from standard infiltrators only by him wearing a pendant and several bracelets around his fetlocks.

“Are you sure, boss?” he asks, faint tremor in his voice betraying his battle against nervousness.

“Seven, I thought about it long and hard, and I know you’re not the right changeling for it,” he says, which makes the infiltrator breathe out in relief, “At least not on your own, which is why Five and Six are here too,” he nods to a female changeling warrior with a short, white mohawk and deer-like cropped tail, and to a standard template changeling drone walking next to her.

“Wait, what?” Six rushes ahead to look up at the boss, “You mean-”

“That you three will be leading the migration to the west. Hard Reset and the rest of the council have already figured out the least painful split for the dwarves, and he’s sending away the more adventurous types. I, of course, couldn’t force Five and Six to be away from each other and, despite everything, you three have the most experience in working together while still covering all three major changeling breeds. One-Three, One-One, One-Eighteen, and One-Fourteen will be coming with you. That way you have two more drones, an infiltrator, and a warrior with you in case you need lingpower. Take anything you feel comfortable using as well as as many love-filled crystals as you need. Holes know we have enough. Standard survival and building devices will be provided by the dwarves. There will be roughly a hundred thousand of you, so if you manage to find any outpost of their Silversmith ancestors, you should be able to turn it into a full city with ease.”

“That’s...” Five shakes her head, “That’s big...” she looks into the dark distance of the endless tunnel, “I’ve never been away from the hive for long. I mean, neither of us have. Boss, I serve the hive, I don’t lead anyone.”

“You three are leading, not just you. On top of that, I’m giving the final say in all undecided problems to Six. He’s proven more than any of you that he can keep a cool head under pressure,” boss smiles as Seven and Five actually wipe their foreheads in relief. Changelings can’t exactly sweat, but the gesture is unversal to all nervous species, it seems, “Now go pack up and say your goodbyes. I’ll tell the others via the hive mind, but I wanted to tell you three face to face.”

“Someone should hold Six up then,” Five snickers, and when Six softly kicks her fetlock, she only lowers her head and nuzzles his cheek.

“And meet us back her in an hour. I want us to say proper goodbyes to each other.”

“Orders received!” Five salutes with a smile, but the heavy look in her eyes shows that despite being a warrior under orders, she’s facing a task she wasn’t ready for.

“I… boss, I’m the wrong choic-” Seven’s objection is stopped by One raising her foreleg faster than anyone can react and closing his mouth.

“You have your orders, lazy ass. You can’t lounge around all day and study those old dwarven books and those electronic memory storage things,” she says.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Seven,” boss pats his shoulder, “If I thought that keeping you here would help your conscience, I would happily have you around, but I don’t think you can understand how much I can feel from how all of you are. I know that the massacre in Zebrica is something you’ll never come to terms with, but I think you’ll have the best shot if you have something to protect with the immense magical power you have.”

“Boss, I’m not powerful! I know possibly more than anyone else, but I’m not- mmph!” Seven objects again, and this time he bites down on One’s hoof in his mouth.

“Knowledge is what?” she asks sharply, “Knowledge is power,” she pulls her hoof out and smacks Seven’s forehead, “No go pack.”

“Yes, One...” Seven lowers his head in defeat, and teleports away with a pop.

“Six?” asks boss, looking at the drone clearly waiting for his turn to speak.

“Are you sure you can handle things without me?” he asks, making One’s eyebrow raise up, “I mean, I’m the only one with more than just user knowledge of dwarven technology, and they’re all about that. Even Three’s method of hug a hammer to fix it only works in about one in ten cases.”

“I’m getting better,” Three pouts at Six down from boss’ back, to which the other drone only responds with a smile, “but my legs are too short to wrap around the big thingies.”

“Aaand that’s what the second least technologically challenged changeling of your hive just said, boss,” Six shakes his head.

“I know,” boss pats Six’s back, “but Seven needs friends, not just underlings, and as I said, I’m not splitting up you and Five, that would be cruel. We’ll have to figure something out, but we can still use your knowledge stored in the hive mind. Now run off to pack. I know you have a lot of stuff you want to take with you, and it’s going to take some time.”

“I won’t fail you, boss.”

“Don’t fail Seven,” boss nods at him, “He needs the right kind of help more than I do.”

With a quick nod, Six rushes off.

“Should I go pack too?” asks Three.

“Yes,” boss shakes Three off of himself, “Hard Reset has the blueprints ready for you, so pick those up while you’re at it.”

Three flies over to boss’ ear, and whispers:

“Should I help Thirteen pack?”

“I’ll do it,” he shakes his head and whispers back, “She could use few words after a bit of One’s parenting.”

Three peeks at One who is looking away. She must have heard it even with the noise of the dwarves echoing through the tunnels, though. Warrior senses are top notch.

To boss’ surprise, Three buzzes over to One who tilts her head as Three boops her.

“Don’t worry, miss One. Thirteen will be okay.”

“If you run into anything dangerous, throw her at it and escape while it’s chewing. That’s an order,” says One.

Boss just sighs, fully aware that Three would never even think about that, and Three buzzes away above the heads of the dwarves.

***

The voices of the travelling underground city are still echoing through the tunnels, but all the dwarves have gone ahead, leaving only a crowd of changelings standing on the fork in the road trying to hold their tears in.

Seven bows before boss and One.

“It’s been quite the ride,” he says.

“It’s not over, Seven,” boss shakes his hoof and then hugs him, “You’re all acting like this is the last time we’re seeing each other,” he pulls away, “You have the maps leading to the old Silversmith outposts. Who knows? Your guys might find the first one you reach suitable, and dwarves might be settling down even before we’ve reached the coast.”

“Can we return back once we deem the dwarf situation safe?” asks Five.

“Of course, although I’d like some of our changelings to settle there as well as a reminder of our good relationship. The last thing we want is for dwarves to completely isolate themselves again like it was in Brauheim under the dark priests. I’ll be happy to see you again, and I’m sure everyone will want to share stories about what happened,” boss looks around at everyone, “But this isn’t the only thing I wanted to say here. I wouldn’t have brought all of you here if that was the case. Everyone leaving west, I want you to say goodbye to Two, Cryo, Eleven, One-Two, One-Four, One-Ten, One-Thirteen.”

Two looks up at her dad, head titled. A towering changeling mare more than a head taller than One and over twice as broad with a light blue secondary plating around her barrel blinks in shock as well, and everyone else mentioned exchange glances, but no one says anything.

Boss continues, answering their concerns.

“As I hinted before, I have a special mission for you. Despite everything we unwillingly did to Equestria and the world, I still want to maintain a presence here. While we were being blackmailed by Flow and his proxy Desert Shade, I had access to her recently updated maps for a while, and I noticed she had discovered several Silversmith caches around the southeast coast of Equestria. Of course, she could only access the occasional vault, but she didn’t understand the dwarf marks in the photos she took. I, obviously, wasn’t stupid enough to tell her everything, but after consulting my findings with the dwarf loremasters, I think there might be a lost Silversmith city under southeastern Equestria, so you will be splitting off in two weeks with another group of dwarves. Hard Reset is already halfway through planning out the dwarfpower and tech needed to explore the place. There will be fewer of you, only about fifty thousand, and you’ll get the quick transports. We don’t need those in the long run, but if you don’t find anything, I want you to rejoin us. We will mark our route.”

Two, with her jaw still dropped open, is just breathing heavily.

“The reason for me not settling in Equestria is...” boss looks at the floor and kicks some dirt left by the dwarf migration around, “...is that I want to go to Zebrica. Seven’s mission on my orders turned that place into a lawless Mad Mares hellscape. Dwarves have their clue from the old archives to follow, but I want us to help wherever we can. Other than One, I am sending my best of the best away to make sure you stay as safe as you can be because, as far as I know, corruption has started spreading in Zebrica as well in addition to everything else, and zebras have no experience with it. And speaking of sending my best away,” boss’ dark blue eyes tear up and he wipes them, his voice cracking, “I want you to say goodbye to Three and Thirteen...” he breathes out quietly, “...fuck… I never thought I’d have to say that...”

Aside from One, Three, and Thirteen, everyone is now staring at him with mouths open.

“Three and Thirteen are going to help the ponies here in Equestria in their darkest hour, the hour I caused and don’t know of a way to fix it. I had to use my ruling authority to make the dwarves share blueprints for technology that might help ponies survive under the black sky. I know most of you haven’t heard any rumors, and there was nothing about it in the hive mind because I didn’t want to bother you, but the situation up there is dire. The problem is that ponies know it’s our fault, and will either kill or imprison any of us on sight.”

“How will they distinguish us from Chrysalis’ lot?” asks a drone in the back.

“They won’t have to. We don’t have the time to leak the technology and wait for someone to build it and help. We’re going straight up to Cadance. She’s the closest ruler, but she also knows us the best, and will understand to whom the guys coming with technology unknown to the rest of the world belong. That’s why I picked Three and Thirteen as the two most able to find a line of possibly not hostile communication that would be closed to anyone else, especially if they’re coming with tech that just might help save everyone.”

There’s complete silence for few moments, and then all changelings rush over to Three and start hugging him of shaking his hoof. Thirteen shuffles behind boss with two saddlebags of love crystals filled to bursting, some gold and gems, camping gear, and anything the two might need for a comfortable trip to the Crystal Empire whether by the underground tunnels or on the surface.

Boss turns around, sits down on his haunches, and hugs Thirteen.

“Hey, dad?” she mumbles into his chitin, and pulls out the mangled figurine, making One wince in the process and brace for another shouting match with boss she can’t win, “This was supposed to be mom, but I’m too dumb to make hers properly, so I changed the colors and painted a smiley face on the front.”

Boss grabs it, and chuckles.

“I don’t have that bendy legs, or do I?”

It doesn’t even cross Thirteen’s mind to say that’s because One stepped on it earlier. Instead, she says.

“My tongs slipped, and I didn’t have time to fix it, because I had to pack for the trip. Sorry, dad.”

Boss pats her head, spreads the figurine’s hind legs and bends its forelegs into a circle which he uses to fasten it atop Thirteen’s head by her horn.

“I don’t need it, I have a mirror, honey, but considering how good likeness of me it is, and because it’s possible we might not see each other again for some time, you’ll always have me watching over you like this,” with an encouraging smile, he stands up to his full height, and rubs Thirteen under her chin, “You can find and read dwarf laser marks, and we have been making those all the way. Seven’s group will hve done so too, and same goes for Two. If I’m wrong, and ponies are much more forgiving than I could ever hope, you’ll always have a way to track us, a home to return to, and a dad to comfort you.”

Thirteen lowers her head.

“Dad, how can you be so sure I’m useful? I’ve failed at everything I touched since I hatched. Mom knows it, everyone knows it.”

“Honey, I was a drone who could only dig holes until the point where I wasn’t anymore,” he pats her head, “You’re comparing yourself to giants who have made their name a legend thousand times over, that’s why it’s so hard to see your own worth. And look at where we are now,” he shook his head, “All those ‘great and powerful’ changelings have almost caused the end of all things when we were unable to face an enemy with even greater power. You are someone who knows how to act with limits, which might make you more useful than everyone else.”

“Yeah,” Three adds his two bits to the conversation, now finished with all the hugging and goodbyes, “And boss was just a drone like me and he led changelings to the best times ever while bad mom was still being hunted by everyone.”

“Exactly,” boss nods, “There’s one thing I’ve learned from my own experiences and from having been there while all of you were growing up. You have no idea how strong or weak you really are until you have no other choice. I believe that, and good mom surely agrees with me,” he raises his voice a little for One to hear it clearer, “that you have the potential to outgrow us all.”

“I wish I could believe it,” says Thirteen.

“Then you’ll just have to live it, honey,” with a kiss on her nose, boss looks into the empty tunnel leading back north where they came from, “Time to go.”

Thirteen sniffles, hugs boss’ leg again, and then follows Three through a corridor of all saluting changelings of the hive.

Author's Note

Everyone's leeeeaaaviiiiiing! :raritycry:

The best intentions: Expected result

[Hi, booksy!]

It’s been a week, and I’m sorry I wasn’t writing to you about me and Thirteen much. I’ve been doing my drawing, and Thirteen was just kinda walking behind me, not talking much. I think she’s scared by being away from home for the first time.

Just wait till she sees the surface! She’s going to be so surprised. Well, I mean I haven’t been up there since the apocalypse, but Two’s reports made it sound pretty scary. Oh well, we’ll see. It’s completely possible that we’ll have to stay inside with princess of Food and translate the blueprints all the time.

Anyway, we’re in the Crystal Empire right under the castle, so I gotta stop writing now. We’ll make boss proud, and we’ll help everyone.

[See you later, booksy!]

“Alright, Thirteen, let me go first,” says Three, pressing his hoof against a seemingly random spot on the crystalline wall of the tunnel, which makes a section of the wall slide away and reveal a winding staircase up.

“Okay,” she nods, “but what if they’re all mad like dad said?”

“Food princess will at least let us explain, and if we have to pay for what boss was forced to do, then so be it. We can’t run from this.”

“Three, I’m not scared, at least not for myself. You are the one important for the hive, not me.”

“Come on, Thirteen...”

“Hey, when we were saying our goodbyes, you can’t have noticed it, but other than dad, no one even looked at me, because they were all crestfalled over losing you and everyone else. So, that’s why I’m asking, Three. If anyone tries to hurt you, what do you want me to do? How do you want me to protect you?”

Three stops and pushes his hoof against Thirteen’s chest.

“Before you do anything, don’t think about me. Think about boss. Promise?”

“He’d be more broken about losing you than me, that’s a fact even you can’t deny.”

Three hugs her.

“Is this helping?”

“Not really, Three.”

The drone’s eyes go wide, and he plops on his butt, staring at his forelegs.

“Huggy? Huggy harder?” he boops his hooves with his nose, “Nope, you’re both okay,” he looks at Thirteen watching him with a puzzled expression, “Are you hugproof. Thirteen?”

“Whuh? That’s… that’s not a thing.”

Three narrows his eyes, and stands up with a pout.

“Hmm...” he turns around, “We’ll see about that,” he taps his hoof against the first step, “Ha, got it! Thirteen, your orders.”

“Something simple, please. You know I trip over my own hooves on daily basis.”

“You’re going to help me figure out how to play a guitar.”

“What?” Thirteen just stands there, completely stunned by Three’s nonsense.

“Come on,” Three starts walking up the steps, “We’re going to have a lot of time to kill while we’re translating the blueprints, and I can’t just go around hugging everyone, but miss Harriet taught me to play a simple guitar-”

“Who is ‘miss Harriet’?”

“-and your voice is so beautiful that if we do it together we can cheer up whole groups at once.”

Thirteen facehoofs, but just follows Three up the long stairs.

“You know what? Sure,” she shrugs in the end, “If you think it helps dad, I’m in.”

The duo walk up the stairs, and in a short tunnel on top, Three presses another section of a wall which once again makes the dead end slide away and reveal a high hallway made of blue crystals which Three recognizes as the inside of the Crystal Castle. Torch-shaped electric lights are lighting the hallway because the outside behind ornate windows lining the walls is dark.

“Wooooow,” Thirteen is looking around, examining for a second her reflection in a crystal pillar, “EEEP!” she jumps backwards when she realizes there’s a second reflextion right next to her which looks like a shiny pony made of crystals. However, when she turns her head there’s no pony there.

“What happened?” Three jumps over to her, “Did you slip? It happens to me here all the time. The castle janitor makes a really good job polishing the floors. I talked to him once. Nice pony.”

“No,” Thirteen shakes her head, “There was a reflection of someone else.”

“Oooh, like me?” Three leans towards the pillar, eyes open like big blue pools.

“No no no, Three,” Thirteen steps next to Three, “A pony made of crystals.”

“Ooh, like that one,” Three spots an amethyst Crystal Guard inside the pillar.

“STOP RIGHT THERE, CHANGELING SCUM!” they hear a furious voice behind them.

“AAAH!” Thirteen turns around and drops on the floor as a Crystal Guard’s spear sweeps her forelegs.

“Wait, we’re not bad guys-” Three sits down on his haunches and raises his forelegs. Unfortunately, all that means is that he can’t cover his muzzle when a second crystal pony’s left hook makes him roll on the floor. A moment later there’s a guard standing on his chest with the tip of a spear uncomfortably close to his eye while another one fastens a suppressor ring on Three’s stubby short horn, and follows it with putting shackles on all his four legs.

“You couldn’t really think we wouldn’t secure your secret entrance to the castle after what you did!” growls a faintly familiar stallions’s voice. When a crystal guard pulls Three back on all fours, the drone looks up into the furious light blue eyes of a white unicorn with two-tone blue mane wearing a Crystal Guard breastplate.

“Mister Shiny Armor, I can explain everything if you let us see princess Candy.”

“I’m not letting you anywhere near my wife. Not executing you on the spot is already more mercy than you deserve.”

“We’re here to help!” pleads Three, sniffling out a stream of blood from his muzzle, “Two told us how bad it was on the outside and boss gave us some blueprints for food machines that work even in the darkness which can help you feed ponies. He also said we had to find someone who can spread them to ponies all over Equestria and maybe even further.”

“Where are those?” asks Shining Armor.

“My backpack. Inside those tube thingies. We made you print-outs, but they are in dwa- they aren’t in ponish,” says Three, “I need to translate them for you.”

“What’s in the rest?” Shining Armor points at the saddlebags the guards took from Thirteen.

“Just love crystals and some camping gear for the trip here,” squeaks Thirteen.

“Please, be careful with those,” Three raises his voice as Shining Armor levitates the scroll cases and unrolls the first out of many blueprints hidden in them. The unicorn furrows his brows and frowns.

“And now you think I’ll believe that you couldn’t have drawn those and added notes in ponish?” Shining Armor leans down to Three, “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“Just give those to an engineer, please!” Three gives Shining Armor his best wibbling lip and round, upwards-looking eyes, “Boss really wants to help, to atone for what he caused, at least a little.”

Shining Armor rolls the blueprints up again, and shoves them into the scroll cases.

“Guards, take them away into the maximum security prison. And be careful, king Beard’s changelings are excellent infiltrators. We’ll decide whether you’re going to face execution or something else.”

“No no no no no!” Thirteen backpedals on the smooth floor, her suppressor and the shackles lying in a pile in front of her.

“What?” Shining Armor’s eyes open wide in horror, “Get her! GET HER!” he immediately shoots out a bolt of magic which hits Thirteen and makes her do a backflip in the air.

She lands perfectly on all fours like a cat, already running away while mumbling:

“...they can’t execute Three, they need him. They don’t need me, they’ll kill me. I need to get Three out of prison once they decide they don’t need him anymore...”

Four Crystal Guards appear as reflections on the walls next to the castle gate, step out of them into the real world, and Thirteen drifts to the side to dodge a barrage of magic bolts. As more and more ponies gather, walking into the walls and appearing ahead of Thirteen, she clumsily jumps over a spear attempting to trip her up. With the only way now being another set of stairs up, she up and runs into a long hallway lined with doors.

She runs and runs and runs, at least until a door right in front of her opens, shimmering with a pink telekinetic glow.

*Crunch!*

Princess Cadance leans out of her room, blinking in surprise at a changeling mare bouncing away in a splatter of blood, and a crowd of Crystal Guards who swarm her and put so many shackles and suppressors on her that she looks like a zebra shaman with an unhealthy bondage fetish.

***

Thirteen opens her eyes with moan, sits up as the last moments before she passed out rush into her mind, and whimpers when she notices the bars of what is doubtlessly a cell. She buries her face into her hooves.

“I panicked the first second we got into trouble, ran away, and left Three alone. I’m so sorry, dad.”

Author's Note

And with this, chapter 1 is finished.
As always, comments, criticism, death threats, wishes, or any other form of involvement are all appreciated.

Imprisoned: Day one

[Hi, booksy!]

Well, booksy, boss was right, and we’re in the maximum security prison of the Crystal Empire. They tried to take you away from me, but you’ve always come back to me. I knew you were resourceful, booksy, but outsmarting Crystal Guards is a whole new level. Anyway, I hope Thirteen is okay. When the guards threw us into a wagon outside the castle, she was unconscious, but she didn’t look too badly hurt other than a bleeding muzzle. The guards said she ran into a door, and I believed them, because Candy princess wouldn’t employ real meanies who would hurt someone like Thirteen.

There’s not much to do here other than scribble and draw a bit, but it’s not like I want to get out anyway. The room isn’t too warm, so they must know we changelings prefer our home a bit dank, and I don’t have to share with anyone. I mean, it would be nice to have some company, but this is prison, so some ponies must have made big mistakes to end up here, and there might even be some straight up baddies. The bed could be a little harder, but this way I can even bounce, although when I did that the wardens yelled at me. A series of books miss Gem brought me from the surface once made prison life seem super scary. Despite that, the plan is to stay here, and when prince Shiny realizes his ponies really don’t understand the dwarven blueprints I have to translate those. Still, I would feel a lot better if I could see Thirteen.

Oh, and there’s one super important thing I have to do, according to the books. The important part is to walk up to the biggest and the most scary-looking guy in here, and show dominance. I’m not sure how I’m going to do that, but-

[Bye, booksy!]

“Hey, where did he get the book and a pencil again?” a crystal unicorn warden, one of the two guarding Three’s solitary cell scowls, “Hey,” he grabs the bars, raising his voice at Three scribbling into his journal, “How did you get those things from the locker this time?”

“Wait, didn’t we station a permanent guard there? And prince Shining Armor himself set up the protective barrier last time,” the other warden facehoofs, “I guess we’ll just have to burn the book straight up this time.”

“Hey, no!” Three presses the journal against his barrel with a pout, “Booksy has been with me since boss took me to Canterlot for his first summit of world rulers. Last summit too, because everyone was mean to us, and boss didn’t want much trade and any migration anyway.”

“Summit of world rulers?” a warden only scowls harder, “What are you even talking about, changeling?”

“Wait,” the other one raises a hoof, “I think I read about it in history books. It used to be an annual event in the pre-corruption era, but that’s at least two hundred years.”

“Yeah, isn’t booksy awesome?” Three beams, misunderstanding now fully solved in his eyes, “I’ve got tons of pictures and old stories here. I’ve been writing daily, you see, because boss said that without practicing, my hoofwriting looks like it was done by… umm… an epileptic during a light show inside a circus tent. I’ve never been an ellipse or in a circus, so I don’t really understand what he meant,” he scratches his head in mild embarrassment.

The smarter warden does some math inside his head, and says:

“That’s an inch-thick book.”

“Mhm,” Three nods.

“You’ve been writing and drawing into it daily for at least two hundred years...”

“Mhm.”

“The same book. And you haven’t run out of pages?”

“Told ya booksy was awesome, and that’s why you can’t burn him. Besides, he didn’t do anything to you, and had nothing to do with the huge hole in the sky that ate the sun. I didn’t even write down anything important about it, because boss said I wasn’t allowed to.”

“But-”

“Stop talking to the prisoner!” barks the mean warden, “We’re her to make sure the changeling doesn’t escape, that’s all.”

“Oh, I can’t escape anyway,” Three waves his hoof as dismissively as two sets of shackles allow him, “At least not until I have translated the blueprints for machines that can grow food without the sun. Boss said we had to help, because we caused the apocloplypse even though we didn’t want to,” Three wipes saliva from the corner of his mouth, the result of him trying to say apocalypse.

“Speaking of food, what are the orders about changelings and meal time?” asks the smart warden.

“No special treatment.”

“Even though they don’t eat-”

“I said no special treatment!” mean warden repeats himself, “This is the maximum security prison, not a weekend at your grandma’s. If they want some ‘love’, no one is watching them in the showers.”

***

It’s meal time, and Three is one of several dozen creatures currently waiting with varying degrees of complaining by a set of plastic windows in a wall behind which crystal ponies are serving a semi-liquid goop that someone without a conscience and with talent for lying could call vegetable stew. It goes ‘blub’, as Three notes to himself.

“This is disgusting,” growls a unicorn ahead of Three in the queue fitted with a heavy suppressor, “You’d better get this sorted out by tomorrow or you will be on the menu,” he snorts in contempt as he gives one final disgusted look to the bowl that the serving mare pushed through a slot in the window.

“Ponies can’t eat other ponies,” says Three, opening his mouth, “See, you don’t have those shapr teeth. Even if you could nibble someone, you can’t digest them anyway. Miss One once caught a criminal who tried that, and then she made him eat his own hind leg after she broke it off. It took forever with all the begging and crying, but in the end she had a wooden one made for him, and I haven’t heard of him causing trouble ever since. I guess he was limping a little afterwards, but now he can pretend he’s a pirate. Yarrr!” Three scratches his head, unfazed by the unicorn’s twitching eye, “Or, well, he could while he was still alive. It was a long time ago. Hey, are you okay? You eye’s all red. Is there a medicine pony anyw-”

“No bucking doctor will fix you after I’m done with-”

“Aaand what’s going on here?” a warden is never too far away in a facility like this, and the more experienced ones have a sixth sense for escalating situations.

“Nothing...” growls the unicorn, giving Three a ‘if you open your filthy mouth, no amount of bars will save you from me’ look before turning away.

Of course, Three’s best translation of the unfamiliar situations is:

“I think that pony is just grumpy because he’s hungry,” he says, “He wanted to eat me but, I mean, I can share my stew since I won’t be eating it anyway.”

“I will destroy-” the bowl of stew floating weakly in the unicorn’s suppressed telekinesis drops, which makes 3 jump for it just as the warden’s blackjack hits the unicorn in the face.

“Hey, what are you doing?” asks Three, balancing the bowl on his head, and looking at now three wardens beating the unicorn.

“That’s the prison band and that unicorn volunteered to be the drum,” growls a griffon passing by who takes the bowl on Three’s head, adding “Take your meal and come with me.”

“Don’t you mean the drummer?”

“No.”

“Ooooh ooh ooh!” Three pokes one of the busy wardens, ”Can you teach me to play the guita-”

“Come on!” the griffon raises his voice, and smacks the back of Three’s head. With one nose scrunch his way, Three bites the handle of his bowl, and follows the griffon.

Moments later, Three hops next to the griffon onto a bench by one of many long tables inside the prison cafeteria. With a careful look around, he tries to spot Thirteen, but either she’s not there or she’s hiding too well for him to see.

“Keep your eyes to yourself,” says the griffon, “Some of the guys here are pretty nasty.”

Having nothing to do with his double portion of food, Three examines his presumably friend. He’s got a sand-colored coat, and rusty red talons as well as head feathers. He’s sinewy but strong and covered from head to paws with scars.

Come to think of it, he looks familiar.

Noticing Three’s confused pout from the corner of his eye, the griffon faces the small changeling, grabs his foreleg and raises it up, scrutinizing the glowing strings of purple runes around each of Three’s fetlocks and around his neck. Three isn’t particularly bothered about the griffon playing with him like with a doll.

“I can make those change colors, hnnng...” Three furrows his brows in concentration, and when nothing happens, he sighs, “Or I could if I didn’t have all these rings and shackles on me.”

“I thought so,” the griffon smirks, “It is you, Three, isn’t it?”

“Ohmygosh you know me?” Three beams wide in response, “Wait, but I don’t know any griffons other than mister Cromach, and even if you dyed yourself, you’re not as big as he was.”

“My name is Magpie,” says the griffon, “I’m a friend of a changeling from your hive - Gem. I’ve seen you in your hive’s throne room a month ago.”

“Ohhhhh, you came with miss Gem, miss Harriet, that unicorn mare made of fire, and that huuuuuge corrupted dragon. Right when I… umm… I think I got teleported into that broken city where I met this silly black alicorn lady and that big bad unicorn wizard who needed a hug. Now I remember!”

“I… I’m not really sure about the latter part, but yeah, I passed out soon after we got to your hive, and the next thing I remember is waking up in the Crystal Empire and Crystal Guards swarming around me.”

“And they took you here?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I have no idea,” Magpie shakes his head, “They said I helped make the sky disappear, but honestly, I’ve got nothing but guesses. Gem thought we would close the huge void rift over the Crystal Empire, but apparently something went wrong.”

“Well, I only heard about it, but boss said ponies think our hive was responsible for opening the void rift.”

“And were you?” Magpie raises an eyebrow.

“I wasn’t! I didn’t even know anything was going on until you appeared with miss Gem and everyone. But boss said Seven did some really, really bad stuff on boss’ orders...”

Magpie sighs.

“When I saw you, I was hoping you’d know something, but I guess we don’t have a choice but to find a way to contact Gem. She’s locked up in here too, you know?”

“Whaaaat?” Three squeaks out loud, “Somepony caught miss Gem? That’s impossible!”

“I think Prominence had a hoof in it, that’s the fire unicorn lady you mentioned. She’s… you know what? I don’t understand it myself what she really is, but she has something to do with princess Celestia. There’s no point in speculating.”

“Hmmm...” Three hums to himself, “You’re right. I still need to find Thirteen.”

“Another one of yours?”

“Yep, boss sent us here to the Crystal Empire to help ponies, but since we ended up here in prison, there’s one thing I need to do first if I remember my prison books right. Mind waiting a while?”

“No problem,” Magpie returns back to eating the slop in his bowl while Three takes both his bowls and walks off.

Before he can finish his meal, though, he hears a collective gasp from most current occupants of the cafeteria. When he looks up, he sees Three standing on the table in front of a heavily-built, muscular minotaur, looking intensely into his eyes.

Expecting the imminent crushing of Three, Magpie stands up just as Three hugs the minotaur’s wide neck and nuzzles him.

“I know you’re not a bad minotaur, and that you just made some poor decisions or got into the wrong company. They can’t be feeding you properly here, so you can have my portion because I eat love anyway, and I got one extra from that unicorn who volunteered for the prison band.”

With that done, Three sits back down on his haunches, smiling broadly at the minotaur.

Imprisoned: Making... friends.

“The last pony who made fun of me still can’t chew properly,” growls the minotaur, standing up with both his hands on the table and looking firmly at Three.

“Awww, sorry to hear that,” replies Three with genuine concern, “But hey, now you have more stew to share with him. I think that the lunch lady might even give us a sippy straw if we ask nicely.”

The minotaur glares, clearly as completely stumped as the rest of the cafeteria.

“Ummm...” Three looks around, finally coming to the conclusion that something isn’t as it should be, “I really mean it,” he raises the bowl up, “I can’t eat it, and you’re huuuuge, so your portion can’t be enough. I can give my bowl to the pony with bad teeth tomorrow too, so that you can have fun together again.”

“I broke his jaw.”

“Whaaaat?” Three’s eyes go wide, “Why would you do that? It’s so nasty outside with all the darkness and cold and everyone being super scared. If someone’s making fun of you in these sad times, they’re trying to make you laugh. It means they care.”

“Are you really that idio-” the minotaur stops. For some reason, the beaming yet puzzled face of the comparatively tiny changeling just doesn’t let him finish the sentence, “-that oblivious?” he softens the blow in the end.

Three chuckles, scratching his head.

“Yeeeah, I don’t know too much about stuff, especially the surface. Miss Gem and boss didn’t let me too far away from the hive on my own for a loooong time. Now I’m trying to help ponies get some proper food since the sun is gone, but we had a misunderstanding with mister Shiny Armor and we ended up here. Speaking of we,” Three raises his voice, “Hey, did anyone here see a nervous changeling mare with brown mane, tail, and that hard extra bit we changelings have around our barrels? She doesn’t bite and she’s really nice, but she gets scared easily.”

The minotaur’s eye twitches. In theory, the changeling is a pile of chitinous paste on the table, even with no wardens actually approaching yet. However, that theory is for some reason refusing to become an action.

Without really knowing why, the hardened criminals look around just in case they spot the mare Three’s looking for. As the silence continues, Three sighs and says:

“Nevermind then. Thank you very much for trying,” he looks at the minotaur now glaring at him with mouth open, “Oh right, sorry. I’m not gonna bother you further, the stew is getting cold.”

Humming to himself, he he hops off of the table, and trots back to Magpie staring at him with an expression of absolute incredulity, thus mirroring the entire cafeteria.

“How are you not dead?” whispers the griffon.

“I’ve been dead once. It’s dark and boring,” Three shakes his head, “I like being alive a lot more. That way, I can read all the books miss Gem brings me, I can listen to all the stories about everyone’s adventures on the surface, and the best part - I can hug all of you warm and squishy creatures,” he wraps his forelegs around Magpie’s barrel as well as his shackles allow him.

Rolling his eyes, Magpie wraps his wing around Three, and resumes eating, fully aware that he would have to be even more on guard now that Three decided to be his friend.

***

[Hi, booksy!]

I’ve made a friend today. Two friends, I mean, although I don’t know if mister Magpie counts, because he’s a friend of miss Gem and any friend of miss Gem is my friend too, so he’s technically been my friend for a while already even though we’ve never met face to face before today. He looks and sounds pretty grumpy, but if miss Gem likes him enough to travel around the world with him then he must be the best kind of goodie. The second friend is a minotaur, although I don’t know his name yet. It turns out the prison story books were right - if you go to the biggest guy you find and show dominance, you’ll be okay. I mean, I’m not sure what dominance means, because the only thing I can recall is miss One wearing this black rubber suit and running around with a riding crop, but I think my way was better. Besides, I don’t have a crop or a black corset, and it wouldn’t look good on the minotaur anyway. On boss? Sure. On miss One? Amazing. Miss Gem? No doubt in my mind. But I think mister minotaur would just look silly.

I’m a bit worried about Thirteen, and I hope she’s okay. I’ve seen few mares here too, so she might have found someone easier to talk to than all those pretty scary-looking stallions.

[Bye, booksy!]

“Exercise time! Get out the bed, you lazy asses,” the mean warden’s voice echoes through the prison hallway, immediately answered with voices from the cells varying from excited to angry, “It’s cold and dark outside, but that’s no reason for you to stay inside where it’s warm only due to the taxpayer money.”

Three’s immediately pressed against the barred cell door, smiling from ear to ear.

“We can go outside?!”

“Yaah!” the mean warden jumps when faced with Three’s mouth open wide to a degree that no other creature can achieve.

The smart warden walking behind him speaks up as his colleague heads down the hall, unlocking the cells.

“Not ‘can’, you must. The inner courtyard is filled with equipment for exercising, and you get a chance to socialize a little. Would be pretty stupid to, after you’ve served your time here, be let out as a total sociopath. Though most of these guys end up here because they are one in the first place.”

“Neat,” Three walks out of his cell, but the smart warden stops him with a poke in the chest.

“Leave the book and the pencil here. I don’t know how you keep getting it back, but leave it here for now. Several prisoners can be extremely dangerous with a sharp object within range, both to themselves and to others.”

“But what if I want to write into booksy?”

“What if a psychopath suddenly rips a pencil out of your leg hole and rams it into the eye of a pony next to him? Do you want that?”

Three shakes his head so vigorously it blurs, rushes back, puts the journal and his ever-sharp under the thin blanket, and pats the tiny bulge with the words:

“I’ll be right back, maybe with a story about how things are going outside.”

With that, Three rushes out of the cell and into the long line of prisoners escorted by several wardens.

“You are, without a doubt, the strangest prisoner I’ve ever had.” says the smart warden.

“Really? But I’m just a drone, that’s all. I’m not even that smart. You must have had some proper evil geniuses here. Like Mane-iac or Doctor Octohoof.”

“What or who are those?” the smart warden furrows his brows, “I’ve never heard either of those names.”

“Those are from comic books. Really old ones, I mean.”

“From pre-corruption era, I assume. You did say you were over two hundred years old. You don’t feel or look like it.”

“I moisturize,” Three grins.

The smart warden snickers, shakes his head, and leads the line of shackled prisoners through the complex.

The courtyard is big enough to comfortably accommodate the hundred-ish prisoners currently being unshackled in a boxed off area separated from the rest by a chain-link fence. Obviously, there’s no light coming from the sky, so the area is dark and gloomy, lit only by four big spotlights on the walls and numerous lamps scattered around.

“Yaaaay!” Three runs off as soon as he’s unshackled, hops into the air, and starts buzzing around.

Several pegasi are doing the same, enjoying the freedom for however long the outside time lasts. Three flies up higher to be able to spot Thirteen, because darkness isn’t a concern for changelings.

Talons grab his barrel, and pull him down a little.

“Hi, mister Magpie,” Three looks at the griffon holding him, “I’m looking for Thirteen.”

“Don’t fly too far up. There’s a magic barrier that will shock you, and dropping like a rock from this height isn’t exactly pleasant.”

“Oh, okay. Thanks for the warning. By the way, can you see Thirteen?”

“I can barely make out shapes where there isn’t direct lighting, much less identify a changeling,” he feels Three take a deep breath, and puts his second set of talons over his mouth, “Don’t even think about calling for her.”

“Mmmh?”

“Look, just trust me on this, okay?” Magpie looks Three in the eyes, “Don’t draw attention to yourself. You got lucky today in the cafeteria, but there are some real assholes here who will enjoy tormenting a little changeling like you the whole time you’re here.”

Three softly bites Magpie’s talons who lets his muzzle go.

“I can take care of myself… most of the time,” he pouts.

“And if they can’t get to you, they’ll get to anyone who might be your friend, understood? Can Thirteen take care of yourself as well as you can, hmm?”

That makes Three frown and, after a moment of thought, nod.

“Can you help me find her?”

“I’ll do few laps to stretch my wings, and then I’ll see if I can spot her. You just don’t do anything stupid or too flashy.”

“Alrighty,” Three nods, and flies downwards when Magpie lets him go.

No one seems to be paying him any attention, since ponies and all other creatures are busy either chatting or getting any exercise they can. A high-set monkey bar nearby is currently being used by the minotaur from the cafeteria doing pull-ups. With a smile, Three joins, flies up, grabs the bar with one foreleg, and begins pulling himself up with ease.

Up, down. Up, down. Up, down.

The minotaur huffs and drops.

“Hi,” Three waves at him with his free foreleg, not stopping his pull-ups, “Have you seen Thirteen, by any chance?”

“No. Buzz off,” the minotaur frowns, “I need space for a wide grip.”

“Oki!” Three resumes aimlessly floating around the courtyard.

After some time of circling by the walls, hoping that Thirteen would be hiding in the shadows, Three hears:

“Hey, changeling, down here!”

A group of six unicorns is sitting on a bench and looking at him while one waves at him to come down. Seeing no obvious downside, Three lands in front of them.

“Hello.”

“Hey,” the speaker of the group examines him, “We saw how you stared down the big guy in the cafeteria. We could use somepony with balls like that.”

“I don’t have balls, mister unicorn. Drones don’t need them most of the time. I mean, Six and Five do all that bedroom stuff a lot, I think. Miss One showed me the basics, but I haven’t found anyone else to do that with.”

The unicorn blinks in confusion before shaking his head.

“Nevermind, I mean that if you need some friends in here, we’re the unicorn brotherhood. We can get you cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, and we can make sure no one tries to touch you in the showers.”

“Sure,” Three nods, “It’s always nice to have friends. Can you get love crystals too? I mean, not for me, but Thirteen is bound to get hungry, and getting love here won’t be that easy.”

“Of course,” the unicorn smiles, “However, if we help you, you need to show your allegiance to us. A little… proof that you’re on our side.”

“O-kaaay?” Three tilts his head.

“First, you need to wear the proper colors to that everyone knows you’re with us,” he turns his cheek, his horn flashes, and red markings appear on his face, “Magic-sensitive paint.”

“Yay! Can you make me look like a kitty?” Three hops up and down in excitement, “Boss always says that I sleep on his back like a cat anyway.”

“No!” hisses the unicorn, “That mark is one from the ancient times when the world order was as it should be. Unicorns ruling the damn birdbrains and mudponies.”

“Fiiine, but just because I want everyone to be friends...” frowns Three at the unicorn’s choice of words.

“Good,” the unicorn nods to the others, “Colts?”

Three of them quickly walk over, pull out a pouch from somewhere, and trace several lines on Three’s face.

“Step one, complete,” the leader nods, “Now for the real business to take care of. That minotaur beat up an associate of mine, and I want him to pay for it.”

“Oh, the guy who needs a straw to drink soup?” everything finally clicks into place for Three.

“Exactly,” the unicorn chuckles, “To prove you’re our friend and for help in making sure your changeling lady friend’s stay in the prison is… tolerable, you’re going poison that cow brain.”

As Three immediately opens his mouth with a horrified expression, the unicorn raises his hoof.

“You wouldn’t want us to make sure little scared Thirteen’s stay in this prison is unpleasant now, would you? We can do that too.”

Author's Note

Seriously, who would have ever guessed Three would be in a prison gang?

Imprisoned: No evil allowed!

“NO!” yells Three, digging his forelegs into the ground, “You’re meanies! You’re mean and bad ponies if you want to hurt someone even though there’s already so much pain and trouble in the world!”

The unicorns crack their necks as one, and fan out around the drone. The other prisoners out here have learned that sticking their noses into the business of others leads to shiv-based trouble, so while everyone in the safe distance is watching, no one is even thinking of helping the soon-to-be crumpled ball of chitin.

“Calling us names, and after we wanted to be friends with you?” the unicorn leader smirks, “I guess you need a lesson in manners.”

“I’m not going to be friends with bad ponies who want me to poison a minotaur just because he’s a grump and doesn’t like being made fun of! You can make a joke where you can laugh with him, not at him, but if you’re nasty for no reason then… then.. then I...”

“Yeees?” the unicorn’s smirk only widens as he takes a step to Three.

“Then I won’t ever hug you no matter how nicely you ask!” Three glares at the unicorn who glances at the others.

“Colts, I guess we can’t leave a threat like that unanswered, can we?”

He casually shoves Three with his foreleg, which for some reason feels like trying to move a mountain. As he pushes himself away, his smirk turns into a scowl, and he cocks his hoof backwards, following it with a furious right hook.

Three ducks under it, bending his stubby legs, and shuffling backwards.

“Boss…?” he looks around, eyes widening in terrifying realization that right now he really is alone.

As all the unicorns charge towards him, he squeaks, turns around, and flees. The other inmates hastily scatter to make space, not wanting to get involved, and in few cases already betting on the result. So far there are zero bets on Three who decides that shadows are his friend, and pumps his legs as quickly as he can to the darkest part of the courtyard.

The ground is simply dirt so heavily stomped it’s almost like concrete, but to a changeling drone literally made for digging it may as well be butter. It takes only a casual flick sideways of his hind leg with the proper love enhancement, and the hoof-deep groove completely hidden in the darkness is born. Number two and three quickly follow.

The leader of the unicorn brotherhood is charging like an enraged bull when he twists his fetlock on something he can’t see and crumples on the ground. While one of his brethren has fast enough reflexes to, jump over him, he’s not agile enough to avoid kicking his boss in the head on the way, which surprises them both to say the least.

Few seconds later, Three darts away from a pile of unicorns either groaning or spitting insults and death threats at him. Right as he gives a final glance to see that chasing him has become a secondary problem for the unicorn brotherhood, with the leading issue on the agenda being their leader’s broken leg, chipped ribs, few missing teeth, and a light concussion, Three runs into something that feels like a tree trunk.

He bounces off, lands on his butt, shakes his head, and looks up to face the stern eyes of the only minotaur in prison.

“You’re starting to get in the way too often, changeling,” he growls, “And what was that tidbit I caught about poison?”

That makes Three frown as he looks at the unicorn pile again.

“I wanted to make friends with the unicorn brothers, and at first it was fun. We had a chat, we made face painting, even though they didn’t want me to look like a kitty, but then they went all angry and wanted me to poison you or they’d hurt Thirteen.”

The minotaur lets out a single dark chuckle.

“From what it looks like, it didn’t work out too well for them,” he cracks his fingers, “And if I get a moment with any of them alone, I’m going to make sure they regret their… foolish decision.”

The menacing mood ends as he feels two forelegs clamp around his leg.

“Nu-uh!” Three shakes his head, holding the minotaur so tight it makes even him wince, “I want to make the lives of ponies better. That’s why boss sent me and Thirteen up here. If we all get mad at each other all the time, then it just makes this vicious circle of everyone trying to take revenge for what the other side did before. Boss went through all that with bad mom and when ponies hated changelings after bad mom invaded Canterlot, and it only stopped when we powered through and stopped the senseless pain and violence and then we all became friends… for a while. I’ve been through that, it even got me killed once, and it never gets better if we don’t… if we don’t… let go.”

“You let go!” the minotaur kicks his leg, trying to shake Three off, which proves completely impossible.

“Only when you promise you won’t be like miss One used to be and punch anyone without thinking. Now she punches only baddies, and when she does, they stay punched. Forever. She once punched this huuuge killer demon so hard in the melons it unsummoned itself. It was on a bet with miss Comfort, but it still counts.”

“I’ll show you punch-”

“Aaaand let’s stop it right there,” two sets of talons wrap around the minotaur’s face from behind, one of each pointing right at his eyeball. Magpie doesn’t need to finish the threat for the minotaur to lower his arm with utmost care.

“Good, smart minotaurs are hard to find these days,” adds the griffon, hovering with the help of his wings to reach the minotaur’s head height, “And, before we end this on a friendly note. I’ve spent a looong time in the blood arena of minotaur headhunter tribes, those few frothing insane ones who haven’t been hunted down by the united clans in Rift. I’ve killed minotaur warlords that would make you piss your pants with one look, so take this as my one and only warning. If you try to do something to Three, to this Thirteen we have yet to see, or if you, let’s say, feel the need to… find me where no wardens are watching, I will be more than happy to make sure the cycle of violence ends once and for all.”

“Mister Magpie-”

“Shut it, Three! And stop humping his leg.”

“...Iwasn’thumping...” grumbles Three, but lets the minotaur go.

With a careful flap of his wings, the griffon lands two pony lengths away from the minotaur just in case he tries to take a swing at him. He’s fully aware that the minotaur is stronger, heavier, and bigger than him, but there is zero chance he has more combat experience in this particular kind of fight. Nothing Magpie said was exaggerated in the slightest.

Two crystal earthpony wardens are now tending to the unicorn brotherhood, namely to their leader currently being slung over one warden’s back with little care, and carried away.

Three buzzes up to the minotaur’s head height, lowers his head, and gives him an apologetic smile.

“I’m sorry for bumping into you-”

“Oh for Emperor’s sake!” Magpie facetalons.

“-but I really mean it. Two told us down in the hive that ponies are super scared about what’s going to happen now that the sun is gone. No one knows how things are going to be when food runs out, and we had some underground friends who don’t eat love and can grow food in the darkness, so Thirteen and I went to princess Candy with blueprints for those machines so that she can build them and share with everyone - ponies, griffons, minotaurs, zebras, everyone who needs them. Boss says we’re partly responsible for the darkness and all that evil, but all I want is to help whomever I can.”

The minotaur glares, then he turns away with a snort.

“If somepony touches or threatens you or your friend, tell me. I’ll make sure they quickly learn the magic of friendship… or else. And you owe me food.”

As the minotaur walks away, Magpie’s beak drops open.

“I’ve seen a snake take a piss, airship go in reverse, and a Corrupted play a banjo, but you take the cake, Three...”

“Umm, I don’t remember anything like that, but boss told me never to take anything without permission, so if I took it, I was allowed to.”

[Hi, booksy!]

So, booksy, outside time is over. As it turns out, we get two hours per day, which is just about right for me. I like tunnels and being inside more anyway, but it’s nice to stretch my legs. This cell is kinda tiny.

Still, I think mister minotaur is warming up to the idea of not being angry all the time, and mister Magpie is totally on my side. It bothers me that I haven’t seen Thirteen, but I’m not panicking yet. You see, I have this theory about her, which is that if she really doesn’t want to be found, she won’t be. It’s the same like with the juggling and singing. I think that if she doesn’t try too hard and get nervous, which must have been really difficult home with all the badasses around who pushed her too hard, she can do amazing things.

It’s like with her hiding inside the generator. There’s no way anyone could get in and tighten the screws and all the little bits on the chassis behind her from the inside afterwards, which leaves only magic. Only Two can use her own special kind of magic, and Seven has all the magic knowledge because of the curse he got all those years away, but he’s not powerful as such. As far as I know, neither of them had any success in teaching Thirteen even the most basic light spell.

Se yeah, I think that she just didn’t want to be found so much that we just… didn’t find her, really. I hope I’m right, and she’s not hurt somewhere.

I KNOW! I should just ask the smart warden about her. You’re so helpful, booksy. I always get the best ideas when I’m writing into you.

Anyway, I shared my dinner with mister Magpie and mister minotaur who refuses to tell me his name for some reason. He says it’s a minotaur thing and that I wouldn’t understand. Now we have some free time, and last thing before bed is to have a shower. I asked is I could draw a bit at night, but the mean warden yelled at me that they’re not going to let lights on just for me. When I told him I can do it in complete darkness too since I’m a changeling, he just screamed and ran off.

I’ll take that as a maybe.

[Bye, booksy!]

“I am a drone, and I’m digging a hole. Diggy diggy hole...” Three’s scrubbing himself with a scourer in the communal showers under a stream of lukewarm water from the nozzle above.

There are no separators between the nozzles, so there’s no privacy for anyone, and a shadow falls on Three from behind, followed by a smaller click as a block of soap lands in front of him.

“Looks like I dropped something,” says an unfamiliar voice, which Three identifies with a quick glance over his shoulder as a big, white, black-striped stallion. From the stories he heard, he could be one of those zebras, probably a refugee from the recent massacre in Zebrica, “Care to pick it up for me?”

“Sure.”

As Three reaches for it, he feels the stallion’s foreleg on his back pressing him down. A moment later, a second foreleg gropes his butt... and stops.

“Hay, where’s the hole?!” asks the zebra.

“I only have leg holes in my forelegs. I tried storing booksy and crayons in my back legs, but I couldn’t reach properly.”

“I’m talking about ass, changeling. Your whole race are basically sentient sex toys, so why is there no hole, even if you’re a male?” the zebra pokes him.

“Ohhh, I don’t need it,” Three pushes himself up with ease despite the zebra’s weight, “I eat love. It leaves no mess.”

“I need-”

The weight from Three’s back disappears as the zebra finds himself being held up by the scruff of his neck by the minotaur.

“You okay, Three?” he asks.

“Mhm,” he offers the soap back to the zebra flailing in the minotaur’s grip, “Here’s your soap, mister stripey.”

“You can keep it as a present,” replies the minotaur instead, “I’ll keep this guy. I could use a hole after today.”

“Wait wait wait-” protests the zebra, which makes the minotaur only tighten his grip and turn his objection into a croak.

“One more word and it’s without lube.”

The zebra only gulps and goes limp, which the minotaur takes as a sign of defeat, and carries him off.

Three shrugs, feeling no enmity anywhere around, and goes for a re-scrub of his whole carapace now that he has proper soap. It takes some time, and he finds himself alone in the showers, at least for some time. He looks up as he hears hoofsteps approaching, and after wiping soapy bubbles from his eyes, he recognizes one of the unicorns from the unicorn brotherhood walking straight towards him.

“Um... hello?” he tilts his head as the unicorn stops in front of him.

“You’ve made a huge mistake, bug,” the unicorn shakes his head, and takes his suppressor off, revealing to Three’s drone sense for material composition that it’s a fake one made of simple iron. The unicorn’s soap box clicks, and two sharp blades fly out.

“Why are you so angry?” Three scuttles backwards until his back hits the wall, “I just wanted to be a friend.”

“There’s a pecking order in here that you’re obviously too stupid to understand, and making a fool of us in front of everypony is something you won’t do a second time,” growls the unicorn as his first shiv hits Three straight in the neck...

...and bends harmlessly against his chitin.

“See? Now you’re going to be mad because your tiny knife broke and I didn’t mean it at all. Can’t we just get along?”

“Let’s see how your bucking eye is then!” the unicorn punches Three in the face, and his horn lights up with telekinetic power.

The second shiv fails to move, currently being held in Magpie’s talons.

“I was wondering when one of you morons would try something,” he shakes his head.

“Don’t mess with a unicorn, bird brain!”

The shiv glows as it heats up…

...until Magpie quickly grabs the unicorn’s horn with his second foreleg.

“Strike one,” says the griffon.

“I’ll bucking flay you-” snarls the unicorn.

“Strike two. Bye.”

“Mister Magpie?” Three looks at the scowling griffon, “I think he learned his lesson and-”

“Not yet,” he grips the horn tighter…

...and twists.

Light fades as the unicorn’s bone breaks off. He collapses, starts throwing up, which Magpie only helps by kicking him in the gut.

Three shuffles away, still wet and soapy.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want it to end like this,” he mumbles.

“I give one second chance, only one,” Magpie scoops the unresisting changeling with one foreleg. Three wiggles free, and hops onto his back instead, “Most of the times I tried more resulted in another scar, and they ache really bad on cold days.”

“...why can’t we all just work together…?” sighs Three.

“You can trace every problem or motivation back to fear, Three. Either for oneself, or for others.”

“So if no one has to fear anything, they’ll all be happy?”

“I’m pretty sure the idiots will just find something else to be unhappy with.”

“But if we solve one big thing that ponies are afraid of, like the thinning supply of food, we’ll make things a lot better, right?”

“I suppose you don’t have a spare sun in some back pocket, do you?”

“One hug at a time, mister Magpie.”

Imprisoned: Fragmented story.

It’s the next morning, and Three’s carefully cleaning his teeth with the soap he got yesterday. It doesn’t taste as good as those minty toothpastes from Brauheim, but with some water it gets the job done.

He giggles as he hiccups out a stream of bubbles.

Today is shaping out to be much better than yesterday already, or at least no one else currently in the communal bathroom seems to be outright angry. Magpie is there, looking into the only reinforced mirror on the wall with bleary eyes. He clearly isn’t a morning griffon. The minotaur is there too, already finished, but openly eyeing several mares taking care of themselves.

If the day goes like yesterday, it’s going to be breakfast next, and Three’s more than happy to split his portion with Magpie and the mino. Not having access to any external source of love might bother a different changeling, but Three… Three hasn’t had that problem in ages. He gives love to everyone, and he gets a lot back, even if it’s difficult to admit for some. Besides, changeling drones don’t need much when they’re not working.

Checking his love levels and finding himself a-okay, Three eventually gets to the cafeteria. However, instead of standing in the queue, he suddenly bolts forward, pounces over the nearest table and its occupants with the help of his wings, and slides under the one next to it with forelegs spread.

“Thirteeeeeeen!” he hugs the mare hiding under it, paralyzed by the chitinous bullet headed for her.

“He he heh… hi, Three,” she returns the embrace with some hesitation.

“Why are you down here?” Three tilts his head.

“I… umm… I had some bad encounters yesterday, and I’d rather not get noticed again.”

“Oooh, come on! I’ll show you to my friends. They’re awesome and big, and they can help you if you get into trouble.”

“I’m not sure about-” she protests, but Three is already pulling her foreleg. With a sigh, she slinks from under the table, and rises to her full height. Considering she’s taller than any other pony here, and overall only smaller than Magpie and the minotaur, it had to be a miracle she remained unseen whole day yesterday. It had to.

“And now we can share more of our food with them, which will make them even happier,” Three lets her go, and leads Thirteen to the queue where they get their a bowl of simple oats with milk and a slice of bread each.

It takes Thirteen a moment to realize that Three really is leading her to the huge minotaur sitting alone at the central table.

“Eeep!” he brain catches up with the situation, she trips over her own legs, and drops the bowl floating next to her, spilling its contents. A warden comes over with a rag which he tosses at Thirteen, “I’m sorr-”

“Clean it, and you’re not getting another portion,” he remains standing over her as she wipes the floor while Three sets his bowl next to the minotaur’s, and waves across the cafeteria at Magpie who walks over with his own breakfast, sitting across the table from the minotaur who gives the griffon only a single slightly annoyed glance.

When Thirteen is finished, she sits down next to Three, staring quietly at the mostly empty bowl with the piece of bread in it, not daring to catch the look of anyone examining her, which at the moment is only Magpie.

The griffon slides along the bench until he’s across from Thirteen, lowers his head to look her in the eyes, and says:

“I don’t think Gem ever mentioned you.”

“Eheh...” Thirteen scratches her head, “I’m- I’m not exactly worth mentioning.”

“Thirteen is miss Gem’s sister,” Three beams at Magpie who chokes on his bread, “I mean, miss Gem is a looot older, just few weeks younger than I am, really.”

“You are older than Gem...” Magpie gives him a straight up disbelieving look.

“Yeah, bad mom gave birth to boss and me right before the changeling attack on Canterlot some...” Three counts on his hooves for a moment, his mouth moving quietly, “Two hundred and seventy years ago, give or take. Boss and I kinda had to walk all the way from bad mom’s hive, we met miss One on the way, and soon after that she fell in love with the boss, they did that thing drones normally don’t get to do, and miss Gem hatched from their egg. Thirteen is just like that, but instead of hatching from just a normal egg, miss One said Thirteen hatched from a queen egg.”

“So you’re even more powerful than Gem?” Magpie leans closer to Thirteen who is trying to make herself look as small as possible.

She shakes her head.

“I’m not as powerful as even a single hair of Gem’s mane, mister griffon. I’m kinda… our hive’s screw-up.”

“Call me Magpie,” he offers his talons to shake which Thirteen hesitantly accepts.

“Thirteen, heh, but you already know that. Three must have told you,” turning her head, she catches Three looking at her, at her bowl, and then back at her again, “Oh, oh right,” Thirteen pushes what remains of her breakfast to Magpie, “Ehh, do you want my portion? I kinda just eat love, and sitting next to Three is already helping enough. I’m sorry, it’s been on the floor-”

“Thanks,” Magpie interrupts her stuttered out offer, immediately snatching the offered bowl, “They don’t serve meat here, so even extra bread helps a ton. Feeding oats and milk to a griffon day after day should be a crime.”

“N-No problem. I’ll try not to spill my portion at lunch if you want more,” Thirteen gives him an apologetic smile, “Can’t promise anything, though. My head and legs just… don’t cooperate.”

“Sorry to hear that. Did something happen to you?”

“Just born all wrong, I suppose...”

“Well, if you need help, any friend of Gem is a friend of mine. I owe her a lot.”

Sudden commotion from the cafeteria entrance makes them look up. A mix of nine ponies in Hex Guard, Royal Guard, and Nightguard armors with added gas masks walk inside in lockstep, followed by a white, muscular unicorn mare with a booty that even gods would murder for. Her mane and tail look as if they were made of living fire, and her orange eyes immediately lock on Three. The guards form a corridor as she picks up the pace and walks over to Three’s table, completely ignoring the few appreciative whistles from stallions around.

“What do you want, Prominence?” Magpie scowls at her.

“I want all three of you,” she points at Three, Thirteen, and Magpie, “Gem and Harriet are already secured in a private room where we’ll be able to talk.”

“Wait, Harriet has been here all along too?” Magpie stands up, which makes the nearest guard aim a spear at him. The griffon gives him an annoyed grumble, “Oh yeah, give me a mace and I’ll school all nine of you.”

“We got Harriet at the same time we caught you, and I had to capture Gem a week later. They’ve both been here in special holding cells with their own Hex Guard escort for a while.”

“If I’m to be technical, why aren’t you in a cell where you belong about as much as we do?” Magpie crosses his forelegs on his chest.

“Shut up, idiot,” Prominence rolls her eyes, “Now, are you going to come quietly?”

“Mmmm...” Thirteen hangs her head low, and stands up.

Three trots atop the table to Prominence, and stretches out his foreleg.

“We didn’t talk back in the hive. I’m Three, and you’re big and super pretty.”

Prominence looks him up and down, and says:

“Get going, I’m not having a chat here. You too, catbird, and stop staring daggers at me. If it helps move things along faster, I am the reason you are still alive. Celestia wanted you to hang for high treason, and to napalm these guys’ hive. Thankfully, Twilight has the final say in what gets done, and she was a lot more reasonable than old Gluteus Solaris.”

“...napalm our hive…?” croaks Three, “...princess Sunny…?”

Prominence nods towards the cafeteria door.

“Move!”

This time she doesn’t wait. She just turns around and walks out in full knowledge that Three, Thirteen, and Magpie are all right behind her.

They follow Prominence through the prison, and down several staircases into well-lit, white, and sterile hallways lined not with standard barred doors, but heavy metal ones with barely a slit in them. Eventually, they reach a dead end with the heaviest looking doorway which makes Three’s nose itch.

“Magic?” asks the drone. He doesn’t get any answer, but the horns of the leading two guards flash, and only after that the door opens on its own. What greets them is a simple, mostly empty square room with only a single table screwed to the floor like those in the cafeteria, although this one doesn’t have a bench on each side, rather many metal chairs with straps and chains tied to them.

Only two of those chairs are occupied, one near each end of the table so that the prisoners in them can’t cooperate in any way. Both of the chained and tied up equines are mares, both possess absolutely stunning physique, and both immediately look at Prominence as she enters, one with visible confusion, and one narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

The first mare is a black changeling whose chitin is decorated with grey, zebra-like stripes. Overall, she looks like a clop magazine model with a perfect hourglass figure, and the kind who could easily make stallions drool with a simple glance even though she’s slouching in the chair too small for her height and the width and fullness of her hips. Her mane and tail are smooth, white, and streaked with grey and pink, managing to look more like liquid silver than simple hair. Even as she’s sitting down, it’s obvious that if she stood up, the would be the tallest pony in the room.

The second mare is much broader, about Prominence’s and Magpie’s height, and no one could ever miss the fact that she is a Corrupted. In fact, she is a corrupted dragonpony, probably the only one in existence. Like most Corrupted, her whole body is black with oily sheen, but her draconic heritage also gives her a line of black scales with red undertone from the tip of her muzzle up to her forehead, down her neck and along the spine to the base of her tail, and up to her thigh on each leg. Also, her forelegs don’t end in hooves, but in a set of claws each. Her mane and tail are also black, but just like her scales they bear the dim shading of the purple they used to be before she got corrupted. Her build could be summed up by strong and a little chubby, obviously someone used to hard work and good food as well, which gives her toned musculature all over her body other than a slight chub around her belly, and a booty even the changeling mare, Prominence, or even princess Celestia herself would be jealous of.

There is also one detail a knowledgeable observer would notice about both mares, which is that none of the shackles and straps holding the mares would last for more than few seconds if either of them decided to escape.

“Miss Harriet! Miss Gem!” Three darts forward between the guards’ legs, and hops onto the table. One guard raises his spear, but a quick shake of Prominence’s head makes him lower it again.

Magpie walks past the guards, and sits down into the nearest chair of his own volition while Thirteen rushes over to the changeling mare - Gem, who is currently smiling as Three’s hugging her chest like a tick and nuzzling her neck. Soon, Three pushes himself off, and rushes off to the Corrupted, not acting as intimate, rather just booping her nose with his which makes her eyes tear up, although just like Gem she starts smiling.

Prominence lets this go on for few moments before clearing her throat.

“Everyone, I hate to interrupt the family and friends reunion, but this is serious,” she looks at everyone as the guards fan out around her, “First, Gem, please don’t try any nonsense with pheromones, hypnotic eyes, voice, or anything. I think I know your tricks fairly well, which also means I’m one hundred percent sure that if you wanted you would have escaped this facility within a day from when we caught you. But just in case, the masks these guards are wearing have toned glasses, ear mufflers, and air filters. And you, Harriet, how are you on the good old sanity and self-control?”

“Having all those strong guards around isn’t helping, and my whole body feels really weird when I’m cooped up down here, but I’m not going to go crazy any time soon, especially now that this little bundle of pure happiness is here,” six tentacles erupt from her back, and tickle Three. This makes Thirteen twitch and try to move one chair away from Harriet, which lands her on Magpie’s lap.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” she pushes herself up, trips on the chair in front of her, and goes splat on the floor, “I fink I bit my tongue...”

Prominence raises an eyebrow, nods at Harriet, and orders:

“Untie and unshackle her.”

“Prominence?” a guard looks at her, not moving.

“Look, if she wanted, she could rip the damn chair out of the floor, but Harriet is a good girl who probably has zero idea why she’s here,” explains the unicorn, which is enough for the guard to untie Harriet, “Feel free to stretch your legs.”

“To be frank, I could do with a refresher myself, really,” Magpie shrugs.

Prominence sighs, and starts pacing back and forth.

“Where do I even begin?”

“I, umm,” Thirteen, now sitting on the floor, raises her foreleg, “Why would ponies send me and Three to prison when dad sent us to help by giving you the technology to grow food without the sun?”

“I see, so you really don’t know anything? Especially why the sun is gone in the first place?”

Other than Gem, they all shake their heads. Prominence notices, though.

“Gem?”

“Look, Promi,” the gorgeous changeling sighs, “We’ve been friends for few years already, and I know that you know that you can trust me. I know what happened. Dad told me how our hive got involved, and you were with Magpie, Packy, Harriet, and me in Zebrica during the massacre. I just don’t know why any of it happened, that’s the problem. Just start in the beginning, and maybe we’ll figure something out. I assume you hunting all of us down has something to do with you talking to Twilight, Luna, and Celestia about their side of the story.”

Prominence chuckles mirthlessly.

“Yep, excellent deduction as usual. Alright then, I’ll try to make it brief. Last year, a pony by the name Flow started attacking secret vaults guarded by ponies from all branches of the Guard, gathering several artefacts. By all means, he was invulnerable to any attacks and magic, and was using some kind of power no one had any idea how to stop. Luna fought him once, and got really badly hurt while achieving nothing. We learned that the artefacts he was gathering were keys to an ancient seal north of the Crystal Empire which kept a void creature called the Herald locked away. Despite our best attempts to stop or at least slow Flow down, he managed to gather the keys to the seal, and he attacked the fortified camp we set up at the site of the seal,” she looks straight at Gem, “And as you undoubtedly know, the changelings from your hive as well as the minotaurs from Rift and few other factions were on Flow’s side during the attack. Do you know anything about that, Gem?”

The changeling nods, and Three’s ears perk up. Finally, he would hear the full story.

“From what dad showed me in his hive mind memories, Flow appeared one day in front of him, threatening to massacre all of us if we didn’t do what he said. Mom and dad tried to fight him,” Gem shakes her head, “She got hacked to pieces, dad got badly hurt too, and he agreed to do what Flow said after that show of force. I know the way I’m telling it doesn’t do it justice, but if there’s someone who can brush off mom and dad as if they were flies, they could end all of us as well as the dwarves. And that’s what he wanted. He wanted dwarf technology, specifically anything related to weird crystals called istrium. How he got to know about us, I have no idea.”

“I do!” Three waves his foreleg, making everyone’s jaw drop.

“Y-You do?” Gem blinks several times, “How?”

“Remember mister Cromach, boss’ griffon friend? He told him.”

“Cromach?” asks Prominence, “How did Cromach know about you and the dwarves? I thought no one on the surface was supposed to know dwarves even exist.”

“It’s a long story from centuries ago,” Gem shakes her head, “During dad’s first summit of the world rulers in Canterlot, we stopped a lich who was trying to assassinate the princesses. Unfortunately, Cromach learned about us and the dwarves during the event. We thought any rumors and knowledge about the dwarves would die with him, but who would have guessed we would stumble upon a griffon that would turn out to be immortal? Also, he’s not exactly dad’s friend. I think they did get along in the end, but Cromach was pretty much blackmailing us to give him and his Silver Sun organization any dwarven technology he needed in exchange for him keeping us secret.”

“Now it makes sense,” Prominence nods.

“Not to me, really,” Gem, now also unrestrained, crosses her forelegs on her chest, “I know Cromach, Desert Shade, and some Corrupted called Heavy Hoof wanted to revive Flow after we killed him right before Seven and Mistake broke the seal and released the Herald, but I have no idea why any of that happened in the first place.”

“Throwing a little too many names around here, Prominence,” Magpie drums his talons on the table.

“Considering what you said and what I learned from Celestia, I think I can piece the story together. Let’s start with the names then. Does Blazing Light ring a bell?”

“Sounds familiar, but I can’t place it,” says Three, “I think I heard it from the boss at some point.”

“Blazing Light was Cromach’s lover who died a long time ago while stopping the return of the mad god Harmony. We don’t know how it happened, but he was Flow. From what Gem said, I think Flow or Blazing, however we want to call him, learned about your hive from Cromach.”

“No,” Gem shakes her head, “I can’t explain, but I’m pretty sure Cromach had no idea that Flow was Blazing right until the end. Besides, Cromach hasn’t been with the Silver Sun for over a year. Desert Shade was the one working for Flow.”

“Cromach’s Order of the Silver Sun was involved. Luna was investigating several clues tying Silver Sun to Flow, which led to the discovery that someone was diverting Silver Sun money and paying Desert Shade.”

“That’s the mean hippogriff lady,” adds Three.

“Trust me, we all know,” growls Prominence, “That bitch ambushed us and sold us to zebra slavers. If I ever see her again, she’s about to get a sunburn that no amount of SPF will help with,” she shakes her head, “Nevermind.”

“Alright, so Flow was Blazing Light, and someone who knew about Cromach’s deals with dad’s hive was paying Desert Shade who worked for him,” summarizes Gem, “Why did they want to release the Herald in the first place? They saved the world more than once, why would they want to destroy it?”

“Well, that’s the thing...” Prominence shakes her head, “I suppose you don’t know what happened on the surface after we brought the dragon to your hive, right?”

“I, mister Cromach, that black alicorn lady, and that nice earthpony Corrupted were sent into a pocket dimension,” Three speaks up.

Prominence facehoofed.

“Oh my bucking god, that’s right! I completely forgot that you went with them. Alright, Three, talk.”

“The pocket dimension felt super sad. It was a park inside the ruins of a big city, and we met a unicorn. All dark blue with pink eyes.”

“Mistake,” nods Gem, “the guy who was leading the army massacring Zebrica.”

“He didn’t feel like a baddie, though,” Three sighs, “More like a goodie who got hurt really, really bad. Much like mister Cromach, actually. Anyway, he admitted that all the killing and pain in Zebrica was a distraction as well as a source of power for something big. Then he talked with mister Cromach, and when I hugged Mistake, there was a huge explosion of black fire nearby, and something flew away.”

“A distraction to allow Flow gather the seal keys while we were dealing with refugees fleeing Zebrica,” Prominence nods, “And the explosion was Flow getting resurrected after we killed him, and returning to the real world. You see, when Flow faced me and the princesses, he got killed by Cromach, Luna’s son, and some paladin. Unfortunately, at the same time Mistake and Seven finally broke the seal, released the Herald, and teleported away. Then you, Gem, wanted us to do the thing with the dragon which led to Flow’s return. Before I ask anything, I’ll just finish the story. When Flow returned, he destroyed the Herald instantly. Do you understand? All alicorns and a battalion of unicorns could do against the Herald who opened a huge void rift above the Crystal Empire was to slow the spread of the rift down. Flow killed him with one strike. Just saying it to illustrate the sheer scale of power we’re talking about here. Everything would have been okay if it ended there and then, but then Flow, somehow, ripped the rift open even further.”

“And that swallowed the sun?” asks Gem.

“Not right there and then. A strange creature Luna later identified as Nightmare, one of the three gods of Equus who possessed her over a millennium ago, appeared. She tried to close the rift too, but Flow fought her, and then they both disappeared. The rift opened wider, then everything went blue, and when the blue glow disappeared, stars, sun, everything was gone. Few moments later, Cromach appeared in a flash of light, carrying Flow with huge parts of his body disintegrated and necrotic. Celestia went berserk from the pain of losing the sun, and wanted to kill Flow as well as exhausted Cromach. Twilight stopped it, and instead opened the gate to Tartarus and sent Flow there. Cromach swore bloody revenge on Twilight and Celestia, and teleported away. So here’s what happened. As to why… your guess is as good as mine. Long story short, what Flow did destroyed the rest of the universe, your hive was the main force that helped it happen, and that’s why we’re here.”

“But boss sent us to help you,” objects Three, “And Seven felt really bad about what he was forced to do.”

“I want to believe you, I really do, but I think we’re past that. The sheer scale of the catastrophy isn’t something that feeling bad can alleviate,” Prominence lowers her head, “What I need is you contact your king and have him present himself to Twilight.”

“No way,” Gem shakes her head immediately, “Dad has too much on his plate already.”

“Gem, Celestia wants to send an army into your hive. This is the only way it can end without bloodshed.”

“No, you don’t understand, Promi,” Gem leans forward, “There’s nothing there. Our hive is gone, Brauheim is gone. We detonated everything. There’s no technology to salvage, there are no traces of anyone. All dwarves and our hive are weeks away from here. I don’t even know where. I specifically didn’t want to know where, just in case someone went after me. That’s why I wasn’t even trying to escape this place. I straight up don’t know anything that might harm dad and my hive.”

“But what about those two?” Prominence looks from Three to Thirteen.

“We split over a week ago,” Three shrugs, “and boss expected us to get caught, so we have no way to contact him. We’re supposed to stay in the Crystal Empire anyway to help build the farming machines. Besides, I want to help fix everything!”

“Unless you have a new sun in your pocket, I doubt we can resolve this amicably.”

“Well,” Three rubs his chin, “I mean, what if we talked to the super powerful Blazing Flow baddie who took the sun away and told him that he could be with mister Cromach if he gave the sun back?”

“...why do we even let him speak…?” whispers Magpie, facetaloning.

“Three, as much as I like you, even I think that’s stupid,” says Gem. Three’s eyes go wide, and he slumps on the table, his lower lip wibbling. Harriet pats his head for comfort when she notices that the purple glowing runes on his body grow dimmer. Not even this returns any perkiness to his floppy ears, though.

“So, what now, miss Prominence?” asks Harriet, “You know we didn’t know about any of that. You were in Zebrica with us when we tried to stop Mistake and his army. Are we going to stay locked in here for the rest of our lives?”

“Look, if it were up to me, I would let all of you go, but I can’t,” Prominence turns away, “Especially since Gem had us resurrect Flow without telling us anything about what we were doing.”

“I didn’t know what I was doing!” Gem rolls her eyes, “I literally locked my own memory away until my hive was leaving Brauheim. When I tracked Cromach and Heavy Hoof who caught Desert Shade, I just… I just couldn’t believe he was on the wrong side. I think we’re missing something here.”

“Thirteen and I have to stay with princess Candy,” peeps Three, “The machine blueprints aren’t in ponish, and we don’t know where to return anyway.”

“You know what?” Prominence sighs, “I’ll talk to Shining Armor and Cadance. If your machines are the real deal, the sooner we can mass produce them, the better. Harriet, if you promise to behave, I can tell the staff here to give you access to the inside gym. If they let you among inmates, they’ll go nuts after your body, and you’re either going to have to hurt someone or spread corruption. And you, Gem… I have to keep you here, but if there’s something I can do...”

“Let me have some time with Three every day,” says Gem immediately, “I’m getting hungry, and since I’m not allowed to feed from guards or inmates, our little hugbox here can help.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Prominence nods.

[Hi, booksy!]

Booksy, I think they’ve got it all wrong. I know when someone is a baddie and when they aren’t, and that unicorn Mistake I met wasn’t a baddie by any measure. Mister Cromach wasn’t a baddie at all either, though him threatening to hurt everyone is scary.

But I’ve got an idea now. First, we have to help build the farms, but then… we do have a friend in Tartarus after all - miss Comfort. Six and Five went to Tartarus once, so we should be able to as well, and we can talk to Flow, figure out why he did what he did, and tell him to help us fix the sun. A pony as powerful as he is must know how to fix what he caused.

We’re gonna make boss proud!

...even if miss Gem thinks I’m a dummy now.

[Bye, booksy!]

Imprisoned: Prisoner transfer

The ceiling light inside Thirteen’s solitary cell turns on, the door clicks, and two crystal unicorn wardens walk in, electrified blackjacks at the ready. When they don’t see anypony, they quickly exchange worried glances, and both come to a horrifying conclusion. If the changeling isn’t anywhere inside, then she must be above them, ready to lunge.

Pushing buttons on the handles their blackjacks to, as they say, light ‘em up, they hear the crackle of high voltage and blindly swing above their heads even before they look.

Nothing. The changeling isn’t there.

One of the right warden’s ears twitches as he hears something akin to a sigh from what just might be the only dark place in the room. He taps on the other warden’s shoulder before pointing his blackjack under the bed the metal legs of which are screwed to the floor like the vast majority of furniture in the prison.

Neither of the wardens is stupid enough to stick their heads under the bed where there might be a creature with enough teeth to make a shark beg for its mother. However, considering that the entire bed frame is made of metal, that there’s very little space under the bed, and that the mare imprisoned here is almost twice their height, one of them simply nods, presses the blackjack to the leg of the bed, and presses the button.

“EEEEP!” a black, chitinous blur shoots out from under the bed, hits the wall on the other side of the room at full speed, and bounces off, ending on its back, “Ughh...” Thirteen moans, eyes crossed and tongue lolling out from the side of her mouth.

She recovers from the shock quickly, though, as her semi-conscious mind catches the sight of two wardens standing above her, and gives her a mental kick. Sitting upright and raising her forelegs in front of her face, she peeks between her hooves at the two stern stares aimed her way.

“Why were you hiding there, prisoner?” asks one warden.

“I- I- I...” Thirteen takes a slow breath, “It’s dark and cramped. It feels like home,” she answers with a nervous chuckle, “Are- Are you here to interrogate me to find my hive? To...” she lowers her voice as her eyes go wide, “To beat any resistance out of me and use my body to satisfy yourself until I’m nothing but a drooling mess that so desperately needs your touch that I’m willing to betray my own kind just to feel you and other wardens have your brutish way with me?”

“W- What?” the wardens step backwards as one, “No!”

“...no one ever wants to use my body as a cock sock...” mumbles Thirteen to herself.

“Is she alright in the head?” asks a warden the other one, “Moving her might not be a good idea.”

“Orders from the top,” shrugs the other, and grabs slumped Thirteen’s shoulder, “Hey, changeling! You’re being transferred from solitary to a common cell. Move!” he pulls at her.

“Okay okay okay.” Thirteen breathes in and out, stands up, and takes a step forward while completely forgetting about the shackles on her legs, “Aaah!” she plants her face into the floor.

“Enough of this nonsense,” a warden pushes a small slider on his blackjack, and pokes Thirteen’s raised backside.

“Owowowowow!” her hind legs involuntarily push her forward through the door to get away from the sharp sting of electricity. Only then, as the wardens lock her cell, she gets the time to get back up on all fours properly.

Careful about taking shorter steps, she walks between the wardens through the corridors of the prison until she reaches more open areas with wider hallways on upper floors where she’s been only for mealtime and the terrifying activity time outside. Eventually, as one side of the hall turns out to be filled with barred doors allowing full view of inmates inside, Thirteen concludes that this is where the more common prisoners are kept.

A whistle from a cell she’s passing by makes her look at a mare who wiggles her eyebrows at her, and gives her underhoof a long, suggestive lick. Thirteen’s eyes snap down at the floor immediately, followed by a chuckle from the cell. As the prisoner transfer keeps going, more hollers, whistles, and rather descriptive offers reach Thirteen’s ears, making her blush.

“She’s enjoying it, Cadance almighty...” the warden on her left shakes his head.

“Race of four-legged fleshlights, really,” the other one rolls his eyes, stops, and tugs at Thirteen’s short tail. The sharp pull snaps Thirteen out of her private, unpleasant world and makes her give the warden a questioning glance, which he answers with, “We’re here. Your new ‘home’.”

Several clicks later, the barred door slide to the side, and another electrified poke, although this one clearly on the minimal setting, ushers Thirteen inside.

“Usual rules,” the warden raises his voice, “No violence and no you-know-what!”

“Uhh, don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt anyone-” Thirteen turns around to reassure the warden who only nods at the upper bunk of the two beds by one wall over which hangs a single taloned foreleg.

“Not exactly talking to you, changeling,” says the warden, “We dragged the last pegasus from here, and while I’m no doctor, that guy isn’t gonna be flying any time soon, if ever.”

Thirteen shuffles backwards into the far corner.

“Can I go back to the solitary, please?” she pleads, “I liked it there. It was quiet, I couldn’t mess anything up, hurt anypony, or-”

The sentence dies halfway through as the wardens simply lock the door and leave, ignoring her completely.

Alright, Thirteen. You’re on your own now. Five and mom taught you to fight a little, and even though you got beaten up within few seconds from both of them, that doesn’t mean ponies are going to be on their level. Calm down, breathe, and try to do things Three’s way… even though that’s what landed you in this mess in the first place.

Gathering her courage, she says:

“Hello?”

Magpie rolls over when he hears Thirteen’s familiar, hesitating voice, and sees no one in the cell. A look downwards at the bottom bunk doesn’t clarify the situation whatsoever.

“Yes?” he raises an eyebrow, “Thirteen, was it?”

“Mhm!” comes from under the bed.

“How did she…?” he hops off, and hears a gasp as he lands, “You’re as tall as I am, and even though you’re skinny, there’s no way you can fit under that without shapeshifting or dislocating something. Stop hiding, I won’t hurt you. Emperor’s talons, you know I’m Gem’s friend.”

“I’m flexible,” replies Thirteen, clearly from under the bed now, “Umm… is there less space in here than under the bed in the solitary?”

“Yep,” Magpie rolls his eyes.

“Theeeeen I think I’m stuck...”

After taking a deep breath, and a quick smack of his forehead against the bed frame, Magpie lies down on the floor, and tries in vain to understand the impossibility of Thirteen actually being somehow all underneath it with no bits sticking out.

“Ugh, fine. I’ll raise the bed, and you squeeze yourself out.”

“I think my hind leg is in my mouth,” the bed wiggles.

“HOW?!” Magpie’s eye twitches.

“I don’t know, I got scared! Please, don’t yell at me anymore…” the suddenly pleading voice adds a quiet, ”mom.”

“What?” after a quick facetalon, Magpies sighs, “Alright, do you want to stay there?”

“If you don’t mind… for a while...”

“Your call,” the griffon decides that he’s done enough caring for today, hops back up onto the top bunk with a flap of his wings, and can’t help the corner of his beak curling up when he hears a quiet ‘Oof!’ when the bed sags under his weight, “You still okay down there?” he asks after a moment.

“Just… practicing… fitting… into tight spaces...” wheezes Thirteen, clearly running out of breath on the last word.

“Alright, screw this! I’m not killing Gem’s sister on accident,” he jumps down again, “Look, the beds up here aren’t screwed down, because no one can use them to bash a warden’s skull in. I’m gonna pull you out.”

“Waitwaitw-hnnng!” Thirteen’s objection is rapidly cut off as Magpie hops up and down on the bottom bunk once, the changeling quickly getting on his nerves.

“Now, if you bite me or something,” he pauses, not wanting to freak out Thirteen further, “I’ll tell Gem about this.”

Sitting down on the floor, he heaves with one foreleg, pushing the bed upwards. With his other one, he reaches under it into what seems to be an indistinguishable mess of chitin. Touching something squishy, he pulls back, but when he doesn’t receive any response, he grabs the nearest thing he can, and pulls.

He lets out a sigh of relief when he sees that the squishy thing through which he threaded his talons was just Thirteen’s leg hole.

She doesn’t dare move, somehow having all four legs in front of her as if hogtied and twisted into a pretzel, she just keeps looking at Magpie with her brown eyes wide open.

“Can you move?” he asks, “Now that you’re out, I understand even less how you managed to fit in there.”

Thirteen’s legs twitch, and then-

“Uuugh...” Magpie leans backwards.

-with a set of sickening crunches, her legs twist and turn until the knots under her chitin snap into positions at least remotely resembling those of a pony.

“Owww,” Thirteen pushes herself up, stumbling around for a moment and hissing in pain, “I’ll feel this one tomorrow.”

“I think I’ve just tasted yesterday’s dinner again,” the griffon winces, “And I’ve slashed a minotaur’s jugular once with my beak.”

“Wait, really?” Thirteen sits down on the bed, and stretches her legs with a fresh set of crunches, “That’s so awesome!”

“What?” Magpie raises an eyebrow, “After Gem and Three, am I finally meeting the bloodthirsty part of your hive?”

“Heh heheh,” Thirteen scratches her head, “No no no, I don’t want to hurt anyone, but since I hatched, mom wanted me to learn to fight like she can, and it’s awesome to see someone who can do that. I did my best, but I’m just… a screw-up,” her excitement turns cold in an instant.

“Look,” Magpie waves his foreleg dismissively, “From what Gem told me about her- your mother, I’m pretty sure she could make me eat my own legs and then thank her for it. To be frank, one thing I admire about Gem the most aside from her ass is her aversion to violence. I’d try to be like her, but in absence of mind control and will-shattering sex appeal I usually resort to a mace.”

“Wouldn’t sword or a gun make it easier?”

“They would, and that’s exactly why I use a blunt weapon instead.”

“Should I just become a pacifist like Gem?” Thirteen leans against the wall, “That way I could tell mom I have a reason not to accept more of her attempts at training me.”

“Thirteen, I am really not the right griffon to talk to about life philosophy,” Magpie jumps onto his bunk, “So if you want to be a pacifist and you really believe its the right thing, be one, but from the look in your eyes, I doubt that’s the case. It’s none of my business, though.”

“I wish I knew what I was...” mutters Thirteen, “We have the most knowledgeable wizard, the strongest fighters in the world, the best technology known to ponies as well as griffons, and then there’s me. I even blew the interrogation yesterday.”

“What?” Magpie is just staring at the ceiling, but even this conversation is more interesting than just lying there and letting his mind wander, “You didn’t do or say pretty much anything.”

“Exactly,” Thirteen nods vigorously despite Magpie not being able to see her, “I didn’t defend dad or our hive or even object. Three did.”

“If it helps, nothing anyone said there made a good case for us. Even Gem couldn’t properly explain how she got that dragon idea which resurrected Flow. I mean, his revival saved our world while destroying the rest of the universe, and he was behind that whole Herald thing in the first place, but we’re still here and that counts for something.”

After a moment of silence, Magpie hears:

“And where Gem couldn’t make things better, what chance did someone like me have?”

The griffon only lies there, silent.

Why did she have to pick the least optimistic creature in this damn prison to open up to?

Author's Note

Let the awkward weirdness begin!

Imprisoned: Common denominator

Lunch is here, and Thirteen enters the cafeteria in the long queue of prisoners. It doesn’t look like anyone is about to pay her any attention, which is exactly what the shaky changeling needs at the moment. She ponders sitting under the corner table like during breakfast, but in the light of past events and the presence of her new cellmate nearby she opts to grab a bowl from the serving mare, and heads for the central table where the big minotaur is already sitting alone.

Sitting across the table from him for at least some semblance of safety in case all this turns out to be a really bad idea, she pushes her bowl towards the huge biped. He gives her a long look, and then he nods with a grunt Thirteen chooses to think of as approving.

Okay, what would Three do?

“Hello?” she looks up with her head lowered just above the table, “Three said you only looked mean, but deep down you were nice. W- What’s your name?”

“I only told that obtrusive little creature that I’d punch someone’s face off if you needed me to, not that I’d be some chat buddy for either of you,” he growls.

“Yeah...” she sighs, “Where Three failed, what could I do? Keep my portion anyway. I don’t think my cellmate likes me much. I’ll just sit here and enjoy a meal where no one tries to grope or hit me.”

Magpie silently sits down several seats away from them to their otherwise empty table. After few days of observation, it doesn’t seem to Thirteen that there’s actually too many prisoners in here, or at least those allowed to gather here in the company of others. Obviously, those like Gem or that strange Corrupted mare the others called Harriet would be too much to handle for normal wardens if they were only in shackles like the creatures here. Thirteen has never seen a Corrupted before, corruption barely spread that far past Crystal Empire, but there was some knowledge about them within the hive mind from Gem’s frequent travels, and most of it could be summed up to stay away. For some reason she doesn’t understand but is supposedly tied to an old story of infection her hive fought off a long time ago, they’re naturally extremely resistant to corruption, but that doesn’t mean they can’t have their heads chewed off by those powerful, tentacled creatures.

Some chewing later, the minotaur swallows and asks:

“You’re saying it as if you changelings were all the same, just better or worse. Is that a thing with the numbers instead of names? Three, Thirteen, and so on.”

He wants to talk to meeeee?

“Well, ehm, it’s not like that. I mean, it is, but it’s not enforced or anything. In the old days before dad and Three split off of queen Chrysalis’ hive, a changeling’s number was their rank.”

“Judging from the little guy and you, the higher the number the better, right?” he doesn’t seem interested at all, but as long as he’s willing to talk, Thirteen’s willing to explain.

“No, it’s the exact opposite,” Thirteen shakes her head, “Dad is the boss, mom is number One, and the new drones and warriors are numbers over one hundred.”

“So you and Three are supposed to be strong then?” he narrows his eyes.

Thirteen shakes her head even more vigorously than before.

“Not at all, at least I’m not. Three’s a bit… special. You see, dad remembers the time when we changelings were pretty much exactly as you described - the same but only better or worse, and the worse ones were just food for the higher ranks... or lower, to be accurate. In those times, I would have been eaten weeks after I hatched, if that. I’m not good at anything, and mom is possibly the best changeling warrior ever, which made things rather… bad at home,” she waves her foreleg, “I’m getting distracted. Can’t even concentrate properly. Aaanyway, dad wants us to find our own names based on what we like, showing us that we can be individuals rather than just numbers to be used up. Most of us still haven’t found the right name, few like Seven don’t particularly care, and then there’s Five, Two, and One, my mom, who keep the number as a mark of honor and achievement. Mom had to fight through the ranks of the old hive and prove herself over and over to become One, Two and Five faced threats I can barely understand.”

“And the little one, Three?”

“His real rank used to be three hundred thousand and something, but… you may have noticed he’s a bit… simple, so he calls himself just Three, because he can’t remember the full number. He’s not stupid at all, don’t get me wrong. He actually knows a ton of things, and he can occasionally do weird stuff no one else can, but his collection of knowledge is a bit… scattered. He’s dad’s best friend, and he’s been with him even before he met mom.”

“He’s… friendly. It almost makes me believe he doesn’t want to stab me in the back when I’m not looking.”

Thirteen gasps and objects out loud:

“Three would never do that!” she shakes her head, “I heard he even died once just because he tried to make friends with a guy who tried to wipe our hive out.”

“He died...” he gives Thirteen a flat stare.

“I don’t know much about it and I sure as holes wouldn’t be able to do it, but if we have enough love, powerful changelings can sort of retreat into our hive mind and stay there for a while if their body is destroyed. It’s highly conditional, and draining to the point of barely ever being worth it, but it can be done.”

“Does it have anything to do with those glowing marks on his body?”

“Mhm, but I can’t talk about it. Dad says that’s a secret.”

“I could twist your legs off one by one. Slowly,” he leans closer, which makes Magpie lower his bowl and tense his hind legs. To the surprise of both of them, or probably all three of them, Thirteen only pouts and crosses her forelegs on her chest, although she does lean away in her chair.

“And what good would that do you? Dad and Three would miss me, no one else would. Hole, mom might even be happy I’m not a drain on our resources anymore, and it’s not like you would be immortal or anything. You’re not a changeling, and it’s impossible to do without the help of other changelings.”

The minotaur measures her with an expression that’s unreadable to Thirteen.

“I don’t have a name,” he says after a while, “Losing a name, for a minotaur, is a punishment just short of execution. That’s one thing the remaining wild tribes and Rift minotaurs have in common - nameless minotaurs don’t get any help, and are turned away or even hunted down for sport, although that’s more of a wild tribes thing. It means I have no honor, no value, and no rights. In my case, I got to choose an exile through hunt instead of serving as the lowest even under the younglings.”

Hearing the phrase exile through hunt, Magpie winces. He killed a lot of nameless minotaurs in the blood arena who chose to regain honor through battle, and he survived three hunts, which of course didn’t mean he successfully escaped. In two cases, it meant surviving longer than the other hunted. In the final case, it meant killing his pursuers in the end.

“And what used to be your name?” asks Thirteen.

“Doesn’t matter,” he shakes his head, “It’s lost forever now.”

“So you can’t ever return home?”

“I’m not going to repeat myself, bug,” he growls.

“Sorrysorrysorry,” Thirteen lowers her head.

“Heh,” the corner of the minotaur’s mouth curls up, “Now there’s something I wouldn’t tell anyone else, and I would advise you to keep it to yourself,” he glances Magpie’s way, “Same goes for you, catbird. I know you were listening, and it wasn’t for you.”

“I’ve got enough problems of my own to care about your sob story, cow,” Magpie opens his beak, and pours the rest of the contents of his bowl in. Without looking at the minotaur or Thirteen, he stands up and leaves.

***

When Thirteen returned to her cell, Magpie was already either asleep or pretending to be. Any half-decent infiltrator would pick out the difference, but Thirteen is just Thirteen. With that, she followed his example and took a nap before today’s terrifying time outside.

Unfortunately, the wardens banging their blackjacks on the bars woke her up, and she was ushered to the inner courtyard of the prison.

So far, Thirteen has successfully avoided the attention of everyone, slinking by the walls and dodging the cones of light from the guard towers above. Luckily for her, it looks as if this particular corner filled with stinging nettles hasn’t been mowed for some time, and even the rough-looking mares are avoiding getting close. If she’s lucky and doesn’t move, she might survive another day unnoticed in the dim electric light of the guard towers.

With a sigh of relief, she lies down with only the faintest motion of the greenery around her.

“Ah-hah!” a big, brown hoof stomps the clutch of tall stalks in front of her, and as Thirteen tries to stand up, the same hoof trips her up just as she feels flat teeth bite down on her ear and give her a sharp pull.

“Ow ow ow owwww!” Thirteen softens her teeth-guided fall by following the tugging, and ends up on her side on the ground, surrounded by a tight circle of scarred and toned mares, several with clumps of hair, teeth, and in few cases even an eye missing.

“I knew I saw somepony sneaking around,” the brown, heavily built, muscular earthpony mare who dragged Thirteen out smirks and pushes her down by putting her foreleg on Thirteen’s chest, “You know it’s rude to listen on conversations of other ponies, sex toy?”

“I wasn’t-” a kick in the muzzle interrupts her objection. It’s not enough to harm her, but it definitely has enough force to convey the message that the mare’s question was rhetorical.

“Now get up and listen, because I’m going to make you a little offer, you can’t refuse. I mean, you can, but the wardens on the ground won’t see you when you’re surrounded like this, and before those on the walls notice, you’ll be missing few important bits,” she raises her foreleg from Thirteen’s chest, and takes a single step back. Thirteen wants to fully stand up, but a rough push sends her back down on her haunches, so she gets the idea and remains sitting. At least she’s not lying down with the mare standing on her anymore, and that has to count for something. The mare continues, “Good, maybe you won’t need some discipline beaten into you,” she puts her hoof under Thirteen’s chin, and forces her to look up at herself, “Or maybe, from the looks of it, somepony already did it. Heh,” she gives Thirteen a soft slap, “Now, most of us have been here for few years already, and we’re still not even halfway done.”

“So you want to get out?” Thirteen hazards a guess, which is followed by a punch that sends her down on the ground.

“Too bad, for a second I thought you were more than just bughorse sex toy,” the mare spits on her, “Of course we want to get out, but we know that even in whatever is going on outside we’d have everyone on our asses immediately, and it’s not like we can escape into the wilderness with all the Corrupted everywhere. No, what we want from you is to spice up our stay, sex toy, the only way you bugs are useful for. Besides, you must be pretty hungry, unless your cellmate is reaming you on nightly basis, and I’m certain we can be a lot gentler than any horny brute you’re in a cell with. We can also be nastier. Got my meaning, or do you need a little demonstration?”

Is that the only thing I’m good for in the end? I mean, Three is in the castle helping engineers build the farms. I can’t help him or protect him. I can’t get Gem out of here. I can’t get out myself, and even if I did, it would do more harm than good. If I call for help, they’ll just beat me up. I might defend myself from one of them, but not from eleven. The best thing I’ve managed in my WHOLE life was to make a minotaur share his secret, and that was only because I’m such a screw- no, such a fuck-up that no matter how disgraced he was I would be even less.

I’m nothing. I should… I should…

I should just be silent and do what others tell me. Maybe they will find a use for me if I’m too dumb to find it on my own.

With a bitter smirk, Thirteen nods and obediently opens her mouth.

She finds herself hanging upside down, bent by her barrel over something hard.

“What the-?” the nameless minotaur currently halfway into a pull-up on a monkey bar gives her a puzzled frown.

“Ah?” in a moment of complete confusion, Thirteen spins around the monkey bar and drops on the ground like a sack of potatoes. It hurts a bit even through her chitin, but at least the world is the right way up now.

The minotaur finishes a rep and drops down.

“How did you get up there?” he asks, examining her without offering her a hand.

Thirteen winces as her whole body twitches at once for no explainable reason, but pushes herself up despite it.

“I don’t… I don’t know,” she looks around, her eyes eventually stopping on a pile of eleven collapsed mares in the distant, dark corner of the courtyard, a slowly dissipating pink cloud of lust visible only to changeling eyes hanging over them, “You didn’t see me or something?”

“I don’t look up when I’m doing pull-ups,” he grunts and starts doing squats instead.

“Mind if I stay around?” Thirteen gives him her best ‘begging Three’ impression. Where with him that stare could melt a steel wall or the heart of the darkest evil lord, the minotaur just shrugs.

“Just don’t get under my hooves.”

Imprisoned: The next step.

[I’m back, booksy!]

The past two days have all been a blur. I’m tired and my head feels numb, but I’m so happy at the same time! I didn’t even have the time to write into you, and I’m super sorry and I promise you’re now going to get the whole story.

You see, the day after we got to see miss Gem and everyone else, a bunch of mean-looking guards led by miss Prominence arrived in the morning to first take me to miss Gem for breakfast, and then to take me into the castle. I mean, they just looked all mad and scary, but in the end they even let me hug the Crystal Heart when I asked politely and said a proper please. A weird thing happened when I did so, though. I felt…

I felt as if I was back in the hive with boss and miss One and Five, Six, Seven, the whole family. As if Ten was still with us, as if Nine was standing guard just outside the throne room door, and as if Thirteen had just made miss One smile.

Everything felt as if things are going to be just right, and then everything turned pink and exploded. The guards and crystal ponies went all shiny and sparkly, and miss Prominence kept just staring at me while they kept looking at each other. I felt great, though, and ready to tackle anything they had for me.

Ooooh, booksy, how wrong I was. My head hurt like that time when I played tag with miss One and tried to hide by transforming into Five, and then I only remember her hoof getting closer and waking up in boss’ apartment in Brauheim castle.

Got a little distracted there. Sorry, booksy, my head’s still not alright. You see, princess Candy and prince Shiny acknowledged that boss really wants to help, and we started translating all those blueprints I brought. I knew most of the mechanical stuff, but then came the weird chemistry, and dwarven understanding of the world of those tiny things we can’t see turned out to be completely different than that of ponies. Fortunately, boss is super smart, and he prepared me even for this eventuality and bundled a tooon of information into my little fragment of the hive mind. The rough part was me having to access all that over and over, and then not just translate the marks and formulas on the blueprints, but also explain those to the pony alchemists from the bottom up.

My body kinda gave up halfway through. I could know all those technical things, or how to control my legs, but not both at the same time. Miss Prominence had to carry me on her back around the castle. She was a bit uncomfortable. You know, like a pony - soft and her sleek coat kept tickling my nose, plus she’s suuuuuper warm. Lying on boss’ or miss One’s back is so much nicer. Or even miss Cryo, but that’s like having one of those boss-sized beds just for myself, and that’s just lonely. Plus, when I can’t wrap my legs around someone, I tend to roll over the side, and miss Cryo is really tall. It doesn’t hurt too much, but I don’t like waking up bouncing.

I’m rambling again, sorry, but I’m nearly done. The guards had to carry me back to the prison in the evening, because prince Shiny didn’t want me inside the castle, and ended up arguing with princess Candy, and not in the teasing and fun way like boss and miss One do, but more in that really bad way like when boss and miss One argued about Thirteen. I didn’t want to cause trouble, so I told them I didn’t mind sleeping in prison. I mean, the solitary cells are super comfy anyway. Dark, with proper cold floor and a bed to sleep under, and sooo quiet. If you had ears, you would appreciate it too. All those smart ponies in the castle just kept talking, shouting over each other, and asking endless questions.

I like the peace and quiet of this place, so I fell asleep immediately after miss Prominence put me in the bed. I wanted to write a bit and then roll over on the floor, but I just shut down like a mining drill. I think I drooled a bit on you too, and I woke up with a broken pencil in my nostril. On the bright side, now I have two pencils, even though they’re a bit smaller.

I wonder, can I write with both at the same thimglephtnekdfs...-

Nope.

Well, booksy, that’s all. Today was pretty much the same, and I really need to go under the bed now to get proper rest.

[Night, booksy!]

It’s morning, and most of the inmates have already left the showers to get ready for breakfast. Meanwhile, Three pulls out a toothbrush out of a cuphol- leg hole and his eyelids droop even before he misses his mouth and smears the soap across his cheek.

“Ooof, even the cold water isn’t helping,” he shakes his head and looks up straight into the nozzle of a shower, opening his soapy mouth, “Glrghghghgh.”

The surface of changeling eyes is protected by a rougher membrane, and something as simple as water causes no threat whatsoever. In fact, the gentle massage of the droplets does wonders to at least temporarily ease Three’s constant headache.

What does it do, though, is prevent him from seeing a unicorn walk through the empty common showers and stop behind him. When Three blinks the water away and soaps up his toothbrush for a second attempt, the unicorn clears his throat, making Three spin around on his butt with a simple kick of his hind leg.

“Mhm-mmhhmh-mh?” Three’s eyes go wide when he recognizes the unicorn as one of the unicorn brotherhood.

“You’re brushing your teeth with soap and you’re still alive...” comments the unicorn.

“Grgrglrlglrg,” Three gathers a full mouth of water from the shower and then spits it out, “Hey, I think I made it clear the last time that I’d rather be friends than have problems with you guys,” he spreads his forelegs, “I hug really well, I’m told. Come on, try!”

“No,” says the unicorn coldly, making Three sigh in disappointment and reinforce his chitin, “although I’m not here to cause trouble.”

“Really?” Three perks up instantly, “Neat! How can I help you then?”

“We think we kicked our friendship off on the wrong hoof, chan- Three, and the unicorn brotherhood is willing to accept your friendship in exchange for a small favor. What’s in it for you is safety during any time outside in the courtyard and we’ll also help you in case of any trouble inside. We can also smuggle in some basic stuff if you want - cigarettes, alcohol, you know.”

“That’s great!” Three beams, “I mean, not the smuggling, and I can’t get drunk unless I shapeshift my insides to met- meta- bo- to get drunk… but if I can help you mend your ways and have us all be happier, I’m all for it.”

“Yeah,” the unicorn snickers, “Look, we noticed the guards coming for you and bringing you back without too much hassle. I don’t know w-”

“Oh yeah, that’s because I’m helping them make food farms that don’t need sunlight. Boss gave ponies the right blueprints, but they’re in the wrong language, and I’m translating and explaining stuff.”

“Right then. What we need from you is to get a letter out of this prison. Simple, right?”

“Wait, isn’t there a mailbox for us prisoners?” Three tilts his head, “Why don’t you tell a warden? They just look mean, but most of them are alright.”

“Yeeeees,” the unicorn looks away, “but you see, the post office is busy and the wardens are having trouble already since there’s no sun and everypony is panicking, so they don’t have time for us prisoners. Some of us haven’t sent a message to our families and friends for a long time.”

“Awww, that’s so sad. Sure I’ll help a friend,” Three nods, which makes the unicorn present a singular, small, sealed envelope, “Just one letter from all of you?”

“It’s… from the unicorn brotherhood to a friend outside who knows our relatives and so on. He’ll read the letter and know to whom pass which message.”

Three rolls the envelope up and puts it into a leg hole which seals over it.

“Don’t worry,” he gives the unicorn a little exhausted but determined smile, “I’ll make sure your families know that you’re safe and okay in here. I know how it feels to be far from home.”

“Perfect,” the unicorn smirks, “Then you can count on us to make your stay here a lot easier. That, of course, includes your changeling lady as well.”

“See? You guys can play nice.”

“Heh, I guess we’re open to seeing the error of our ways,” the unicorn turns around, “Just don’t forget to send it today, and don’t let the guards see you.”

“Sure thing,” Three nods.

***

“Aaaah-hah!”

The pony-sized punching bag finds itself in the tight and incomplete embrace of four small, black legs with built-in cupholders. Some squeezing later, the legs let go, and Three kicks himself off, does a backflip, fails the landing completely, and goes splat on his barrel. When his eyes uncross, he shakes his head and gives the bag a ferocious grin, “I’ll get you next time!”

He jumps up few times, cracks his neck, primes his hind legs for another attempt, jump like a bullet-

“I thought we had a deal, changeling,” says the unicorn from this morning.

-and Three slams his face straight into the bag, completely forgetting to hug, and bounces off.

“Ugghh...” he gets back up few seconds later, this time still a bit woozy. Eventually, he stops swaying from side to side and focuses on the unicorn, “Oh hi! I already did it. They let me out of the castle early, because they needed more time to build what we’ve already managed to translate. In some two weeks, you ponies might even get real foo-”

“Yeah yeah,” the unicorn waves his foreleg, “Are you sure no guards saw you send the letter?”

“Don’t worry. I’m no infiltrator but I can still do a trick or two.”

“Perfect,” he smirks, “I suppose your stay here will be almost just like a vacation now. That goes for your changeling friend too. Last time I saw her she was being harassed by some other mares. If you see here, tell her she can hang out with us and won’t receive anything harsher than some looks and maybe a whistle here and there.”

“Awesome. Yay friends!” Three raises a hoof for a high one which the unicorn reluctantly takes.

“Definitely,” he turns around when Three scratches his head with a momentary puzzled expression.

“Hey,” says the changeling, “You’re all unicorn brothers, right? Like a big family.”

“A brotherhood doesn’t mean literal brothers,” the unicorn rolls his eyes, “But only unicorns can join.”

“And me?”

“You’re… a temporary ally.”

“And can you all do magic?”

“Yes. In fact, most of us are here for some kind of… magical misunderstanding.”

“Hmmm...” Three pouts, “Do you know how to summon a succubus? Or how to send someone into Tartarus?”

“Yeeees,” agrees the unicorn after some hesitation, “Why would you want either of that, though? Can’t you changelings get as much tail as you want? And I’m pretty sure sending somepony to Tartarus is what landed few of our guys here in the first place. Illegal as buuuuuuck.”

Three turns his head around to look at his backside.

“I think I can get any tail I want,” he wiggles the short stump back there, “But I like ol’ shorty. No, I have a succubus friend, and I need to get to Tartarus, so I thought that she could get me there, or you could send me there if summoning her was impossible.”

“W- Why?” stutters the unicorn out.

Three points at the black sky.

“I wanna fix that, and I think that if I can find the baddie who did it, I can ask him to make the sun shine again!”

“Are you for real?” hisses the unicorn, narrowing his eyes at Three while leaning down to the changeling’s face. However, his expression changes halfway through the motion into a smirk, “You know what? I think we could help with that after all. We can’t talk here, though.”

He nods to the side and leads Three through the courtyard towards a group of faintly familiar unicorns from the brotherhood.

“Guys, he sent the letter, and I think he might be the last thing we need for the plan,” he whispers.

“Plan, what plan?” asks Three.

“Shhh!” the unicorn hisses at him. The others form a tighter group around them, “Our plan to get out of here.”

“Buuut aren’t you here because you did some bad stuff?” asks Three with suspicion.

“Are you?” the unicorn raises an eyebrow.

“Uhhhh, that’s a bit of a grey area about collective blame but no, I definitely didn’t do anything for which I should go in prison. Boss is great about teaching us what we should and shouldn’t do around and to ponies.”

“See? Most of us are here for mild infractions and… misunderstandings, as I said. The real bad guys are locked down underground.”

“Oh, I get it - like miss Gem and miss Harriet!” Three nods, “But they’re there not because they’re bad but because of a huge misunderstanding too… and because if they wanted to leave, nothing up here could stop them.”

“Yeah, exaaactly,” the unicorn wraps his foreleg around Three’s shoulders, “So, we’ve really learned our lesson, and we want to get out a bit sooner. You know, to see our families and so on. We have a plan to do that, but there still are holes we unicorns can’t fill as such, but you as a changeling...” he leaves the sentence hanging in the air.

“I dunno… are you all here by accident, really?” he furrows his brows.

“Oh of course not,” the unicorn smiles, “We deserve our time here, we just disagree with the authorities about the length of our sentence. As I said, we’ve learned our lesson, and our friends and relatives just feel awful without us. I’m sure your friends miss you too,” he winks at Three who gives him a slow nod.

“I’ll be happy to be back with the boss, but only after I’m done fixing what he was forced to do. Well, at least after we’ve made sure you ponies have enough to eat.”

“See? We all have somepony we want to be with. Now, I’m not just asking you for something. You said you wanted to get to Tartarus, and we can help, but we definitely can’t do it from here and with these things on,” he taps on the suppressor around his horn, “Help us get out and take these things off and we’ll get you your succubus or a way to Tartarus. I think we can do either.”

“Hmmm...” Three rubs his chin, “I mean, why not? But you still have to wait until I’ve done all the translation work for princess Candy. Boss sent us here to make sure you ponies don’t starve, and I’m not leaving until I’ve done everything I can.”

“And how long that’s going to take?” the unicorn hisses.

“Two- three weeks tops,” Three beams, “Princess Candy has all the smartest ponies working on it, and they can often understand things even before I can explain them.”

The unicorn looks around at the staring faces of others.

“Few weeks? I think we can manage that,” he smiles, “But if you don’t mind, I’ll refrain from telling you about our plan until you’re done, just in case some information leaked out on accident.”

“Sure thing,” Three waves his foreleg dismissively, “I’ve got a lot to think about as it is. We’ll get to escaping when we get to it. I don’t see a reason why my friends should sit here too once we’re done with the food situation.”

“Excellent,” the unicorn nods, and the others surrounding Three spread out and return to what they’ve been doing before, “Is there anything else?”

“Nope,” Three shakes his head, “I’ll talk it over with my friends just in case they have a reason they need to stay here like I do.”

With that, he heads back off to the big punching bag. He has more tackle-hugging to practice.

Imprisoned: Preliminary preparations

Magpie turns the shower off, lets the lukewarm water drip down through his sand-colored feathers and rusty coat. The common shower room is quiet now that everyone has left to prepare for dinner, and the griffon simply sits there, breathing. He knows he can’t stay her too long, so he shakes as much water as he can off and reaches for the towel on a hook next to the showerhead.

“Hah?!” from the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of something black and pink directly behind him, “Three?” he clutches his chest and gasps for breath, “How long have you been just sitting there?” he asks the changeling watching him with a friendly smile and unblinking eyes.

“Eh,” Three waves his foreleg, “Not too long. You always look so wary of everything and on edge, so I didn’t want to bother you when you felt so peaceful for once.”

“And why are you here? Are any of the unicorns trying some shi- something again?” Magpie starts toweling himself off. Physical privacy is something the mercenary hasn’t known for quite some time, and he’s been watched in the past by much worse things than a small, happy changeling.

“Nope, they’ve been really helpful yesterday, actually.”

“Good.”

Sensing that there won’t be any further conversation from Magpie’s side, Three speaks up again.

“Umm,” he lowers his voice into a whisper, “Would you like to get out of here?”

“Free, although either bland or downright bad, meals a day, the opportunity to wash myself every morning and evening, and a cellmate who doesn’t bother me too much. In fact, one who sleeps under the mattress ever since she dislodged most of her joints getting under the bed without having any idea how. If I had some proper reading material, this would literally be the best place I’ve lived in since I had to escape the- nevermind.”

Three scratches his head, visibly trying to decipher the semi-sarcastic answer.

“Is that a no then?”

Magpie facetalons.

“Despite what it looks like on the surface, this place is pretty well protected. Unless you have some amazing escape plan, I’m not risking making my stay here needlessly unpleasant. The way it’s now is alright, not counting the possibility of the royals deciding that we’re to be executed for our role in destroying the universe. Besides, I’m not leaving Harriet and Gem here,” he adds to himself, “Good thing Pack Rat didn’t have anything to do with us bringing the dragon or he’d be stuck here too. I wonder where he is now...”

“Well, I’d like to get all of us out, but only after I’m done helping princess Candy with the food growing machines. That’s what boss sent me and Thirteen to do so that’s what we’ll do.”

“And then you want to escape.”

“Yep, unless you have a reason to stay here.”

“My reason for staying here is that I can’t get out, and I’m pretty sure Gem is still here only because she wouldn’t be able to easily get Harriet and me out.”

“So if there was a way to get all of us out, would that be okay? I mean, miss Gem’s medical knowledge is top-notch, and she can do waaay more good outside than in here.”

Is this changeling for real?

“Yes, that would be okay,” says Magpie slowly.

“I’m just asking because I asked those unicorn brothers to help me get into Tartarus and they said they could do that if I help them get out, that they have a plan. They agreed to wait with it until I’m done translating the blueprints, and I’m allowed to take anyone I want with us.”

“And you trust those assholes? They tried to kill you!”

“They said they learned the error of their ways and that they won’t bother you, mister minotaur, or Thirteen anymore.”

“And that’s enough for you, is it?”

Three nods, which makes Magpie grind his beak and rub his temples to fight off the incoming migraine.

“Ponies are really nice if you show them you trust them, mister Magpie.”

“No, they’re not!” he hisses, leaning down to Three, “Your weird group of underground changelings are, and from what Gem told me it’s mostly your king’s doing. Up here on the surface, if you don’t watch your back, you’ll find a knife in it soon enough.”

“Neat, a free present!” Three beams.

“...areyoufuckingkiddingme…?” Magpie’s eye twitches and Three’s chuckle only makes it worse.

“Mister Magpie, the first time I offered real friendship to a pony who truly hated us, he was a paladin and killed me by stabbing me in the brain through my eye,” the changeling’s voice turns serious, “He tried to kill all of us over and over. That was...” he raises his forelegs and watches his hooves for a moment while counting under his breath, “Over two hundred and fifty years ago. And you know what? In the end, he understood. He forgave his friend who helped us and about whom he thought he betrayed him and he helped us close a void rift over the Crystal Empire. It was tiny in comparison to the one that supposedly munched the whole sky last month, but it was super scary anyway. Look, I don’t know if those unicorns are trustworthy. I just know that if I don’t offer them a hug, who will?”

“If you keep doing it, one day someone will-” Magpie sighs.

“Do what? Kill me?” Three tilts his head and sticks his tongue out at the griffon.

“Yes! And successfully this time,” Magpie loses control, grabs Three’s shoulders, and shakes him. With the size difference, Three wobbles like a bobblehead, “What will Gem think? What will your king think?”

“If I don’t do that, then I’m not the Three I want to be and the Three they all know,” he gives Magpie a defiant glare.

The griffon rolls his eyes, takes a slow breath, and puts Three down.

“Do what you want, I don’t even know why I let it get to me. If you can break us out, good. If the unicorns betray you and you end up face down in a ditch, it’s not like it’ll harm me in any way.”

“That’s the spirit!” Three beams again, “They also promised me they’d teleport me to Tartarus so that I can find the big baddie and tell him to fix the sky he broke. You don’t have to come with me, though. Just make sure miss Gem is okay. From what I heard when she visited us before she got sent here, she likes travelling with you.”

Humming to himself, Three leaves the paralyzed and yet fuming griffon behind.

“Idiot… that guy’s a fucking idiot,” whispers Magpie too late for anyone to hear him.

***

Three weeks have passed in relative peace for not only Three but Thirteen as well who, unfortunately, spent most of it sleeping because of lacking access to Three’s mysterious and constant source of love due to Three spending most of his days either in the castle or inside his solitary cell exhausted by constant headaches. In the morning, Three had his daily session with Gem, just chatting and letting her recover through his ambient love glow. The castle was next, having usually been escorted out by the mixed group of guards or Prominence herself, and returning in the evening let Thirteen feed off of him only a little. Still, the constant beating of Crystal Heart in the distance meant that while Thirteen was hungry all the time, she wasn’t being drained to the point of any physical trouble.

During today’s “outside time”, Three, who was released from the castle early, approaches the unicorn brotherhood with a wide smile.

“Hi, friends!”

“Any news, changeling?” asks a grey, blond-maned unicorn whom Three saw several times but whom he hasn’t heard speak yet. The others shift away from him as he approaches Three.

“Yep,” Three nods, “The group of engineers in the castle have made the first prototype of the food growing machine thingy and are trying it out in the cellars. The first batches of edible moss should be done the day after tomorrow, although there are still some problems with powering it. It turns out that magic and electricity aren’t that easy to interchange. So, unless there is some unexpected trouble, they should be mass-producing them next week.”

“Good. The slop they’re feeding us here has been getting worse and worse with each day,” the unicorn sneers in contempt, “Alright, change- Three. My name is Deep Ambition, and I lead the unicorn brotherhood here. First, I want to thank you for sending our letter, because one of the… friendlier wardens brought us an answer.”

“Neat. Are your friends and families okay? I hope so, because the ponies I see on the streets when I go to the castle look super worried.”

“Heh. Yes, everything is alright and ready. I’ve even figured out what we need from you for our,” he lowers his voice, “escape from here.”

“That’s great. You can tell me now, I think, because I’m going to need some time to prepare a way to get my friends out too. Two of them are locked underground with the real bad guys, but don’t worry, my friends are nice.”

“Ah yes, those friends you meet with on a daily basis,” Deep Ambition narrows his eyes.

“Yep.”

“However, our deal wasn’t about rescuing those underground,” he shakes his head, “That’s a little too dangerous.”

“That’s okay, I’ll just have to figure out how to connect that part with your big plan. Though I think now would be a good time to share it or I won’t be able to do it, and I’m not leaving without them.”

“Alright,” he sits down, patting Three’s head, a touch that feels strangely cold to the changeling, definitely a polar opposite of when boss or miss Gem do it, “There are three steps to this, and we definitely need you for the second one. The first step is to get rid of these,” he taps the suppressor around his horn.

“Huh, I thought those were fake like that guy you sent for hurt me,” ponders Three with absolutely no rancor in his voice.

“I apologize for that misunderstanding,” Deep Ambition looks straight at Three with a smile, “Unfortunately, the rest of us still have the real suppressors on. The warden who helped us switch that one doesn’t work here anymore. We have several fake ones, but taking the real ones off requires very special circumstances.”

“Oh yeah, trying to take them off yourself really hurts.”

“H- Hurts?” Depe Ambition, “It’s impossible! The paralyzing agony completely fries your nerves and deprives you of all control over your muscles.”

“Miss One, miss Comfort, and even Gem took theirs off on their own each at some point in time. They did smolder for a while, though. Still, can’t you take each other’s off? I thought they just hurt the one who wears them.”

“As you can see, prisoners move around with only little supervision. If the suppressors were that easy to take off, they would be useless. No, these are enchanted so that only prison staff can take them off. However, they can be broken through physical means. We just need the right opportunity like a friendly warden looking the other way during crafts lessons.”

Three sits down, pondering the situation for a short while before saying:

“Do you still have the broken real one somewhere?”

Deep Ambition nods towards a unicorn in the back who presents a small pouch hanging around his neck to Three.

“Both halves are in the bread ball,” he says, “I can’t keep a broken suppressor inside a cell in case of an inspection, but keeping a small snack with me at all times isn’t suspicious at all,” he snickers.

Three reaches into the pouch and quickly finds the ball in question, scratching the dough off of the ring which had been clearly sawed in half. He taps it with his hoof, sniffs it, and finally he puts it into his mouth for few moments. After the thorough examination os over, he spits it out into his hoof, and then stashes it into a leg hole which closes around it.

“How can you shapeshift with a suppressor on?” asks Deep Ambition, watching Three’s foreleg with suspicion.

“I can’t. These are just… umm… miss Comfort calls it changes in surface tension of semi-solid membrane. I don’t really understand it, but to me it’s the same as moving my leg. I can’t transform into anypony else, though, at least not quickly,” Three shakes his head, “But I’m a drone and we’re the best at examining the structure of materials. I’ve got a pretty good idea what that suppressor is made of, now I just need to figure out some acid that would melt it quickly enough without hurting you.”

“You can do that?” Deep Ambition leans backwards.

“I definitely can’t. I tried to make several kinds of acid goop back home, but the samples didn’t melt anything and kept hardening. After trying one out, miss One started selling them as mint candy,” Three shakes his head again, “But luckily for us, I’m not the only changeling here.”

Imprisoned: Step two

“Hiiii, miss Gem!” Three waves with as much vigor as the shackles connecting his forelegs allow.

“Three, we’ve seen each other yesterday,” Gem rolls her eyes, but a genuine smile grows on her muzzle like always, “I haven’t had anyone be so enthusiastic to see me since I lived in Canterlot and had a puppy.”

“Woof!” Three chuckles, hops onto the long table interrogation room and then right into Gem’s lap, “So, how was your day?”

“After your yesterday’s visit, they put more chains and ropes around me to satisfy a moderate bondage party, and then locked me back in my underground cell that’s about as fortified as the Crystal Empire central bank vault, so take a wild guess.”

“Miss Gem, I’m working on a way to get us all out of prison, but I need some help.”

Hearing Three’s voice through a hive link doesn’t make a top-notch infiltrator like Gem twitch a muscle, though she does glance at the group of eight Prominence’s guards standing ready between them and the locked door.

“Does your plan account for Magpie, Harriet, and Thirteen?”

“Of course!” Three’s mental reply sounds almost hurt at the idea that Gem would consider him able to leave friends behind. Out loud, though, Three says, “Yesterday, they let me off sooner, because the engineers are finished with the prototype of the underground farm.”

“Really? That’s great to hear,” Gem smiles, keeping the real world chatter up to distract the guards while concentrating on the hive link conversation with Three.

“I think I’d like to get out at this point. I could, but leaving Harriet and you all here is my absolutely last resort. Promi visited me yesterday as well, and told me that even though your work with Cadance’s unicorns is going well, Twilight and Celestia want us all locked up until we rot. I find that rather boring. What’s that plan of yours about then?”

“A group of unicorns in the surface part of the prison are planning to break out, and the first step is to get rid of our suppressors. I know exactly what they’re made of and I can share the information through our link, but I need a recipe for an acid that would dissolve them.”

Three bundles up all the knowledge he gained from the examination of the broken suppressor and sends it to Gem.

“Pretty simple stuff,” comments Gem, “You want Thirteen to do it, don’t you?”

“Yeeeah. All I can make is goop candy...”

“We all have our roles to play, Three,” Gem chuckles and within a fraction of a second Three’s head fills with the exact method even an inexperienced changeling could synthesize the right kind of acid inside themselves, “I made it extra simple for Thirteen. This should melt the alloy within few seconds and don’t harm living tissue. At worst, the unicorns might lose few hairs around the spot. Don’t let it get to anyone’s eyes just in case, though.”

“Thanks, miss Gem.”

“Just be careful. Three. Us getting out is bound to cause a lot of trouble, but since Brauheim is gone and I doubt the ponies will be able to track dad, I think that once you’re done with the farms here, we should dip.”

“Any idea where to go then?”

“Not really. With so few settlements and cities in Equestria, there’s no place where we could just disappear, but I’d like to get Harriet to the Griffon Empire. She deserves to be able to go home. That means Manehattan.”

“Wooooow, that’s so far!” Three hesitates. He’s not particularly deceptive on the best of days, but to someone like Gem he’s an open book even without her reading his mind through the hive link.

“There’s more, Three. Tell me.”

“Promise you won’t get mad?”

“Three, I’m not mad even at Promi, and it’s her fault we’re stuck here. Go on.”

“I said it before, but I still want to go to Tartarus.”

“This again?” Gem rolls her eyes, “Okay, why do you think Flow would want to help you even if by some miracle he could?”

“Miss Gem, you weren’t in the pocket dimension with mister Cromach when we made Flow come back. This is all wrong, I know it. Miss Prominence, princess Sunny, and princess of books made a huge mistake. I know what I felt there, and I wish at least someone believed me.”

“Three...” Gem sighs, “You know what? We’ll cross that bridge when we get there. First, let’s get out of here, okay?”

“Mhm,” Three nods, “We’ve got a week, give or take, before ponies can produce the farm machines properly, and there’s a lot to still figure out.”

“Exactly,” Gem pats his head.

“-and then mister Magpie had to pull Thirteen from under the bed again, and almost lost his dinner when she was popping her joints back into place.”

“Seriously, that filly and loud noises...”

“And sudden movements,” adds Three.

“And her own legs getting in the way.”

“She just needs to find her way,” Three nuzzles Gem’s nose, “Miss One pushed her too hard to quickly.”

“She will. I don’t doubt it at all, and she’ll wipe mom’s sneer off of her face.”

***

Two days later, Three once again returns into the prison in time for the good old ‘outside time’. Normally, he would fly around a little, say hi to Magpie and his minotaur friend, but now he has business to attend to. Bouncing around on randomly switching pairs of legs for shake off the stiffness from not being allowed to move much in the castle to avoid bothering unicorns and crystal earthpony engineers at work, he approaches the unicorn brotherhood section of the courtyard. His silly hopping around is impossible not to notice, and he quickly finds himself face to face with Deep Ambition frowning at him.

“Any news?” asks the unicorn.

“Yep,” Three nods, “I got the recipe for the right kind of acid, but I can’t make it. Thirteen should, which is why I need your help finding her. She’s kinda really good at hiding when she doesn’t want to be found.”

“I do believe we can be of assistance,” he unicorn smirks, “Guys, you know what she looks like. A changeling, shaggy brown mane, short tai- you know what? It’s the only other damn changeling in this place so you don’t need a description.”

“Just tell her I’m looking for her and she shouldn’t freak out,” says Three, immediately taking to the sky and towards a certain griffon doing loops in the air.

Mid-flip, Magpie reaches to the side, snatching Three from the air by his barrel.

“Wooow, nice!” Three beams, “And I was trying to be all sneaky-like.”

“Your eyes glow blue, your body glows pink, and there’s a goddamn eternal night,” Magpie rolls his eyes, “You’re the only bright thing up here other than the spotlights from the guard towers.”

“Heheh, I guess I should leave sneaking to the infiltrators,” Three scratches his head, “Anyway, I need help.”

“What went wrong this time?”

“Nothing, nothing, I just need to find Thirteen. Miss Gem gave me instructions on how to make acid that would dissolve the unicorn suppressors, but I’m a drone and I can’t shapeshift to grow the right bits with this on my head,” he taps a suppressor of his own, “Thirteen is a queenie like miss bad mom, so she can do it all with only tiny changes.”

“Bad mom?” Magpie lets Three go, turns around in the air, and starts looking at the ground. Eagle eye isn’t just a metaphor with griffons, even though Magpie’s eyesight is still below average.

“Chrysalis,” Three sticks his tongue out, “I mean, if I was an infiltrator like miss Gem, I could do it too, but I’m just a drone. I make candy.”

“Do I even want to ask?”

Three spits out a small glob of green goop into his hoof, polishes it a bit while it hardens, and then offers the small disk to Magpie.

“It’s delicious. Try it!”

“Considering where it came from, no,” says the griffon flatly.

“That’s what they all say and then they want more. Come oooooon,” Three presses on, flying next to Magpie’s head.

“You can shove it where the sun doesn’t shine.”

“The sun doesn’t shine anywhere anymore, which means I can shove it right here,” Three pushes the goo candy into Magpie’s beak when the griffon opens it to protest.

After a second of gagging and choking, Magpie spits it out with a frown.

“If I say it was better than I expected, will you promise to never do that again? It’s that or me having to explain to Gem why I punched you.”

“See? I told you,” Three beams even wider, “But why did you spit it out then?”

“Mint and licorice,” the griffon sticks his tongue out, “The world would be a better place without either.”

For a mercenary as experienced with tracking his surroundings like Magpie, it takes only the faintest shift of tall grass in the overgrown corner of the courtyard usually occupied by mares banding together for security to make him swoop towards the ground and reach down.

“Eeeeeeeeep!” Thirteen struggles in the griffon’s grasp, but despite the size difference, she’s barely heavier than Three.

“Heya, Thirteen!” Three circles around Magpie after he brings Thirteen back up. She breathes a confused sigh of relief and goes limp like a cat.

“Hi, Three. Hello, mister Magpie. It was hoping no one would spot me, but I guess I’ll have to do something about the sky next time.”

“If you’re trying to sneak in tall grass, you have to use wind to your advantage, or you’re just drawing even more attention to the moving stalks,” says the griffon.

“Right...” Thirteen sighs, “It’s not as if mom didn’t repeat it to me thousand times already, and she’s not even an infiltrator. Her way of staying unseen is knocking out everyone who could spot her.”

Slowly, Magpie lowers Thirteen on the ground and lands himself. Hearing the usual drop in Thirteen’s tone he’s grown to understand as self-loathing creeping in, the griffon rolls his eyes.

“Look, I’ve spent most of my time as a mercenary on night shifts, because it’s quiet and no one wants to chat all the time. That also means I’m used to others trying to ambush me in faint moonlight, if that. Now stop grumbling and listen. Three wants something.”

“Mister Magpie, can you make sure no one disturbs us for few moments?”

“No problem,” he shrugs.

The drone looks at Thirteen and furrows his brows. Hive link communication through a suppressor is difficult even at short range and doing so with someone as inexperienced as Thirteen makes it rough if the one controlling it is Three. Still, he manages to transfer the bundled up knowledge of how to make the acid to Thirteen in less than a minute.

Normally, Magpie would have yawned in the meantime or looked around, but he was fascinated by a loading bar popping up across both of Three’s eyes and curious about what would happen when once filled up. Unfortunately for him, all it does is make Three rub his temples as Thirteen sits down.

“Got it?” asks the drone, “The plan as well as the chemistry.”

“I… I guess so, but it’s difficult. I don’t think I can shapeshift enough to make acid like this with the suppressor on my horn.”

“Miss Gem said she made is as simple as she could.”

“For her maybe,” Thirteen frowns, “For someone like me-”

“If you spent more energy on thinking about a solution than on putting yourself down, we’d already be out of here,” grumbles Magpie.

“That was just a simple statement of truth,” Thirteen looks down on the ground.

“Been there, done that. It doesn’t lead anywhere,” a hint of anger finds its way into his annoyed tone.

“I don’t know how to make the acid!” Thirteen stomps her hooves, tearing up a bit as she glares at Magpie, “I mean, not how to make it, but how to transform in such way that I can make it.”

“Then you go tell Gem and Harriet that they’re staying locked up down in a cell where they’re not even allowed to move for the rest of their lives.”

“I’m not seeing you figuring out a way out!” she raises her voice.

“I’m not a species who can change their body in ways most creatures can’t even begin to imagine. I know what’s my role in this plan, and that is to protect Gem from a blow that might catch her unaware, as unlikely as it is. I’m not running away from it, I’m not hiding from it, and I’m running through possible scenarios in my head over and over. Now shut up, idiot, before a warden hears you and play your damn part!” Magpie hisses at Thirteen.

Thirteen glares for few seconds before lowering her head and turning around. Three gives Magpie a frown which the griffon faces with a stern stare of his own until the drone realizes that there’s no apology coming. In light of that, Three nuzzles Thirteen’s foreleg.

“I can’t do it...” whispers Thirteen.

“Sleep on it,” says Magpie.

“What do you think is going to chan-”

“Sleep on it,” repeats the griffon and pounces into the air, turning the jump into a backwards loop which launches him into the air.

“I… I don’t like him,” mumbles Thirteen.

“Miss Gem does,” Three shrugs, “She also says he’s a big dummy who needs a kick in the butt, though.”

“I volunteer,” Thirteen pouts at Three who snickers and boops her nose. Faced with Three’s smile, she admits defeat, “I’m sorry, Three. I’ll do what little I can.”

“And I’ll always be here if you need a hug,” he gives her a preemptive one around her foreleg, “Unless, you know, I’m in the castle and stuff, but you can always imagine I’m here hugging you, because if I was with you then I would for sure do it.”

Thirteen snorts as the corners of her mouth curl up and shakes her head.

“You’re something special, Three.”

“That’s what both boss and miss One say too, although it feels like they each mean it in a different way,” Three’s ears suddenly perk up as he looks around, “Oops! My unicorn friends are still looking for you. Let’s go tell them you don’t need finding anymore.”

“I’d rather n-” she’s talking to no one, because Three’s already walking off, “Nevermind. I wouldn’t listen to myself either if I had the option anyway,” she picks up the pace to catch up with Three.

Now, Thirteen. Be quiet and let Three talk. Everyone just gets mad when you open your mouth.

Deep Ambition whistles to catch the attention of the unicorns searching nearby and points at Thirteen who ineffectually tries to hide behind a drone half her size. Seeing that, the unicorn smirks and approaches her and Three with confidence.

“A pleasure to finally meet you face to face,” he offers a hoof over Three’s head which Thirteen shakes with some hesitation. She has no idea what it is, but the unicorn feels wrong on so many levels it makes her shudder, “I’m Deep Ambition.”

“Sorry, I’m not used to ponies being friendly here,” she covers her body’s involuntary response, “I’m Thirteen.”

“You don’t need to be afraid of me or anypony else from the brotherhood. I’m sure Three told you about our deal.”

“He did,” Thirteen nods

“Speaking of which, you said there was something for me to do too that you’d tell me once we’re close to being done in the castle.”

“Ah yes, that,” the unicorn lowers his voice, “We need to dig a tunnel. So far, we’ve figured out where, how to cover it, and the right direction, but we can’t do it effectively without tools. Somepony with harder hooves, though...”

“Ohhh, a tunnel out of here,” Three nods.

“No, that wouldn’t work,” Deep Ambition shoots the idea down immediately, “There’s a magic field in the ground just like it’s above the prison. No, the tunnel needs to be shallow and lead into the power control room, because getting there the normal way is downright impossible. From what we know, the magical field is an oval around the entirety of the prison, which means the underground too, so digging between the underground floor hallways should be safe. The walls of the power control room itself are made of reinforced concrete, not like the cells, and we need a tunnel to get there in order to knock a hole in the wall and destroy the power core to disable the magic field and turn everything off. Coupled with the fake suppressors, we should easily get out of our cells, release the other prisoners, cause a riot, and escape.”

“So you just need me to dig?” Three’s eyes light up, “I’m sooooo ready for that! How deep and in what direction is the room supposed to be?”

The unicorn stands up, nods at Three, and says:

“Follow me. We spent last week doing some ‘gardening’,” he smirks, leading Three, Thirteen, and the returning unicorns towards the northeast corner of the courtyard which is even more overgrown with wilting vegetation than the mares’ corner where Thirteen was hiding earlier, “A friend smuggled in a growth potion, otherwise this would be impossible without sunlight. Here, between the piles of ripped out weed.”

Three notices a circular spot filled not with dirt but with nettles, grass, and other greenery that’s not rocks and as such doesn’t interest him too much.

“This is the most covered spot in the courtyard. If we station four or five unicorns sitting around, you should be able to dig and hide the dug dirt under the piles. There’s a lot less grass in those piles than you’d think, but we’re barely a pony length deep.”

“Hmmm, do you need just me to get into the power room, or does someone want to come as well?”

“Preferably just you.”

“That makes it a lot easier. Which direction then?” Three looks up at Deep Ambition who points to his right.

“Exactly that way, fourteen pony lengths down. That should lead directly to the right wall.”

“Heh, easy. Watch and learn how a drone works.”

Three starts vibrating.

So does the ground.

He stomps the ground few times, which makes it wibble like the surface of a lake hit with a rock.

Deep Ambition, as well as the other unicorns around, shield their eyes from a sudden explosion of cut greenery as Three disappears, leaving behind only shifting circle similar to quicksand.

Thirteen feels soft tremors under her hooves, but that’s about it. They all watch the suspicious patch shake for about a minute after which two black hooves come out and pull the rest of Three up on the solid surface. To everyone’s shock, there’s no hole left behind him, only strangely soft dirt mixed with the previous covering of grass.

Three shakes off the thin layer of brown dust all over himself which rises like a small cloud.

“What was that?” whispers Deep Ambition.

“I’m a drone,” Three smiles, “If we know one thing, it’s how to dig. I’ve gotten almost to the right depth, and I should be there on the next dive.”

“Fourteen pony lengths...” Deep Ambition breathes out, “You know that’s pony lengths, right? Not the size of you changelings,” he adds in disbelief, as if even the other way was possible or believable.

“Don’t worry, I know the standard lengths reeeeeally well now,” Three recalls the endless translation of dwarf-to-pony measurements done in the past weeks, “Anyway, I’ve just prepped the ground in such way that I could get deeper next time. It’s soon going to get a bit slower since I can’t transform to breathe in more air, but it should be done in few days.”

“Three...” Thirteen furrows her brows, “You did shapeshift your hooves even with the suppressor. I can’t do it but I know the theory. No other drone could do that. How did you just ignore the suppressor?”

“What?” Three gives her a puzzled look, scratching his head, “Nope, still can’t transform,” he shrugs after a second of concentration, “I guess digging is just different. Besides,” he beams widely at Thirteen. “I’m doing this to make the world a better place, and the power of good can’t be stopped by some silly ring!” he punches the air victoriously.

“That explains-” Deep Ambition opens his mouth.

“-absolutely nothing!” Thirteen eye twitches.

Three looks at the faces surrounding him and then shrugs as if he hasn’t just ignored most laws of magic and reality.

“I dunno then. I just dig.”

Imprisoned: So close...

[???]

My dearest friend,

I know we don’t see eye-to-eye on many things these days, but if there’s somepony in the world who will understand this then it is you. In recent years, and especially throughout my cooperation with Magnus, I’ve grown to realize that I’m not the pony you wanted me to be, not anymore. I’ve grown detached and I’ve strayed too far from who I wanted to be. From who you hoped I would become as well. In that, I’ve grown suspicious that it’s something that happened to you a long time ago and that I was your attempt at fixing it.

I used to believe that friendship was magic, but now I know the distinction as much as I suspect that you do. Magic is magic, magic is power, and with rulership I need more and more power to protect my ponies. However, understanding magic takes too much time. After all, as my predecessor and the primal alicorn of Magic, Magnus has been studying the inner workings of reality since the formation of this planet. To become who he is, he had to do it alone. Here’s the problem you’re fully aware of - the more powerful I grow, the less ponies are capable of thinking of me as a friend. Respected and revered ruler? Yes. A foreign and skilled diplomat in the case of other races? Yes. At best a motherly figure, but a friend? Less and less.

And the real kicker is that I am more powerful than I ever was with friends by my side and that terrifies me, even though I’m sure most of my divinity related to friendship is gone. I must admit I’m somewhat curious about where that divinity is now. You know, since it coalesces into the right avatar. The only thing I hope for is that whoever has the right affinity for friendship these days doesn’t stray from the path like both of us did.

Why don’t I just walk upstairs from the laboratory to talk about it in person? At first I wanted to, but then I recalled how cathartic writing these used to be.

Sincerely,

I’m sure you know who.

[???]

“Mister Magpie?” asks Thirteen quietly in case the griffon on the upper bunk is still asleep.

“Hmm?” she hears the griffon grunt and roll over.

“You were right.”

“I tend to be,” he mumbles without any interest in continuing the morning conversation.

“I just want to say sorry about snapping at you when you said I should sleep on it after Three explained what he needed from me.”

“That was two days ago,” moans Magpie, “And it’s not like me forgiving you means anything.”

“It just didn’t feel right not saying it.”

“Look, I used to be a noble, and don’t you dare tell anyone. Even Gem doesn’t know any details, so lock this up inside your head or whatever you changelings do. It was politics all the time. Everyone kept saying things and lying over and over and over and thinking that in the end it was the same as doing things. It wasn’t, it didn’t do any good. You can keep talking about anything forever, but the important thing is what you do.”

“Umm, how do I do sorry?” Thirteen shifts under the blanket, “I can’t do Three’s kicked puppy look, at least not like he does it.”

“Are all you changelings smartasses when you want to be?”

“Sorry.”

“Here we go again...” Magpie sighs.

“Fine, we’ll do it your way,” Thirteen crosses her forelegs on her chest, strangely warm inside, “Once I do sorry, will you accept it?”

“Sure, whatever. Does that mean you’ve come up with something about you know what?”

“Yep. I’ll need mister minotaur’s help first and you to tell that unicorn gang to stay out of the way during breakfast no matter what happens, though.”

“You’re planning on something happening to you, aren’t you?”

“How did you guess that?”

“The only thing I, the minotaur, and those hornhead supremacists have in common is promising Three to make sure nothing happens to you. Speaking of which, you’re assuming Three’s going to be in the castle today again, right?”

“Mhm. He should be back earlier again, though. He said he was only overseeing the final testing of the mechanical farms now.”

“Good.”

Thirteen ponders saying something but quickly reminds herself of what Magpie said. On the other hole, she can’t help but wonder how a griffon noble would end up leaving that for life as a mercenary slash caravan guard. She read several books Gem brought from the surface and she knows about the dwarf upper class, and she got a good guess that being on top usually meant a better life. What she does know, though, is that asking about it right now would do no good.

***

Thirteen walks into the cafeteria, not caring about being noticed for the first time since her arrival in the prison. Standing upright without looking away from any glances her way still makes her feel a grip tightening around her chest. Despite that, she patiently waits in the queue, forcing her breathing under control.

It’s going to be okay, Thirteen. You got an idea and now you need to make it work. You’ve seen how this works before, scraps between inmates are common.

But what if I thought wrong? What if I’m completely wrong? Everyone is relying on me... ME!

She starts trembling which makes the oatmeal she takes from the serving lady wobble in its bowl as she walks over to the unnamed minotaur sitting alone at the central table like always.

“H-Hi,” she sits down on the bench next to him for once instead of taking her place across the table as usual.

The minotaur nods mid-chew, finishes his bite, and swallows.

“Morning,” he grunts which, as Thirteen knows by now, is in his terms a sign of absolute friendship.

The changeling looks around and spots Magpie chatting up several members of the unicorn brotherhood in the back of the cafeteria. Shoving her bowl towards the minotaur, Thirteen leans closer and whispers:

“I need your help. It’s about the plan.”

“Alright.”

“You know? I still haven’t asked you what you’re in here for.”

“And that’s the best part about you,” he doesn’t even bother looking at her.

“Oh… got it,” Thirteen looks around again.

“Now focus and tell me what you want.”

Thirteen takes a deep breath and taps against the brown secondary armor plating around her barrel.

“I need you to attack me and rip it off. Over the past two days, I’ve been slowly transforming as much as the suppressor allows. The secondary armor isn’t completely separated from my chitin, so it’ll get messy.”

“Mind if I ask why?”

“I need to get to the infirmary, and this way is a lot less inconvenient than breaking a leg or something. A lot more painful, though, but it’s the only thing I’ve come up with. If mutilating myself is the only way I can be useful then so be it. I don’t deserve to look like a queen-type changeling anyway.”

“Just the brown carapace around your barrel then?”

“Mhm. That should be enough and not cripple me,” Thirteen nods, “I’m really sorry about the beating the wardens will give you. Trust me, if I could do it on my own, I-”

She can’t finish the sentence as the minotaur backhands her so hard that starts begin dancing in front of her eyes. She barely notices the impact of her back against the floor as well as the minotaur’s roar:

“I may have lost my honor, but a worthless bug like you doesn’t get to say anything!”

He grabs Thirteen by her neck, pushes her fingers deep against the soft chitin of her barrel and under the ‘hem’ of the secondary carapace which cracks as he squeezes it. His fingers sink deeper into her chitin than any skin would allow, and the wet squishiness feels as if he was reaching into someone’s ribcage.

Lightning of pure agony fries Thirteen’s brain instantly, her eyes rolling back. Not in her worst nightmares could she have expected it to be this bad.

Thankfully, it doesn’t last long. Only until she throws up and passes out. Unfortunately, her world shuts down with the knowledge that this is still the easy part.

She doesn’t know how long she’s been out, only that she’s suddenly lying on something much softer than the bunk in her cell. Not opening her eyes, she listens for any possibility of anyone being in the room with her before she concludes she’s in the clear and sits upright… or at least as upright as the leather straps around her fetlocks allow.

Alright, alright. It’s just like miss Gem taught me back in the hive. You’re a changeling, so you should always expect to get tied up and suppressed when in hostile situations.

Softening her chitin wasn’t the only transformation she’s been working on since she thought of the first steps of her plan to melt the suppressors. The second part was to change her internal organs in such way that she’d be able to absorb painkillers in liquid or pill form. Normally, changelings don’t have anything save for the mucus membrane in their noses, so if she was sure she could snort any painkillers she’d find there would be no need to take over a full day of slow shapeshifting to grow something even remotely resembling a rapid digesting system.

So, step one - she’s in the intensive care and no one is around. The doctor must have slipped out before sending her off to the recovery ward.

Step two - find a medicine cabinet. Right on the opposite wall with glass and chain mesh front, padlocked with rows of bottles lying on the shelves.

Taking a deep breath, she narrows her legs by simply opening small holes right under the leather straps, which allows her legs to easily slip out. From a different hole in her foreleg, she pulls out the fake suppressor.

Step three…

With both forelegs, she pushes against the glass which cracks and slowly drops into Thirteen’s lap. A pony would be badly cut by now, even before getting through the mesh to the bottles of pills, but even her softened chitin protects her as long as she’s careful.

Now, her fangs aren’t the sharpest but with her not caring about cutting her gums or tongue she bites through few thin chain links and then unceremoniously shoves a hoof in and rips open the rest, reaching for a name she recognizes - morphine. Amusingly, there are two of those hoof-sized bottles, one with pills and one with liquid.

Knowing the next step is going to hurt so much that any training with One would be akin to a gentle massage, she downs the full bottle of pills and washes them down with the liquid one.

It takes less than a minute before her legs collapse under her and everything blurs.

Alright, Thirteen. Now or never!

Her eyes go wide as the rush of pure agony and adrenaline wash away the dose of painkillers enough to knock out a dragon moment after she pulls on the suppressor on her horn.

She just needs to twist it a little…

She can’t pass out yet…

Her body reacts without any input from Thirteen, throwing up partially-digested pills mid-screw. Thankfully, by now Thirteen can barely feel anything other than her horn and skull fried from the inside out until…

...it all stops and the suppressor slips off.

The final step. Just few more seconds. Please, don’t mess this up. It’s the only thing they needed from me. I can’t mess this up. I can’t mess this up. I can’t mess this up.

A leg hole opens and Thirteen slips the real suppressor into it.

Mustn’t mess this up. They need me. The first time someone really needs me.

The final step.

Thirteen reaches for the fake suppressor on the bed and barely grabs the blanket before she collapses on the floor, the blanket along with the suppressor landing by her head.

Just screw it on.

Just need to screw it on.

No matter how hard she tries, her body doesn’t move anymore.

No no no no no! Please no! Body, listen to me! Just put it on, that’s all. One little screw and then I can pretend it got dislodged when I fell or something.

I can’t fail Three, Gem, everyone here. The doctor will find me… with a fake suppressor…

I’ll ruin the whole plan...

Despite her internal begging, she doesn’t even twitch anymore as her vision fades.

Mom was right all along...

Author's Note

Looks like people not being able to go out due to the quarantine won't save this story :rainbowlaugh:

Imprisoned: Fresh outlook on life

Thirteen’s consciousness slowly returns from the black pit of overdose-induced coma, forcing a groan through her lips, which makes something like a hard loaf of bread pressing against her side shift a little. A loaf the warmth of which seeps into Thirteen’s barrel and through her whole body like a cup of warm cocoa on a winter evening.

It unrolls and reveals a black head with two bright teal eyes staring at Thirteen’s face with a growing smile.

“...Three…?” she lets out a whispered croak when, under the blurry head, she spots the faint pink glow of a familiar string of runes. Seeing the changeling up close, memories quickly flood her head, her previously recovering vision filling with tears of shame, “...I’m sorry...”

“What for? What happened?” Three sits up, gently putting his forelegs on Thirteen’s chest. When she hisses as the unpleasant pressure spikes through her barrel, he puts those back on the bed.

“I messed everything up,” her mental voice reaches Three with ease which makes Thirteen question herself.

She should have a real suppressor on again. They can’t have left her unlocked after she passed out.

“What do you mean?” Three’s hive link voice is weak but still significantly more audible than at any point since their imprisonment. He has his suppressor on, so it’s as if… as if…

“Is that suppressor on your horn one of the fake ones?” she asks instead.

“Nope. Everyone is still waiting for you with the plan. Good job by the way, but what happened afterwards? The doctor said you poisoned yourself. Why? Was that a lie? Should I tell miss Gem? Are they doing some illegal experiments on changelings?”

Thirteen’s head spins as she takes a deep breath and looks blankly at the ceiling.

Did she make it?

With a grunt, she raises her weak, noodle-limp foreleg and touches her horn. On the attempt number two, after poking herself in the eye.

It’s there. Her suppressor is on. Yet she can still mentally talk to Three with ease. It has to be the fake one.

Closing her eyes, she lets out a sigh of relief.

“Is there anyone around?”

“The doctor did his rounds twenty minutes ago. There’s just you, me, and a warden by the door.”

“This side of the door?”

“Yep.”

“Sorry...” she croaks out loud, “Everything hurt so much that when I saw the medicine cabinet… I just couldn’t control myself.”

“Keep up the real world chitchat, Three. I’ll explain.”

“Awww. You’re already getting better. They promised I could stay here overnight,” Three nuzzles Thirteen’s neck.

Through the hive link, though, he says:

“I’m done at the castle. We did it. Ponies are successfully building a farm every few days now by hoof but they’re working on a proper assembly line. It’s going to take weeks, but I think we’ve made sure Equestria avoids a famine,” the smile of Three’s hive link image drains away despite the great news, “Buuut the rest of the news is not so good.”

“Hit me.”

“What? No! Why would I do that?”

“I mean, what’s wrong now that the food situation is only going to get better?”

“Well, I thought about how Two reported that weird sky pulse that seemed to heat everything up. I finally saw it yesterday with my own eyes, and I’m sure it’s someone using magic to stop the world from freezing over. The problem is that they’re failing. You wouldn’t notice it in here even during outside time, but the guards I asked said it’s definitely gotten colder over the past weeks outside of the barrier surrounding the Crystal Empire.”

“I doubt we can help with that, or can we?”

“Well… I think we might, but mister Magpie keeps calling me a maroon whenever I bring it up, and even miss Gem said it was a dumb idea.”

Thirteen turns her head to face Three who got silent even in the pointless chatter they kept up to prevent the guard by the door from realizing they’re communicating telepathically. He’s looking down at the bedsheet, slowly taking steps with his forelegs on the spot. Seeing the normally happy drone this unsure of himself and hesitant is definitely a unique occurence, and not in a good way.

Faced with that and with what Thirteen did to herself who knows how long ago, she gives Three a weary smile and says:

“Dad told me to keep an eye on you, Three. Magpie scolded me that I talk instead of doing and he was right in a way. I’m going with you no matter what the plan is or who thinks how stu- wrong it might turn out.”

“Really?” the runes on Three’s body light up a little.

“I could promise or swear, but that would just prove Magpie’s point. When push comes to shove, I will act. What’s the plan?”

“Mind telling me how you ended up here while I prepare what I want to say so that it makes some sense? I tried to explain to miss Gem, but I just… I just couldn’t do it right. I want you to understand,” Three gives her a pleading look.

“Take your time, although my story will be short. I had no idea how to make the acid from miss Gem’s recipe with a suppressor still on. It required internal changes I just couldn’t make. I’m not even as powerful as you, Three. I really am on the level of a common drone, so I had to improvise. The only way was to take my suppressor off if I wanted to make the right kind of acid. I asked our minotaur friend to rip my belly plating off so that I could get to the infirmary. Before that, I had to take few days to grow something that could absorb any kind of painkiller I could find. When I got here, I broke into the medicine cabinet, ate what I could not to pass out while I took my suppressor off and switched it with the fake one. I thought I passed out before I could do it, that’s why I was apologizing, but… the amount I took must have damaged my memory or something. I can’t recall switching the suppressors at all.”

“Well, you must have done it, otherwise we wouldn’t be talking like this.”

“True, but if the fake one is on my horn, where-” she blinks as her foreleg twitches a little, making her feel pressure inside as if something small was hidden inside it, “It’s hidden in my leg. I’m sorry, I really can’t remember anything past collapsing on the floor.”

“But you did it, and that’s the important part. See? You are much stronger and smarter than you… and a lot of others give you credit for. And I’m not just saying it, I mean it. Well, even if I mean it, I’m only saying it… how do I do a meaning?” stuck in the philosophical conundrum, Three opts for a hug around her neck. Simple things are often the best.

“I get it, I get it, you really mean it,” Thirteen can’t help letting out a quiet sigh. Her barrel still hurts, but Three’s careful about it this time, and the warmth spreading from him like a blanket washes her worries away. After a short while, she asks, “So what’s the plan, Three?”

“After we escape from here, I want to find the big bad- Flow in Tartarus.”

“Huh, you did mention it before. But why? Why do you think the guy who caused the apocalypse would help undo it? I mean, even if he by some miracle was able to. From what I understand, the rest of the universe is gone. Breaking things is always easier than fixing them.”

“Well… we can start with the sun if nothing else, right? So that ponies and fluffy catbirds and zebras and even minotaurs don’t all freeze to death,” Three crosses his forelegs on his chest, “And this is what I’m trying to say and NO ONE is listening. Flow CAN’T BE a bad guy!” Three stops himself, “Wait, no, that’s not the right way to say it. He IS a bad guy for all the terrible stuff he did, but… look...” his voice fades.

“Take your time, Three,” Thirteen musters what little strength she’s got to pat his head.

“How much do you know about what happened after miss Gem arrived in our hive with mister Magpie, miss Prominence, and Harriet on the back of a big dragon?”

“I just know that dad suddenly gave the order for all changelings to clear out of the throne room and few hallways leading to the surface.”

“That’s where miss Gem led the dragon and her group through. What happened around the same time was that mister Cromach, this big white griffon, with one really friendly earthpony Corrupted arrived along with Cryo and brought an alicorn lady to the hive. She was a full wild Corrupted, all crazy, angry, and tentacly. Cryo lost all her hatchlings who went with her and Eleven lost several of his bodies as well in order to get that alicorn to us. The dragon miss Gem brought was supposed to be the alicorn lady’s friend and that his presence along with some medicine could cure her of her corruption.”

“We have an alicorn friend now? Neat!”

“Not exactly...” Three sighs, “The cure worked, but the alicorn lady was a Corrupted for too long, and wasn’t right in the head. She was really confused, kinda like what Cryo gets sometimes. She had no idea who she was, where she was, could barely move or talk, and the only creature she even barely recognized was the dragon. However, she must have understood something mister Cromach and the earthpony told her, because she obeyed whenever they told her to stay or follow them.”

“Okay, so we saved a brain-damaged alicorn they brought to us. How is she connected to this Flow creature that destroyed the universe?”

“From what I understand, she knew how to find Flow and that’s what mister Cromach and the earthpony wanted. I said it before when we were all talking down in the interrogation room after we got sent here - she was the one who teleported us into a pocket dimension that looked like a big city ruined by an earthquake where we met a unicorn called Mistake. He is the reason I think this is all wrong. If I didn’t have the suppressor on my horn I would show you the memory and then it might make better sense. There was no evil in him, only desperation and determination. I know others often think I’m stupid because I try to see the good in everyone first, but this was different. Mistake wasn’t a baddie and the way mister Cromach and the earthpony talked to him it seemed as if he was and wasn’t Flow at the same time. It all felt as if he didn’t want things to end up like this, but that he had no choice.”

“But you haven’t met the real Flow, right?”

“No,” Three shakes his head, “We haven’t, and that made mister Cromach cry. Mistake said Flow wanted to see mister Cromach more than anything but that he couldn’t. There was something else Flow had to do and no one could know why. Now we know it was destroying everything in the sky.”

“Honestly, that doesn’t bring me any closer understanding why we should seek someone like that out.”

“Hrmph!” Three frowns, “I still don’t know how to say it properly. To me it felt as if no one involved had any other choice. None of them wanted to meet like that, to turn the princesses and everyone against them, to cause a terrible massacre in Zebrica, but there just wasn’t any other way. No one around Flow that I’ve met felt like a baddie, and that’s why I think Flow would want to fix things if possible.”

“You’re forgetting that even if we get to Tartarus, there’s no way we can get someone like that out. You know, on the off chance that everything you’re saying is right.”

“I just want to talk to him first, to understand what really happened. No one knows the whole story. I need to know,” Three sighs, “It’s getting scary outside. Ponies are growing terrified and angry with each other. I can feel it. It hurts...”

“I’m with you,” is all Thirteen can say. After almost killing herself, things just feel different… priorities mostly. Everything is less pressing, as if what the world wanted from her wasn’t as relevant anymore. Her own choice, on the other hoof…

And she definitely can’t deny her curiosity about how they really got into this mess inthe first place.

“I’m with you,” she repeats, “Tartarus or anywhere else.”

“Thank you, Thirteen. Boss was the only one who understood when I told him how it felt but he was busy with making sure all dwarves can leave Brauheim, and for a good reason since miss Prominence said that princess Sunny wanted to burn the city to the gro- undergro- even further underground.”

As Thirteen thinks about what to say to that, her body makes the choice for her by yawning.

“I should let you sleep,” Three pats her head, “And I’ll tell everyone we’re almost ready to get out of here,” he adds through the hive link.

“Thank you for coming to see me,” she mutters, losing control with every passing second.

“Hey, I’d be here all the time, but the wardens said just this night. Now rest up and get better.”

Thirteen doesn’t even hear the end of that sentence.

***

On the evening of day two after that, and a thorough questioning about why she did what she did by the doctor and some wardens, the staff escort Thirteen back to her and Magpie’s cell.

When the door clicks behind her, Magpie looks down from his bunk and then withdraws his head when he realizes it’s not wardens wanting something from him.

“You okay?” is all he says.

“Mhm,” Thirteen nods. After a quick look around to see that the wardens have left, she adds, “Did they hurt mister minotaur after I passed out?”

“Not after the first round of tranquilizers and taser spells, no. He’s in the solitary now, though.”

“Aww,” Thirteen limps over to the bed and lies down, “I’ll have to apologize again- wait, no. That’s just saying sorry all over again.”

“Hmm?”

“I’m taking something you said to heart,” Thirteen buries her head to the small, flat pillow.

“I usually am right, but I shouldn’t be anyone’s role model, really,” Magpie rolls over.

“No no,” Thirteen can’t help smiling to herself for some reason, “Grouchy or not, that thing about not talking but doing- or acting in this case made sense.”

“Huh, I guess it’s true then that even a blind lumberjack sometimes hits a tree,” Magpie shrugs.

“And you were annoyed with me for putting myself down...”

“You and me, biiig difference in life experience, girl.”

“That’s something I was wondering about before but I was afraid you’d get mad if I asked.”

“And you’re not afraid now?”

“I… I do, but everything feels strange now. I almost killed myself, I thought I messed up really bad so I thought I deserved it, but when I woke up… everything was somehow okay-”

“And now you feel like you’ve got nothing to lose no matter what you do, right? So you may as well do whatever you want, if only out of spite at the world for surviving. I mean, after the momentary disappointment that you’re still here.”

“Exactly!” Thirteen’s eyes go wide, she turns around, and glares at the bottom of Magpie’s bunk, “How do you know?”

“Girl, I spent years in minotaur blood arena, tortured, raped, broken in ways I never thought were possible. I tried to kill myself more times than I can recall from those blurry days, but they never let me. Their shamans are surprisingly good at keeping someone alive if they want. It was their mistake in the end to keep me at the breaking point that you’ve just visited.”

“Was that what turned you into a loveless?”

“What?”

“A loveless, a creature without any love. Alive, but to a changeling you may as well be a moving rock. I recall catching few mentions of creatures like that in our hive mind, mostly because mom or someone had to stop them before they caused too much damage to ponies around them.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about but I’ve had my share of berserking in the arena, so I’m not about to go cracking friendly skulls any time soon.”

“It’s not that. Some were just psychopaths unable to understand emotions and that made them evil without them even knowing. Politicians, most of those. But some ended up in a mental institutions. They were just missing a crucial part of themselves. It makes me wonder if miss Gem has noticed it.”

“If you noticed whatever you think you’re noticing, then Gem definitely did.”

“True. You know what?”

“What?” grumbles the griffon.

“I hope miss Gem can help you get better.”

“Go to bed, girl. I’m Gem’s emergency ration, that’s all.”

“She can’t get love off of you...”

“Lust still works, doesn’t it? Because I sure could stare at that plot all day.”

“I suppose so...” Thirteen yawns, “Anyway, it’s nice knowing there’s someone who can relate to what’s going on with me.”

Magpie sighs.

“Look, girl. I don’t wish it on anyone who’s normal, but it happened, you did it, and you’re learning something new about yourself. Don’t run from the experience, use it.”

“So you really don’t like anyone?”

“Go to beeeeed...” growls Magpie, “Near-fatal wounds should make you tired, not chatty.”

“Just this last question, if you don’t mind.”

“I do mind, or am I being too subtle about it?”

Thirteen stands up, walks over to the cell door, and flips the light switch. It doesn’t do much, since there’s still light coming through the bars enough to brighten the whole cell to a reading level, but it’s better than the lightbulb in the ceiling.

Thirteen lies back down, and silence interrupted only by the muffled noises from other cells and the steps of patrolling wardens follows, at least until Magpie hisses:

“Okay, I can feel you staring. One last question, and if you don’t go to bed afterwards, I’ll knock you out myself.”

“Deal,” Thirteen smirks, “So do you like anyone?”

“No. Good night.”

“You have to take it seriously!”

“Fine! Romantically? No. Never have. Me and ‘like someone’ aren’t things that belong into the same sentence. Good night.”

“Not even miss Gem?”

“I work for Gem, Thirteen. End of story. She’s a hardcore pacifist, I told you, and I’m there to buy her time to prepare some potion that helps her escape from a tough situation. Her usual flirty attitude is a way she acts around everyone. I’ve always thought it was just practice,” he facetalons, “Let me guess, your near-death experience made you re-evaluate your priorities and now you think you like someone, am I right?”

“You act like you don’t care, but that was one hole of an accurate observation,” admits Thirteen,

“I am pretty good at predicting things that are going to annoy me. Do you intend to keep talking about it then or can I go to sleep without asking a warden to tranqulize me?”

“I… I think I like Three.”

“Dumb, happy, always positive. Good pick. Have him shapeshift into some muscular body and most mares would bash each other over the head to be with him and those who wouldn’t would want him as a trophy husband.”

“That’s a horrible way to think about a relationship.”

“Asking the wrong griffon here. Now, I did my best to comment on your newfound affection. Time to fulfill your part of the deal and go to sleep before I’m forced to choke you out with a pillow.“

“Always so grouchy.”

“Yeah, and that’s my best characteristic.”

Imprisoned: Plan in motion

[Transmission on the Black Ops’ heavily encrypted channel]

I don’t even want to imagine what your agents told you about my situation, but it’s nowhere as serious, I promise. It does worry me, though, that they knew we were coming. You should send your agents out to ask some questions. The sniper missed, although I’ll definitely be limping for few weeks despite receiving quick field surgery assisted by what little access to magic we have left. My leg will heal, and I had my bodyguard tell me I would look even more imperial with a cane.

I think she watches movies too much.

I wish I had more time for this message, but we’ll be returning home tomorrow, and the doctor insists that I have a proper night’s sleep, and there’s still one issue I want you to look into. The ambush was well prepared. We scouted out the site afterwards and found several griffons not killed by gunfire. They were killed by claws and fangs, and there was no trace of the attackers. The recent spy reports from Equestria suggest the migration of several groups of changelings, and I definitely don’t want them here in the Empire unsupervised no matter their motives.

Do you think it’s Guiding Light and the dreamlings, king Beard’s northern hive, or someone else? I doubt it’s Chrysalis’ hive, since our contacts in Canterlot report her still being there, although she’s known to still have operations past the borders of Equestria. Anyway, the painkillers are kicking in, so I’m stopping the transmission before I start babbling.

See you in few days.

[End transmission]

Thirteen walks through the chain link gate into the inner courtyard and takes a deep breath. After being cooped up for another day and night in her cell, the cool air makes her smile at the black sky. One quick look around later, she spots her minotaur friend sitting on the ground by the monkey bar, an unusual occurrence in itself as he’s usually been exercising most of the time. To compound the feeling of the situation being a little strange, Magpie isn’t flying around, instead opting for some light stretching on a bench nearby. In short, everyone seems to be less active and much more relaxed, as if holding their breath.

With the exception of one small happy blur trotting towards her like a dog jumping through a blanket of snow.

“I’m so happy you’re finally feeling okay!” Three stops in front of her, suppressing his hugging instinct when he tilts his head from side to side, noticing that Thirteen still hasn’t regrown her secondary belly plating, “Are you feeling okay?”

Thirteen takes a second before giving him a small smile.

“I think so.”

“And your belly?” Three trots around, carefully poking her side.

“I’m not regrowing my armor until I deserve it.”

“But-”

“That’s my decision to make, Three,” she pats his head as he frowns. That in itself is enough to make Three’s tongue stick out of his mouth, “Pat head, receive blep,” muses Thirteen.

“Sooo...” Three furrows his brows and she feels his mental touch, “Can we go on with the plan? Mister Magpie told me they’d let you out today, and I can’t keep re-digging the tunnel forever without the wardens noticing me occasionally disappearing underground for few minutes. The unicorn brothers said they have a friend ready as soon as the prison goes dark.”

“Do you have a fake suppressor?”

“In my foreleg. The unicorns have theirs inside bread balls, which is super smart because they are ready to go at any moment while still having a snack in case of getting peckish.”

“Okay, let’s see if we can do this. Follow me.”

Thirteen cuts the communication, nods to a darker hiding place in the middle distance between the evenly distributed crystal lamps hanging on the courtyard walls. A spotlight from one of the four towers in each corner follows them for a while, but when the only thing the pony sees are two changelings sitting by the wall and chatting, the cone of light picks a different target.

“Alright, let’s switch the damn things,” says Thirteen.

A hole in Three’s leg opens, and the drone finds his face pressed against Thirteen’s chest chitin in a tight hug. He’s not sure what Thirteen is planning, but if it involves a hug, it can’t go wrong, right?

Her chin above Three’s head, Thirteen squeezes out a drop of acid created by Gem’s recipe which lands on Three’s suppressor, melting a narrow cut in the ring within seconds. Moment later, Thirteen pats his head, slipping the fake suppressor on and wiping off a bubbling smudge of goo and metal before it can drip down into Three’s eyes. Judging by lack of any undue reaction from the wardens, the whole switcheroo has gone unnoticed.

“All done,” Thirteen lets out a sigh of relief.

Three’s smiles from ear to ear as he connects to Thirteen’s hive link properly.

“I’ve missed this,” he says, “Finally, proper talking doesn’t hurt my head anymore.”

“I assume we’re doing the unicorns next, right?”

“Yep. Then I’ll use the tunnel softened dirt I’ve been preparing to get to the power power control room, break in through the wall, and destroy the core. That should turn all the lights off and open the underground cells because the fans delivering the air down there will stop working.”

“Wait, is there no reserve power circuit? I haven’t talked to Six much but that’s basic security.”

“There is but it’s hidden in the walls and under the floor. The unicorn brothers said that anyone who would break the main core would go for the central power core and completely miss the secondary routing. Hiding in plain sight, in a way. Don’t worry about that, worry about the baddies who will come out once the cells open.”

“Alright, what do you need me to do?”

***

Less than fifteen minutes later, Three’s love-enhanced hooves break through the reinforced side wall of the supposed power core room. It’s barely lit by dim, red glow coming from its center, but that’s enough for a changeling to see with absolute clarity. After taking a deep breath, he pushes himself halfway through the hole and looks around for anything resembling motion sensors. Finding nothing that could even remotely be considered security by Brauheim standards, he pushes forward with both forelegs, squeezing himself out like a cork from a bottle followed by a stream of dirt. He shakes the dust off, still gasping for air. Breaking through the wall took longer than he’d expected and even his shapeshifted lung capacity was stretched to the limit in order to do it in one go.

All that aside, he’s here and now and everyone is counting on him.

The power core room is a simple square with bare walls, a raised pillar in its center surrounded by various control panels, and a thick, circular vault door which Three’s drone senses immediately identify as something he’d never get through no matter how hard he tried. Similar to what dwarves used in Brauheim, actually. Unbreakable with force.

The middle part of the central pillar is made of reinforced glass, a much better material to avoid energy surges than anything metallic, and it gives a good view of the humming pyramid-shaped crystal slowly rotating in the air that must be the power core itself. However, his senses quickly tell him that he’s definitely not strong enough to simply break the glass.

“Now… if I were the central power coupling, would I be in the bottom part or the top part?” Three mutters to himself, his knowledge of power grid systems being tested.

Circling around the room, Three shapeshifts his foreleg into the tip of a screwdriver and starts opening any panel he can find, usually revealing a clump of cables.

Should I just start indiscriminately breaking stuff? Nah, the good ponies might need to get this place back in working order to catch the real baddies. I just need to make sure this stays shut down while we get out, that’s all.

With that in mind, instead of cutting the cables after changing the composition of his hooves to something a lot less conductive, he starts disconnecting them instead. It takes longer and it’s riskier, but simply breaking stuff would reflect badly on boss, and boss is the best and doesn’t deserve anything bad.

Eventually, the humming stops and the hovering crystal drops on the solid bottom of the pillar, losing its light and plunging the room into almost total darkness with the exception of Three’s eyes and the pink runes on his body.

“Okay okay okay, someone’s bound to come check up soon. Now, the secondary circuit,” he taps the wall near the floor nervously, listening for any hollow spots. When he finds one, he straight up just fuels his hooves with love and digs through the concrete.

“Yaaaaaaaaah!” an electric shock throws him across the room where he lies, blinking with his tongue out. As it turned out, hooves for digging aren’t the same kind of hooves for safe manipulation of high voltage cables. Thankfully, chitin in general isn’t the best conductor in itself.

After stumbling back on all fours, Three wobbles back to the wall, shapeshifts his hoof again, and this time brings its sharp edge of straight down, severing all the cables at once. The current only tickles a bit after proper precautions and the room finally goes completely silent with the exception of Three’s breathing. There’s just one last thing left to do. After tying all the cables into tight balls of knots, Three grabs the unscrewed panels of all the control boxes around the central pillar and fastens them all back into their right places. The main power circuit will be easy to fix afterwards, but it won’t be possible to do so instantly.

Just as he hears clicking from the massive vault door’s locking mechanism, he takes a long breath and dives back into the hole he’d come through before, disappearing into the soft dirt like the small, chitinous drill that he is.

***

As the guard turrets go dark along with the wall lamps, all activity in the courtyard stops for a moment.

Having been sitting by Thirteen’s side, Magpie grabs her foreleg.

“Eep!” she twitches.

“Grab the minotaur and get to the tunnel. Once Three’s out, take the route underground to the meeting room where we met Gem. I’m going ahead,” hisses the griffon.

“Can you see in-”

“I’m part cat, part eagle. What do you think?!” he’s already running towards the chain link gate back to the prison.

Two wardens stop him by the entrance as several other rush out, all looking like fireflies with the badges on their chests being the only tiny sources of light. Magpie looks down at the electrified blackjacks jabbed into his chest.

“Guys, I’m the only prisoner running back in,” he points at the dark sky, “The pegasi flying away now that the magic dome is gone are the bigger problem, or maybe the-”

*BOOM!*

Magpie winces as the shockwave followed by impacts of chunks of masonry scatters the silhouettes of prisoners all over the courtyard.

“Screw whatever that was!” he curses out loud, pushing past the stunned wardens.

“Hey, stay where you are!” he hears behind him and ignores it completely.

“Yes, your priority reeeally should be the unarmed guy running back towards his cell while there’s just been a huge explosion,” mutters Magpie to himself, “The world is full of idiots.”

There’s chaos inside the prison as well. With the cells unlocked, even the prisoners scheduled for outside at different times are now grouping up. Magpie ponders involving himself with a group of five currently kicking a warden to death but chooses not to. The warden chasing him can take care of that after all.

Several hallways later, he’s already passed three unconscious prisoners still smelling of ozone after getting heavily electrocuted, but unfortunately no stun baton he could use himself. Thankfully, the prisoners to whom the prison now belongs don’t seem too inclined to finish off any personal grudges, leaving the griffon’s path to the stairs leading into the lower levels mostly open.

“One of those glowing badges would come in handy right now,” he mumbles as he descends the stairs to rather eerily silent darkness ahead where not even his eyes are of much help. However, after some sneaking downstairs, he sees faint light where he recalls being a guard room separating the two lower floors from the rest of the prison. The door from the stairs is open but the one leading further into the complex is closed with two heavy, steel latches.

By the door sits a crystal earthpony warden who can’t be more than in his early twenties, the dancing light of his badge clearly showing he’s trembling. His eyes are locked on the closed door but he quickly turns around and points a stun baton tied to his foreleg via a cloth loop at Magpie.

“S-Stay where you are!”

“Colt, I’m not here to hurt you. I’m not here to hurt anyone if possible,” Magpie looks the earthpony sternly in the eyes, “But I won’t hesitate either. You’re new to this, so listen,” the griffon points behind himself while not letting the earthpony out of his sight just in case he proved prone both to bouts of panic and stupidity, “The prisoners up there are killing everyone who even remotely looks like warden. Hell, I think even the lunch lady is in for a nasty surprise unless she’s gotten out already. The way I see it, you have three options. First is the dumb one - you try to stop me and have me return to my cell. Your damn legs are shaking more than a crack addict without his fix so I doubt you can do it even while armed. And even if by some miracle you did it, the second you’d get up the prisoners will swarm you and shove that baton where the sun doesn’t shine, which in the current state of the world gives them a lot of options. Choice number two - you give me that baton and the badge, then you take that uniform off and either get out with the prisoners pretending you’re one of them or get to the guards who are surely on their way and tell them one of the escapees stripped you.”

“A-And number three?” asks the earthpony as Magpie takes a breath to continue.

“You help me and end up a hero when the guards arrive. Two of my friends are locked in there with the worst psychopathic scum your little Empire managed to produce,” he points at the closed door.

“But they’re there for a reason.”

“They don’t know why and neither do I. The royals decided we were involved in the sky going missing without explaining anything,” Magpie decides to play on the heroism and hormones to deal the final blow to the young pony, “They’re both mares, one a country girl and one a pacifist to her core, and I’ll be damned if there aren’t some other assholes in there who get off on raping fillies while flaying them alive and laughing. So, you give me that badge and that stun baton that I know thousand times better how to use than you do. Then you let me in, lock the door behind me, and don’t let anyone out until I come back with them. I doubt the prisoners from upstairs will come here. That way, you’ll be the one solely responsible for keeping the worst elements still locked up once the guards rush in to stop all this, AND you’ll save two exceedingly hot mares from a terrible fate. Got it?”

Magpie doesn’t move closer until the trembling earthpony nods and then slowly gives him his badge and the baton.

“But be careful...” the pony looks down at the floor, “There were other wardens on patrol there. Some of the screams I heard… couldn’t be real.”

“Stay here, lock the door behind me,” Magpie gives the baton a practice swing after tying a piece of torn uniform around his neck and fastening the badge to it to avoid having to hold it, “Oh, and in case a minotaur and two changelings come from upstairs, tell them to stay here and wait for me, but if they insist they want to go in, let them.”

Not waiting for an answer, Magpie opens the two latches, pulls at the thick door, and slinks in through the crack.

“Close it!” he hisses and a moment later he hears a thud followed by a series of clicks.

In contrast to the commotion upstairs, the darkness and silence here are downright oppressive even for someone used to night shifts. Taking a deep breath to steel himself, he heads towards where he recalls the interrogation room being.

The first cell on his right makes him frown. The door is open but instead of seeing anything inside it looks as if there was a light-absorbing sheet of ink in the doorway. With his quick glance, ripples appear on it like on a vertical surface of a lake. It seems to reflect a distorted version of himself which shrugs just like the real griffon.

Magpie passes by. In complete silence, the blackness swirls, and shadowy version of the griffon pounces out, trailing the ethereal inky blackness like a cloak behind himself. He opens his sharp beak to rip Magpie’s back open and lunges forward.

The dark griffon’s advance is stopped by Magpie spinning around and ramming the baton straight into his beak and to the back of his neck with both forelegs.

“Click,” the smirking griffon winks at his shadow mirror image and flips the switch on the baton to its maximum position.

Screeching and the choking stench of burning flesh immediately drowns out any other sensations, but Magpie keeps pushing into the creature’s throat as it shifts before him and gradually turns into some skinny, spindly equinoid the yellow eyes of which roll back into its skull as it crumbles on the floor and stops moving.

Magpie looks around, catching retreating movement from the nearby cells from the corner of his eyes.

“Anyone else?” he asks out loud, twirling the baton by the loop on its end. Hearing no response or further movement, he adds, “No? Good.”

He doesn’t chuckle to himself, he doesn’t taunt anyone further. He has a job to do and so he heads forward through the hallway.

***

Three wiggles through the last pony length of the soft dust just as the ground shakes, pushes against the exit of the tunnel, and stops when his hooves fail to go through thanks to something hard and heavy. His lungs are burning because he didn’t have time to take a proper breath down in the power core room due to the incoming wardens. Focusing love into his forelegs, he digs a little to the side through the hard ground and then up.

Nothing. The hard barrier is still there and it feels like more reinforced concrete just like the walls surrounding the power core.

He needs air. Desperately.

Shapeshifting his hooves in order to get through tough materials, he pushes himself upwards while paddling them like a swimming dog.

The barrier is suddenly gone, which leaves Three halfway out of the ground, flailing like crazy while gasping for air.

“Three!” chitinous legs clamp around the small drone and pull the rest of him out.

“Whuh- haaah- what’s- haaah- going on- huff?” Three’s turning his head around in an attempt to understand the chaos in the courtyard.

Prisoners are running around or away through a hole in the northern wall. Wardens are pouring out of the entrance to the prison, blue flashes, zapping noises, and the sharp smell of burning hair immediately announcing them using their batons against the inmates fighting back.

Most importantly, though, the unnamed minotaur is currently busy holding a massive chunk from the missing wall which he lets go as soon as Three’s out of the tunnel mouth.

“Thank you!” Three smiles at him in-between long drafts of air.

“No problem, tiny. What now?” the minotaur dusts his hands off.

“Well, you helped us as much as you could,” Thirteen speaks up, “It wouldn’t be fair if we wanted more from you.”

“Filly, I promised I’d help you get your friends out and I’m not seeing any striped changeling with ‘ass to go to war for’ here, as that annoying griffon called her,” the minotaur crosses his arms on his broad chest, “So let’s stop wasting time.”

“We’re supposed to meet them all by the interrogation room downstairs,” says Three.

“Magpie already went down there alone, but then all the wardens poured out and there are supposed to be the worst kind of criminals now unlocked underground. We don’t even know if they didn’t just shove him back into the cell.”

“Then let’s not stand here and speculate,” the minotaur starts running towards the entrance to the prison, “Friendly, friendly!” he raises his hands as the wardens swarm around him and the changelings, “I’m making sure these two are okay,” he nods to Three and Thirteen behind him.

“Hi!” Three waves his foreleg with enthusiasm, “I want to tell you that you’re all doing a great job taking care of my friends and that you’re soon going to have real food because princess Candy-”

Thirteen grabs him and puts him on her back,

“We’re going back to our cells. Is the place safe? I wouldn’t want to run into anything from the underground section,” she interrupts him.

“So far, nothing has crawled upstairs through the guard room,” the warden in charge nods to the one on his left, “Escort them back to their cells. They aren’t locked anyway, but other than few optimistic idiots trying to use the situation the guys inside have it handled.”

One warden takes point, leading the changelings and the minotaur to their cells, and one walks behind Thirteen. As they pass by the cafeteria, an earthpony lunges through the door at the warden in front, ramming him into the opposite wall of the hallway.

“Go!” the minotaur points ahead and bolts. The warden in the back reacts a lot faster than Thirteen, rushes past her to help the stunned leader, upon which a stream of inmates from the cafeteria swarm around both of them, kicking, biting, and thankfully leaving the changelings alone.

“Excuse me, excuse me, just coming through...” Thirteen squeezes between the furious prisoners, “I’m harmless.”

“And don’t be too harsh on the wardens,” adds Three, barely heard over the screaming, “They were doing their best to make sure you turn your lives around and-”

Thirteen doesn’t hear the rest as it gets drowned out by a high-pitched screech of a warden whose stun baton has just been rammed someplace private.

Imprisoned: The only way out

[Transmission on the Silver Sun drone network]

As of yesterday, we can’t use Silver Sun money anymore. I guess that the royals contacted the griffon Emperor who made their banks freeze our bigger accounts. Of course, that doesn’t mean we’re completely out because zebra banks are still open on the northern coast, but whatever you’re planning is going to take resources we simply can’t afford to move unless we want a pissed off alicorn on our asses, doesn’t exactly matter which one. If the majority of Zebrica wasn’t a wilderness devoid of civilization it would be different, but the zebras aren’t recovering from that stunt you and that changeling wizard pulled off anytime soon.

Anyway, we’ll be resupplying today and hiring a boat that would take us around the west coast past the scorched zone. If we want to recover as much of Stern’s technology cache as possible, we need to do it before the Northern Coalition government creeps back in and we’re going to need some zebrapower. I’m hearing that there are survivors who have crawled out of wherever they avoided Suitie’s control and they are banding together in the less ruined cities. Try not to lead them to us in even more frazzled state than they’re already going to be. They pretty much survived a genocide.

The good part is that Lyam made triplicates of all processes and translations of Silversmith manuals so we’re all busy studying and we should be able to quickly set up the solar generators as well as the small assembler. With raw materials we’re bringing we’ll have a base up and running within a week including the automated farms. Speaking of which, I heard news that ponies got their hooves on some as well and are starting to manufacture them. Is that your doing or did king Beard finally tell the dwarves to go dig themselves and shared the tech himself?

So, lead the scattered survivors to us and we’ll start rebuilding Cloak Town and sending zebras to do the digging. Hopefully the news won’t spread too quickly but with the tech we have we should be able to deal with some minor fleet from the north, although they have enough trouble of their own with the refugees.

To be honest, I’ve always wanted to give being a ruthless warlord a shot. You know, to lounge around in some palace while ordering my hot, muscular zebra slaves to do my bidding.

Just kidding. I’d get bored in a week anyway.

D.S.

[End transmission]

Few “wilder” prisoners bare their teeth at Thirteen during the trio’s way to the stairs leading to the lower floors.

“I’ve never had a changeling before,” comments one.

“Wanna hug?” Three spreads his forelegs from Thirteen’s back with a smile, giving the prisoners a pause.

“I didn’t mean you-”

“Get out before the guards arrive or go back to your cells!” the minotaur growls at the ponies with a furious glance backwards.

Unwilling to pick a fight with two changelings and a minotaur, they stop ogling Thirteen and head away through the hall towards the courtyard as the word of mouth about an escape route spreads.

From the few minutes of rushing through the prison, Thirteen has concluded few things. One, most prisoners can’t have been told more about the plan other than that there would be a chance to get out, which means they’ve been running around the prison, taking out wardens instead of flocking towards the shattered courtyard wall. Two, some wardens must have barricaded themselves in the guard room by the main entrance and are waiting for reinforcements thinking they’re keeping the prisoners inside. And three, there’s zero chance that the unicorns who promised to help Three are waiting for them, which means that getting out will be a pain in case the wardens get help soon enough and try to stop them.

“We should pick up the pace,” says Thirteen, running past the minotaur and giving him a smirk, “Just keep looking scary and no one should stand in our way,” the minotaur scowls at her, “Yeah, exactly like that.”

Their easy progress, though, shows her assumption is correct as groups of prisoners always take a long look at the huge minotaur and return to their business, whether it is kicking a warden or trying to loot the place before they inevitably have to escape.

Eventually, they reach the guard room under the only stairs leading to the underground part of the prison where a jumpy pony first gives them a terrified glance before stuttering out:

“Y- You’re with t- the griffon, r- right?”

“You are?” the minotaur stares him down, cracking his neck menacingly.

“I’m- I’m a warden,” he pokes his chest with possibly suicidal courage. Luckily for him, the presence of the two changelings stops the minotaur from simply punching him out, “The griffon said I should keep the door locked but that in case you came I should open. It was just few minutes ago, but then I heard… I heard screaming and screeching.”

“Oh no!” Three sits upright on Thirteen's back, “We have to-”

The minotaur just grabs one of the steel latches barring the door from opening and draws it back. The metal grinding against metal drowns out Three’s message and is quickly followed by the second bar being moved aside and the door opening.

“I can’t stand that catbird, but I did promise to help,” grunts the minotaur.

“Heh,” Thirteen smirks, “I completely understand, but once you meet miss Gem, you won’t regret it.”

“She did say that mister Magpie’s a bit of a grump but that she wouldn’t want anyone else by her side more in case of trouble,” Three nods.

As the door clicks behind the group, the minotaur hammers his fist against it.

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

“I’m supposed to keep this locked,” replies the warden’s desperate voice, “I don’t know what’s locked down there, but I heard stories. Get your friend out as quickly and quietly as you can before anything else notices you. I’ll open the door for you, I swear!”

“You’d better...” growls the minotaur.

“I can’t sense miss Gem,” mutters Thirteen.

“That’s the heavy-duty suppressor she’s fitted with. It makes sensing her or talking to her a pain,” explains Three, “Anyway, we’re supposed to meet her by the interrogation room, so let’s not waste time.”

He jumps off of Thirteen’s back and furrows his brows, turning his head from side to side, his eyes casting two blue cones of light in addition to the pink glimmer of the runes around his fetlocks and neck.

“Lead the way,” the minotaur nods ahead, narrowing his eyes to see in the darkness.

Three heads down the tunnel, the noise of their three sets of hooves echoing through the otherwise silent underground. And yet… it’s as if someone keeps whispering at the edge of their hearing as soon as they relax even a little.

As they reach the end of the tunnel and a sharp turn to the left, Three stops.

“Do you hear anything?” whispers the minotaur.

Three slowly shakes his head.

“This place looks different.”

“Caves look different when there’s no light,” the minotaur shrugs.

“I’m a changeling,” Three looks up at him, making the minotaur shield his face from the glowing eyes, “I can see just fine. The place is different. There should be a T-section here, not a tunnel to the right,” Three closes his eyes, plunging the tunnel into almost complete darkness.

“What are you doing?” whispers Thirteen who is absolutely certain that she’s just heard a crunch and a groan from somewhere. Maybe even… chewing?

With a long breath, Three jumps against the wall to the left and disappears. Unfortunately for Thirteen, so does his hive link.

“What?!” the minotaur raises his fists and presses his back against the nearest wall for cover, “Is that some kind of magic?”

“I don’t know!” Thirteen starts pressing her hooves against various spots on the solid wall Three’s just gone through, “Three! Three!”

Above her head, the minotaur slams his fist against it as well to no avail. Reviewing the last few seconds in her mind, Thirteen closes her eyes, and takes a resolute step against the wall.

“Ow!” she presses her forelegs against her bruised nose after bouncing off of the solid stone.

“I know that our shamans can sometimes make things seem real unless you know for certain they aren’t,” the minotaur helps Thirteen back on her legs, “This might be some emergency spell in case everything goes wrong.”

“Good thinking,” Thirteen nods, “And since I can’t sense Three anymore, I doubt waiting here is going to get us anywhere.”

“Do we return and hold the fort then?”

“No. We can’t leave Three or Magpie wander this place alone, especially with who’s supposed to be here. I’m guessing here, but I doubt an emergency spell can be super complex, last too long, or create illusions of paths that aren’t really there. I think this is just a temporary measure meant to buy time by hiding paths until help arrives,” she smiles at the minotaur giving her a blank stare, “One of the changelings back home is reeeally good at the theory of magic. I can’t cast any spells, but I remember some tidbits from him trying to jam something into my hollow head.”

Thirteen takes a deep breath, scouring her hive memory for a certain goo recipe. A moment later, she goops out several fingernail-sized balls which she presents to the minotaur.

“I’m not all shiny like Three so you might need these,” she whispers, “Here, breathe on one. They’re basically heat-triggered chemical glow sticks. Well, glow balls.”

The minotaur puts the small ball to his mouth and slowly breathes out. As the ball lights up, he smirks. One of these can barely make him see past the palm of his hand, but with the six that Thirteen made… somehow, he should be able to light up a small part of the hallway if needed.

“In case of trouble, can you light up like the little guy?” asks the minotaur, “I won’t be able to see anything if I run out of these.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Thirteen shakes her head, “Just give me few minutes and I’ll be able to make more. We should move, though, because I’m not sure we have more than few minutes.”

“Alright. Whisper anything you see or hear, even if you just think you saw something,” growls the minotaur, “That way we won’t split up.”

***

Three freezes and holds his breath when he hears a gurgle from a corridor ahead and to the left which he doesn’t recall ever being there before. The groan is followed by the noise of something tearing, more gurgling and grunting, all underlined by non-stop chewing. Contrary to the belief of most who don’t know Three well, he is used all that sneaking and stuff, occasionally being able to surprise even miss One with a tactical hug from the back, so as soon as he realized what happened when the wall closed behind him, he shapeshifted his hooves into soft sneaking pads and headed off to where they’re supposed to meet miss Gem.

“...help...” he can finally make out a word from the gurgling, and that is something from which Three would never run away.

First, he flicks his tail to turn the flashlight mode of his eyes off, leaving them still two pools of teal but without the cones of light. He doesn’t know why his body works the way it works, but he knows it does. Next, his head peeks out from behind the corner, eerie red glow coming from the tunnel reflecting off of his eyes.

An earthpony is crouched over twitching and gurgling mess that at some point used to be a warden judging by the glowing badge lying a short distance further into the tunnel and the tattered remains of a grey warden uniform mixing with blood and chunks of flesh. How can the warden still be alive despite such enormous blood loss is beyond Three, but he’s no medic. Crimson mist seemingly coming from the blood smears and splatters left behind by warden either previously moving or being moved billows and rolls around, bathing the tunnel in the red glow which reveals the earthpony’s coat color to be a streaked mix of red and brown. He looks famished, his ribs clearly outlined and his brown mane on the verge of falling out. His coat is criss-crossed with scars. However, despite the starved visage, when he brings his muzzle full of sharp teeth down to rip out another chunk of the warden’s barrel, his glowing yellow eyes feel full of life and power.

“...let me… die...” wheezes the warden.

“Eventually...” the earthpony breathes out.

For a moment, he loses all feeling in his legs from the horrifying scene before scrunching his face and charging straight forward.

“Meanieeeeee!”

The living chitin bullet that is Three bounces off of a thin barrier made of floating blood with little to no effect on both the earthpony as well as Three who unrolls and jumps back on all fours.

The earthpony only chuckles when Three runs over to him this time without a problem and tries to push him away from the warden to no avail. Three starts slapping the earthpony’s chest, but while he looks like a twig that came to life, he feels immovable.

“Stop that! Let the pony go! Wardens are really nice in this place and they don’t deserve you being mean to them.”

The earthpony clearly knows by now that Three isn’t much of a threat and simply ignores him, ripping another chunk out of the warden whose eyes roll backwards.

“Oh no, you’re not done singing for me yet,” the red mist swirls and drains into the warden, making him couch and croak. Every cough makes more blood splatter around as his lungs visible through the ribs almost picked clean of all flesh twist.

“STOOOOOOOOOOP!” yells Three with yet another attempt at a shove which only makes him himself move backwards, “Hrmph! You can’t beat the power of HUGS!”

“Show me, crunchy,” laughs the earthpony, “Heal him for me or whatnot, make him fight for his life again… and again and again and again.”

Three grits his teeth, takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and gives the warden the softest hug that brings warmth even despite the open wounds that would kill anyone else.

“...please no,” croaks the warden, “...I can’t...”

“I know,” whispers Three into his ear, “I know.”

“Huh?” the earthpony steps back when he sees the warden’s mouth creep into a smile. He realizes that his crazy power is failing now that Three’s here, “Oh no, you’re not taking my toys away from me!”

A blade-like tentacle made of blood sprouts out of the pool and hacks down against Three’s back, leaving a deep scratch but not drawing any blood from the changeling. Three nuzzles the warden’s nose, after which the pony finally takes his last breath with a content smile on his muzzle.

Three stands up, looks down on his chest, and tries ineffectively to wipe the blood off.

“Ewww...”

“I guess it’s your turn to replace him then, crunchy,” the earthpony shrugs, his sawtoothed grin widening.

Along with those words, tentacles sprout from every bloodied surface around, all shooting towards Three.

Changeling fact number one - changeling drones aren’t exactly agile or built to be aware of their surroundings like warriors or infiltrators. On the other hole, most changeling drones haven’t been alive for nearly three hundred years while playing tag with the second best warrior in the world on at least weekly basis.

Three avoids the grasp of all of them, which of course doesn’t mean he lands on all fours or that he doesn’t get smacked around. Like an air hockey puck, he slides on the bloody floor and bounces off of the walls. Changeling fact number two - what drones lack in speed and strength, they get in durability.

Unfortunately for Three, his legs suddenly cross against his will. It feels as if something invisible is pressing against them, and while he is stronger, it’s slowing him down as the earthpony strides towards him.

The blood all over. It’s not telekinesis controlling the blood, it’s some kind of magic based on blood directly! I remember Seven did say ponies like that exist and are beyond scary.

Umm, that means I think I’m in trouble…

“ANYONE HERE? MISS GEM, THIRTEEN?” he lets out a mental scream, “HEEEEEELP!” he adds a real world one just in case which seems to please the earthpony.

“Oh yes… you will sing for me too...”

Blood tendrils bring Three up, spread-eagle, to the eye level of the pony. His chitin starts feeling extremely itchy and as he looks down, he can see it flaking off along with the blood.

With a chuckle, the pony scoops more blood off of the floor, and smears it over the freshly flaked off part of Three’s carapace. The itching grows stronger as another layer peels off.

“I’ll scoop you out like a-”

“Three!”

Just as the drone realizes he can sense Thirteen again, a roar of pure rage shakes the hallway and makes the tendrils holding Three revert back into harmless albeit sticky liquid. Three half scoots and half slides backwards, curling up when a massive leg jumps over him. Thirteen grabs him next, scooping him under herself.

“Gotta wipe the blood off, Thirteen!” he relays, “He can do nasty blood stuff!”

“I don’t- I don’t have anything ready.”

“Please please please please, at least something sticky and spongy! All I can do is mint sweets and I don’t think that baddie likes candy.”

“I don’t- I- I can’t-”

“We must get the blood off of me and now that you touched me off of you too!”

“I don’t know any-”

Thirteen is just standing there, trembling and staring wide-eyed at the tunnel of blood, drawing blanks on every idea, every recipe, everything. She’s sure she’s not breathing either.

The minotaur reaches the earthpony before the effect of his surprise roar wears off and floors the equine with one punch and a crunch. He raises his leg to stomp on the enemy as the pool of blood shifts like a carpet under him. He falls backwards, rising back up along with the pony.

He punches again but this time his fist is caught by a tendril growing out from the wall, going even in strength. He punches with his other hand which gets caught with a second tendril, this time from a splatter on the ceiling.

The earthpony grins again, showing all his teeth-

When he can’t gain purchase on the slick floor for a proper push, the minotaur uses the strength of the tendrils holding his hands stead to kick up and hears a satisfying snap from the earthpony’s neck.

The pony’s head is twisted backwards in an unnatural angle. However, the tendrils are still steady.

“That one hurt even me...” the pony’s head snaps backwards, crunch after crunch of vertebrae fixing themselves accompanying the words, “Now it’s my turn, and all that muscle, flesh, and sooo much raw strength made me do hungry.”

“RUN-”

Half of the minotaur’s body instantly ripped in two like a wishbone lands in front of Thirteen and Three.

“No...” Thirteen stumbles backwards, shaking her head in horror, “No no no no no...”

Three, on the other hole, shuffles towards the remains, pokes it, nuzzles it, and nuzzles it again.

“Mister minotaur…?” he pokes its non-open side again, “I… I… I...” at loss for words, Three hugs the thick, musclebound arm, “Mister strong…?”

The rapidly cooling arm finally makes reality crash upon Three.

He could have run. He didn’t have to help. We could have just waited to be released but I wanted to get out no matter what.

It’s my fault.

I did this.

Three keels over backwards on his backside, staring at the earthpony chewing on the minotaur’s intestine-

“Booooooooooooooooooooss!”

-and starts wailing uncontrollably.

***

Fuck, a blood mage! Maybe I should have expected that from a maximum security prison.

Still, it’s a pony prison.

Magpie runs into the tunnel now well lit by a mix of red and green light, charges past catatonic Thirteen and wailing Three, and prays to anything listening that the blood mage is too busy licking half of the slaughtered minotaur to notice him in time.

He gets in range and is about to ram the stun rod straight into the earthpony’s eye as a tendril of blood from the minotaur sliced open and suspended in the air by one leg like a pig on a hook shoots out and stops his right foreleg.

He lets the stun baton go, pushes against the tendril with his foreleg, catches the baton with the left one just as the earthpony looks down, giving him a perfect opportunity to simply stab upwards and push the slider on the handle up to maximum.

The tendril holding Magpie’s right foreleg evaporates instantly along with a screech of agony from the blood mage. The griffon doesn’t stop pushing, ramming the baton through the back of the earthpony’s eye socket and into his skull.

Skilled blood mages are incredibly difficult to hurt with physical damage but electricity works wonders, although it does that against most creatures.

Unlike with the creature of black smoke before, Magpie doesn’t pull the stun rod out until it stops on its own with a final puff of smoke that adds burning circuitry to scorched flesh.

Even when burned out, the baton is still a blunt weapon albeit a weak one, and Magpie flicks the blood off of it while returning to the two changelings.

“Get going!” he shoves Three who just slides a little back on the blood everywhere.

“B- But mister minotaur-”

“There’s two of him now, and not in a good way-” Magpie freezes when he hears bones creak from behind.

The blood mage’s body twitches.

“How I wish I had a real mace to pulverize that bastard,” he slaps Three without holding back which makes the drone look up at him with wet face, “MOVE OR I’M FUCKING KICKING YOU ALL THE WAY TO GEM!”

“This is all my fault-” mutter Three.

“Not now!” Magpie scowls, grabs Three by the scruff of his neck, and lobs him away from the twitching earthpony. Passing by Thirteen, he he gives her a sharp tug at her ear, “Move or die here.”

“This is all because I couldn’t goop out a stupid sponge-” mutters Thirteen in shock.

“I’m not listening to this shit in stereo!” Magpie backhands Thirteen so hard she stumbles and spits out blood, then he grabs her by the neck and looks her straight in the eyes, “Once we’ve caught up with Gem, you’re both her problem. Until then, move!” he jabs the base of her horn with his talon.

Thirteen can only nod and follow the griffon as he passes Three and says:

“Get up before he gets up,” Magpie points backwards. Three’s completely out of it, though, staring at nothing as his mouth moves in some silent litany.

As he growls, Thirteen stutters out:

“W- Wait!” she scoops Three onto her back, looks at Magpie and then down on the floor, “Don’t hit him anymore, please...”

“Then get going. There’s some magic here making the place shift, but I think this makes it behave,” he taps the glowing badge on a piece of torn warden uniform around his chest.

Imprisoned: Fresh air

[Encrypted message on the Black Ops channel marked ‘personal’]

I’m glad you’re feeling better and I wish I had better news for you but I can give you strange at best. Let’s start with the bad news, just because I’m a killjoy as you always say, although you’re the one griffons are scared off.

One, food situation is getting worse. For now, we’re dealing with it as if it was just a normal winter, but since the darkness struck during the harvest our supplies are low as it is. I tried contacting Equestrian royals and Luna very politely told me that diplomatic channels are currently closed for business, although she did say that they’re working on a way to grow food even in this darkness. Our own experiments with UV lamps are in the early stage, to say the least. We can grow tons of weed if we want to, though.

Two, and this one genuinely makes me grind my beak - I had to send general Kasim and the Imperial Guard strike force down to Pawistan. On top of that, I’ve moved third of the southern garrison to the Saddle Arabian border as well. Some southern states are trying to use the growing chaos as an opportunity to move their borders. We can’t afford to deal with refugees as well as the potential famine. I’m thinking of sending our fleet south as well, whatever is still operational after the diplomatic incident with Twilight Sparkle.

Three, after examining the recent report summary from different parts of the Empire, I suggest removing some military presence from the Redtalon territory. Veronica is still safely behind bars, my spies haven’t detected any recent attempts at recovering her or mounting a rebellion, and there’s no other direct heir to the Redtalons. I believe that pushing the situation there further will do more harm than good and might incite civil unrest. Besides, corrupted territories are spreading slowly but surely and threaten to close off the entire northern section of their land. I doubt they’re planning another coup.

As for the good news, and I’m using the term very loosely, I think the changelings who helped you with the ambush were Guiding Light’s. Several weeks ago, right after the sky went dark, my border agents saw a prominent member of the Silver Sun, unicorn by the name Crimson Heart, travel into the Empire accompanied by five amazons and three ponies who were so ordinary it immediately drew our attention as to why they would be travelling with them. Further research revealed the disappearance of the dreamlings from Pine Hills, which leads me to think they’re here now. Unfortunately, we lost track of them with all the unrest happening everywhere. However, Guiding Light’s history makes me believe that she and her companions will be heading towards one of the corrupted territories and settle nearby. Dreamlings despise Corrupted. Should I send someone to take a look at Drachenberg or south from Bloodstone?

And one final thing - Bucket’s in our network. I hope that’s a good thing but you never know these days.

“Hi, you rusty pile of bolts and Silversmith tech, because I’m sure you’ll be reading this.”

>/add+-doN’t MiNd mE-

Brother, I suggest that if you need to send something really private you should use a pigeon at least until we figure out a way to keep an A.I. like Bucket out.

>/add+-yOu woN’t-

[End of message]

With Three’s unending sobbing in her ears, Thirteen follows Magpie through the maze of tunnels that by all means shouldn’t exist. At least until the griffon runs through a solid wall just like Three did earlier.

“Uh oh...” Thirteen stops, now wise enough not to try to force her way through, “Magpie?” she calls out.

The griffon’s head phases through the wall, looking at her.

“What do you see?” he asks.

“Just a wall,” Thirteen taps against the stone.

“And half of me peeking through isn’t helping?”

“No,” she shakes her head.

“Hmph,” the griffon frowns, “Let’s try this. Give me your hoof,” he raises his talons which grab Thirteen’s offered foreleg, “Now close your eyes,” he looks at Three, “Both of you!”

Thirteen does so and Three lies down on her back, covering his face with his forelegs. Next, she feels the griffon pulling and pulling until-

“There,” he says and she finds herself in the familiar long hall on one end of which she can see probably the only closed door in the prison through which they entered the underground floor. Despite Three’s continuous sniffling, she can’t help cracking a smile of relief which Magpie immediately interrupts with, ”We’re far from done. Let’s go!”

“We should say what we’re seeing, since this place is full of illusions, even if it sounds strange,” mumbles Thirteen. Why was talking to a minotaur double her size so much easier than to this griffon? She knows it is a good idea, it is a tested good idea, and yet even bringing it up in front of Magpie feels stupid. Everything he says, even his tone, it just makes her feel so… worthless.

It’s just like with her mother.

“Good call,” says the griffon, making Thirteen’s brain do a one-eighty.

“Wh- What?”

“I said good call,” he looks at Three on her back, “Can’t you shut him up?”

Three only whimpers, which makes Magpie huff and start trotting straight ahead.

“Why are you so mean to everyone?” asks Thirteen, following him.

“There’s a really pissed off blood mage down here with us along with a bunch of other evil assholes, our time is running out with every minute we spend here, and we still haven’t even found Gem and Harriet. I can’t afford sparkles and sunshine, and I couldn’t care less what you or anyone think as long as I get us all out,” hisses the griffon, “Straight ahead.”

“There’s a wall. I’m seeing just a T-section.”

“Yeah, we’re here. We should be right in front of a door,” he closes his eyes and reaches ahead, feeling for the handle he recalls being there. On a third attempt, his talons hit a handle, making him smirk and push it.

Thirteen has no clue what just happened. All she knows is that she blinked and suddenly Magpie is opening a familiar door that wasn’t there before. He slips inside with Thirteen in tow

“And here we were getting scared that you wouldn’t make it,” Gem’s voice hasn’t lost any of her dripping sultry tone even in these circumstances. At least until she notices Thirteen’s passenger, “Three, what happened?”

“He took a bite of a reality sandwich,” says Magpie, “His friend got ripped in half because of him, we’re running out of time because the unicorns whom he trusted to help us disappeared instantly after the wall upstairs blew up, and they also promised they’d help him with his Tartarus thing because of course they’d lie their ass off to someone who would believe anyth-”

“Got it, now be quiet,” Gem’s tone turns sharp as she strides towards the griffon, “Get this thing off of me,” she taps the multi-ring suppressor around her long horn, “With the power core off, the suppressor shouldn’t fry you too much.”

“I can melt it-” offers Three, stopping immediately as Gem shakes her head.

“You can’t. It’s a different alloy than in those what common unicorns have on.”

“I’ll take it off,” Magpie shrugs, “If you’re sure the feedback will be weaker, I might be able to do it, though I think Harriet is the best suited for this,” he nods to the big, quiet Corrupted waiting by the door who waves at everyone after finally being noticed.

“Sure, miss Gem has been keeping it on to maintain deniability in case guards got to us first and we could say we were hiding here from the crazy prisoners outside,” Harriet stands up, her back tentacles wobbling softly.

“Yeah,” Gem nods, “No offense, Harriet, but I want Magpie here working as intended, not randomly twitching and sneezing lightning. When I said the feedback would be weaker, I didn’t mean weak.”

“I’ll do it,” squeaks Thirteen, striding towards Gem with a determined expression.

“Suddenly, heroes everywhere...” Magpie rolls his eyes.

“I don’t know miss Harriet here, but she looks incredibly strong. She and Magpie can protect you better than I ever could and I can copy the painkillers like the time I took my own suppressor off,” Thirteen’s voice grows more and more sure.

“I don’t care who takes it off but if you keep talking about it I’m going upstairs and presenting myself to the guards right now,” the griffon sighs, “If there isn’t a small army on the way I’ll be damn surprised.”

“I hate to agree with the gloomy bastard, but as usual he’s right,” Gem lowers her head to Thirteen who lays whimpering Three down on the floor, “Go for it. It’s smooth, you just have to pull it off. The magic will make it kinda sticky, though.”

Thirteen nods and her vision starts swimming as her internal shapeshifting fills her body with a dose of chemicals making her numb already.

She grips Gem’s suppressor with both hooves, feeling stinging sparks run through her forelegs already, takes a deep breath, pulls-

-and shuts down.

***

Something is ripping her apart, rending her insides like a saw blade. Every moment is the purest agony and yet the physical pain pales against the feeling of doom, the chilling grip of hopelessness, the endless black hole draining every chance of possibly good future away.

It’s a sound, sound that’s making her inner self unravel into a pool of misery.

Hearing it hurts so much.

“Haaah!” Thirteen’s eyes shoot open, only to see slick black hair occasionally dotted by big black scales with a red tinge.

The sound keeps going, although it’s quiet. Barely audible, in fact.

It’s Three’s sobbing as he’s sitting upright on Gem’s back, his mouth open and tears streaming down his face.

They’re in the inner courtyard of the prison, which means Thirteen can’t have been unconscious for more than few minutes. The grass is dotted with wardens, most either choked or beaten to death, with some exceptions of electrical burns or magic. Several uniform-less prisoners are there too, but there can’t be more than ten of them. Whoever helped the majority escape into the city must have cleaned house here.

Through her hive link, Thirteen can feel the faintest echo of:

“This is my fault.”

How can she be the only one whose insides are twisting with Three’s every sob? Magpie sure doesn’t seem to care, rushing ahead towards the hole in the prison wall but he’s the one Thirteen would expect it from. Gem, on the other hole, isn’t even trying to calm Three down, instead following the griffon and scanning the area for any remaining or incoming threats. That leaves…

“Miss Harriet?” Thirteen quietly speaks up, only to see the ears of the Corrupted mare twitch.

“You’re awake?” Harriet shoots her a quick smile, “Don’t worry about anything. We’re almost outside and I can carry you all day.”

I bet. You look like you could give Cryo a run for her money.

“Three...” Thirteen realizes she doesn’t know what to say. How can she even begin to explain the physical nausea and pain she feels with the drone’s every quiet whimper?

To her surprise, one of Harriet’s back tentacles holding Thirteen in place twists and pats her head.

“I know how he feels but I agree with miss Gem that we can’t afford to stop. Miss Prominence and the guards aren’t inclined to talk these days but they don’t understand that we never wanted to harm anyone -heck, we’re not even completely sure how we did- and that holding us in prison won’t help them in any way.”

“How can you know how he-” Thirteen stops herself, recalling the absurd extent of massacre Prominence accused Gem, Harriet, and Magpie of, “You’re right, we can’t stop. We’ll talk about it later when we’re somewhere safe.”

As they run through a block after block of streets of the Crystal Empire lit by multicolored magical crystal lamps, they hear a kind of ‘whoosh’ that makes Thirteen’s ears pop. A quick glance backwards shows orange corona of flames dissipating above the prison in the distance.

“Well, looks like Promi has arrived on the scene,” comments Gem, now leading the way, “I doubt anyone will be stupid enough to try to fight their way out of-” another flash lights up the sky, “Oops, spoke too soon.”

“What’s the plan?” asks Magpie, “Once the guards secure the prison, they’ll be on our tails. We can’t stay in the Crystal Empire, and with how few roads across Equestria there are we don’t have a good way to go… where exactly?”

“Still working out several little kinks in the plan,” Gem shrugs, “I think we should go with my original idea. How we do it is the question.”

“Care to share?” Harriet speaks up, her breathing not even a bit faster after so much running.

“We’re getting you home,” Gem smiles, “Or at least to Griffonstone. Although now that I think about it, we could all use a little vacation away from Equestria.”

“Uhh, speak for yourself,” replies Magpie in a strangely hesitant tone, “Although I’m all for helping Harriet get home, so let’s start with that.”

“...a Redtalon...” whispers Harriet to herself under her breath so quietly that only Thirteen can hear it. It means nothing to the changeling, but she shelves the term as a question for later. Instead, she asks:

“Miss Gem, that’s all nice and good, but we can’t just walk all the way to… wherever this Griffonstone place is, can we?”

“How much do you know about the world outside of Brauheim?” Gem furrows her brows.

“Some stories I heard and I learned a lot from those comic books you brought for me. Mom said I was allowed access to the hive mind only when I earned it and, you know, I kinda messed up everything I touched.”

Gem rolls her eyes while shaking her head.

“Mom did one hole of a number on you,” she mutters. Out loud, she says: “No matter, I’ll brief you once we’re in my safe house. One that Promi doesn’t know about.”

“I thought you two besties share everything,” snickers Magpie.

“I’m a changeling infiltrator, and a good one. I always have a contingency for a situation in which I might not be able to trust literally anyone. Well, except dad. He’s kinda the last resort. I mean, he used to be until he kept me in the dark about the whole Flow thing which led to our current situation and- you know what? I should really update my contingency plans.”

“Whoah, you know a way to fight mom?” Thirteen blinks.

“Yes, there are ways to deal with mom as well...” admits Gem, “Though vast majority of those involve running away and finding the right kind of help.”

“Miss Gem?” they all hear a weak squeak none of them were expecting. Three gives Gem a hesitant, tearful look, “Can’t we really just explain-”

“Explain what?!” hisses Magpie running next to Gem with a furious glance that makes Three flinch, “Explain that you unleashed a gang of unicorn murderers upon the city? Maybe even that blood mage asshole if he got out before Prominence arrived? Or maybe even something worse from the underground prison that we were lucky to avoid? The guard we left at the door was dead when we came back and the door had freaking melted! Whoever or whatever did that is out there, likely doing the same thing to ponies who already have enough trouble on their plate. All that because you had a stupid idea about going to Tartarus and trusted the first criminals who would promise you anything to get out-”

“Catbird, shut up!” Gem raises her voice.

“Am I wrong?!” the griffon gives her a wild glance.

“Well, no,” Gem has to admit, “but now’s not the time.”

And that’s it. That’s the final blow. The admission that even Gem has to agree with that harsh assessment of what Three caused. The runes on Three’s carapace fade, he flops limply on Gem’s back and closes his eyes.

“B-But they promised they’d wait for us... now everyone is dead… bad guys are running around… they’ll hurt everyone even more… and we won’t even get to Tartarus… I was crazy to think I was more than just a brain-damaged drone without the boss...”

Author's Note

This was supposed to be a semi-independent, happy little story set after the end of Legacy of Light but then my head happened.
Siiiigh...
So I guess it'll be just another long-ass depressing lore dump.

Go east: Guidance

The darkness of the Crystal Empire dotted with street lights and dim glow coming from the house windows is under curious observation by one quickly progressing mixed group of creatures led by a tall changeling.

They come to a stop by an unlit house ins the southeast quarter of the city, upon which the changeling reaches into her mouth and pulls out a green key made of goo, hardening in the open air.

“Do I want to know how you made that with just your tongue?” Magpie raises an eyebrow at seeing this.

“What can I say?” Gem smirks, blows at the key, unlocks the house door, leads the group inside, locks the door behind them, and eats the key again, “I’m a godlike kisser.”

“Won’t we need it?” asks Thirteen, looking down the long hallway with doors on both sides and the end.

“We won’t be leaving that way,” replies Gem, pointing her hoof around to what might constitute points of interest, “Living room, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen. Let’s take a short break before we head off. Catbird, there’s some canned pony food in the kitchen. Harriet, feel free to munch on anything your body can digest. Three, Thirteen, there are love crystals in the fridge. Use them up if you want, we won’t be coming back here.”

“When are we leaving?” asks Magpie.

“Two hours, give or take. If anyone knocks, we’re going immediately. I’ll be in the cellar, prepping our backpacks,” she looks back at the hesitant group as she descends stone stairs down at the end of the hall, “Make yourselves at home!”

“I’d like to take a shower, if you don’t mind,” Harriet gives everyone a questioning smile, “I’m not picky but being hosed down with cold water by armed guards for so long wasn’t my idea of washing up.”

Magpie immediately stops moving towards the bathroom, saying:

“Yeah, sure.”

“Three, do you want something to eat?” asks Thirteen, turning her head to the limp drone on her back.

“I dunno...” Three just sighs.

“Snack it is then,” she carries Three off to the presumed kitchen.

For obvious reasons, it’s the most spartan-looking room, with only the basic necessities to avoid making anyone who might be in there coming to the conclusion that this house belongs to someone who doesn’t eat.

“Fridge… fridge… fridge...” Thirteen mumbles to herself, looking around. Kitchen utilities aren’t exactly a changeling thing, especially to one with such limited previous access to the hive mind.

“That white buzzing box in the corner,” mumbles Three.

“Thank you,” Thirteen opens it and grabs several rime-covered long, green, angular crystals, “Hey, love popsicles.”

Three sighs.

“Come on, Three,” Thirteen sits down, making Three slide down from her back. She grabs a crystal by one end with her mouth and pokes Three’s muzzle with it, “Mmm?”

He squints at it before saying an exhausted “Thank you.” and taking a bite.

Thirteen observes the slowly munching drone. She’s never seen Three this crestfallen. Granted, it’s not as if she’s been around for even a hundredth of his life, but still...

“How can I make you feel better?” she opts for the direct approach. After all, what’s the worst thing that can happen? “It tears me inside to see you like this.”

Three looks at the shortening love crystal in Thirteen’s mouth for a quiet while.

“I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” is all he mutters.

“I know,” Thirteen pats his head, “I’m sure everyone knows.”

“But I still did,” he breathes out, “How can I know whether something I want to do won’t cause that again? I should just find a way back to the boss somehow and don’t try anything so unbelievably stupid ever again.”

“Three...” Thirteen swallows an entire love crystal which releases its stored energy and turns back into changeling goo in her throat, “You know that I’m kinda the… expert at messing up, right?”

“Thirteen, you’re too hard on yourself-”

“Look who’s talking now...” she glares at him meaningfully until he looks down at the floor, ”Three, I’ve failed everyone’s expectations on daily basis. I want mom and dad to be proud of me but that’s clearly not happening. The best I can try for is not making dad sad, and I think that if dad saw you right now, he’d be devastated.”

“I failed him.”

“Really? He sent you to help ponies with their food situation and as far as I know, that’s going better than expected.”

“He didn’t send me out to hurt- to kill ponies!”

“You know...” Thirteen suddenly smirks, “What you did makes you a lot more like dad, actually.”

“Whuh?” Three shakes his head in confusion before frowning, “Hey! Boss wouldn’t make a bad decision like that.”

“Three hundred million dead zebras two months ago,” Thirteen crosses her forelegs on her chest and raises an eyebrow, reveling in her checkmate.

“Oh, that...” Three goes silent, only sucking on his love popsicle.

The moment grows longer and longer, interrupted only by the distant mumbling of a radio Magpie is listening to in the bedroom and the faint hiss of running water from the bathroom. Eventually, Three finishes his crystal, scratches his head, and says:

“Mind leaving me alone for a while, Thirteen?”

“Only if you promise me no more moping,” she lowers her head to be eye to eye with Three.

“Thirteen, I did something terrible. I can’t forget it, I can’t ignore it. Not even if I compare it to the boss. Some self-reflection will be a good thing right now. I need to make sure I don’t make a mistake like that again and right now I think there’s only one changeling I can turn to.”

“You’re going to talk to Gem then?” asks Thirteen, “Just promise me you won’t let her talk you out of your plan or into just blindly following her. I believe you want the best for others. I believe you’re the purest little critter I’ve met and not even Gem can compare to the good you want to bring.”

“It’s not about want, Thirteen. It’s about can,” Three sighs, “And I don’t think I’m smart enough to can. ”

Thirteen sighs. As much as it irks her to admit it, Magpie’s irritating doctrine of ‘words mean diddly squat’ is proven true once again and she doesn’t know what to do to make things better.

What would Three do if he wasn’t going through a rough patch? A one hundred percent temporary one.

She shuffles closer to Three and pulls him into a hug. He gives her chin a surprised, completely vertical look upwards before settling in against her barrel. She lets it last for few slow breaths before releasing Three who shuffles backwards, now looking more exhausted than distressed. Thirteen decides to consider this a victory, no matter how microscopic.

“How about we take a break?” she asks instead of digging deeper, “Gem said we had time.”

“As I said, I need a little time to think, Thirteen,” Three pats her foreleg, “Don’t worry. I’m feeling a little better. You were right - even boss went through this, but I’m not a boss. I just need to clear my head,” he stops, pursing his lips, “You know what? I think I’ll take a shower after miss Harriet.”

“Alright,” Thirteen forces a smile, knowing she hit the limit of what she can do, “Just, if you need anything, don’t forget that here’s one super experienced screw-up you can talk to,” she pats her chest, stands up, and leaves the kitchen.

Three closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and rubs his belly.

“...I’m hungry...” he looks at the dark runes around his fetlocks before pulling out one more crystal from the fridge, “Last one, we’ll need the rest for our trip. You can’t mess things up for miss Gem and Thirteen just because your stomach rumbles again… after so long.”

With the green crystal sticking out of his mouth, he walks out of the kitchen and sits down by the bathroom door, listening to the running water inside.

The changeling he needs to talk to isn’t Gem, no matter how much he respects her.

He closes his eyes and enters the world of the hive mind, looking for a very particular memory, one which not even the boss, miss Comfort, or miss Gem know about.

“Mister Wistful?”

In the surrounding darkness, two pink eyes open and are followed by a tall male changeling with gossamer, butterfly-like wings glittering with silvery dust. Instead of a horn, however, there are two antennae on his forehead. The exhausted look etched into his features softens when he looks down at Three.

“It has been quite a while since our last meeting, little one,” Wistful sits down in front of Three.

“I know you’re busy, but boss isn’t here and I don’t think the others understand what I’m trying to say.”

“Three, I’m just a tiny fragment of a memory. It’s not like I have a party to attend to,” Wistful chuckles, “I appreciate you being polite but we’ll get somewhere faster if you present your problem straight up.”

“How can I be sure I’m doing the right thing?” asks Three.

“You can’t,” replies Wistful immediately, “I thought I was doing the right thing when I sacrificed my kind to Celestia’s transformative curse. Could I have refused? Could ponies have won the war against the griffon military even without the creation of changelings? Those questions haunted me every moment as I was witnessing my fall by the hooves of my daughter, as the fresh changelings decided that there would be no other changeling king ever again, and as we gradually first became the enemies of the whole world and then as we fell into obscurity.”

“And did you find the answer?”

“No, little one, I did not,” Wistful shakes his head, “My entire race hates me-”

“We don’t!” objects Three, “And we know what really happened.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Because I believe you did what you thought was the best for everyone - for ponies of all tribes. You can’t have known it would lead to changelings being feared, hated, and discarded as mindless weapons. Without you, ponies might have been meat and slaves for griffons. You were in the position to do the most good you could-”

Wistful’s sudden victorious smile interrupts Three.

“Then why are you so angry with yourself right now, little one?”

“-and… what?” Three’s train of thought hits a wall and flying parts of it scatter everywhere.

“The way I see it, you believed you were doing the best you could. You succeeded in what your king wanted from you. You know that Gem, Harriet, or even the grumpiest griffon in recent history got involved in the destruction of the universe while trying to stop it.”

“But mister Magpie even told me I was being stupid to trust the unicorn brothers! Even mister m- m-” Three breathes out, “Even mister minotaur warned me and in the end me pushing the plan caused him to die.”

“I discussed my decision with the flutterpony leaders. Some were for and some were against the plan. Their concerns were valid. Some even predicted perfectly what would eventually happen. Yet I did it and I cursed the vast majority of my species. If I ever had a chance to talk to a breezie, what would they think? Would they even remember they didn’t use to be tiny and hiding in a different pocket of reality? Do they even still exist or did the void swallow them as well? And when Flow forced your king into submission, One wanted to fight. Your king did what he thought best despite all warnings. What did it lead to? The rest of the universe is gone, almost a third of the population of Zebrica got vaporized, and the whole world is threatened by the absence of sunlight. Do you hate him? You, who believe that every living creature deserves to be happy.”

“NO!” Three raises his voice, crossing his forelegs on his chest.

“Then once again - why are you so mad at yourself?” Wistful tilts his head, his voice probing like a scalpel.

“Because I don’t want to hurt others ever again, even indirectly!”

“That’s impossible, little one.”

Wistful’s immediate reply makes Three give the memory of the original changeling king the kicked puppy look. Wistful doesn’t budge, though.

“Why?” is the best Three can add.

“Decisions, by definition, mean not being able to achieve everything. One path always means the loss of the others and not picking a path is just another path. However, am I correct in assuming you want to avoid wholesale slaughter rather than any slight inconvenience you might inflict on others?”

“Mister Wistful, I just want to make things better. That’s all,” Three raises his voice, “But all I did was make things a lot worse!”

“Did you?” Wistful raises an eyebrow.

“Yes, I did!”

“How can you be sure?”

“You saw what I saw - dead ponies everywhere, mister minotaur sliced in half, the tortured warden. I caused all that despite mister Magpie warning me not to trust the unicorns. We could be still sitting in prison and everyone would still be alive.”

“What do you think your king would do?”

“Find a way that wouldn’t get all those ponies killed. He’s smart!”

“No, if he had your options. Escape there and then, not knowing when or if any other opportunity would arise, or stay, possibly forever. You know him better than I do. Which would he choose?”

Three takes a long breath before lowering his head.

“Boss would take the chance...”

“Ans would you be as harsh on him as you are on yourself?”

“Of course not, boss is the best!”

“So?”

Three goes silent, not saying anything until Wistful sighs, shakes his head, and rubs Three’s chin with a warm smile.

“Three… from everything I’ve seen you do I firmly believe that you have talent at figuring out the right thing to do. You naturally gravitate to what’s best for the most. In your case, inaction itself is the wrong choice. The world would be a much better place than it is now if there were only creatures with heart like you. However, that’s not the case. You know what is the right thing to do. You just need to listen to others who offer a way to do it. Some might be rude, some might be cynical, but they deserve to be heard. That’s where you failed this time. You didn’t need to rush, you had plenty of time plan contingencies for the unicorn betrayal, and THAT is what Magpie and the others tried to tell you in their clumsy way. I don’t believe that any of your friends wanted you to discard your plan completely, no matter how that griffon sounded.”

“Mister Magpie is super grumpy, but miss Gem likes him,” Three rubs his chin.

“Indeed.”

“I’m glad you didn’t disappear completely, mister Wistful.”

“I’m just a memory fragment, Three. Real Wistful is enjoying his well-deserved rest.”

“You’re like a mini-boss I can have with me all the time.”

Wistful chuckles.

“Your real-world friends await, little buggy.”

Three blinks, finding himself facing a wet, black tentacle poking his chest.

“Did you fall asleep, Three?” asks still wet Harriet towering over him and definitely making Three recall the special cellar where boss and miss One often disappear to. Three clamps his forelegs on his cheeks, feeling the blush rise.

A Corrupted Protector dragonpony with a figure that would make miss Gem or even a succubus like miss Comfort jealous. Oh dear.

“I was thinking. That’s all,” Three looks up into Harriet’s face with a smile that’s only partially forced this time, “Are you finished in the bathroom, miss Harriet?”

“Mhm,” she nods, “Magpie said he’d go last, so feel free to enjoy yourself. I had no idea Gem had a bubble bath that even I could fit into.”

“She’s a big lady, with all the zebra-like backside bits and stuff,” Three nods.

“For you, it’ll be like a little pool,” she pokes him.

“I think that for once I just want to lie down and relax, miss Harriet.”

One of her back tentacles pats his head.

“Then I won’t delay you anymore. There should be enough hot water left.”

“Thank you, miss Harriet.”

[Hello, booksy]

Well, booksy, I messed up big time. You’re lucky you don’t have eyes so you couldn’t see them all piled up…

I see the poor guys, the prisoners as well as the wardens, whenever I close my eyes. The worst part is that no one else seems to care, or at least they’re telling themselves that there was no other option. However, a smart friend whom I can’t name in case someone reads you gave me good advice I’ve been rolling over in my head since we left the Crystal Empire. Don’t be jealous, booksy, I promised I wouldn’t tell even the boss.

Anyway, it took us a while to suit up - miss Gem had very little supplies for non-changelings because that house was her personal hideout no one was supposed to know about. Still, she’s a super smart changeling and she considered the possibility of her having to use such base even with someone else.

You know what, booksy? I think this ties into the advice I got. I should always have a plan in case what I want goes completely pear-shaped. The thing is… I’m not smart like miss Gem or paranoid like mister Magpie. Thinking up plans within plans wrapped in more plans isn’t exactly my specialty.

I like hugs. When those fail, I hug more or harder. If even that fails, I run off to find someone smart like the boss.

I guess that won’t be an option for some time.

Why? Because after some discussion, we realized we have no idea where boss might be these days. In theory, we should be able to follow him using the dwarf markings all expeditions were supposed to leave behind, but ponies now know where our secret entrance to the castle is and I don’t doubt there are guards scouting every nook and cranny they can reach. The smart plan is to stick together for now. There’s still the chance that we might find Two, Eleven, and Cryo’s group somewhere around Equestria unless they’ve already scouted out the place they were headed off to and have rejoined boss’ main group heading south.

So that’s it, really. My and Thirteen’s mission is over, now we just need to figure out how to get back home.

I’m writing this while riding on miss Harriet’s back. No offense to Thirteen or miss Gem but miss Harriet is a lot broader and comfortable. We left the Crystal Empire several hours ago via a tunnel leading south from miss Gem’s house and we are avoiding all roads. Miss Gem said that the guards either would have been sent out immediately after the prison break or would be sent soon. We don’t want to get into a scrap with them.

Of course, avoiding beaten paths is risky in many different ways. Miss Gem said our trip is going to take longer and will undoubtedly be even more dangerous due to Corrupted. I haven’t met one other than the crazy alicorn lady Cryo brought caged to Brauheim and miss Harriet, but the wild ones are supposed to be scary and dangerous. Supposedly, they don’t exactly like the northern colds because they are part mushrooms… or moss… or something like that. Corrupted are weird.

Still, miss Gem is an experienced traveller and she used to wander the surface on her own for centuries. If there’s someone who can keep us as safe as is possible these days, it’s her.

Well, bye for now, booksy. I think it might be time I start walking on my own. It’s just hard, Miss Harriet is so comfortable.

[Good night, booksy]

Author's Note

Sorry for the delay. I've been having terrible trouble sleeping for the past two months and over last few weeks it culminated into me not having energy to do anything, much less being at least remotely creative. Doubly so since the story seems to be getting away from me.

Go east: Temporary safety

[Five’s hive mind report]

I hope this drone finds you, boss. He’s not one of the smartest but he has good eye for dwarf marks.

We’ve reached and successfully explored the first western site under White Tail Woods. Old dwarf records were accurate, there is a city here, or at least used to be. From what the engineers could identify, they assume it underwent a similar self-destruct method that we used to sink Brauheim. Now, the lost Silversmith designs are a lot more durable than what the dwarves built after the war with the Twisted so it was possible to dig under certain areas and gain access to several otherwise isolated vaults.

Good news - we have a bunch of records the dwarves are currently busy deciphering and translating. Even better news - we have three more Silversmith mechs. They are the standard equine kind we found inactive in the old dark priest prison living quarters, not war machines like Stompy, but they are still equipped with beam weapons and rather strong. You know the classic specs.

So far, morale and supply situation is absolutely fine. Granted, we had to use the air filters and masks several times already to get here, but the air vents survived in a much better state than the city itself so we’re breathing just fine and refilling our air tanks. I’ve been exploring the vents myself and, while some are unstable, I should have a working path to the surface.

That, however, brings me to a certain… issue. Ever since we got here, Seven has been acting strange. I took a peek into his head and it feels as if he’s been having headaches the source of which I don’t understand. but he thinks it’s on the surface. Thank holes he’s such a poor infiltrator that even I can get into his head unnoticed when he’s distracted. I’m not sure how to proceed… specifically whether to confront him about it and figure out whatever is causing it together or whether to just support him in anything he tries to do. Anyway, you won’t be here to help so consider this just a report.

As for Six and myself, we’re doing okay. Six is tempted to stay here with the dwarves who have decided to make this place a permanent outpost. As I said, some infrastructure survived the self-destruction, the mechs we found seem to know their way around, and while the power grid is gone, we have enough generators to start mining and rebuilding. I’m not leaving Six on his own. Sorry, boss. So if Seven intends to lead the part of the expedition of those who want to keep going west and explore and Six decides to stay, we won’t be coming with him.

We all hope your trip south is going at least as well as ours, and if Two hasn’t reported back yet, tell her messenger that we wish her luck too when she sends one.

Five.

[End of report]

Without any ceremony, the gate to the Crystal Empire castle throne room swings open, letting in a white unicorn with a fiery mane of build dwarfing Shining Armor and slightly taller than even princess Cadance sitting on the distant throne.

Prominence isn’t walking alone, as proven by the thudding of sets of hoofsteps resonating through the throne room, the heavy combat horseshoes being less than gentle on the smooth floor. Princess Cadance looks up as the entrance interrupts a crystal pony currently busy presenting his request to her. Even in the current state of the world, the job of the imperial couple isn’t spared of daily issues.

Cadance stands up, proclaiming:

“Today’s court session is over!” she notes the pony whom she’s been talking to sighing in disappointment, “I will instruct the guards to let you in tomorrow as soon as you arrive and we’ll finish our business. This, however, cannot wait,” she nods towards Prominence and the three guards behind her, each representing one branch of Equestrian peacekeepers.

With mumbled complaints, the court attendees leave the throne room. No one makes any trouble, though. Not just because of Crystal Guards stationed by the windows but also because they know Cadance wouldn’t disperse the court proceedings frivolously. After all civilians leave, Cadance walks up to Prominence with a serious expression.

“So?” she asks simply.

“Empress, we scoured the prison and you were right - Gem, Harriet, Magpie, and the changelings are gone. The vast majority of the wardens are dead as well as around a third of the inmates.”

Cadance gasps.

“I understand the escape but why would the changelings kill so many? I mean, even if the plan to escape stealthily failed, I would have never thought king Beard’s changelings to go get Gem and others out through violence.”

Prominence shakes her head.

“Empress, don’t take this as a jab at the competence of your forces, but if Gem wanted to escape quietly, she would have. Also, judging from the wounds on the corpses, mostly cuts and common bullets, whoever blew up the prison wall from the outside definitely didn’t belong to king Beard’s changelings. I know Gem well and I’ve seen a small part of their hive as well as the dwarven city. The marks of the escape operation point neither to the infiltration skill of the involved party nor any advanced technology we would expect from Gem’s hive.”

“They could be just trying to throw us off guard,” comments Shining Armor with a frown.

“That is a possibility,” Prominence nods, “although not one I would entertain. After all, what could you do if you found out it was them? They’re gone. Even Three and Thirteen were sent here knowing the risk of it being a one-way trip. None of them know where to return.”

“And you believe them...” Shining Armor rolls his eyes.

“I do, actually,” Prominence locks her eyes with Shining in a staring contest which the stallion loses. Old wounds can only carry his anger so far against Prominence’s genuine belief gained through experience.

“And what about the other real prisoners underground?” Cadance steps in before Shining says something he might regret. The answer becomes clear just from the short pause Prominence takes before speaking up.

“The contingency maze spells seem to have contained almost all of the prisoners within their cells. Gem and Harriet had help from the outside, so that doesn’t count. However, the terrorbeast has been killed by a blunt trauma with added electrical burns. I suspect Magpie had his talons in that.”

“The terrorbeast?!” Cadance gasps and even Shining Armor blinks several times, “B- But how-?”

Prominence smirks.

“From what you briefed me about, the beast itself wasn’t particularly physically threatening to anyone with real combat experience. Its power lay in the ability to paralyze targets en masse with fear. Of course, Magpie and spine-chilling horror don’t go well together. That griffon is very simple in certain ways.”

“I don’t believe anypony is fearless,” says Shining Armor, “I’m a guard even when I sit on this throne.”

“He doesn’t fear his own death, he’s been through horrific torture that makes my stomach turn when I recall his stories, and he doesn’t have anyone close to him to be afraid for. You can’t scare him with pain, loss, or suffering, which is what the terrorbeast does- well, did,” Prominence look at the ceiling in thought for a second, “I’m pretty sure he’d be more scared of a creature trying to be friends with him for no visible benefit, or at least really confused. Nevermind, I got sidetracked, I apologize,” Prominence shakes her head, “The terrorbeast is dead. The problem is that the earthpony blood mage you were worried about the most was neither inside his cell nor anywhere in the complex.”

Cadance’s hind legs fold underneath her, leaving the alicorn gasping for breath.

“Why now…?” she whispers.

“Caddy?” Shining Armor immediately jumps towards her, “What’s wrong?”

She ignores him, glaring at Prominence instead.

“Find him and, if it’s still even possible, kill him.”

“I’m going to need more information, because this isn’t the reaction I was expecting. Blood mages are a pain in the plot but I practiced against Bound Tome and he’s supposed to be top-notch.”

Shaking her head, Cadance stands up with Shining Armor ineffectively trying to help. She’s an alicorn, after all. While she wouldn’t say or show it in front of him unless it was absolutely necessary, she’s stronger, faster, and a lot more durable than even the best-trained unicorn warrior like her husband.

“Guards!” she calls out in a tone not allowing any disobedience, “Leave us! Alicorn business.”

Prominence nods towards the throne room door.

“You too, guys.”

With a quick nod, her three heavily armored companions leave last and close the door behind themselves.

“So?” Prominence raises an eyebrow.

“That earthpony is not just a blood mage,” Cadance sighs, walks over to her throne, and slumps down on it, “Several years ago, shortly after Twilight and Nightshade liberated Manehattan from the griffons and rescued Celestia from The Barrier, Twilight resumed an old research project into the divine power of alicorns in depths no one other than Magnus himself had ever done. Originally, it was to help Celestia avoid turning into a Corrupted. Equestria was barely recovering at the time, and news about the legendary princess being not right in the head and heavily tainted wasn’t something Twilight could afford,” she nods towards Prominence, “You are one of the fruits of the research, albeit an accidental one. I assume Celestia told you about your origins, right?”

Prominence nods.

“I used to think that being a split off part of someone else’s mind in a body forged from a mix of divine power and corruption was unique until I tried to kill the unicorn whom Celestia was trying to imitate. It didn’t go well...”

“That’s not the point,” the corner of Cadance’s mouth twitches, “What Twilight’s research led to, however, was a much greater understanding of how alicorns are made.”

“Considering your daughter, I thought it was the good old ‘birds and bees’ thing,” Prominence tilts her head.

“From what Celestia and Luna showed me, it used to be the case. Many millennia ago, alicorns used to be a society. Not numerous albeit prosperous. All of them were tied to aspects of the world, even though due to their numbers most of them were barely more powerful than unicorns. That changed when Faust, the primal alicorn of Life, was killed by Void, the primal alicorn of Death.”

“Empress,” Prominence interrupts her, “You are throwing a lot of names at me. While I have some of Celestia’s general or even deeper knowledge, I am my own pony and I don’t have her full memories.”

Cadance nods.

“I’ll skip the history lesson then. Faust’s death started the decline of alicorn society and eventually all but the individually most powerful alicorns or those tied to the most significant forces of reality remained. If such an alicorn dies, these forces, as it turns out, will always either create of infuse a new avatar. Nowhere does it say that these forces have to be the powers of good.”

“Ooooh...” it finally clicks to Prominence, “Twilight figured out a way to find candidates for divinity, right? The earthpony is a potential host for something really nasty and he must be stopped before it finds him.”

“Celestia did that to Twilight first, to be accurate,” says Cadance, making Prominence give her a raised eyebrow, “She groomed one unicorn shut-in into the alicorn Magic and Friendship. Unfortunately, and don’t tell Celestia I said this, the friendships Twilight lost due to her immortality were something she never managed to replace. Her rule… hasn’t been easy by far. Eventually, Twilight noticed she was losing the divinity she understood was tied to Friendship while she was gaining more and more magic power to protect her subjects. She was originally trying to find the best candidate for the alicorn of Friendship but couldn’t. In the world rotten to the core by corruption, she only found the best candidate for the alicorn of Pain and Suffering. An insane sadistic murderer.”

“So you imprisoned him,” Prominence nods.

“The light of the Crystal Heart as well as the magic and technology were supposed to be able to hold him even in the case he truly became an alicorn.”

“Then why not execute him there and then?”

“And then have to keep looking for the next one? No. He was the best candidate and he was being detained. If we managed to hold him, there would be no other alicorn of Pain running around. Unfortunately, who could have guessed that some idiot would destroy the damn universe, leave only this planet plunged into darkness, and ponies would be terrified, starving, and all that fueling power of the potentially most powerful enemy of life the world has ever seen other than Void himself. Well, here we are.”

“I’ll have to inform the princesses.”

“Do so. Use anything you deem worthwhile to find and kill him. Under these conditions, we can’t bet on holding him again,” Cadance nods.

“Am I correct in assuming that I won’t have any pony power to waste trying to find Gem and the rest?” Prominence smirks.

“Of course,” Cadance returns the knowing smirk, “Still, if you by any chance manage to contact them, tell them that the Crystal Heart doesn’t discriminate if they get hungry. We can’t afford to make more enemies in these days. I just wish Celestia would see it that way.”

“Then I have to hunt down at least one major annoyance causing her a headache,” Prominence nods.

“Be careful, Prominence. In this dark hour, his power will be growing with each desperate thought. If you need help, don’t hesitate to call on me or the princesses. Better to go for a massive overkill than be too late to stop him.”

Prominence salutes and leaves.

***

Thirteen finds herself examining Gem’s striped backside in close detail as she follows her and Magpie through the black wilderness. She’s not being creepy or anything, rather she’s admiring something she could easily call the perfect transformation. Her mother’s idea of a good form to catch the eye of a target and then take their love and lust was... too much of everything. Gem, on the other hole…

Thirteen sighs.

Maybe if she was the one to teach me infiltration, I might not be as much of a screw-up as I am.

“My butt doesn’t always make others sigh but when it does, it’s generally not in such depressed fashion,” comments Gem in a hushed tone.

“Ah?” Thirteen blushes immediately and clamps a hoof over her mouth, “Sorry. I was just admiring your transformation. My shapeshifting isn’t… great.”

“It’s more a minor upgrade than a fake body,” Gem slows down to keep pace with Thirteen and heavily breathing Three who clearly isn’t used to their pace as well as the length of everyone else’s legs, “And if we have time, I might give you a tip or two. Mom isn’t known for her subtlety in regards to infiltration.”

“I’d like to look like you, Gem,” Thirteen gives her a nervous smile.

“That’s going to take some hard work at the gym, Thirteen.”

“Can’t I just shapeshift?”

“Even if you could copy the details but you wouldn’t be able to sustain that for long.”

“Yeah,” Thirteen nods, “I can’t hold too much love. Mom put me through some physical training to improve my capacity but it worked only a little bit.”

“It’s not about that,” Gem shakes her head, “I can’t hold any crazy amount of love either. Mom and dad are experts at that. It’s all about efficiency.”

“And I gain that at the gym how?”

“The more you naturally look like your transformation, the easier it will be for your body to maintain some finishing touches,” Gem’s tail slaps her butt which jiggles a little, “Other than the stripes, all natural. With some improved distribution of fat, of course.”

“So… I have to build up my body first by working out and only afterwards can I improve it by shapeshifting?”

“That’s the efficient way, yes. Of course, you can shapeshift into whatever you want if you have the discipline and love. The longer you stay like that, the easier it will be too,” Gem smiles, “So, for all intents and purposes, this is my real body, not a transformation.”

“Can you teach me some things I could be doing while we’re walking to stop being so… plain?”

“You’re not plain, Thir- ahh?!” Three, who has been up until now focusing solely on walking, trips and faceplants into the squishy ground.

Judging by the watch around Gem’s foreleg, it’s past midnight. In the dark world, there’s no other way to tell time.

“I think we’ve gotten far enough away for today,” whispers Gem, “Proper sleep will do us good.”

No one argues. Three slumps down where he stands, nuzzling the oily tainted grass.

“Soooft...” he breathes out, “...hug the ground...”.

“Don’t worry, I’ll build the tent right around you,” Thirteen walks up to Three hugging his own backpack.

Thirteen immediately takes her backpack off and pulls out a smaller bag that clanks a little when she shakes it. With optimism, she empties the contents of the bag, revealing a bundle of cloth, a bunch of metal poles, and a selection of screws in small pouches.

“Uhhh...” her ears droop as she shoves her head into the small bag, “Are there instructions anywhere?”

“I’ll help you, don’t worry,” says Harriet whose back tentacles are extended and wibbling in the air. Behind her, a tent is already set up. Magpie, working by the light of a headband lamp, is almost done as well and Gem hasn’t even started. Three is still clutching his backpack and has added snoring to his repertoire.

From his half-built tent, Magpie gives Three an annoyed glance announced by the cone of light from his forehead.

“Can’t we let him sleep outside until he learns to take care of hims-”

“Quiet, catbird!” hisses Gem, sitting cross-legged on the ground with her eyes closed.

This time, however, Thirteen walks up to Magpie, scowling.

“What’s your problem?!”

“Do you want a list?” the griffon gives her an unimpressed stare.

“Thirteen, go learn to raise a tent,” says Gem calmly, “Magpie, you’re not done either.”

The authority in that quiet statement is something Thirteen has only heard from her dad. Not even her mom, the warrior of warriors, had ever said anything in such way. No arguing is allowed. Granted, mom tended to yell or growl a lot instead… at least until she gave up on Thirteen completely.

Still, Thirteen can’t stop herself from turning away with an irritated huff before returning to Harriet currently holding ten metal poles at once and making it a clear how she managed to raise her tent so quickly.

“Six back tentacles, three mouth tentacles, and forelegs with claws,” Thirteen blinks, “You’re scary in the really cool way.”

“Thank you,” Harriet snickers, tossing three of the hollow poles towards Thirteen, “I’ll do these for you, but you should learn how they work.”

“They’re too small to hold anything,” Thirteen grows claws as well and notices tiny screw pattern on the sides of each pole.

“Not like this,” Harriet holds up three pieces with her tentacles, puts them together, and twists until they click together. Suddenly, she’s holding a long pole that can easily serve as the central support for a tent.

“Ooooh, so that’s how it works!” Thirteen puts hers together, beaming to herself when the parts click.

“Well done,” Harriet nods, “Now let’s do the canvas.”

Within ten minutes, three dark green tents are standing in a triangle. Once Magpie has turned his headlamp off, there’s zero chance anyone would spot them even here on the flat land south of the Crystal Empire.

“I’ll take the first watch,” says the griffon.

“Watch?” asks Thirteen.

“We’ve been together for a while now and we usually split night watch into two shifts,” explains Gem, “At first, we did three but it wasn’t necessary due to all of us being… uncommon. Or in Magpie’s case - having a ton of experience.”

“I think I can take the second watch then. I’m not useful in a fight or anything, so I can at least wake you up if anything happens.”

“Don’t worry about it tonight,” says Harriet, patting Thirteen’s head with a back tentacle, “I’ll take the whole night. I’ve been cooped up in that sterile cell for far too long.”

“That’s settled then,” says Gem before Magpie or Thirteen can answer, “Everyone else go to bed. We’ll have a lot of ground to cover from now on.”

“What’s the plan, though?” asks Magpie, “Are we really straight up fleeing through Equestria to the Griffon Empire?”

“We need to stay out of sight until things cool down, and we’re not exactly an inconspicuous group thanks to you and Harriet,” Gem looks at Harriet who gives her an apologetic smile accompanied by a shrug of her back tentacles, “There are five cities in the whole Equestria and ten civilized locations overall. Before corruption, we could stay in the wild or hide but now we have to get to relative safety, or at least somewhere the alicorns can’t send an army to look for us which, with the number of pony guards in the north of Zebrica, leaves either Rift or the Griffon Empire. I’m not too keen on making things even worse for the minotaurs so Griffon Empire it is. Who knows? Maybe we’ll be able to help in some way since I doubt the automated underground farms have gotten to them yet. Three has to remember something from the blueprints, right? Three?”

The drone is fast asleep, drooling over his backpack.

“I wouldn’t wake him up,” Thirteen shuffles closer to the drone.

“Agreed,” Gem nods, “Harriet, are you really fine pulling an all-nighter?”

“No problem whatsoever, really,” the big mare stretches like a cat, which along with her quivering tentacles and tail extending into the air makes her look like a really angry bush, “I never thought I’d say it, but part of me is hoping for a little scrap with some curious Hunter,” Harriet chuckles to herself, “Good night, everyone.”

“Safe night, Harriet,” Gem nods to her and enters her tent.

“Night,” Magpie follows her.

Thirteen, standing over sleeping Three, scratches her head and whispers:

“I kinda don’t want to wake him up and it’s not like we need the tent anyway.”

“I can carry him inside,” offers Harriet, her back tentacles reaching for Three, “The more I’m getting used to these things, the more I realize how useful they are.”

Thirteen shakes her head.

“It’s my job to take care of him. I shouldn’t be standing here and staring like an idiot,” she lowers herself down, “Though I wouldn’t mind a little help with his bag, miss Harriet.”

“Just Harriet, Thirteen,” Harriet’s back tentacle scratches her head while the dragonpony herself grabs the full backpack with ease in her claws.

As soon as the bag is gone, all four of Three’s legs that had been clamped around it start reaching for anything which turns out to be Thirteen.

“That’s quite the grip,” she mutters to herself as Three latches onto her side and remains there, hanging horizontally, as she stands up, throwing her hard off-balance, “Hug bug...”

“...boss…” mumbles Three in his sleep.

“Nope, dad’s not here. It’s still only me, Thirteen,” as she carries him to her tent, she passes Harriet who starts snickering when she sees Three in tick mode.

“...filly boss...”

Thirteen rolls her eyes.

“Heh, now that’s a terrifying thought.”

Go east: The imperfect daughter

[Message from Eleven]

Hi, dad!

I’m not sure how you or the others are faring, but we’ve discovered something amazing. I’m sending Eleven because this must get to you no matter what. That and he really wanted to run around properly.

You don’t have to keep going south anymore. The dwarves are currently busy unearthing what seems to be significant parts of a Silversmith city in working condition. So far, we’ve managed to uncover an area the size of the dark priest enclave and there seems to be so much more it’s unbelievable. I’m not sure if the entire Brauheim’s population could fit here but the deeper we go the more I think the answer is yes. And do you wanna know what the best part is? It’s almost right under Chrysalis’ old hive! The southern edge of the Badlands, to be exact. Hole, I think that if we dug northwest, we’d connect with the tunnel we build on Flow’s orders. It makes me wonder if Chrysalis’ hive ever made contact in the past.

Now, it’s not all sunshine and happiness. So far, we haven’t discovered a single mech which might mean there’s some threat we’ve yet to discover waiting for us. Thankfully, our more likely guess is that most of the mechs were lost during a recent explosion caused by a self-destruct mechanism.

Now hold onto mom or something, because the dwarves managed to activate some sort of a video archive similar to the dark priest library and replay a video from the security cameras of the upper section of the city. Unfortunately, they don’t know when the recordings are from - the system of dates that the pre-Living End project dwarves used is lost. What we assume is that they have to be reasonably recent, by which I mean from this decade. Okay, I’ve been stalling long enough. Take a wild guess as to what caused the self-destruct sequence.

It was Desert Shade along with a group of ponies, a griffon, and TWO HOLES-DAMNED ALICORNS, one of whom was that brain-damaged black mare Cryo was sent to get on Cromach’s request, only with less drooling and random stumbling around. I’m sending the image of the second alicorn in Eleven’s head as well. For some reason he feels familiar and yet even when I dug through my hive memories I couldn’t find anything.

So that’s my report. We’ll settle here and keep uncovering the city room by room to avoid triggering any further alarms and self-destruct mechanisms.

[End of message]

For the last hour, Thirteen has been having serious trouble trying to push Three’s wheezing and gasping for breath out of her mind. She offered to take him on her back earlier. Hole, even Harriet did. Three refused both suggestions and just kept on plodding forward on his short legs, pumping them hard to keep up with the others.

Lucky, tower-legged buggers.

This also meant that while the pace was overwhelming for him, for everyone else the last week meant a long but rather comfortable trip. Surprisingly, despite them taking a direct route southeast through the wilderness they weren’t attacked by Corrupted. In fact, they barely even noticed being observed from time to time. Gem’s best guess was that it had something to do with the permanent darkness. On one hole, it meant that so far their trip has been safe for everyone but Three trying to push himself past what had to be the point of exhaustion each day. On the other, it’s also been supremely dull, especially for Thirteen whose only conversation partner has been Harriet. The others either were used to trips like that or they were Three who was too busy trying not to pass out to chat.

Three wheezes again which feels as if it was ripping Thirteen’s lungs out instead. The coughing fit makes Gem tap on Magpie’s shoulder to slow down and eventually stop.

“This is where I wanted to get today and set up camp,” says Gem.

“And where is here exactly?” asks Thirteen, looking around and not seeing anything other than grey shadows and silhouettes.

“Maggie, will you do the honors?” smirks Gem.

“Do we really need to alert everything in our vicinity to our presence?” grumbles the griffon.

“Lamp!” huffs Gem.

“Fiiine...” Magpie switches his headlamp off, pulls out what looks like a glowstick the length of Three’s foreleg, raises it into the air, and flips a switch.

Light spreads through the area including the trees, the low undergrowth, and Thirteen’s eyes go wide and her jaw drops.

“Wh- What is this?” she breathes out, momentarily forgetting about Three sitting down and wiping foam off of his muzzle, “It’s so pretty...”

Thirteen has never seen anything like the surrounding area before. It’s not particularly cold here, although she did notice temperature dropping over the past hour, and yet the ground is crunchy and white as if covered in rime. Trees and brushes look like they were made of ice mixed with tainted biomass and seemingly draw the light of Magpie’s lamp through the trunks up into the canopy. Within a moment, Thirteen understands perfectly why Magpie was worried, because where in any normal forest the light would be covered by a wall of trees, here it only spreads further and further, bathing a big area in a corona of sparkling, white glow.

“King Chilly’s territory,” explains Gem, “Some call it the Frozen Forest. It’s home of the Separated and it means we’re about two-thirds of the way to Canterlot-”

“Which we are going to avoid like wildfire,” interrupts her Magpie.

“We’re going to take a short break in lower Canterlot,” Gem corrects him, upon which the griffon just sighs, “We need to resupply and gather some love. We got lucky so far with the Corrupted and we’ll lkely get to Canterlot safe and sound but the eastern wild territories are worse, what with corrupted griffons running around on occasion. Once we leave Canterlot, we won’t be safe until we reach Griffonstone.”

Answered by a chorus of nods, some more hesitant than others, Gem looks around the small clearing where they stopped.

“Where was I? Right, king Chilly’s territory and the Separated,” she sits down as the others start taking out camping supplies.

Thirteen takes her bag off and looks at Three who pokes her hind thigh. The drone is swaying and wincing as he shifts his weight from one hoof to another.

“Yes, Three?”

“I… I want to build the tent this time, Thirteen.”

“Are you sure? You look like you can barely stand.”

“Lucky me that I can do parts while sitting then,” he gives her a determined smile, pulls out one of the segmented poles, and stares at it for a moment, “Uhh… isn’t this a little too short?”

“Do you want to figure it out on your own too, or can I offer instructions?” Thirteen sticks her tongue at him.

“I...” Three purses his lips. After a brief fight between pride and rational thinking, his exhaustion wins. Quietly, he says, ”I have to do it on my own, I can’t be stupid and lazy all the time. I know I won’t make it without help, though,” he sighs, “What do I do?”

“Three, it’s not a big deal-”

“Exactly, Thirteen,” Three whispers, “It’s not a big deal and I can’t figure even that out. I’m older than Gem, few weeks but still, and look at the difference. Like a larva compared to a queen.”

“I’ll help you, I’ll support you.”

“But what do I learn that way? I… I kinda don’t want to return home now… just for things to stay the same. I want to make boss… and mister minotaur proud.”

“Well, how about you start small? Now you build the tent with my help, tomorrow you’ll do it on your own. It’s not like you need to be able to do everything right this instant.”

“I suppose you’re right...”

“Technically, that’s from Five, not me. That’s what she kept telling me as I failed her training over and over and over. Umm, I should have kept that part to myself, shouldn’t I?” she scratches her head, certain that she’s just sabotaged her entire point.

“That’s okay,” Three picks up one segment of the pole again, “What do I do with this then?”

To avoid interrupting Gem currently getting ready for a campfire story without the fire, Thirteen switches to instructing Three through a hive link.

“I won’t bother you with full history just because it would take forever, but as far as I know, Corrupted have sort of a slot inside their heads for a ruling entity whom they obey almost unquestioningly. Separated were either born with that slot not working or have had that slot changed to listen to themselves.”

“That’s kinda changeling-like,” comments Thirteen.

“It’s more about the effectiveness of hive mind structures, really. We’re just one of many species using that mechanic, although we are by far the most intelligent one,” Gem corrects her, “Well, with that, Separated are significantly more individualistic than Corrupted and generally a lot smarter.”

“So, a lot more dangerous?”

“Strangely, no,” Gem shakes her head, “Separated are non-confrontational and won’t attack anyone unless they get attacked or see someone get attacked. After that, yes.”

“They sound nice,” mumbles Three.

“They are. They travel the world in search of knowledge.”

“What about?” asks Thirteen, more and more eager to meet one of these friendly Corrupted.

“Anything, really,” Gem shrugs, “There’s a big inn about halfway between Canterlot and the Crystal Empire if you take the road. A Separated mare works there as a cook and a waitress, listening to stories of travellers and learning new recipes. As far as I know, some Separated travel even to the Griffon Empire, although I doubt they’re exactly welcome there. I’ve met one who wanted to learn about fighting to be able to protect king Chilly and teach the others. Supposedly, the best fighter in the world lives somewhere in the Griffon Empire these days.”

“Wait, isn’t mom the best or do you only count non-changelings?” asks Thirteen which makes Gem grin.

“He is a changeling,” she says, “and mom had the misfortune of fighting him once. Being chewed up by a dragon might have caused less damage, and the worst part was that his words afterwards were ‘I should have been more careful but I overestimated her’.”

“OUCH!” Thirteen winces at the image but can’t help snickering, “I like him already. Who is it?”

“I must admit I don’t know,” Gem shakes her head, “I’ve only seen him once centuries ago and at that time he was working for Cromach and the Order of the Silver Sun as an instructor.”

“Where might be this Order situated? Asking totally only out of curiosity, of course.”

“They used to be in Manehattan but Promi told me that after they’ve involved themselves with the end of the world pretty much exactly as we have, they packed up and left Manehattan before the alicorns and guards could get them. As I said, they’re likely in the Griffon Empire for the same reason we’re going there.”

“Awww, they all want to get miss Harriet home,” Three gives everyone an exhausted smile.

“Dummy!” says Gem after she stops laughing. In fact, it takes everyone other than Magpie few moments to calm down again. This, of course, makes Gem nudge the griffon and nod towards their tent.

“We should go to bed,” he says, “First watch-”

“I would like to take the first one, please.”

Magpie looks at Three with a raised eyebrow after his interruption.

“And what? Faint after the first hour? We need a real warning, not someone who will trust a group of bandits or Corrupted that they’re going into our tents to give us all a group hug.”

“I’ll do the full shift with him!” Thirteen, standing and trembling with the desire to lunge at the griffon’s throat.

“Which would leave us with one more tired member tomorrow,” Magpie stares at her coldly.

“You-” Thirteen bares her fangs.

“Three and Thirteen, first watch. It’s my turn to do the second.”

“You’re out of love crystals because-” Magpie points at Thirteen.

“Did I ask for your opinion?” hisses Gem sideways at the griffon who immediately stops and blinks in confusion as if he’s just been slapped. In a calm tone, she adds, “Besides, this is exactly why we have to stop in Canterlot. Check and mate, catbird.”

Magpie doesn’t answer, shutting the big lamp off and retreating to his tent instead. Gem stands up, her eyes stopping on Three just sitting there and staring down at the crunchy grass reacting to his poking.

A picture of misery, really. And right after I thought he was getting better with that joke. Magpie sometimes really needs a kick in the nuts.

Next, she looks at Thirteen still glaring at the lit tent and the griffon’s silhouette inside with a continuous quiet growl.

“Thirteen, Three, please get ready for your shift. Harriet-”

“I’ll stay with these two for few minutes,” the huge mare’s tentacles extend, wrap around the barrels of Three and Thirteen, and pull them towards her, “I’m not exactly tired, although the constant night is making me feel a bit heavier than usual.”

“You’re the pinnacle of feminine thickness, Harriet. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise,” Gem sticks her tongue out at the corrupted dragonpony who mirrors the gesture, obviously winning on both the number and length of tongues, “Oof, I know when I’m outmatched.”

With a snicker, Gem enters her and Magpie’s tent.

“...I hate that griffon...” Thirteen breathes out quietly.

“He’s right, though,” mumbles Three.

“And all three of you are wrong,” Harriet nuzzles Three who has to look up in a ninety-degree angle to face Harriet after she straightens back up.

“All three?” Thirteen tilts her head.

“You, Thirteen - Magpie is nowhere near as much of a plothole you think he is. It took me a while to understand. Granted, he’s leagues worse with Three than he was with me, but you have to understand that to him we’re a threat. I mean our lack of experience, not us being enemies. You wouldn’t be too patient with someone this green whom you can’t control being responsible for your life, I’m sure of it,” she rubs Three’s chin and makes him look up as he slips into his gloominess again, “You’re wrong in believing you’re as bad as Magpie thinks, Three. He… isn’t right in the head after everything he’s been through. If even half of the stories are true, I don’t doubt for a second I’d be a drooling wreck or straight-up dead after one-tenth of his way to today. That part he talks about, that is. I’m a waitress, for Emperor’s sake. I have my theory about Magpie’s past, but you have to be special to survive what he did. Of course, so many bad experiences also make him see things way worse than they are and that’s where he is wrong. See? All three.”

“Thank you,” says Three, petting Harriet’s foreleg.

“No problem. I just wanted both of you to know that we’re friends no matter how it might look on the surface.”

“No,” huffs Thirteen, “Not with him.”

“Yes, even with mister Magpie,” Three takes a deep breath, “We just need to find the right way.”

“There’s the best little hug bug!” Harriet grabs Three with both forelegs and presses him against the scales on her chest with strength but utmost care. Three does his best to spread his forelegs to encompass Harriet, but that’s simply impossible so he settles for going as far as he can reach.

After a short while, Thirteen clears her throat and says:

“We really should be getting ready for our watch, shouldn’t we?”

“Right, right,” Harriet puts Three down and walks off to her tent with a final wish of good luck.

***

“-and now tell me why you’re so hard on Three!” Thirteen’s ear twitches as she hears Gem’s faint voice from her tent, “You’re going so far with it that it’s irritating even me and I’m used to your gloomy ass. Give me a hoof massage.”

“Three!” Thirteen whispers directly into Three’s ear, “Can you hear it?”

The drone nods, slowing his breathing down.

“I hate chicks,” replies Magpie.

“Females or little griffons?”

“Pick one. It changes depending on the time of day.”

“Three is older than I am,” Gem nudges the conversation further.

“Age and maturity - definitely not one and the same.”

“Okay, I understand that one better than most, but don’t avoid the question.”

“That was the answer. He is completely detached from reality, basing what’s going to happen on pure wish. That’s putting everyone in danger. That you’re all taking him seriously is what makes it so infuriating.”

“While most of that is true, there’s so much more to Three than that.”

“I’m not seeing it.”

“Obviously, and I think I’m starting to see the problem.”

“Enlighten me...”

“He believes in others. He believes in others even more than you doubt them. He believes- no, he knows there’s good in others and will act on any little chance of that part winning.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Normally, I would agree, especially as a very old and cynical changeling. It would be true for you, for Harriet, even for me.”

“And you think it might not be true for him? After what just happened in the prison?”

“Maggie, I know talking won’t change your mind. Just give him a chance. I know him and you wouldn’t believe half of the things I could tell you. Trust me on that.”

“Fine, I promise I’ll shut up. It’s not like I care about living to old age anyway. If trusting a total idiot completely blind to reality is the thing to kill me, then so be it.”

“Yeah, that part of you is something I still have to work on. Just don’t die before I figure out how,” whispers Gem with a sigh.

“Not listening to Three might be a good star-”

“Catbiiird...”

“Right, I promised. Does it count if I just stay away?”

“Can you give him a hug or a ride?”

“Only if he ever deserves it.”

“Heh, I’ll remind you of this one day, catbird.”

“He’s an idiot,” mutters Thirteen.

“He saw through those unicorns immediately,” objects Three.

“So what? I’ll give him a good talking to- wait,” Thirteen narrows her eyes, “Do you want to make the griffon eat his words?”

“I really don’t want to make enemies out of anyone, Thirteen,” sighs Three, “Deep down, mister Magpie must be a good guy otherwise miss Gem wouldn’t spend so much time with him.”

“I really like you, Three,” Thirteen scoots over to him and wraps her foreleg around his shoulders.

“Of course I like you too, Thirteen. You’re a good changeling.”

Thirteen smiles inwardly.

Not what I meant, but probably all I’m gonna get right now.

“Then I guess all we can do is hold the best night watch ever held, right?” forcing a smile, she winks at Three who nods, “That will shut the griffon up without making him angry, right?”

“Let’s do our best. I think it would be a good idea to cover each other’s backs,” says Three simply.

“It certainly would,” Thirteen turns around, narrowing her eyes to see better.

The forest is silent to the point where Thirteen has to occasionally rub her forelegs together to reassure herself she hasn’t gone deaf. With no moon or stars to show the progress of the night, Thirteen has only her changeling senses to rely on and even those are failing her here. Has it been an hour? Two? Is it almost over? Has it been just a few minutes?

Thirteen blinks and yawns.

Something pressing against her chest wakes her up, and as she slurps a string of her drool back into her mouth, her bleary eyes focus on Three poking her with his nose.

“Wha-?”

“Gem will be waking up in five minutes,” whispers Three.

“I’m so sorry, Three!” Thirteen straightens up immediately, “I... I...”

Three waves his hoof dismissively.

“I was supposed to do the watch on my own anyway. Nothing much happened and at least this way you’ll be fresh for tomorrow.”

“I’m carrying you all the way today then,” Thirteen stands up on all fours and when Three opens his mouth to object, she presses her nose to his, channeling her inner Gem, “No arguing!”

“Alright, alright,” says Three after a second of silent breathing, “I’m going to need it.”

After patting Three’s head, Thirteen heads off to her tent while smiling to herself until she falls asleep again.

Yay!

Author's Note

Error 404: Plot not found.

Go east: Entering Canterlot

[Message for One-One and Eleven]

I’m so glad to hear you’re all okay and that both One-One and Eleven managed to follow our tracks.

Looks like you’ve both been having significantly more luck than One and I. So far, our trip has been just endless plodding forward through more and more unstable tunnels. It seems that wherever the old dwarves originated from, it wasn’t Zebrica, although they definitely did spread that far south, as the tunnels indicate. We’ve been going slowly for the past few days because we found a huge staircase leading down under the ocean floor. Air is an issue, especially for the elderly, but the filters, generators, and supplies have been enough so far.

Unfortunately, not everything seems to be sunshine and happiness, as Eleven reported seeing Crystal and Royal Guards in the tunnels under Vanhoover. That leads me to believe that Three’s mission hit the worst-case scenario - no, not THE worst-case. I doubt ponies would have the heart to hurt or… kill Three, not even in these rough times. However, I’m fairly sure that he’s being detained and ponies know at least some access paths to the dwarf tunnels. According to Eleven’s observations, they have no clue how to navigate the tunnels, so that’s a plus.

I wish I could just grab One and go kick some well-deserving ass but I have responsibility. The mood of the dwarves is still okay but I’ve been hearing voices calling for the return to Brauheim and preparing to fight a war. Your good news does bring some hope and I’ll be able to send those dwarves with some supplies and equipment to you with One-One and Eleven. Hard Reset, after he woke up from passing out thanks to your news, wanted to head off to you immediately but I told him he still had to organize the ranks of the rest of us. That way, those who remain with me will be the curious explorers ready to go deeper south. We still have several locations to explore under Zebrica and getting there is going to take some time. As for your alicorn video, I really can’t tell you much more other than to be careful, really. The good part is that if the section of the city they were spotted in self-destructed then it’s less likely they’ll be exploring further.

Now, about Seven. He’s never been the kind to fare well without a clear goal so I’ve got a special mission for him that might alleviate two problems at once. You’ll understand when you see what One-One brings you. Seven will be too busy figuring out a way to teleport things across a corrupted landscape without a fixed point to worry about his crushing guilt… which should be on me anyway, really. I’m also sending the updated map to both of you and tasking Seven to organize building a fixed teleporter between your two cities after he’s done with my mission. That’s bound to take resources you don’t have in your travel backpacks so it’ll be a big project to occupy his mind.

Hmmm… now that I think about it, if the city your group discovered, Two, is as large as you think, it might be a good idea to straight up just cross under the ocean, set up a base under the northern coast of Zebrica, and sending out specialized scout parties instead of continuing the migration. That way, I could return to you with One sooner and we can start working on Three’s situation.

Anyway, good luck to all of you, and thank you for the excellent job you’re doing.

Bossdad. Dadboss? Baddoss? Ossdabd?

That overgrown drone pretending to know what he’s doing.

[End of message]

“This place gives me the creeps,” grumbles Magpie, leading the group as usual with his headlamp.

“What? Scared of a little dark?” Thirteen can’t help taking a well-deserved jab at him.

“Scared of a thousand tons of rock crushing me to dust any second,” Magpie frowns without even bothering to look back at her.

The group finally made it to Canterlot few hours ago. Despite Magpie’s objections, Gem’s final word was that they’d be stopping in lower Canterlot no matter what. Granted, with their supplies thinning rapidly, even he wasn’t objecting too much. Harriet was ecstatic from the idea that she’d be able to take a hot bath after over two weeks on the road, Thirteen was super curious about the lights covering the side of Canterlot mountain, having never seen the capital city before, and Three was mostly focused on walking straight ahead without passing out.

Of course, entering lower Canterlot set at the base of the mountain through the main gate would be unwise, to say the least, for such a recognizable group so Gem decided to lead them through the abandoned mines crisscrossing the entire mountain. Funnily enough, Three was the only other one with hooves-on experience with the place.

And so, as they trudge through the wet darkness, Three, Gem, and Thirteen are sharing a hive mind map of the mining complex inside the mountain, Harriet is still walking in the back, suspicious of the stability of every tunnel, and Magpie is in front, listening to Gem’s directions. Underground really isn’t his thing. You can’t fight a sudden cave-in.

The tunnel opens into a darkness that even Magpie’s headlamp can’t penetrate. Temperature drops and the still air of the previous tunnel turns into a slow, consistent draft.

“Bloodstone, we have a problem,” he turns his head back to the others, “There’s a massive hole ahead.”

“Massive asshole ahead,” Thirteen thinks to herself as she gives Magpie an innocent look.

“Be very careful here,” warns Gem, “In fact, use the big lamp, Mag.”

“I’m not a fan of the new nickname,” mumbles Magpie without any real venom in it this time as he immediately starts rummaging in his backpack for the long lamp.

“You’re not a fan of new anything,” Gem shrugs, smirking, “Harriet, how well can you see down here?”

“See isn’t the right term, but I can feel the area around me just fine with only Magpie’s headlamp as insurance. The whole mountain is tainted with corrupted biomass, rocks, and everything.”

“Good,” Gem nods, “That means we should be okay. Magpie?”

The griffon lights the big lamp the light of which gently flows all over the area, revealing what has to be only a tiny fraction of it despite the intensity.

They’re all standing on a ledge the width of just over a standard Canterlot sidewalk overlooking a circular hole which seems to be crossing the mountain from top to far underground. From what they can see and the sloping of the ledge, it must lead up and down the whole height of the mountain, its wall dotted with tunnel mouths and shiny with old, rusty metal signs.

“This is the central air shaft,” explains Gem, “Long time ago, Canterlot mountain used to be a mining complex until a set of accidents killed a lot of miners and the mining was stopped on royal orders. There’s mining equipment as well as tracks for the carts all over the place, so be careful where you step because sections of the railing are rusty or completely gone.”

“How stable is this place?” asks Magpie.

“I must admit I haven’t been here too often in recent years, but as far as I know there are several collapsed sections underground from the mining, one escape tunnel on the ground floor which Comfort tore down on a squad of paladins when we were escaping from Canterlot during our first time here, and one section of this ledge on the level of upper Canterlot sewers, so waaay up there, which is Cromach’s job,” looking from side to side, she points to the left and starts walking, “We just need to get two levels down and use a tunnel that connects to lower Canterlot sewers.”

“Is Shuffles still around?” asks Three.

“Shuffles?” Thirteen gives him a quizzical look. She hasn’t even heard of anything like that but it does sound like something Three would name.

“I haven’t met or felt it during my last two trips through the tunnels,” Gem shrugs, “I’d rather avoid doing so this time as well.”

“Awwww...” Three pouts in disappointment.

“I realize I’m going to regret it, but who or what is ‘Shuffles’?” asks Magpie.

“A life-draining mass of black smoke, dark magic, and pure evil that devoured a unit of expert paladins and which, for reasons beyond me, is Three’s friend,” explains Gem in a carefully measured tone of someone who has her own opinion but doesn’t want to express it, “It’s significantly less friendly to anyone else, to say the least.”

Magpie turns his head, giving Three a long, frowning stare to which Three responds with a bright, friendly smile.

“Do I want to know how that happened?” asks Magpie after looking forward again.

“He gave it a hug,” says Gem, “Told ya you wouldn’t believe half of the things I could tell you about him.”

Thirteen doesn’t need to see their expressions to know Gem must be wearing the smuggest grin in the history of smugness and that at least one of Magpie’s eyes is twitching.

“Shuffles?” Three raises his voice in a weak call-out, “Shuffles!”

No answer, no usual mass of furious hissing voice, nothing. There’s only silence.

“I can’t hear anything,” Harriet looks down from the ledge into the abyss, “Though I’m not sure we want to meet this Shuffles anywaaa-haaa--?!”

The edge crumbles under her weight. Thirteen only manages to grab one of the flailing tentacles which in the tiniest instant shows her that she has neither the grounding, the weight, nor the strength to pull Harriet up and that the only thing her holding on would cause is her falling down as well.

Unfortunately, unlike everyone else in the group, Harriet can’t fly.

“HARRIET!” both Gem and Magpie lunge to the edge and look down, “I can’t see her!” says the griffon, shining the light straight down.

“Miss Harriet?” Three’s staring down, wide-eyed.

“I… just let her go...” Thirteen’s standing there and watching her hoof in shock and horror.

Sudden squelching noise from the wall makes everyone look at a mass of wriggling tentacles appearing from the tainted rock and then inch by inch, wriggling out in the form of black goop that eventually reforms back to Harriet gasping for breath.

“Wha- Who- Wh-” she’s just breathing, blinking in confusion, “That was… something...”

“I’m so sorryyyyyyy!” Thirteen lunges at her, latching onto her neck, “I almost caught you but-”

“Yeah yeah,” Harriet breathes out, patting Thirteen with one foreleg, “Don’t worry about that. It was stupid of me to look over the edge. I don’t know what happened. One moment I was falling and in the next everything is… blurry and then I’m back here.”

“Maybe a Corrupted reflex?” asks Gem, poking Harriet’s slowly flailing tentacle in sheer curiosity, “You haven’t travelled through the biomass yet?”

“Well excuuuuuse meee,” Harriet rolls her eyes with a growing smile of relief at being alive, “It’s not like I’ve had a Corrupted mentor to teach me what all this is about.”

“Understood, understood,” Gem pats Harriet’s head, “If you’re okay, then let’s move. The sooner we’re out of here, the better.”

With Harriet now shuffling by the wall, the group resume moving. Three’s walking in front of her, muzzle pressed against the ground, sniffing and poking the tainted rocks but still moving quickly enough not to hinder the group.

“What are you doing?” asks Harriet, poking Three with a tentacle.

“I’ve never really examined any tainted underground,” he explains, “The rocks feel completely different from any formations up north. Different density, different strength, different resistance to digging, it’s a whole new material! Now I regret boss didn’t send me to help dig the long tunnel between the hive and Pine Hills.”

“I thought everything in Equestria was tainted these days.”

“The north isn’t,” Gem joins in, “The tundra north of the Crystal Empire is the last place with some sense of taint but the Everhoof range and the underground isn’t. Corruption doesn’t seem to thrive in extreme cold or in dry underground. My best guess is that it’s related to it being part moss, part mushroom, and part something that does bend the laws of physics a little - so magic.”

After descending on the ledge around the abyss, Gem leads the group into a tunnel which eventually turns from hewn rock to smooth, worked stones, and soon connects to familiar circular tunnels with a small walkway on both sides and a corridor for waste between them - Canterlot sewers.

“I’ve cleaned the little sewer system we had in Windy and that had the same amount of mess in it,” comments Harriet.

“There aren’t that many ponies who live in lower Canterlot these days. Most still prefer the upper city closer to the well-protected castle,” sighs Gem, “You’ll see when we get to the city itself. Corrupted wiped lower Canterlot clean because it didn’t have so many magical protections as the upper city and even that was overrun. The only place that survived the first onslaught of Corrupted was the castle and the courtyard. Celestia’s and Luna’s ancient wards coupled with Twilight’s research helped save the few hundred ponies who remained there. These days, both the upper and lower cities are recovering but we’re still far away from the bustle of old times. The sewer system was built for that. On the other hole, Ponyville has grown easily ten times larger than it used to be pre-corruption.”

Eventually, Gem touches several stones in the wall in sequence, making a whole section slide back and reveal a narrow, winding staircase up into which Harriet can barely fit. However, the cellar on the top of the stairs hidden behind a wall in the same way as the bottom is wide, dry, empty, and smells much nicer.

“We’re home,” Gem breathes a sigh of relief as she leads the group a shorter set of stairs up.

“Wait… is this…?” Three’s looking around with a look of disbelief.

“The ‘haunted house’ we occupied when we first got to Canterlot? Yes, it is. The crown rebuilt it as an orphanage and I bought it after corruption hit and everyone was moved east to Manehattan,” smiles Gem, “So I assume you know your way around, Three. Everyone else, feel free to explore. Magpie, Harriet, you’ll have to stay in I’m afraid. Three, Thirteen, you’re free to wander around in a disguise. I have a few errands I need to run, so we’re going to be here a day or two.”

“No problem,” Magpie shrugs, “That’s exactly why I took the full night watch last night.”

“Umm, shower?” asks Harriet, “I’ve been feeling a bit… oily since I got sucked into the ground and rebuilt,” she shudders.

“Upstairs, second door to the left,” says Gem, “Magpie, bedroom is upstairs too.”

“Are you leaving right now?” asks the griffon.

“Yeah. No rest for the wicked, as they say.”

“And where should we look for you in case someone sniffs you out?”

“Pfff. Sure, that’s going to happen. First, I’m going to visit Packy and see how he’s going on his own. Afterwards, I’ve got something special.”

“Riiiight!” Magpie snaps his talons, “They didn’t put him in prison with us. I was wondering why.”

“He didn’t get involved with the dragon thing, so I asked Promi to let him go unlike us. She agreed. As far as I know, he’s back in upper Canterlot and hopefully not drugging his brains out like before.”

“Say hello from us, will you?” says the griffon. Him saying something this warm makes Thirteen furrow her brows in confusion.

“Yeah, definitely!” adds Harriet.

“Don’t worry, I will,” Gem concentrates and green shimmer passes through her body, leaving behind a smaller, pink, green-eyed pegasus with a two-tone navy blue and yellow mane. All in all, she looks vaguely similar to princess Cadance now, “Lock the door behind me. If you’re going out, Thirteen, Three then someone will have to let you back in. See you later,” she waves at everyone, spits out a key made of goo, unlocks the main door, and leaves, locking it behind herself.

As Magpie heads off in search of a kitchen and Harriet looks for the bathroom, Three and Thirteen are left alone by the door.

“So, what do we do?” asks Thirteen, trying to lighten the mood by striking a conversation with eerily silent Three, “Do you think Gem has love crystals in the fridge like in the Crystal Empire? I’m starving.”

“Definitely,” replies Three.

“Is something on your mind?”

“Yes.”

“Come oooon, I worry about you when you’re this quiet,” Thirteen boops the drone.

Three sighs.

“How do you know what the right thing to do is?” he asks out of nowhere.

“What?”

“How do you know what the right thing to do is?” Three simply repeats.

“I… well...” Thirteen scratches her head, “I dunno? Most of the time I just did what I was told and after I messed it up I ran off to some dark corner to cry until I was ready to try again. The right or wrong thing never really came into question. I believe that mom and dad wanted what’s good for me so I just did it. Well, tried to do it and failed miserably. If I think about it now, though, I doubt even mom knew what the right thing to do with me was. I’m not sure anyone can know what’s the right, or the best thing to do is in each situation. I’m sure they both did their best the only way they knew how. I’m trying to do what little I can, even though it amounts to nearly nothing. I just think that not doing anything is the worst way, way worse than trying and failing and making things worse,” she giggles nervously, “I’m blathering nonsense, sorry.”

“No, no,” Three shakes his head and stands up, gritting his teeth in a determined expression which almost makes Thirteen squee with its adorableness, “That’s pretty much the same opinion I got from an older friend. Do you mind grabbing few love crystals from the kitchen?”

“You want to go outside, don’t you?” Thirteen winks at him, “And it’s for more than just sightseeing.”

Three nods.

“Yes. We’re going to look for a wizard to get us to Tartarus. I need to know the truth about what happened. I don’t know why but I feel like everyone is thinking completely wrong about the entire situation.”

“Well, I’m coming with you, obviously. Dad would kill me if I lost you in Tartarus. Or Canterlot for that matter, really,” replies Thirteen in complete seriousness while heading off where she can hear Magpie munching.

When she enters the kitchen, she jumps and punches the air in victory, startling the griffon who gives her a narrow-eyed frown with his beak full of jerky.

“Yessssss!” she squees.

“What?” grumbles the griffon after swallowing.

Thirteen sticks her tongue at him, walking over to the fridge and pulling out a stack of green crystals.

“He’s glowing again! Not much but it counts.”

Go east: The perfect daughter

Unlike the lower city, upper Canterlot is awash with light from street lamps and windows, even though from the former only about one out of three is lit, every house looks occupied, and there are occasional ponies going about their business in the streets.

As Three and Thirteen walk through the streets, Three slows down and stops, reading a plaque over the entrance of what looks like a big, very official building.

“No rain, nor snow, nor eternal night or giant tentacles inserted into our partially-willing orifices will stop us from doing our duty. You post here, we deliver anywhere,” reads Three out loud.

“The Post Office,” Thirteen reads the banner hanging above the main door, limp in the still air, “They, uhh, deliver stuff I guess? That motto is strangely specific.”

“Yep, I’m wondering how they know where to deliver-” Three stops and hums to himself, “I’ll be right back,” he darts inside the lit and busy building.

When he walks outside again, he’s scribbling something with his mouth into his journal balancing on one foreleg.

He can do that even without holes? I can barely walk straight!

Thirteen sighs to herself.

“What was that about?” she asks.

“I’ve never used the one in Brauheim so I was curious how it works and they said I just needed to write something on a piece of paper, put it into an envelope, buy a stamp, lick it, and glue it to the envelope. Then I leave it here or in any big mailbox in the city, they collect it, and deliver it to the pony or address. They even have stamps for changelings that don’t melt when we lick them! They have pictures of bad mom on them. I’ll show you when we’re back home.”

“Ooookay,” Thirteen resumes following Three who has stashed his journal away into his backpack again, “How far are we from that wizard order place? I saw a pair of those purple-armored guardsponies looking at me while I was waiting.”

“It’s near the castle,” Three leads the way, “but upper Canterlot isn’t a big city. Half an hour tops if we hurry.”

“Should we think of a plan or something?”

“Why?”

“Isn’t what we’re doing illegal or something? It feels illegal,” Thirteen furrows her brows, realizing something feels off.

“Umm, no?” Three shrugs, “I mean, miss Gem and everyone think it’s stupid but we’re past that. We have enough gold and gems to pay anyone skilled enough thanks to miss Gem’s fortune, so… I’m not seeing anything wrong here. It’s not as if we want to summon a demon here and let it loose on the city. It’s us going in there.”

“Oh. Well that… just feels kinda easy, you know?” she chuckles.

“It’s not like we have to do everything in some shady way. As long as we stay disguised, we’re just two ponies with some unusual business.”

“Huuuh… you’re right.”

***

Just like most of the upper city, the foyer of the complex of buildings of the Orders of Wizardry is dimly lit, filled with white marble pillars decorated with gold foil, and almost completely empty.

However, unlike the rest of the city, there’s the buzzing of an alarm coming from somewhere around the receptionist’s desk on a three steps raised dais from where an elderly unicorn in a light blue robe is peering down at Three and Thirteen over the rim of his glasses.

“Oh dear,” his face is twisted into a pained grimace, “Could you two changelings transform back into yourselves? Otherwise we’ll never stop the damn thing.”

Three and Thirteen exchange glances.

“Do we run?” asks Thirteen through the hive link.

“Only if he recognizes us.”

With green shimmer, they both return to their normal forms and the alarm stops. With a sigh of relief, the old unicorn behind the desk slumps back into his chair.

“I apologize for that,” he says, “It’s a good thing almost nopony is here or we’d have sleepy and angry wizards everywhere.”

“Oh, we’re sorry,” says Three, “We thought it was business hours.”

“It is, it is,” he shakes his head, “But it’s the damn darkness too, you see? Everypony sleeps when they feel like it, and most of us are fairly… rich in years. So, now that’s sorted, how can I help you?”

“We’re looking for a wizard for hire, someone who knows about Tartarus.”

“A summoner, eh?” the unicorn scratches his head, levitates a thick book on the desk closer, and starts flipping the pages, “The vast majority of wizards are either busy recharging magical crystals - government contract, you see? And the others work on some special project with Her Majesty these days,” he hums to himself, “This could work. Try Bound Tome. Tartarus is a bit out of his expertise but he does a lot of summoning. His suite is on the second floor, number nine,” he points to the staircase on the left side of the room.

“Thank you very much,” Thirteen bows.

“You’re welcome, pretty lady.”

Three waves at him before heading off.

“I’ve thought of a problem, Three,” says Thirteen mentally.

“I’m listening.”

“What if no one here wants to help us no matter the money?”

“We… tell them that it’s really important?”

“I’m sure that with the amount of gems we got from Gem anyone we offer it will know it’s crucial for us. I’m thinking of a situation where that’s not enough.”

“We find someone else?”

“You heard the wizard. There’s no one here. We need to figure out how to make sure this works.”

“Okay. Any ideas?”

“I’ve learned some hypnotic stuff. I’m not any good at it but if you keep the wizard occupied, my pheromones could help a little.”

“I’m not sure about forcing anyone.”

“It won’t do any harm, we’ll just be a bit more persuasive.”

“I suppose that’s okay. Last resort, though, okay?”

“Sure.”

They stop by the right door announced by a small plaque on it reading Bound Tome. Unlike other doors, there’s no list of academic titles which means to Thirteen that either this is some fairly new wizard or everyone who comes here knows who this is.

Three isn’t bothered by her train of thought and knocks immediately.

“Come in!”

For no discernable reason, the office looks like an underground cellar. There are no windows and every drone instinct in Three’s head is screaming at him that he really is underground which makes him shake his head and look closer at the black rocks, realizing they’re covered in thin layer of corrupted biomass.

So is the unicorn walking up to the two puzzled changelings.

“A unicorn at the reception told us you might be of help with a magical problem we have,” says Thirteen, “I’m Thirteen.”

“Three,” the drone nods.

“Bound Tome,” the unicorn shakes Thirteen’s hoof with a soft smile before shaking Three’s, “How can I help you?”

“We need to get to Tartarus,” says Three, “The wizard downstairs said you did summonings and stuff.”

“Ooof!” Bound Tome stops and blinks, “Summoning? Yes. Demonology? No,” he shakes his head, “I’d send you to an expert but everyone is working in the castle these days.”

“Why aren’t you?”

“My magic disagrees with other unicorns in a potentially… fatal way. You see, I research how magic effects work in combination with corruption,” he nods to the biomass on the walls.

“Wow, I thought corruption kinda jumps on unicorns casting spells and eats them,” Thirteen’s eyes go wide.

“Yes,” Tome scratchs his head, “That would be the potentially fatal part. My speciality is blood magic coupled with corruption. Considering that so far I’m the only one who can do it, it’s a highly niche research topic. It also completely messes up the magical processes inside my body, so I need to figure out how to cast every old spell in a new way.”

“So you can’t help us then?” Three slumps, “We have some gems,” he opens the pouch around his neck and lets Bound Tome see.

“I’m sorry but it’s not about money, really,” he pats Three’s head, “I could do it if I had the right sourcebook but I’m in the middle of something else and this place isn’t ready for it. I don’t even have a proper summoning circle here-”

“Mister Tome?” Thirteen speaks up and walks closer to him, her eyes gleaming, “You want to help us.”

“I-” the unicorn blinks.

A deafening roar makes the suite shake as a humongous Corrupted pounces out of the biomass on the ceiling, knocking Thirteen on the floor and putting his huge hoof on her side with a warnng growl.

Three doesn’t fare better, as at the same time a perfectly smooth Corrupted mare slips out of the floor and hugs him, absorbing him inside her and reforming until only Three’s face is sticking out of her chest.

“Thanks, Bastion,” Bound Tome nods at the muscular Corrupted stallion under whom Thirteen is trying to avoid being noticed by breathing as slowly as possible. It doesn’t look like she’s being hurt at least.

“We’re really sorry, but we need it. It’s connected to the sun being gone and everything-” Three speaks up despite feeling rather comfortable stuck inside the black mare. It’s like floating in a warm tub where you can’t move.

“And I believe you, which is why Bastion there and my summon here have been exceedingly gentle to you. Look, come back in a week or two, I’ll send a message to the castle to find the right unicorn for the job, okay?”

Three sighs.

“I don’t think we have the time, mister Tome.”

“I don’t think you have a choice, Three,” he looks at Thirteen still frozen under Bastion’s hoof, “Let her go.”

With a grunt, Bastion steps away and lies down on the floor, slowly draining into it and disappearing. The mare does the same, dripping down like a waterfall and leaving Three standing alone.

“Awww, she was a good hugger,” he looks downwards.

“You can control Corrupted?” Thirteen gathers herself off of the floor.

“No,” Bound Tome nods towards the door where a black tentacle grows out of the wall, grabs the handle, opens it, and points outside, “and the discussion into the nature of my magic would take time I don’t have. Now I’m politely asking you to leave. My offer still stands, though. If you need a proper demonologist, I can get you one in few weeks.”

Three sighs.

“Thank you for your patience, mister Tome-”

“And I’m really sorry,” Thirteen hangs her head.

The unicorn waves his foreleg dismissively.

“Still better than daily politics in Canterlot, and it will make for an amusing little party story. Goodbye.”

“Bye!” Three leaves, waving.

Outside the Orders of Wizardry campus, the changelings exchange glances, shapeshift again, and head for the hour-long trip home.

“I’m sorry for messing it up,” Thirteen sighs.

“Hey, you didn’t see me having a better idea,” Three bumps her leg with his head, “We did what we could at the moment. Maybe we should talk to miss Gem about it again in case she knows some back-alley unicorn who isn’t working for the princesses.”

“Gem thinks the whole idea is stupid.”

“That’s why we need to sit down and have a proper chat.”

***

Back in Gem’s house, as soon as Three raises his hoof to knock on the door, Gem opens it with an expression unreadable to Thirteen which nonetheless means something must be going on.

“We’re… sorry?” her ears droop preemptively.

“Come with me,” she says, leading the duo to the kitchen.

Neither Harriet nor Magpie are there, instead…

“Voila,” Gem grins.

Three starts vibrating at eye-watering frequency.

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

Who awaits them in the kitchen is tall, blonde changeling mare with lust swirling around her like a pink fog. Unlike any other changeling present, her golden eyes glow with divine power.

“Glad to see you again too, dummies,” says Comfort, ”I’m hearing you want to visit auntie’s home.”

“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” Three’s buzzing grows louder and Thirteen’s knees go weak.

“I suppose an explanation’s in order,” chuckles Gem, “You see, when you can overhear me talking, you can be sure I can hear you. I had a long time throughout this trip to think about it, and I think you’re right, Three. I want answers.”

“But you said his idea was stupid,” objects Thirteen since Three seems to be unable to do anything other then squee, buzz, vibrate, and keep turning his head from Comfort to Gem and back so quickly it’s a blur.

“I said the idea of making Flow bring back the universe was stupid,” Gem tilts her head, “But Three infected me with curiosity, and now I need to know if what I did was right, if I understood the situation correctly, or if I directly caused the apocalypse we’re living through. Harriet and Magpie followed my guess that Cromach and Desert Shade were on the good side no matter how things looked, that bringing Vertradict to Brauheim would help bring Flow back. I NEED to know.”

“And while you were gallivanting around Canterlot, Gem visited a brothel where she can contact me whenever she wants,” Comfort smirks, “Much safer than trying to hypnotize the only living corrupted wizard, wouldn’t you say?”

“What?” Gem glares at Thirteen. She didn’t bother scanning the minds of both changelings after their return, which still clearly is the first thing Comfort does.

“I’ll explain later, if you don’t mind,” Thirteen lowers her head with an apologetic smile, “What’s wrong with Three anyway?” she tries to draw attention away from herself.

“I CAN’T DECIDE WHO TO HUG FIRST!”

Then, for a moment, reality shatters, and Three splits into two, one pouncing at Gem and one at Comfort, giving each a chitin-cracking hug. When the strange spatial warp ends, Three is standing in his original spot, beaming from ear to ear without buzzing or anything, and both mares can still feel the vice-like grip of his forelegs.

“And I’m supposed to be the one with weird powers,” Comfort shakes her head, “Anyway, we should go.”

“Should we bring anything with us?” asks Thirteen.

“Nah,” Comfort shakes her head, “We won’t be long. Come over here.”

Gem, Three, and Thirteen huddle in front of Comfort until a surge of pink flames burnes all four of them away, leaving nothing but a small ashen mark on the floor behind.

[An undeliverable letter in Canterlot Post Office]

Name: Boss or anyone who can give it to him.

Address: Underground, I think.

Hi, boss! It’s me, Three. I’m writing a letter because I don’t know how to get back to you and the nice ponies at the Post Office said they delivered everywhere, even in the Griffon Empire. It’s my best shot right now. Even miss Gem doesn’t know where you might be, and we’re expecting that ponies are looking through the tunnels we went to the Crystal Empire in the first place.

Umm, I guess I should start with that, shouldn’t I? Princess Candy and prince Shiny knew where our secret entrance to the Crystal Castle was and they were super mad at us for… well, you know. Despite that and being locked up in prison (don’t worry, most creatures were actually really nice), I helped build the farm machines and they’re sending them all over Equestria. Thirteen was keeping an eye on me all the time.

We found miss Gem and her friends who were locked up too because the princesses thought she’s behind the sun and stars going away. Now we’ve escaped and made our way to Canterlot. Unfortunately, all that means is that ponies are now mad at us for escaping from prison. I can’t tell you what our plan is just in case someone reads this letter, I just want you to know that we’re all okay.

For now, I mean, because against miss Gem’s wishes, Thirteen and I are trying to get to Tartarus to talk to Flow.

I know it sounds stupid but it isn’t, I promise! Besides, Five, Six, and Seven were in Tartarus and returned just fine. Plus miss Comfort lives there anyway, doing her succubus stuff. We might actually be safer there than here on the surface.

You of all changelings would understand if you were in the pocket dimension with me. I know Flow threatened to kill us all as well as the dwarves but he’s not a bad guy. I can’t explain it and it’s been eating me inside all this time. All that anger from everyone against him, all the destruction and pain he caused, and yet I can’t help feeling something is missing. I just need an explanation, some closure or anything. I need to meet him. And in case I’m right and he’s really so incredibly powerful he might even be able to help heat the world or remake the sun completely.

We’re going to hire a wizard to get us there. I’m writing this now, just in… just in case I’m wrong.

I made a really wrong choice when we were escaping the prison and it… killed ponies. No, it’s my fault. I killed ponies. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t do it with my own hooves.

I wanted to know how I could be sure that a decision I want to make will be the right one and the only answer I got was that it was impossible. The best thing I got was to have a plan in case I’m completely wrong. This is it. If I’m wrong, if something bad happens to us, I just want you to know we made it here. Miss Gem is okay and ponies will have the food like you wanted. It’s just me and Thirteen in danger.

I hope you’re doing well.

PS: If miss Two’s or miss Five’s expeditions have already reported in, give them a hug for me. You have those proper long legs, so you can hug miss Cryo too. I can barely reach around her foreleg.

[End of letter]

Go east: Everyone's uncertain

The fires of summoning enveloping Gem, Comfort. Three, and Thirteen fade away, leaving them all standing in the kitchen of Gem’s Canterlot house. It’s pitch black, which isn’t a big deal to any of them, and they can’t hear anything. That lasts only a second before the door swings open and Harriet pushes through, barely fitting into the frame.

“You’re back!” she exclaims, not bothered by the darkness as well, “How did it go? The sun isn’t shining, so I’m guessing Three’s request didn’t go as planned.”

“Did everyone overhear us?” Thirteen sighs.

“Pretty much,” Gem nods, “How long have we been gone?”

“Six hours, give or take.”

“Huh, didn’t feel like it,” Gem shrugs, “Aaanyway, Three, Thirteen, go wake Magpie up. We’re done here so the sooner we get going the better.”

“Why us?” asks Thirteen, “He’s unpleasant enough already. Maybe it would be better if someone whom he likes was the one shaking him awake.”

“I need to sort something out with Comfort here before we leave. Harriet, I’ve got supplies in the cellar like I did inside my hideout in the Crystal Empire. Go get those, will you?”

“Sure thing,” Harriet nods and walks off.

“Three?” Thirteen looks down at the drone pursing his lips and staring at nothing, “You okay?”

“Hmm, what?” he shakes his head, “Sorry, I was just thinking about Flow’s story. Yeah, let’s go wake up mister grumpy.”

Without further discussion he simply walks outside, followed by Thirteen. When everyone is out of earshot, Comfort pulls up a chair and sits down.

“Alright, honey, what do you need from me?”

“A favor. Something I don’t know you can even do,” Gem sighs.

“Now now, I know you better than even your dad so just say it.”

“I’m not entirely sure how to go about it but I’ll figure out the details on the road to Manehattan. I think I’m about to do something really stupid, Comfort, and I might need you to get me out if things go wrong.”

“Stupid doesn’t sound like you.”

“Stupid times require stupid measures, I guess,” Gem sighs.

“And this stupid measure will get you into a situation even your extensive abilities won’t get you out of?”

“There’s a possibility that I won’t get a chance to do anything before-”

“Before Celestia vaporizes you,” Comfort smirks at Gem who doesn’t look at all surprised that her mentor got it right in one.

“You see right through me like always. I can’t let Flow’s-”

“His name is Blazing Light, don’t forget. It’s a name that should get you an audience with Luna but you have to keep it a secret from Celestia. We met briefly and I knew a tiny fraction of his story already from Scream and Joy.”

“So you think everything he said was true?”

“In general, unapologetic ponies don’t see a reason to lie and I believe that he was in a position where he didn’t think he had a choice,” Comfort sighs, “Celestia won’t see it that way and that’s why you have to avoid her at all cost.”

“I intend to. I want to speak to Luna and maybe Twilight but my only reliable contact is Prominence.”

“I can see the problem, though I think you’re forgetting someone.”

“I’m listening,” Gem tilts her head.

“I might be wrong since we didn’t have time to properly talk about everything that’s happened during last year but didn’t you spend a lot of time with Luna’s son?”

“Starry Night?” Gem raises an eyebrow, “I did consider him but Fl- Blazing killed his best friend and low-key love interest. It’s a coin toss whether or not he would immediately report me to Sunbutt. I don’t like that kind of uncertainty. Unlike him, Promi will help me. The key problem is whether or not she can keep it secret from her creator.”

“So, in the case of unexpected vaporization by the alicorn of the currently nonexistent Sun you want me to summon myself into the real world and save you.”

“Would you?” Gem smirks.

“I’m not sure if it’s even possible, really. Demons can’t enter Equus just anywhere, be happy about that. We need fixed points, rituals, all that jazz.”

Gem sighs.

“Not saying it’s impossible, though,” Comfort winks at her, “We’d just need some preparation. Say what, after you return here and before you go get yourself nuked in the castle, summon me and we’ll spend some time together, okay?”

“Anything that helps me make things better and stay alive in the meantime,” Gem smiles with relief.

“What about the two dummies, though?” Comfort nods to the ceiling, “Leaving them alone can’t be the best idea.”

Gem’s smile fades instantly.

“I don’t know where dad is and we don’t have the option to return to the Crystal Empire to follow the dwarven marks they’re leaving behind. Besides, the Crystal Guards must be already looking for them. I don’t have time to do everything while the world is freezing over,” Gem grits her teeth and lets out a helpless huff, “No, I can’t go with them. No matter what they think about Magpie, he’ll take care of them if I ask him to. Besides, some backwater hole like Windy might be the safest place in the world right now. Griffons despise changelings, I know, but if there’s someone who can find safety among them then it’s Three. Hole, it’s about fifty-fifty whether Three’s going to have it easier with griffons than a fully corrupted Harriet both with the general population as well as her own father. From what I heard, most dragon parenting consists of not accidentally sitting on their young.”

“Well,” Comfort looks at the ceiling, “Three isn’t the one I’m worried about. I think all of you other than boss himself have been underestimating him since day one. Thirteen, on the other hole...”

Gem shakes her head.

“There’s something about her I haven’t felt from any other changeling. Few of the things Three told me about her in his erratic way don’t add up.”

“In what way?” Comfort raises an eyebrow.

“I wish I knew,” Gem sighs, “I’d like to see her under pressure but this isn’t the time to go testing her. We have bigger things to worry about.”

“Agreed,” Comfort nods, “So, if that’s all then I should get on researching how to summon myself into the real world.”

“Thanks,” Gem gives the succubus a soft smile.

“No problem,” Comfort winks at her, “What sort of a mentor would I be if I’d let my best pupil whose skill has outgrown mine get vaporized?”

“A classic, old-school changeling one?” Gem’s smile turns into a smirk.

“Oh shush!” Comfort disappears with a laugh and a burst of pink fire.

***

It’s been six days and, just like during the trip to Canterlot, the group has been avoiding the main road while still remaining within earshot. For changelings, it meant safe distance from anyone using the only properly maintained connection between the two major settlements. Gem has been worrying about aggressive Corrupted but so far it seemed that the cold, darkness, Harriet’s presence, and her own anti-scent potions were enough of a deterrent from any assault. However, this close to Manehattan there’s always the possibility of encountering corrupted griffons and those feral bastards go for meat no matter what.

“What’s wrong, miss Harriet?” asks Three when he hears a rustle as Harriet’s back tentacles snap to life and start wiggling wildly.

“I’m so hungry all of a sudden...” croaks Harriet, staring upwards into the pitch blackness, “Something smells delicious from up there.”

Gem stops, looks at the mare, and realization dawns on her face.

“You’ve never had a wild corrupted berry, have you? Only the synthetic ones.”

Harriet nods.

“And not even that since...” her stomach grumbles, “Emperor’s talons, was the last time really after we returned from Zebrica? I had no idea Corrupted could even survive without those for so long,” she sniffs the air, finds the correct tree in the vicinity, digs her claws into it, and manages to get several pony lengths up before her head spins and she drops like a rock, “Oof!”

She stands back up, unharmed, and sighs.

“Is it that hoof-sized, black ball thingy up there?” asks Three, his wings already buzzing as he’s flying straight up.

“Wait!” Gem calls out too late.

“Wh- yaah!” Three only manages to squeak as two tentacles shoot out of the nearby undergrowth and drag him instantly down from the air.

Magpie facetalons, Gem sighs, but Harriet and Thirteen rush immediately towards a black bush with a spider web-like structure of tendrils the entirety of which has snapped around Three, leaving him unable to do more than squirm.

“Are you okay?!” Thirteen glances back at the two ‘adults’ in the back who don’t seem in too much of a hurry.

“I’m being out-hugged by a bush!” complains Three who has stopped trying in vain to free himself and in turn the flytrap stopped tightening up.

“Leave this to me,” Harriet nods at Thirteen, grabs the nearest tendril, heaves, and rips it in half. With the amount now wrapping Three up like a mummy, it’s going to take a while even with her strength, claws, and teeth.

Thirteen steps away, scratches her head, smirks to herself, grows claws on all her legs, and starts climbing up the tree with glacial slowness.

Magpie rolls his eyes but this time Gem taps his shoulder and shakes her head.

“As long as she’s not flying around, she won’t trigger any more traps. Let her,” she whispers.

Few minutes later, Thirteen drops the berry to Gem, jumps down herself, and Harriet is carefully sniffing freshly released Three.

“Does something smell weird here?” Three runs around in a circle in the way of a dog chasing its tail.

“You,” Harriet presses her muzzle against his neck, “Stop it! But it’s not weird, it’s sweet. I want to-” she loses control and licks Three from the neck to his chin.

“Hey!” Thirteen pouts, mentally adding to herself, “I wanted to do that...”

“Sorry,” Harriet blinks and backs off, “I just couldn’t control myself.”

“It’s the flytrap pheromones,” explains Gem, reaching into her backpack and tossing Three a small, soft brick, “Thirteen, help Three clean up or we’ll be attracting every Corrupted from here to Manehattan. Flytraps aren’t dangerous on their own but since they’re almost impossible to escape and let out clouds of scent that draw Corrupted in you’re pretty much done if you’re caught on your own. Here, bon appetit,” she tosses the berry to Harriet who starts salivating and immediately swallows the hoof-sized ball whole.

Her ears twitch as she hears a distant whisper of something scratching against the bark of a tree.

“New plan,” she says, “Three, get on Thirteen’s back and clean up there. We’re leaving! Harriet?”

“Huh?” the mare snaps out of a trance induced by an unbelievable surge of power and fullness running through her whole body, “What?”

“Corrupted are on the way. We need to go!”

“Huh?” Harriet grins as she concentrates on the tiny tremors spreading through the tainted ground, “Three Hunters? Hah! We’re not running from just three Hunters!”

She has no idea where that confidence is coming from but just the raw amount of power…

She charges through the trees into darkness.

Moments later, a roar- no, a physical manifestation of acoustic brutality cleaves the air like a battleaxe. It’s followed by panicked whimpers, cracking of trees, and finally - silence.

Magpie grips the handle of his mace tighter as Harriet steps into vision again, looks at her jaw-dropped companions, nervously scratches her head, and says:

“Well, umm, that was a bit more effective than I thought. We can camp out here if we want, I’m sure nothing will be going this way for some time.”

“Well, I ain’t sleeping after that,” comments Magpie, his statement supported by Thirteen’s vigorous nodding.

“Sorry,” Harriet withers a little.

“It’s just adrenaline,” Gem shrugs, shooting a quick glare at the griffon, “Besides, we can use this to get to Manehattan sooner. Any objections?”

“Nu-uh,” Three shakes his head while rubbing himself off with Gem’s soap.

The decision turns out to be unanimous and the group resume walking.

“Hey, miss Gem?” Harriet speaks up out of nowhere.

“Yeah?”

“Mind speaking in private for a while?”

“Yeah, sure,” Gem lets Three and Thirteen pass her, slowing down until Magpie’s headlamp is only a dot ahead, “What’s bothering you?”

Harriet doesn’t try to pretend at all.

“You know how you told us everything this... Flow told you in Tartarus. I’ve been mulling over it and I can’t understand one thing.”

“You’re a lucky pony then,” Gem frowns, “I couldn’t understand the context of quite a lot of things Blazing said.”

“Well duh,” Harriet rolls her eyes, “You’re thinking about those big things on the world-ending scale. I just… I just don’t understand why my mom’s name had to appear on the wall of names in Manehattan. Why did she have to die?”

“She didn’t,” Gem sighs, “That’s the point, isn’t it? It would be great if there was some huge answer, that she was crucial to Blazing’s plan and had to be killed, anything. But there isn’t any. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time and had the courage to stand up against what she perceived to be evil. Imagine the medics and support personnel who were on the northern coast of Zebrica helping refugees and died in the blast of Celestia’s destabilized spell. They weren’t in the way, they weren’t main targets, and yet they fueled Blazing’s power to do all this,” she points at the sky. It’s completely obscured by the canopies but since everything is pitch black anyway it doesn’t really matter.

Harriet hangs her head low.

“I wish I had something good to tell dad if I see him again...”

“When you see him again, Harriet,” Gem nuzzles Harriet’s cheek, “At least you saw your mom’s name on the wall, which means Blazing took the time to find out who she was and at least at the time he did regret it. Now… I don’t think he’s entirely sane and, honestly, I’d be incredibly suspicious of anyone who would be after so much pressure.”

“Do you sympathize with him?” asks Harriet carefully.

“I’m old, Harriet, and I’ve been through a lot. Likely through much more than my entire hive or most living changelings combined. I don’t agree with what he did but it’s easy to object when you’re not part of the situation. I have my hive, my fortune, my friends, I even had a lover in the Crystal Empire during the early onset of corruption. Other than dad, I think I could eventually replace anyone in my life in case something terrible happened and go on with my life while treasuring their memory. In Blazing, I saw someone who didn’t have any of that nor a chance to regain it and had to fight everything and everyone for so long to retain the few creatures he had left,” Gem shakes her head, “I consider myself smart enough to understand when I’m not smart enough to understand. I‘m not helping, am I?”

“You are, miss Gem,” Harriet forces a smile, “I just thought that after all I’ve gone through I’d have some answers and certainty. Instead, I still feel in way over my head just the same as when I first stepped out of Windy to track the dragonslayers with only a bag of haphazardly gathered supplies and a cast iron pan.”

“This is a situation in which everyone is in way over their head,” Gem chuckles, “And I think we have the best role model for such an event here with us, someone who has inspired me for a very long time.”

“Huh?”

“Nevermind. Just do what little good you can, Harriet. It won’t make things worse.”

“Simple enough.”

“Simple? Yes. Sticking to it no matter the circumstances? Definitely not easy.”

“I guess our best role model for sticking to a plan no matter what it leads to is sitting in Tartarus right now.”

“Way to ruin my point, Harriet.”

The Corrupted sticks two of her tongues out at Gem with a wink and picks up the pace to catch up with the others.

Go east: Tutorial finished!

“Woooooow,” says Thirteen as the group reach the edge of a forest bordering on a section of rolling flatland surrounding Manehattan and the view opens fully to her.

The entire city is sitting in the distance, dots of light cleanly lining the wall separating it from the farmland spread around.

“Crystal Empire’s way bigger, shinier, and not so cramped,” says Three.

“It wasn’t when we were leaving. Just kinda a few dots scattered all over the horizon.”

“Well, yeah,” admits Three, “But it’s absoluuutely the best in sunlight, which is why we need to help with the tiny stuff as much as we can so that someone important can focus on the big and important things like the sun.”

“Hey!” hisses Gem suddenly, “Magpie, turn the headlamp off.”

The griffon does so immediately and everyone holds their breath. Seconds pass until first Harriet’s tentacles stretch and then start wibbling. Next, the other two changelings start hearing some creaking and thumping. Magpie, with his normal mortal senses, is the last one to spot what looks like a big group of Crystal Guards escorting a caravan of heavy metal wagons covered in lights.

“Crystal ponies hauling heavy-duty shipment all the way east across Equestria,” mutters the griffon, “Disassembled farming units maybe?”

“My guess exactly,” Gem nods.

“That’s great!” exclaims Three.

“Shush!” Magpie scowls at him, pulling out his binoculars.

“What he means is that voices carry far and wide here,” explains Gem, “You shimmering is already a bit of a risk. Let’s not alert the Crystal Guards to our presence.”

“Okay,” whispers Three.

“Alright, Gem, I hope you have a secret tunnel ready otherwise this isn’t going to be fun,” grumbles the griffon.

Gem grabs his binoculars, watches the only heavily fortified gate towards which the procession of crystal ponies is headed for a while, and finally returns the binoculars to Magpie.

“That’s a lot of security,” she breathes out, “It can’t be because of Corrupted. If there’s someone who would figure out that they’re not overly active in this darkness then it’s the Manehattanites.”

“So there’s a good chance the news about us reached this place already then,” Magpie rolls his eyes, “Just what we needed. So, how about that secret tunnel…?”

“Not this time, catbird,” Gem shakes her head, “Manehattan is on soft soil so anything underground would need constant maintenance and be a risk. Normally, I’d say we find a less guarded spot and fly over the city walls but the amount of armed ponies around doesn’t give me too much hope it will be better anywhere else.”

“If they know about us, there’s no way we’re getting in through the front.”

“Definitely,” Gem nods, “Who’s up for a swim?”

“Bad idea for two reasons,” objects the griffon, “First, it’s cold already and if we don’t have a place to dry we’d be even more suspicious than if we walked through the front door. And second, can Corrupted even cross salt water?” he glances towards Harriet.

“I’m not sure,” she replies, “Normal water is okay. Last time I touched sea water it felt like sticking my foreleg into acid, although that might have been because a group of griffon mobsters had previously stripped my dragon scales for sale. Can’t say anything for sure until I try.”

“Hmph,” Gem frowns, “I don’t have proper equipment to brew insensibility potions here so we’ll just have to give it a shot. Alright, no lights past this point, we’ll circle around the south side of Manehattan, see if Harriet can swim, and work with that, okay?” as everyone nods, Gem adds, “Three, hop on my back.”

“I can still walk, miss Gem. I don’t want to bother you-” objects Three.

“It’s not about your self-sufficiency, Three. We’re all almost completely black and we can’t use any lights. That pink shimmer of your legs will be enough for our eagle-cat to see as well as we do.”

“Okay,” Three buzzes up onto Gem’s back without further comments and the group embark on their final leg of their journey through Equestria.

***

“M-M-My hooves are n-numb...” shudders Harriet after pulling herself up the base of a pier in Manehattan docks, “That was w-way worse than th-the hosing down i-in prison.”

“Yeah,” Gem frowns, her fish tail and leg fins disappearing with a green glimmer, “We have much less time than we thought with this sun thing.”

As Three hops off of Gem’s back, Thirteen follows her sister’s example, shapeshifts her aquatic tail off, and immediately starts sinking like a rock as the holes in her legs prevent her from staying afloat.

Magpie leans down from the pier and grabs her flailing hoof.

“Thank you,” whispers Thirteen, getting on the wet wood with his help. The griffon only nods before turning to Gem.

“We need to dry off right now,” he says, “I can deal with dry frost or snow but swimming for fifteen minutes in that is pneumonia waiting to happen.”

Thirteen and Harriet nod in sync, which makes Gem give the Corrupted a surprised glance.

“Both of you aren’t taking it well, really?”

“All three,” mumbles Three as well, the glow of his runes waning.

Hmmm, Thirteen seems to have extremely low love capacity and Three, without the ability to constantly recharge himself, isn’t well either. Perhaps I should go with them after all…

No, I can’t. They’ll have to get love the usual way. I don’t know about Thirteen, but Three’s been good at it even before he was able to generate his own love. Besides, his loss of that endless love has something to do with his guilt caused by the mass killing inside the prison. Perhaps doing good under more difficult circumstances than while around dad might give him some more resilience.

“Let’s get out of sight first. The docks seem a bit on the dead side, thank holes, but I doubt the traffic between Manehattan and Griffonstone is completely out. Besides, the breeze can’t be helping your situation.”

“You’re not cold?” asks Thirteen.

“Not particularly,” Gem shrugs, “I have a reasonable amount of energy left from our visit to Tartarus and I’m used to travelling on hoof through the northern tundra. Did none of you ever wonder why I wasn’t using the Brauheim tunnel?”

They shake their heads. Only Magpie gives her what could loosely be called a proud smile.

With a quick look around, Gem leads the group behind some shipping crates by the side of a dark warehouse nearby. The things inside their backpacks are mostly dry due to a layer of some isolating fabric sewn into them. Certainly dry enough to stop them from further freezing. With Harriet staring at her completely soggy towel, Three offers his own and so does Thirteen. Changelings are easy to towel off due to the chitin.

“Thanks,” the Corrupted mare smiles in relief and her tentacles grab the offered two.

“Let me,” Three smiles and flies up on Harriet’s back where he starts scrubbing with vigor, half to do as good a job as he can and half to warm himself up.

“Same,” Thirteen rushes over to do Harriet’s side.

“That’s, umm, quite the service,” Harriet hesitates, blushing and giving Gem a questioning glance, “Thank you?”

“I’ve been in places where mares get paid to have that done to them,” Magpie smirks which makes Harriet’s back tentacles cover her eyes out of sheer embarrassment.

“Wooow,” Three pauses for a second, looking at the griffon, “I’d be so shiny if I got paid to stand there and take it! I’d buy all the sponges and shinifiers!”

With glacial slowness, Magpie turns his head to Gem who only smiles from ear to ear which the griffon translates as “You’ll have to figure out if he’s just messing with you on your own”.

“Nevermind,” sighs Magpie, “What now?”

“You stay here, I go see if I can get tickets to a ferry. You can go grope Harriet’s ass a bit- I mean, help with the toweling,” Gem shapeshifts into a sky-blue pegasus stallion and trots off.

“Please no,” mutters Harriet, “It’s embarrassing enough already. I feel like a prize cow being prepared for some exhibition.”

Magpie sighs.

“We’ve been through this, Harriet. You’re not fat, not a cow, and I’m not touching you if you don’t ask. I’ve seen mares, chicks, and even female minotaurs with silicone pumped up to their ears who couldn’t hold a candle to you.”

Harriet only blushes harder.

“Would you like to hear a changeling’s perspective?” Thirteen speaks up.

“I think I’ve already heard everything from Gem and Prominence,” Harriet chuckles, “It’s just difficult to change after thinking my whole life that someone with your body type is the holy grail, Thirteen.”

“M-Me?!” the changeling stops drying out of pure shock.

“Yeah!” Harriet nods with enthusiasm which shows that despite her horrifying experiences during the past year she still is only a mare in her very early twenties, “I’ve seen a lot of movies and the guys always drooled over the slim chicks. Even the magazines I read in the tavern always had a centerfold of a skinny chick or mare with super big artificial... you-know-whats.”

“Yeah, it’s all fun and games until you end up looking like a coat hanger for tits and ass,” Magpie shrugs.

“I ALWAYS THOUGHT MOM’S DISGUISE LOOKED EXACTLY LIKE THAT!” Thirteen’s jaw drops at the analogy.

“That brown-coated, blond-maned one?” Three chimes in, “I think boss told her he didn’t like it at all so she just uses it to make fun of the dwarves. Even miss Comfort said miss One had no instincts for proper subtle seduction,” he shrugs, “Boss likes all of us more as changelings anyway.”

“Griffons won’t,” grumbles Magpie, “That’s why, as much as I know you deserve all the help at getting home, Harriet, I think this plan is stupid.”

“Even though there are guards all over Equestria looking for us?” objects Thirteen.

“Here, you’ll get put in prison. In the Empire, a group of griffons will beat you to death in a dark alley and if you call for help, GIL soldiers will come… to help them.”

To utter horror of both Three and Thirteen, the reply didn’t come from Magpie but from Harriet.

“Is… is that true?” Thirteen’s eyes go saucer-wide as he looks for confirmation to Magpie of all creatures.

“Yeah,” the griffon breathes out, “I haven’t been in the Empire since… since the minotaurs got me but from what I heard, these days, changelings are the second most hated creatures by the griffons. Care to guess who’s got the honors?”

“Who?”

“Corrupted,” Harriet hangs her head low, “That’s why Gem wanted us to go to Windy together in the first place. Ever since corruption appeared in the Empire and started spreading, griffons have been worrying about ending up like Equestria. We don’t know much about the actual history but ponykind disappearing from the face of Equestria for over a hundred years is enough of a deterrent.”

“Yep. If you thought getting here was the hard part then you’re up for a surprise,” Magpie nods, “Thankfully, if there’s someone who can negotiate or manipulate their way out of an environment like that, it’s Gem.”

All four exchange nods as Magpie sits down, resting his back against one of the big wooden containers shielding them from prying eyes. Shifting uncomfortably, he frowns and adds:

“I hope Gem finds us a ship with a shower. I might be dry but I’m still cold and sticky from all the salt. I could use having a smooth carapace like you changelings right now.”

“It’s all in my mane too,” says Thirteen.

“Can’t really compare to being like that all over-”

“A-hem,” Harriet shoots them down both. Salty, sticky, and tainted all over, “I can taste it on some level with these things too,” she wiggles her back tentacles.

“Right,” Magpie closes his eyes, “Don’t know what came over me. I usually don’t complain-”

Thirteen draws breath to object instantly.

“-about my own comfort,” Magpie finishes the sentence, shutting her up.

Eventually, Harriet’s “group maintenance” is finished, although the used towels will need some rigorous cleaning before being used on a non-Corrupted creature again. She sits down just like the griffon and relaxes as much as she can under the circumstances.

Some time later, Gem returns, sensed only by Harriet’s tremor sense and the hive links of Three and Thirteen lighting up.

“Rise and shine, everyone!” she announces, levitating up a small batch of tickets, “Public transports come and go only once a day but there’s a cargo ship being loaded up and heading for Griffonstone. They agreed to accommodate a few passengers if you don’t mind sleeping in the cargo hold, which you don’t.”

“And yelling all that in such a loud and cheery voice isn’t bound to risk luring anyone to us at all, right?” Magpie stands up, stretches, and puts his backpack on again.

“Lighten up, catbird, the docks are basically dead,” she waves the tickets towards him. He grabs one, looks at the rest, and narrows his eyes.

“There are four tickets here. Who are we smuggling aboard?”

“Darn,” Gem smirks, a little nervous, “My entire plan foiled by basic counting.”

“What’s going on?” asks Harriet, “Did they have a problem with me or something?”

As the others fan around Gem, she looks into the eyes of each of them in turn and says after a sigh:

“I’m not coming with you.”

“What?!” growls Magpie, “Look, if it’s about space or gold, you can leave me here. I can’t go back! I’m the only griffon the Imperial Guard will kill on sight with more gusto than a Corrupted if I set a paw on Cassius’ part of the Empire.”

“No, it’s not about you, Magpie,” Gem shakes her head, “We all need to help in the best way we can and me coming with you isn’t it.”

“B-But miss Gem!” Three stares up at her with a kicked expression, “I thought we’d be together and find boss. We did what he wanted us to do.”

“Three...” Gem shakes her head, “While we were in Canterlot I asked around, checked every hive link I could get into, and interrogated some ponies at the castle. No one knew anything about where dad could be. I mean, that’s a good thing but it leaves us in this situation. I ask all of you to go with Harriet and help her get home. If possible, stay in Windy if it’s safe.”

“What about you then?” asks Thirteen, now trembling.

“I’ll go to Canterlot. Twilight and Luna need to know Flow’s story. Promi will help me arrange an audience with them that won’t get me killed or straight up locked up again, I’m sure of it. On top of that, the intel I got shows that Twilight is working on something big that’s taking the energy of tons of unicorns as well as the best pony chemist and smiths. I’m sure I can trump any pony chemist and I can share some of the dwarven knowledge of metallurgy. I hope I’ll also be in a position to contact any changeling dad might send to look for you.”

“And what if they do just ignore you and toss you into the most reinforced cell they can find, huh?” Magpie steps closer, his beak almost touching Gem’s muzzle.

“I can do so much more good here than anywhere else,” Gem doesn’t back off, “You don’t need me, not right now.”

“...I do...” he breathes out silently.

“Then you gotta earn your keep, catbird,” she boops him with a smirk, “Get Harriet home and keep the two dummies safe.”

“Miss Gem-” Three walks over to her leg.

“That’s not negotiable!”

Three hugs her leg.

“Good luck,” is all he says, “If there’s someone smart enough to fix everything then it’s you even though you don’t have all that magic and divine book smarts like Seven.”

Instead of a spoken reply, Three senses Gem’s presence inside his head.

“Listen to Magpie, he knows what he’s doing even though it doesn’t look like he cares about you. Take care of Thirteen and make dad proud, Three. I believe in you and, more importantly, he believes in you. He wouldn’t have sent you here if he didn’t. He knew you possibly wouldn’t be safe and yet he still sent you instead of anyone else. I know full well that age and experience are much less related than they should but you’re older than I am. Trust your instincts.”

“But I can’t fight anyone and they all said everyone will hate us or try to kill us. I just hug creatures and hope they like it.”

“Yeah, and you’ll have Harriet and Magpie with you. They can do the fighting, you do the hugging. The more hugging you do, the less fighting they’ll have to do.”

“But-”

“No buts, Three. The world is in no position for buts and most creatures will be completely lost as to what to do. Whoever can help, MUST help.”

“I don’t know if I CAN help!” Three’s hive link image looks about to cry, “I’m trying to focus on what’s going on and not think about all the dead ponies in the Crystal Empire who are my fault!”

Gem hugs him.

“Three, learn from the past but don’t let it trap you. Anticipate the future but not let the fear of its uncertainty consume you. In the present, do what you believe is right based on the first two. Like every good creed, it’s difficult to stick to in the heat of the moment but it’s worth it in the long run. All of us have to step up today if we want there to be tomorrow and it might not be enough anyway.”

Three sighs.

“I’m just afraid of stepping into something sticky and nasty...”

“Then you just need to keep walking until it dries up and falls off,” she pets him, “We’re changelings, Three. We were created to save ponykind from griffons ages ago. Nothing has changed other than the scope of our mission. Think of it as giving the whole world the biggest hug ever.”

“...yay?”

“My words exactly.”

Real world returns, Gem looks from worried Three into the terrified eyes of Thirteen, then at Harriet, part happy that she’s going home and part anxious about what it would mean, and finally she faces Magpie.

“I know you hate leadership, catbird, but you’ll be in charge once the ship sails,” she says, “Don’t fuck up.”

[Anonymous letter with a grey and pink seal]

Promi, I need you.

First, you can stop looking for Harriet and the others, all of them have left Equestria and are helping Harriet get home. I have no clue of dad's whereabouts and after seeing the amount of muscle in Manehattan I don’t have the balls to leave them here.

Second, I need you to keep this secret from Celestia. If there’s a way to protect your mind, Twilight or Luna will know. Sunbutt has never been good at mental magic. Contact them.

As for the business itself, we managed to get to Tartarus and talk to Flow. Yes, he really was Blazing Light all along. His story won’t spare him the consequences but those with presence of mind need to hear it, or at least my recollection of it. Next, tell Twilight I want to help her with her project. She won’t find a better chemist and I’m willing to part with necessary knowledge about dwarf technology.

I’ll be returning to Canterlot in two weeks, I still have some stuff to figure out. I have contacts at the castle who will tell me if you’re still gone hunting that blood mage bastard. If you are, I’ll wait at Packy’s place until you arrive.

SERIOUSLY, DON’T TELL SUNBUTT!

[End of letter]

Author's Note

Next time: More nothing happening, only this time on a different continent.

Anyway, I'll be taking a break since the first part is finished. As always, anything regarding pacing or potential inconsistencies/misunderstandings is helpful and now's a good time to present it so that I can keep it in mind for the next section.

Also, I need to model Magpie for the cover.

Sweet home: Enter the Empire

[Enchanted letter, unreadable to no one other than the recipient]

Dear friend,

We’ve known each other for centuries and, as always, it is I who needs something from you. It will not be easy and it might take you away from your family for some time. I wish I could arrange things myself but I’ve found myself in disagreement about this issue with the others. They say that we have more pressing problems and, in some, way I agree. Our current cold and dark situation is something Twilight has to focus all her efforts on. However, that also means it falls to us to make sure her plan isn’t threatened by any outside influences and I know of one which needs to be dealt with hastily.

I know who is responsible for the darkness and I also know that he has accomplices who are now roaming free. Needless to say, they must be found and erased. You may have heard about the prison break which happened in the Crystal Empire, that’s their doing. The best guess I have is that they’re headed to the Griffon Empire. Whether or not they’re still in Equestria is a mystery. You have contacts overseas and I will provide the money using the usual mission account. Griffons have their own problems so I doubt the Black Ops will complain too much if the EIS is working on their territory and if they do then just tell them that you’re hunting those responsible for this darkness.

The group you are looking for is exceedingly dangerous and slippery. Three changelings, a female Corrupted Protector, and a male griffon.

I’m attaching their photographs taken in the Crystal Empire. As far as we know, the striped changeling mare is an elite from the northern hive, the griffon is a very good fighter, and the Corrupted… well, the usual. We know next to nothing about the other changeling mare so be careful. Don’t be fooled by the small glowing one that’s smiling, he’s just as dangerous as the others, if not more.

Find them and bring me their heads. Use any means necessary.

For Equestria.

[End of letter]

Griffonstone.

Unlike even Manehattan, the port city is positively bathing in light despite being eerily quiet. Granted, not all of it is coming from the houses or tall apartment buildings but all street lamps are lit, making Thirteen turn her head towards every noise in the vicinity. Armed soldiers are patrolling the mostly empty streets in pairs but so far, aside from suspicious stares, no one has stopped the group. The reason for that might be the heavy winter clothing covering each of them from head to hooves. For any observers, they’re just three ponies of vastly varying sizes and a griffon on their way through the city. Considering that Three and Thirteen had no time to recharge since the visit to Tartarus, it’s an absolute blessing because shapeshifting for long periods of time is out of the question. Harriet is leading the way because Magpie has never been in Griffonstone.

“You know, I like it here more than in Canterlot,” Thirteen breaks the silence, “It doesn’t shimmer and reflect lights like the Crystal Empire but it’s much brighter.”

“I suppose it’s because Imperial energy infrastructure is based on coal, river, and biomass power plants,” replies Magpie quietly. He’s the only one not wearing a hood, being both used to cold and not needing to hide his face, “Zebras and ponies relying completely on solar, wind, or some fusion of magic are the ones in trouble. But the lower the temperatures drop the more energy will be needed for heating instead of lights and then the GIL soldiers will start getting really paranoid.”

“GIL?” asks Three, barely audible over the scarf covering his face. In the case of older northern changelings, cold isn’t really a thing but griffons on the edge about shooting their heads off still are.

“Griffon Imperial Legion,” replies Harriet. Other than Thirteen, she’s the one feeling the cold the most, if only because she’s a little too big for her clothes, “In general, they’re the standing army and the police force in one. Very similar to the Royal, Night, Crystal, and Hex Guard branches in Equestria.”

“Simply put, yes,” adds Magpie, “But there are differences. With the size of the Empire in comparison to your tiny Equestria, GIL officers often answer to local officials rather than any one head authority. Of course, in emergencies like this, there might be some constant oversight from the Holy City itself. We should be careful because we have no idea what the rules are now. So far, though, we passed a bunch of patrols and no one bothered us so I’m guessing we’re not too far into the martial law and curfew territory. No kneeling before Zod yet.”

Harriet snickers while Three and Thirteen exchange glances.

“Who’s-?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Harriet interrupts Thirteen, “Just an old griffon movie reference,” she furrows her brows, “Come to think of it, do you have movies in Equestria? I only saw a theatre play when I first arrived.”

“They do,” Magpie is the first one to respond, “Not sure about some underground hive, though.”

“We did have a cinema in Brauheim!” Three pouts at him, “Dwarves like movies about drinking and punching a lot. I liked those with Brew Sleet a lot. He yelled ‘Ayeiii!’ all the time and said some really smart things. Like… like… this one - ‘Be like molten iron. You can fill any shape, adapt to any circumstances, set things on fire, and then be made into a sword to stab a baddie with’.”

“Inspirational...” says Magpie flatly.

“What kind of movies do you like then, smartass?” asks Harriet, “It’s documentaries and adventure ones for me, personally. I loved seeing new stuff whenever the travelling merchants brought a reel to Windy.”

“Comedies,” admits Magpie in a mumble, looking away from the others.

“You?” Thirteen blinks, covering her mouth.

“Yaaay!” giggles Three.

“Look, I have enough… excitement in my normal life and reality is shit most of the time,” grumbles the griffon, “It’s nice to chill out watching someone else’s misfortune, especially because it’s fake and you know it’s going to end well.”

“You know,” Harriet smirks to herself, “That actually makes sense to me. What about you and movies, Thirteen?”

Silence.

“Thirteen?” repeats Harriet.

The changeling hangs her head.

“...never been to a cinema...”

“Whaaaaat?” exclaims Three, “How come?”

“Mom always said I had to earn it and, well… I never did,” she sighs, “Dad sometimes showed me some recordings of dwarves from the escape games we had. And he got me a radio where I could listen to plays. I liked the one about Ragnar the Magma-drinker and old dwarves.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way. I heard things from Gem about you guys,” says Magpie slowly, “I thought my family was a bunch of cunts but it sounds like your mother could out-asshole them all.”

Thirteen just sighs.

“Miss One is great,” says Three with a bit of hesitation, “Though I’ve never seen her act like she does around Thirteen before. It even made boss yell at her sometimes. Wait, that’s not true… Two had it a bit similar. I think miss One expects so much from her daughters she kinda… overdoes it.”

“I just wish I could at least do any of the things she wanted from me,” Thirteen sighs and changes the subject, “So, I suppose it’s more radio from me. Oh, and I liked the magma bucket challenge!”

“Do I even want to know?” asks Magpie.

“They dress a dwarf in fireproof clothes and then pour a bucket of magma on him,” explains Three.

“Will I regret asking why?” continues Magpie.

“It shows how hardcore they are to everyone!” explains Thirteen with a smile, “It can get really funny too! Once they left the magma for too long, it cooled down, and then when the dwarf poured it over himself it just dropped on him like a chunk rock.”

“Oh dear,” Harriet blinks, “Was there any lasting damage?”

“No brain damage, I assume,” Magpie rolls his eyes, “Due to an obvious lack of brain.”

“Say what you want, it was funny...” grumbles Thirteen, “Where are you leading us anyway?”

“The train station,” Magpie’s voice turns completely serious again, “Crossing the Empire on hoof would take months, not to mention how dangerous it would be. Harriet, you said you took the train on the way to Equestria, right?”

“Trains,” she corrects him, “I wanted to get across the Empire quickly so I switched them a lot. I think there was some continental express that went from one end of the Empire to the other. Well, not all the way to Windy but between Griffonstone and Wilbur’s Pass.”

“We’ll see if it’s still a thing soon,” he nods ahead towards a huge, well-lit structure looking like a half of an egg made of a mesh of metal and glass, “There’s the train station.”

***

It’s packed.

Hundreds of griffons are sitting or lying around solo or in groups while GIL soldiers are stationed by almost every pillar supporting the high roof, watching the area for anyone trying to steal or cause trouble. Both the soldiers and griffon as well as pony civilians give the entering group quick glances before returning to their business which seems to be staring blankly into space or quietly chatting.

“Time to take the hoods off,” whispers Magpie.

“And alert everyone to the fact that we are changelings and a Corrupted?” asks Harriet.

“If you didn’t notice, this place is fairly well heated. You hiding your faces will only make soldiers come to us anyway. Besides, how many griffons outside of Manehattan have seen a Corrupted up close, especially a friendly one who can talk?”

“And us?” asks Thirteen.

“Technically, while griffons still despise you deep down, the peace treaty with Equestria means you shouldn’t be hunted down on sight. Just don’t walk off on your own. No one would go crazy about helping you.”

“Everyone looks so… sad,” mumbles Three, taking his hood off and giving the gasping griffons around a bright and cheerful smile.

Immediately, a pair of soldiers relaxing by the station entrance tense up and head towards them with expressions that definitely don’t mirror Three’s.

“Stay where you are!” says the leading one while the other takes a pistol from a holster on his belt when Thirteen and Harriet show their faces as well.

“Like a statue, officer,” says Harriet to show that she’s not a wild Corrupted. Thirteen remains quiet, instead shuffling closer to Three.

“State your business!” the leader faces Magpie.

“Travel east.”

“Are they with you?”

“They are.”

“Why aren’t they on a leash?”

Harriet narrows her eyes.

Magpie nods to Three.

“Not dangerous,” then to Thirteen, “Youngling,” and finally to Harriet, “Citizen of the Empire.”

“From Windy,” Harriet forces a smile.

“You’re far from home,” comments the soldier.

“Yup, and I’d love to return there.”

“Too bad,” he frowns, “All non-essential transport has been suspended,” he points at the homeless griffons everywhere, “Unless you’re a soldier or material, you’re not going anywhere via the train.”

“Any idea when public travel will be reinstated?”

“Any idea when the sun will be back?” the soldier raises an eyebrow.

“I see,” Magpie sighs, “Thank you for the info, officer. Mind if we stay here for now?”

The soldier shrugs.

“Just don’t cause any trouble. Bugs don’t get a warning shot. Neither do bug lovers,” he nods to the second soldier and they both leave.

When they’re out of earshot, Magpie breathes out in relief.

“Ooookay, that went significantly better than expected.”

“Better?!” Thirteen hisses at him with surprise.

“Yes,” he faces her without flinching which makes her realize Magpie isn’t kidding.

“Oh...” she looks around, trying not to draw anyone’s stares. Strangely enough, other than the soldiers there’s almost no one paying any attention to them, “The griffons don’t seem too bothered about us.”

“Pretty sure that with the sky missing and their lives turned upside down, they have bigger problems than two goofy changelings,” Harriet pats her head, “So, what do we do now that we’re stuck here like them?”

“Let’s find ourselves a place where we can crash first,” without looking at the rest, Magpie starts heading deeper into the station, “I want to see what kinds of trains are still running.”

“But the soldier said we couldn’t get on,” says Three, trotting by Magpie’s side to keep up the pace with the griffon’s brisk walk.

“I’m not staying here, not with this many soldiers around, and we know the sun isn’t coming back any time soon,” replies Magpie.

“Do you have a coin, sir…?” croaks a completely exhausted-looking griffon, stretching out a withered foreleg.

Magpie passes him without a word. Three, on the other hole, immediately reaches to a small pouch around his neck, pulls out a single Equestrian bit, and gives it to the poor griffon.

“Here you go.”

“Thank you so much,” the griffon breathes out.

Several other begging forelegs rise up. With an unintelligible grumble, Magpie turns around, grabs Three’s ear, and starts pulling him forward.

“Ow ow ow ow ow- hey!” Three frowns at Magpie when he matches the pace again to stop the tugging, “Stop it! I just wanted to help!”

“We have a long way ahead of us and we’ll need everything Gem gave us. Besides, if you offer these guys a talon, they’ll rip off your whole leg. See?” he says quietly while nodding to the many hopeful eyes of the destitute griffons locked on Three’s pouch, “Even if you gave everything away, it wouldn’t be enough and we’d only end up like them. Don’t show you have money around here.”

“But-”

“No. Buts. Not this time!” Magpie lets Three’s ear go and heads forward again.

Three slows down a bit before scrunching his face into a deeper frown and sticking his tongue out at Magpie’s backside.

“He’s not completely wrong,” Thirteen’s mental voice rises up in his head.

Three can’t help but sigh.

“I know… but all I want is to help all these guys and I can’t! It’s biting me inside that he's trying to stop me even if he makes sense. I feel like if I start to go about things in his calculating way all the time, it will only make things even worse.”

However, there’s nothing anyone can say to stop Three from approaching a seemingly lonely little griffon who’s just staring blankly his way, not even begging or anything.

“Hi,” Three pulls out another coin, “Can I help?”

The little griffon takes it, pecks it, and shakes his head.

Magpie notices he’s pulled ahead again, rolls his eyes, and rushes back while growling to himself. He’s stopped by Harriet who shakes her head, narrowing her eyes.

“We don’t have time-”

“Time is the only thing we have,” whispers Harriet back, “How about you go look around and I keep the guys safe?”

“Fine, just stay put around here and I’ll find you,” Magpie rushes off.

“...got any food…?” the youngling mumbles, returning the coin, “...the big guys would take this from me anyway...”

Harriet and the changelings sit down by the small griffon, much to Three’s relief.

“What big guys? The soldiers let them?” asks Harriet.

“There’s so many griffons around that the soldiers can’t be everywhere,” the griffon sighs, “They just sit down to you, grab you, and if you call out they... break stuff...”

“You’re here alone?”

The griffon nods.

“My mom’s in the hospital but they didn’t let me in. A griffon stole her purse and when she fought him he stabbed her. The soldiers shot him on the spot. They said there were too many patients to let anyone else in. I haven’t seen her in a week...” he looks down at the floor and sniffles.

“Ah-hah!” Three beams after some rummaging inside his backpack and pulling out a small package, “Here,” he pokes the griffon’s beak with it.

“What’s that?” he takes it, unwraps the plastic, and carefully sniffs two bars that are inside.

“Ummm, pony food, I think,” replies Three, “But I saw mister Magpie eat one before so it must be okay for griffons too.”

“Protein bars,” explains Harriet, “I had some in Equestria. Filling but rather expensive for their size.”

“I can’t pay or any-” the griffon mumbles.

“Just take them,” Three encourages him, “I’m a changeling, so it’s not like they’re too useful for me anyway.”

“Thank you thank you thankyou th-mmphj!” the griffon shoves one into his beak mid-sentence.

Watching him demolish both bars, Thirteen takes out the ones from her own backpack and gives them to him as well.

“You look like you haven’t been eating since your mom got hurt,” she comments, eyeing the youngling.

“I… there’s an emergency kitchen where the ticket booths are. Anyone can get some soup here once per day but it’s only a little. I ran some errands for the guys who run it, delivering messages and stuff. They gave me some more food for it.”

“The Legion needs messages delivered by you?” Harriet furrows her brows. Electronic communication is the pride of the Griffon Empire and the advantage they have against Equestria.

The little guy stops chewing for a moment to shake his head.

“It’s not the soldiers. They told me to avoid the soldiers. It was easy since I’m not dangerous or anything and there are other young griffons around with their parents playing around.”

“Heh,” Three chuckles, “We’re actually trying to help a friend get back to her dad too,” he nods to Harriet, “But he lives on the other side of the Empire and the soldiers said that there are no trains for civilians.”

The griffon looks around and beckons Three to lean closer to him. When he’s sure no one else can hear him, he says:

“That’s not true.”

“Oh?” Harriet raises an eyebrow, making the griffon look up and twitch.

“Miss Harriet and Thirteen have really good ears, don’t worry about them,” Three reassures him, “So, what was it about the train?”

“I saw the guys from the kitchen let other griffons onto a freight train a few times,” he whispers, “They gave the soldiers some money and they left for several minutes.”

“Oh really…?” Harriet smirks, “Misery or not, someone’s always getting loaded. Empire, Equestria, Zebrica, profiteering is the same everywhere. What’s your name, little guy, anyway?”

“Tyris,” he replies.

“Nice to meet you, Tyris. I’m Three! She’s Thirteen, she’s miss Harriet, and the grumpy griffon who’s not here right now is mister Magpie.”

“Up close, you’re huuuuge!” Tyris’ eyes go wide.

“She’s part dragon!” says Three with excitement, “That’s why.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, and her dad’s a real one!”

“Woooow!” Tyris’ beak drops.

“You don’t look scared of changelings either,” Harriet nods to Three and Thirteen.

“Everyone is scary around here. The big guys who take money from griffons, the soldiers, the shifty cooks...” he shakes his head, “You’re the only ones who didn’t tell me to scram and you even gave me these,” he waves the third, half-eaten, protein bar, “You’re cool in my book.”

“Awww, it’s a pity mister Magpie isn’t here to see-”

“To see what?” grumbles the returning griffon in question, “That you’re giving away the only lasting food we have?” he sighs, “So now we have only my rations left-”

“And mine,” adds Harriet with a strangely satisfied expression despite Magpie’s controlled fuming.

“Which still isn’t enough because we’re going to be here for who knows how long...” the griffon rolls his eyes, “The soldiers weren’t messing with us. Only military and materials are allowed on trains because the Legion has to fight off raiding parties in the south.”

“And those who pay,” Harriet gives Magpie the kind of a smug, shit-eating grin no one would think her capable of.

“What are you talking about?” Magpie glares at her.

“Three made a friend and said friend knows stuff,” she winks at him and nods to Tyris, “And all it cost were four protein bars.”

Tyris waves the final, almost eaten, bar, clearly trying to finish it before Magpie decides to take what little’s left away from him.

Magpie narrows his eyes at Three who simply gives him the brightest and widest smile he can. As a changeling, that’s not always healthy for the sanity of other creatures but Three only means it well.

“Talk!”

Three nudges Tyris who gulps down the final piece of the bar, shuffles closer to Harriet, and repeats what little he knows.

In the end, Magpie scowls.

“Fine, let’s visit those filthy, profiteering swines.”

***

“That’s one of the guys I saw last time,” Tyris nods towards a light brown griffon lazily stirring a huge pot that vaguely smells like soup.

“Now, if you don’t want trouble, you should go,” says Magpie, “Smugglers aren’t notoriously known for being happy about someone spreading word about them.”

Tyris looks at Harriet who nods. Understanding that it’s serious, the little griffon immediately rushes out of the makeshift mess hall set up in the center of the train station.

“Bye, Three! Bye, miss Harriet!” he says quietly and waves. For show, Harriet lets her tentacle tongues slip out and wave back which completely steals the show from Three’s waving.

Magpie walks past the long queue of griffons waiting for their rations, stops in front of the counter, and faces the pointed out ‘cook’ who returns his gaze.

Magpie reaches into his backpack and shows the griffon a singular diamond, turning it around and letting it catch light before hiding it again, this time into a pocket of his jacket.

“I don’t think this is the place for you, sir,” says the cook.

“I wholeheartedly agree,” Magpie nods, “Which is why I’d like to be a long way east of here.”

“I see,” the cook briefly points towards a ticket booth with an attached office by a wall in the back.

“Thank you,” Magpie walks off without telling the others pretending to be waiting in the queue.

The door by the booth is unlocked and leads into a conference room with several griffons, all of whom immediately lock their eyes on Magpie. There’s also a GIL soldier sitting in the corner and cleaning the barrel of his assault rifle while watching a screen showing a wide angle of the mess hall. As soon as the unlocked office door closes behind him, the griffons all pull out a pistol each and aim it at Magpie.

“I need a way out of here,” he says straight up.

“The door is right there,” the nearest griffon points behind Magpie.

“You know what I mean.”

“Not sure we do, really.”

“Train to Wilbur’s Pass,” says Magpie and tosses the diamond he put into his pocket on the floor. The griffon in front picks it up and starts examining it closely. It’s clear to him that they saw him through the camera which also makes it likely that they know about the others. Lying would only make things worse, “Four tickets.”

“Two bugs, him, and one earth pony hybrid with claws,” says the GIL soldier calmly, pulling out a list of something on the screen.

“The diamond won’t be enough by far,” the speaking griffon shakes his head.

Magpie reaches into his backpack, resulting in previously lowered pistols coming back up. Slowly, he offers a pouch which he jingles for added effect. The speaker griffon grabs his talons with one foreleg while taking the pouch with the other.

Magpie freezes. Was it just his paranoia or did the griffon’s eyes linger on his talons just for a moment too long?

He knows, HE KNOWS. Fuck fuck fuck fuck!

Without saying anything else, the griffon opens the pouch and examines the offered gold and more gems for a few moments before nodding.

“Private car,” adds Magpie.

“Just you, your friends, and a shipment of coal, all the way across the Empire,” the griffon smiles with the kind of smiles that completely reassures Magpie that he paid many times more than any of the other black passengers.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” says Magpie, “Anything else?”

“Get yourself and your friends to platform eighteen in half an hour.”

Magpie nods. No one tries to stop him as he leaves the office.

This also means they know that it was Tyris who told us about them. That can’t be good. For him, I mean. On the other talon, they got loaded on this deal so they might let it slide. Besides, they are clearly paying off some of the higher-ranked soldiers to turn a blind eye to all this.

Yeah, Tyris will be alright.

Definitely.

Lalalalalalalalalalala!

It’s not my job to solve everyone’s problems.

Outside, Magpie gathers the others and says:

“Say bye to the little guy, we’re leaving in half an hour, platform eighteen. Give me some gold, I’ll go grab some supplies.”

“Wait, you arranged it yourself?” asks Harriet, “We could have helped-”

“They saw us on the camera,” Magpie nods to a small bulge on the ceiling in the corner, “Taking two changelings and a Corrupted to a small office filled with guys with itching trigger-talons didn’t seem like a good idea.”

“Oh, and what about Tyris?” asks Three.

“What about Tyris?” Magpie shoots back.

“Won’t they be mad he told us about them?”

Without the slightest bit of hesitation, Magpie replies:

“He didn’t go all the way inside with us, they don’t know about him. ”

***

The train car is filled with huge crates but the only living creatures inside are Magpie, Three, Thirteen, and Harriet just as promised. With some space cleared up to allow the group to be together, Magpie waits until the train starts moving before speaking up.

“Changelings, are you hungry?”

“Kinda wish you didn’t ask...” Thirteen grabs her belly.

“It could be worse,” Three shuffles over to Thirteen and leans against her.

“Alright. Relax and save your strength. Harriet, I’ll need you to alternate watch with me.”

“Do you think GIL soldiers will be checking the train?” asks Harriet.

“One, yes. Two, someone will be unloading all this at some point,” he waves his foreleg around at the crates, ”Three, I don’t trust the guys who got us here. They know we have money, they might want more.”

“You can trust me, I’m the last pony to take the word of Guild members.”

“Guild? You think they belonged to The Guild?”

“Smugglers with contacts high up to affect GIL officers in as important a place as Griffonstone? Those can’t have been some random criminals. The Guild is the only crime syndicate I know, but I doubt anyone else would be better,” Harriet shrugs.

“True,” Magpie nods, leaning his back against a crate, “Anyway, it would be foolish to assume we’re safe and we have two weeks of travel ahead of us.”

“Don’t worry, we can hibernate most of the time,” says Thirteen, “We’ll just need a few minutes to wake up properly in case of trouble.”

“You changelings never cease to amaze me,” Harriet chuckles.

“Said a super cool dragon-Corrupted that has claws, tentacles, and a figure to die for,” Thirteen smirks.

“Oh shush, I’m blushing.”

With the relaxing atmosphere spreading, fueled by quiet “thud-thud” of the train, everyone other than Magpie eases up. The griffon is simply staring at his blood-red talons.

They recognized me. Or maybe not. If they saw the whole leg, it would be clear but the clothes cover almost everything. It would be stupid to believe they didn’t, though.

He sighs.

We can deal with some bounty hunters. We can’t deal with the Imperial Guard.

Sweet home: Uneasy dreams

[EIS report to queen Twilight Sparkle]

Your Majesty,

First the good news, agent Prominence has managed to capture subject AAA34 in the ruins of Las Pegasus and he is currently being held in a temporary facility set up there. Reinforcements from the paladins and Royal Guards from Vanhoover have already arrived alongside your Hex Guard barrier magic specialist and several EIS agents.

Subject is in no state for transport to Canterlot, having been severely wounded during the battle but he is recovering quickly. The same cannot be said for agent Prominence. If I may be blunt, I have no idea how she is still alive. From the testimony of the only other remaining agent who was still alive when we arrived it seems that AAA34 killed everyone else in a rather visceral fashion to fuel his blood magic. Unfortunately, said agent passed two hours later from severe blood loss despite our efforts. All clues point to agent Prominence having to suppress the subject on her own in the end and paying the price for it. We have used as much power as we could spare for a stasis spell but even if we somehow can get her to Canterlot or Ponyville I’m not sure she can be saved.

However, she’s still holding on, whatever is left of her, so we’re sending her along with an escort before the stasis runs out. If you could send somepony to meet us halfway with rested unicorns able to reinforce the stasis as well as a proper medical personnel it might increase her chances.

That said, we are going to need reinforcements. The subject is beating against the barriers we’ve set up and I’m not sure how long we can last with this much magic attracting wild Corrupted.

Agent Starshine, EIS.

[End of report]

As Thirteen stands over the limp and lifeless body of Three, One emerges from the surrounding darkness.

“How dare you fall asleep while he’s in danger?!” she bares her fangs, venom dripping down One’s chin and sizzling against the invisible floor, mirroring the queen’s barely contained fury.

“What? I- I-” Thirteen shuffles backwards, her eyes jumping in pure horror from Three to her mother, “We- We just went to sleep on a train. Everything was okay-”

“Until you stopped watching over him, until you gave up, until your lazy ass decided that you just were too tired to go on,” One says in a mocking tone, “And that’s when they struck. All they had to do was wait until you just couldn’t go on, my ass.”

“But I- we didn’t have time to get any love since Canterlot,” protests Thirteen weakly, her knees buckling under her, making her sit down by Three’s corpse, “We had to rest-”

“ALWAYS QUICK WITH THE EXCUSES, YOU PATHETIC WHELP!” screams One, “Boss believed in you and you let Three die!” One grows claws in a flash of green light, grabs Thirteen’s mane, and violently twists it to force her to look into Three’s glassy, blue eyes.

“No, no, no, no-” Thirteen keeps repeating, tears pooling in her own.

“DON’T YOU DARE CLOSE YOUR EYES! DON’T YOU DARE RUN AWAY FROM YOUR MISTAKES AGAIN!”One pushes Thirteen’s head closer, “They all died while you were asleep, your worthless larva!”

“No, no, no, no, no-”

“Why couldn’t it be you instead of them?!”

“I WISH IT WAS ME!” Thirteen turns her head despite One’s hold, feeling the sting as her mane gets ripped off, and faces One, “EVERY DAY I WISH IT WAS ME! I’M JUST TOO WEAK TO DO IT MYSELF! I DON’T HAVE THE COURAGE TO END IT!”

“I do!” growls One and her jaws close around Thirteen’s throat with a stab of pain and a crunch that resonates through Thirteen’s entire body.

“Haah!” Thirteen sits up, gasping for breath and looking around the interior of the train car dim even to her eyes. Gradually, her panicked breathing slows down as she catches the sight of Three whose foreleg twitches for no apparent reason. She wipes her forehead.

Looks like neither of us is having a peaceful rest. Geez, we don’t even have sweat glands, and yet I’m drenched…

Next to Three, Magpie is glaring at her with one eye open.

“Sorry,” Thirteen whispers, “Just a bad dream, that’s all.”

The griffon nods and closes his eye again.

Too sleepy to even get mad at me. Small victories.

Harriet is nowhere to be seen, though, and Thirteen doesn’t feel like going to sleep anytime soon. She knows she’s scraping the bottom of her love reserves but the echo of pain of her mother’s jaws snapping her neck is still too raw in her memory despite the rest of the nightmare quickly fading beyond recall.

*Tap!* *Tap!*

*Creak!*

Thirteen looks upwards, eyes widening. Someone is on the roof of the train car, she’s sure of it. She looks at Magpie and Three who has rolled over and now has his face pressed against the griffon’s back.

Should I wake them up? Nah, I can always just call out. It’s clear that Magpie sleeps lightly.

Maybe her changeling ears are the only way to catch the faint noise of something creeping above them over the noise of the train. She can’t be certain how long it’s been since they boarded the train, hibernation is a problem like that. Changelings normally have perfect sense of time, mostly due to the hive mind processing the information of others on some deep level. Even solitary changelings possess excellent internal clocks but hibernation throws all that off.

The freight car has five access paths - a large, sliding metal door on each of the long sides, a smaller door serving as access from the front and the back during the ride, and a hatch on the top big enough for an adult male griffon.

The roof creaks again.

After a quick examination, Thirteen puts two and two together, namely Harriet being missing and several of the cargo crates everywhere stacked into stairs leading up to the roof hatch. Unused to walking inside a quickly moving object, Thirteen carefully opens the hatch and peeks out, immediately deafened by the roaring wind.

Yep, it’s Harriet.

The Corrupted is slowly walking across the roof, occasionally stopping for a moment and staring into the distance. It doesn’t look as if she is busy patrolling or looking out for any danger.

Oh, shoot!

Suddenly realizing how loud the howling wind really is, Thirteen pulls herself up onto the roof and closes the hatch behind her. Unfortunately, the second she lets go of the handle and takes a step towards Harriet, the train shakes.

She loses her footing, immediately flung to the side, and manages only a brief yelp before a blur shoots towards her and yanks her forward. Thirteen lands on her belly in front of Harriet, whimpering and focusing on stabilizing her breathing for now as the mare sits down by her head.

“Are you okay?” she asks. Normally, her voice would be barely audible in this situation but changeling ears are adaptive.

“Y-Yes...” says Thirteen, “T-Thank y-you.”

She remains lying on the roof, all four legs spread for support.

“Do you need help getting back inside? Is there any trouble?”

“N-No...” Thirteen shakes her head as little as she can, “And no. I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep any time soon.”

“How come?”

“I had a nightmare about mom,” sighs Thirteen.

“From what I heard Gem say about your mother, I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

“She will,” Thirteen looks up at Harriet with a dejected expression, “It’s me who has no idea what I’m doing here. Dad said I was to keep an eye on Three so that he wouldn’t get into trouble and look where we are. I think the real reason was so that I’d have some time away from mom to clear my head but the further we get the more lost I feel. I feel… I feel… as if she was right all along. More and more. Even if we get to Windy and stay there until Gem thinks it’s a good idea to come for us, I’m not sure whether I should return home. I’m just staying quiet and hoping things will work out somehow because I have no idea how to be of any help.”

“I know how you feel,” Harriet pats her head.

“Do you, really?” Thirteen looks at her as skeptically as she can while lying spread-eagle on her belly and desperately trying not to slide away, “You’re big, you’re pretty, you’re strong as hole-”

“I’m a Corrupted, the sky is gone in part because of my involvement, and I left my home despite my dad telling me to stay put as he flew away to the Dragon Lands to give my mom a dragon burial. I had no plan other than to find professional dragonslayers and make them answer for their crime using a frying pan, Thirteen. That’s why I’m up here,” Harriet sighs, “I couldn’t sleep either and I didn’t want to wake any of you up with my pacing. Dragons aren’t the best parents. I have no idea how my dad will react or if he’s still even in Windy. For all I know, he might have left the village for good when he didn’t find me after his return. He might even consider me just a dangerous monster now, especially if the corrupted territory near Windy spread far enough over the past year. Same goes for all the other residents who have been part of my life since I was little. I’m coming home...” Harriet pauses, “And I don’t know if I even still have a home.”

“Oh...” Thirteen blinks, “Kinda puts my problems into a perspective. At least I know dad will be happy to see me again. Maybe Eleven too. And the Hundreds...”

“I think I heard about Eleven? Another changeling, right?”

“Mhm,” Thirteen nods, “Eleven’s this weird hive mind anomaly, a mind that not only can but has to control multiple bodies at once. Guess how many!”

“Three and a quarter,” Harriet smirks at Thirteen.

“Exaaactly!” Thirteen chuckles, Harriet’s aura of peaceful warmth calming her down despite the situation, “You wanna hear about my home?”

“Sure, but only if you sit up at least. Don’t worry, I won’t let you get blown away,” one of Harriet’s back tentacles wraps around Thirteen’s barrel as the changeling very slowly pulls herself into a sitting position next to the Corrupted, “See? It’s not so bad. The train shakes from time to time but once you get used to it it’s not much different from walking around during a storm.”

“I disagree...” mutters Thirteen, sitting but painfully aware of every tremor of the metal roof underneath her, “Storm, earthquake, and a tornado at the same time more like.”

“Now, how about those changelings back home?” Harriet gently nudges her, “Gem never told us too much because the details about your hive and the dwarf city were secret but, you know, it’s a little too late for that.”

“Heh, that’s true,” Thirteen nods, finally steadying herself by leaning against Harriet, “Well, if we go by ranks, then dad’s at the top. He’s the best-”

“I heard,” laughs Harriet, “Mostly from Three but even Gem always speaks highly of him.”

“Yep! He used to be a drone like Three but-”

Harriet smiles to herself as Thirteen’s voice gradually calms down during the description of her hive and the changeling looks genuinely happy for the first time since they met.

***

Three wakes up in the pitch blackness of the hive mind, alone but unafraid. He sits up, rubs his eyes, lets out a squeaky yawn, and looks around.

“Mister Wistful?” he calls out, “Anyone else?” he adds when there’s no answer.

That’s unusual. He’d spent some time as just an incorporeal hive mind personality and even then there always was some kind of turmoil, distant echoes of experiences of others, or other shadows. No this time, though. Everything is deathly silent.

At least for a few moments until something like a perfectly vertical rolling disc of a nebula appears hanging in the air and slowly spinning.

“Ooh, neat!” like the scientifically curious drone that he is, Three immediately pokes it. It feels wibbly, is the best description he comes up with. Kinda cold as well.

For some strange reason, there’s the faintest stream of love coming out of it. Nothing strong enough to feed him, though. As soon as it clicks in his head, however, he concentrates on the taste and his mouth opens into possibly the widest smile he’s ever done.

In response, the nebula cloud shifts, tendrils of darkness shoot out of it, and twist in the air until they form…

...a changeling. And not just any changeling.

“BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSS!” Three lunges at the materializing familiar figure, flies straight through, and rolls on the floor on the other side like the happiest little black ball ever.

Confused little black ball.

“Huh?” Three gets back on all fours, shakes his head, and gives the figure slowly turning towards him a puzzled look, “Boss?”

“Hi, Three,” says the boss.

“BOOOOSSS!” Three gives lunging another shot with the same lack of effect.

“I hope Seven managed to do this, it must be some incredibly complex spell to find you despite the corrupted landscape,” says the boss.

“What did Seven do? What do we do now? Where are you?” Three speaks over him, “How are things at home?”

“Well, here goes,” boss takes a deep breath, ignoring Three completely, “I want to start by saying that we’re all okay and I hope you and Thirteen are as well. Uhh, that’s not entirely correct, part of the reason why I tasked Seven with doing this is exactly so that he doesn’t keep torturing himself for what he did in Zebrica. If there’s anyone who can figure out how to use magic despite corruption all around then it’s him with his, you know, divine gift.”

“Awww,” Three frowns, coming to the correct realization, “It’s just a message...”

“Anyway, considering we have no way of contacting you directly or even finding you, I just want you to know that I’m thinking about you and Thirteen every day. I hope you’re staying put wherever it’s the safest. Now, if you’re around Ponyville or Pine Hills I have good news for you. Two’s expedition discovered a Silversmith city in mostly working order southeast of Chrysalis’ old hive. They’re going to re-settle it with the majority of the dwarves from Brauheim. Right now, my own expedition consists only of the most adventurous dwarves who want to explore tunnels under Zebrica and see if there are any other abandoned cities. It looks like the Living End project that made the old dwarves transfer their minds into machines really hit the entire population because even Five’s expedition found an outpost empty of life, only with mechanical guards,” boss shakes his head, “And before you ask, I haven’t gotten any news about more friends like Stompy but I’d be surprised if there weren’t any other mechs with their memories at least partially intact.”

As the boss keeps talking, Three realizes that the message must be weeks old. The thing is, while news and recap of the state of the dwarven migration are interesting, and hearing boss’ voice again is the best thing ever, there has never been a time when Three needed his personal guidance more.

“I’m scared, boss,” says Three, “I don’t know if you heard but I helped get us out of princess Candy’s prison. They weren’t mean to us there or anything but I just thought that there was no reason to stay after we finished the farming machines with the crystal ponies. I just… I wanted to go back home as soon as possible but… but we had to escape and it turned into all this huge mess and so many ponies died and I don’t know what to do now because it’s my fault and ponies are now looking for us and hate us even more and I don’t trust myself to know what the right thing is anymore. We even got to Tartarus and spoke to Flow and I thought he could help us fix everything but he can’t and the universe is gone for good and it’s all getting cold, griffons are all sad and hungry, ponies are all sad and hungry, and everyone is terrified of the future. I don’t know how to help anymore… we’re just hiding and hoping for the best, that someone smarter will figure things out. You were in this position all those years ago and you took charge and knew what to do. I wish you were here so much...”

“-and that’s how we found out that Hundreds were fixing bowling matches by pretending to be the balls,” finishes the boss.

“Whuh?” that derails even Three’s train of worries.

“And one final thing,” adds the boss, “I don’t know if Seven will be able to do that but I’m sending you something special. Hard Reset didn’t allow me to send you the BFG in case the spell would send it somewhere unsafe but I did talk him into a hoof-mounted energy field generator. It’s super complex and I don’t have Six here to explain it but in short it can absorb energy and emit it again. The dwarves said they set up two things on it - one is a small, directional shield and two is… well, you’ll see. Don’t worry, it won’t blow up or anything and I’m sure both you and Thirteen are going to like it. On a personal note, when I sent you to the Crystal Empire, everyone thought it was only because Cadance knew you, because you were harmless or, in One’s words, too adorable to chop into pieces on sight,” he shakes his head, “They were all wrong. I sent you, Three, because you were the one who genuinely only wanted to help, no strings attached, no duplicitous thoughts. You can see into ponies and you know right from wrong better than me, definitely better than One or Comfort, better than anyone really. Your only fault but also your greatest strength is that you believe in the good inside everyone. Of course, some creatures might be good deep down but the effort of bringing it out can do much more harm along the way. But, the biggest BUT, you were the only one right about Star Trail all those years ago. What I’m trying to say and turning it into incoherent rambling is that I didn’t send you out because you were the least one to get hurt but because I know you were the best suited for this. I believe in you and you should believe in yourself wherever you are. You can come to a better judgement than anyone as long as you don’t rush into anything blindly. ”

Boss looks down straight ahead and smiles. Three rushes over to face it. It just feels so much better.

“And that’s all. I bundled this message so that only you would be able to hear it in full. See you when it’s safe again, Three, and tell Thirteen that both I and One love her. We really do, even if One’s a stubborn idiot sometimes. She just can’t remember how much it took for any of us to get where we are now.”

“Boss, I miss you so much,” Three lunges at the boss one final time.

***

“Nnnngh!” Three’s aggressive jab right into Magpie’s throat wakes the griffon up.

“What the- freaking- stupid bughorse!” hisses Magpie, rolling away and constantly cursing. As the changeling’s forelegs twitch again, seemingly reaching for something, the griffon shoots him a dirty glare before freezing.

Someone’s on the roof. And where and when did the idiot get a damn FAKE BEARD?! I’m pretty sure he didn’t have it with him.

A quick glance around reveals Harriet’s and Thirteen’s unattended backpacks. Magpie lets out a sigh of relief which turns into a choked gasp as he hears a lock click. How can he hear it inside a moving freight train? He doesn’t know. It’s an instinct honed by at this point at least a thousand of nights sleeping in a completely hostile territory.

Harriet and Thirteen might or might not be on the roof but they sure don’t have the keys to the back and front doors.

He quickly tosses a blanket over Three, jumps to the side doors aided by a mighty flap of his wings, slides it open just enough to slip outside and grab the ladder leading to the roof right next to it. After a second of getting used to the rushing wind, he jumps into the air, completely disappearing into the darkness.

Three griffons wearing military-style camouflage suits quietly enter the train car from the car in front of it, sneaking ahead, each one wearing a headlamp and an earpiece. Around their belts, they have a combat dagger, a telescopic blackjack, and a pistol holster each as well as something of heavier caliber on their back next to their backpack.

Their triangle formation reaches the cleared out space with three backpacks and a blanket on the floor. The one in the front immediately pulls the blanket off of Three and takes a step backwards. When the changeling doesn’t move, one from the two in the back removes the shotgun from his back, nudges Three with the barrel, and backs off again, aiming at him.

“Mhmm?” Three rolls over, blinks as the bright light of the headlamp reflects in his eyes, “Who- oof!” his words get muffled as the leading griffon grabs and squeezes his muzzle.

“Where’s the Redtalon?!” he asks and carefully lets Three’s muzzle go, “Don’t even think of shouting, bug.”

“What’s a red talon?” Three furrows his brows, looks down at his forelegs, and notices he’s wearing the good old beard, “Yay! When did I get it back?”

“Alright, it won’t talk,” says one of the duo in the back, carefully watching the area, “Kill it. Quietly.”

The point guard griffon raises his armored fist and brings it right against Three’s temple at full force.

Sweet home: Train-ing

No time to look for the good inside these guys, whoever they are! BRICK MODE!

As the griffon swings his fist against Three’s head, the drone acts on instinct.

*Crunch!*

“OW! DAMN IT!” yelps the griffon in surprise as his talons twist and crack when he hits something akin to a solid wall with full force.

“Oops, sorry! I think I have a bandaid somewhere in my backpack,” Three reaches for the bag lying next to him.

Offering help will surely make them want to talk instead of fighting.

“JUST SHOOT THE DAMN THING!” orders the griffon leader, clutching his foreleg, “They clearly know about us already!”

A bullet whizzes by Three’s head as he’s leaning down to the backpack to retrieve the bandaids.

Nevermind. Time to go!

Three jumps over the nearest cargo crate and calls out:

“Hey, that’s mean! I can help treat your foreleg but you can’t just go shooting changelings for no reason. I heard you griffons don’t like us but that’s a bit much. Do you want to talk about it? I can tell you about our boss and savior and he wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

One of the griffons lands on the crate, already aiming his pistol downwards at Three’s forehead.

“Last chance then. Where’s the Redtalon?”

The second unharmed griffon rolls past the crate, landing in a crouching lunge with a pistol held in both forelegs and aimed at Three as well.

“Who? I only know mister Magpie, no red talon. Though his forelegs are kinda dark red,” Three raises his own forelegs above his head in a peaceful gesture.

The third griffon limps closer from the other side, leaving Three only one escape path - directly backwards.

“Alright, grab the bug. We can use it to lure the target and then sell it to a circus or kill it,” he says.

“Umm, I can’t do tricks and I’ve been dead once already and it’s boring,” Three kicks himself away from the big crate as one of the healthy griffons reaches to grab him.

“Kill it for real then,” the one on top of the crate raises a shotgun and fires.

“EEEK!” the blast takes out a chunk of a crate Three’s passing by and the force of the buckshot hitting the frantically fleeing drone’s armored butt propels him forward.

NO HUGGING THESE GUYS EVER!

Unless they apologize and mean it, of course...

***

The sting of Three’s pain and panic echoes through Thirteen’s mind just as both she and Harriet hear the loud gunshot from underneath.

“What was that?” Harriet jumps on all fours, instantly cutting their relaxed chatter.

“Three, something’s wrong with Three! I can sense it,” Thirteen looks around in panic.

“Stay here!” Harriet rushes towards the halfway point of the train car.

“The hatch is over there!” Thirteen points the other way.

“I’m not shoving my head somewhere where I just heard a shotgun!” replies Harriet, “Besides, I can barely fit my ass through it anyway! JUST STAY UP HERE!”

Without waiting, she grabs the top of the ladder welded into the side of the train next to the cargo door and swings down from the side. Thirteen hears the heavy door slide sideways just as the roof hatch opens and a griffon’s head wearing a helmet casting a cone of light peeks out.

“...” the griffon says something quietly while holding a talon against an ear-piece and pulls himself up afterwards. Thirteen shuffles backwards, doing her best to just stay upright.

Bad guys, must be bad guys! Magpie has been expecting something since Griffonstone. Okay okay, calm down and breathe!

“EEP!” she almost loses her footing as the griffon effortlessly charges towards her.

Gotta buy time for Harriet! What did mom always say? If you’re too dumb to think your way out of a situation, just don’t think at all and trust your instincts!

Thirteen turns around and runs, picking the most horizontal surfaces of the roof to lay her hooves on, guided only by the faint light cast by the griffon’s head lamp. Within a few moments, she reaches the edge of the car, hearing the griffon’s heavy boots thudding right behind her.

Don’t think, don’t look around, it won’t do you any good. Just jump!

She doesn’t have the energy to shapeshift her forelegs into anything with grabbing utility so she just leaps across the gap. Changeling wings aren’t great during high wind like now either so she doesn’t even bother using them. By some miracle, she lands okay and manages to turn around just as the griffon lands on the edge as well.

Okay, now just back off and keep him occupied until Harriet or Magpie come to help. Stay calm-

In the next instant, a fresh echo of pain, shock, and horror makes her vision swim and turn red. She throws up a little inside her mouth and unsteadily backs away.

Three! What happened to Three?!

The griffon uses her moment of weakness to draw his shotgun, aim at Thirteen’s face, and fire at point blank range.

***

Three crashes into a crate as the spike of pain shoots through his head. For a moment, he just lies there, twitching as green blood streams down the side of his face.

“No hugs… for you...” he mumbles, dizzily pointing at the approaching griffon aiming an assault rifle at him. Afterwards, he reaches up to his ear, finding only a shredded mess of chitin and flesh. All he manages next is to look at his hoof covered in blood while the griffon aims straight at his forehead and pulls the trigger.

The shot goes wide and so does the griffon, his midsection crushed by a cargo crate slamming into him at meteoric speed from the side and then against the wall of the train alongside with him.

“You okay, Three?” Harriet shields him with her body from the third griffon firing his shotgun.

“I- I think- I think so...” he keeps watching his bloodied foreleg in a daze.

Harriet gives him a quick once-over and pats the healthy side of his head.

“It’s just a scratch and you know what they say - chicks dig scars,” she turns around and bares her teeth at the approaching griffon, “So I guess you are going to be a hit!”

She pounces at him with speed he simply couldn’t expect from anyone of her size. Not that many griffons have experience with angry Corrupted. The sheer force of her simply crashing into him knocks him out like out a light despite his padded combat suit.

Harriet looks around for any other hostiles and, finding none, quickly checks the unconscious griffon for any visible wounds. It’s quite possible he’ll die of some internal bleeding, but that’s far beyond her ability to assess. She drags him over to Three, stacks several crates around the griffon to stop him from moving in case he wakes up, and says while staring into Three’s face:

“I’ll go get Thirteen. Stay here, okay?”

Three only smiles, staring blankly ahead, and Harriet heads for the still open cargo door.

***

Thirteen watches from the rear platform of a train car as the griffon screaming in agony gets slowly ground up by the wheels between the two cars while desperately holding onto the coupling until his body gives out and the wheels drag the rest of him underneath and his head lamp goes dark.

“And stay crunched!” she points at the now empty space, breathing heavily and trembling.

What happened? I- I think he slipped… or something? Or did I push him from the roof? How did we even get down here? He shot me and… I felt Three… and...

She carefully touches her muzzle, feeling only the faintest scratches left behind by the buckshot. She has been shot by Five before during training. With her negligible level of love, the type of the griffon’s weapon, and the proximity, her head should be missing or at least unrecognizable from ground meat.

“Wait, Three!” she shakes her head suddenly, returning to reality. Stepping across the gap to the front platform of their car, she opens the unlocked door and enters. Harriet is nowhere to be seen so she carefully sneaks between the cargo crates, following Three’s hive link. He feels calm but in shock, so the action must be over.

When she finds him covered in blood from head to shoulder and resting against a crate, her eyes go wide.

“Three! What happened?”

“You’re okay...” Three breathes out and gives her a weak hug.

“You’re not!” Thirteen touches his bloodied side, making him wince and pull away.

“Miss Harriet… went to look for you...” he points at the roof.

“I’m not leaving you here alone!”

“I’m okay… it’s just… a scratch...”

“Your ear is missing! And you have your old beard now with nothing to hang it on!”

“It’ll be okay...” Three smiles, “We get some love and I’ll be good as new...”

“I’d give you all I have but it’s even less than you,” Thirteen’s eyes start watering.

Three nuzzles her neck.

“Then I’ll just stay looking cool... for a while.”

“Where is Magpie anyway?!” Thirteen growls, “He was supposed to be here and protect you!”

“I.. dunno...” Three breathes out, “But I think… the griffons… were after him.”

“He bailed! He knew about them and he bailed!” Thirteen’s face twists in the mix of fury and disbelief.

Harriet swings inside through the cargo door and closes it behind her.

“Oh, you’re already here. I was worried when I didn’t see you. Are you okay?” she asks Thirteen.

“Yeah, I’m just tired. The griffon who went after me fell from the roof under the wheels. I must have pushed him or he tripped, I’m not sure. It’s all blurry. Three’s in trouble, though.”

“Nah,” Harriet shakes her head, “It looks way worse than it is. He just needs a bit of cleaning up and some disinfectant, that’s all. Where’s Magpie?”

“Three said the griffons were after him! He ran off and left us here!”

“Nu-uh...” Three shakes his head weakly, “He’s grumpy but a goodie… he wouldn’t… do that...”

“Why do you think they were after him?” asks Harriet.

“The asked for… red talons… and he has… those...” Three tries to tap the side of his head and misses, “Whoa… dizzy...”

“Yessss!” Harriet grins to herself, “I knew it! The second I saw him I knew it!”

“What?” Thirteen gives her a look of pure confusion.

“Later when we’re safe. I’ll tell you what I know even if he won’t.”

At that moment, Thirteen’s ear twitches as she hears Magpie’s muffled voice:

“The Redtalon is in the freight car six in the back along with two changelings and a big earth pony.”

“Where’s that coming from?” she asks, looks at the unconscious griffon, snatches the ear piece from his ear, and gives it to Harriet, “He just told everyone listening where we are and where he definitely is not! He’s just using us to solve his problems while he’s running away!”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Harriet cracks her neck as her back tentacles stretch out menacingly, “He’s sending everyone into an enclosed area with a Corrupted inside it. Grab the surviving griffon and Three, Thirteen. Keep an eye on them both and call out if anyone gets near you. I’ll deal with the rest.”

***

With a stomach-turning snap, Magpie breaks the wing of another griffon wearing the lightly armored camo suit and hisses:

“You, talk!” he glances backwards to many other griffons, clearly civilians who paid The Guild for a transport around the Empire, who are whimpering in terror, “You, shut up!”

The suited griffon scowls at Magpie, silent but staring straight into his eyes.

“Alright then,” Magpie snatches the griffon’s ear-piece, punches him, slides the cargo door open while he’s recovering, and starts lowering him down by his healthy wing, “Last chance before you kiss the wheels.”

“I’LL TALK!” screams the griffon as he finally realizes that Magpie isn’t one for empty threats.

“Well?” Magpie stops lowering him down but remains bent over the edge of the train.

“There’s five of us! Three went ahead and two of us here. Me and the guy you knocked out! Please don’t let m-”

From the corner of his eye, Magpie spots a rapid movement and instantly jumps forward into the air. The griffon screams as he gets dragged under the train in a splash of gore.

Another suited griffon whom Magpie completely missed before has swung a heavy blackjack and peeks out of the door as Magpie spreads his wings…

...and completely misjudges the situation.

The overpowering torrent of wind outside the running train makes him tumble as burning and cracking shoots from his wings to his barrel. He curses, barely managing to grab the doorside ladder two cars back and slamming against the metal side of the car. Coughing and flailing his hind legs, he pulls himself to the ladder and up on the roof.

Oof, that was close. So, I saw three get into our car and three here. Hmph, at least six of them, minus two now, and they want me alive. How do I deal with the rest? The one that surprised me will be jumping between the cars soon. Hmmm...

Fuck, my back hurts and I won’t be flying anytime soon.

Alright, no other way about it. Let’s see if Harriet took care of her guys.

Covering his beak with his talons, he presses the side of the stolen ear-piece and says:

“The Redtalon is in the freight car six in the back along with two changelings and a big earth pony,”

Few moments of careful listening later, he smirks to himself. One, there’s no confusion from the receiver which makes it likely that none of the griffons who attacked their car are conscious and able to disprove his fake report. Two, it gets confirmed when the personal door in the back of this car opens and the griffon who swung at Magpie before quickly jumps into the next one.

***

As the roof hatch clicks open, Harriet’s tentacles shoot out. In the next instant, a small tube drops through and starts letting out thick, grey smoke, not that it’s overly necessary in the darkness. It only takes the scraping noise of someone pushing through for Harriet to pounce straight at the source. After all, if she blindly hits a crate or something, it’s not exactly her who’s in trouble.

She’s familiar with touching the padded combat suit by now so she knows it can’t be Magpie on accident unless he stole one, even though him throwing a smoke canister inside was a definite clue already. A quick punch in the face shatters the mask and quite likely the beak underneath and the griffon stops moving. Hopefully he’s still alive but right now she can’t afford to be picky.

More heavy steps behind her make her turn around. The smoke is quickly dissipating through the open cargo door, revealing a griffon raising his shotgun against Thirteen who is blocking his way to Three with her body.

I won’t make it in time.

Something happens.

Harriet blinks. Her Corrupted reflexes are WAY beyond those of ponies and griffons and she still has no idea what happened.

The barrel of the shotgun is protruding from the back of the griffon’s neck, rammed through his beak with such force that the blunt weapon nearly ripped his entire head off.

Thirteen’s eyes roll backwards as she keels over, her head hitting the floor in tune with several gunshots from the train car ahead. Harriet braces for more griffons arriving but the only one who enters the car is Magpie, holding a pistol and looking around. Other than the thudding of the train and the wind from the open freight door and roof hatch, everything is silent.

“Hey there, Magpie Redtalon,” Harriet smirks.

“Scream that for the whole Empire to hear, would you?” growls Magpie, “How many of them got here?”

“Three at first, two more right now,” Harriet’s tentacles point in the vague directions of both unconscious griffons and corpses.

“Good, I got the other five,” he starts examining the train car in detail, body after body, “I don’t think there are more. Now help me loot the bastards here and we’ll grab the rest of the stuff from the others on the way.”

“That’s completely immoral!” scowls Harriet.

“One, we could really use the ear-pieces. Two, they have lasting food, a lot of it. Do you have something stashed in those tentacle holes of yours? I doubt so, and we still have over a week of travel ahead, or maybe even more if those Guild bastards lied and this thing doesn’t go all the way to Wilbur’s Pass. Unlike the changelings, we can’t just hibernate our way out of hunger. Three, they have gold. Not my biggest concern right now but you can’t go wrong with gold. Four, I’m not big on firearms but as long as they use them, I’m not about to rush at them with a mace unless I have to. Five, you already killed them so the hard part is over.”

“Fiiiine,” Harriet still winces as she touches the gruesome corpse of a griffon impaled on his shotgun, “And for your information, I’m pretty sure Thirteen killed two of them.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Magpie snickers before freezing, “Wait, you’re for real? How? I could believe more that Three got them by hugging too hard.”

“Honestly… I don’t know,” he hears Harriet from behind crates around as she closes the freight door, “If I’m to hazard a guess, I don’t think she knows either.”

“Great...” grumbles Magpie, “Unknown variables. I liked her more when she was completely useless.”

“You don’t like either of them!”

“Yes and that should be a freaking clue!”

“Ugh...” they hear a weak moan as Thirteen sits back up and clutches her stomach, “I’m so hungry...”

“Do you eat griffon?” Magpie aims the stolen pistol at the first griffon Harriet disabled, “If not, I’m not letting these bastards go home and come back with reinforcements or worse.”

“You can’t... kill them...” croaks Three weakly, “That would… make you… a baddie...”

“Watch me.”

“Miss… Harriet...” Three tries persuading a less violent authority.

“Honestly, I don’t like it, Three, but I really don’t want them following me home and threatening my friends or family. Last time a group of anonymous militant guys arrived, they killed my mom. And if they have time to spread the word that Magpie is a Redtalon then things will get worse for all of us, much worse.”

“Don’t...” Three gives it another shot as Magpie raises his pistol again.

“WAIT!” Thirteen tries to raise herself up on shaky legs but collapses back into a sitting position, “We do eat griffon!”

“What?” Magpie blinks.

“We do eat griffon,” repeats Thirteen, “Love, remember? We can cocoon them for the trip. How many are still alive?”

“Three of them,” says Harriet quickly, seeing a way out of Magpie executing unconscious griffons, “One for sure and two possibly. I don’t know how hard I hit them really.”

“Alright, get to it,” orders Magpie, “I’m shooting anything that’s alive and not us if it’s not green in half an hour.”

“Longer, please...” Three gives him the ‘bearded puppy with a recently shot off ear’ look, “We’re too… weak.”

“An hour!” Magpie stops off to the next carriage where he left the rest, grumbling, “Always something with them, I swear!”

Three grins.

“I knew… he was… a goodie.”

“Three, I hate to break it to you,” Thirteen lowers her head, “I don’t know how to make a cocoon and you don’t look like you can move.”

“I know how,” Three tries to boop her and manages to raise his foreleg a few inches before lowering it again, “But I’ve never done it before. Never needed… to.”

When Magpie returns with several bulging backpacks, Thirteen is slowly but definitely not surely gooping all over one of the three griffons. He gags.

“Fucking nope!” he tosses one of the bags on the floor and leaves with:

“I’ll be on the roof, call me when she’s done.”

Harriet joins him up there soon.

“Do you need help?” she asks as the griffon twists himself into knots to treat his fractured and twisted wings as well as all the bruises slowly appearing all over him.

“Nope,” he shakes his head.

“You know Gem taught me how to treat wounds pretty well, right? I’m pretty sure I’m better than you.”

“Yep, but I won’t get better if I let you do it and I won’t have you with me all the time.”

“You don’t have to know how to do everything on your own.”

“Wrong, Harriet. That’s exactly where you’re wrong. You don’t have to. You will return home and you will enjoy as much well-deserved rest as you can and then you’ll be able to return to your peaceful life with your friends and hopefully your father. I have no one, only enemies. Technically on three continents these days which must be some kind of record. What I don’t know will get me killed. Not that I exactly care but I’d prefer it be quick rather than slow rot from a badly healed and infected wound.”

“And what about Gem?”

“What about her?”

Harriet sighs.

“Nothing...”

[Anonymous tip to the Black Ops]

Dear Nicolai,

With your brother so unfortunately wounded during the initial rebellion in the south, you might want to avoid further danger to the already crumbling stability of the Empire.

A Redtalon is returning home accompanied by two changelings and a Corrupted. Considering the state of affairs in the east after Veronica’s betrayal, Bloodstone griffons will easily rally behind him given the right reason.

You wouldn’t want us to help them find one, right?

[End of message]

Sweet home: Almost there

[It’s good to be back, booksy!]

Heyyy! It’s been so long since I had the chance to write to you. So much happened and I’ll tell you everything soon. Now, though, we’re on a train that crosses the whole Griffon Empire from west to east. It’s HUGE! The Empire, not the train. It takes TWO WEEKS to cross by taking the train while Equestria is only about three or four weeks on hoof. Crazy, right?

Anyway, we got attacked by TEN guys form a group Miss Harriet called The Guild. They’re some kind of a criminal syndicate spanning a good chunk of the Empire. She didn’t know much about them but they were the same guys who hurt her really bad when she was first coming to Equestria.

As much as I dislike it, only three of them survived the initial ambush and even I have to admit they kinda had it coming. My ear still stings and now my beard keeps slipping off. The good thing is that we managed to persuade Mister Magpie not to kill them all and Thirteen put them all into cocoons for us to snack on. I’ve been trying to give them nice dreams to make them turn their lives around and be nice but I think they might have a completely different idea about what being the good guy means.

I mean, I crafted one dream about fluffy changeling plushies everywhere so that the griffons would see us in a more positive light. Who wouldn’t want a plush version of let’s say the boss, I hear you ask? I would, definitely. Well, griffons apparently aren’t that easy to persuade. Dreams are difficult if you’re not a proper infiltrator and they can turn bad really quickly, and this one kinda ended with us running from a horde of stuffed Elevens. They caught us and wanted to eat us but they didn’t have any teeth and only soft mouths so it tickled and I couldn’t stop laughing. The griffons kept screaming, though, I’m not sure why. It’s not like they could have been hurt or anything.

The next time I tried a dream with copies of Miss Gem. Ummm… I don’t want to talk about it, it got a little weird. On the other hole, I learned several new words and we kinda refilled what little lust Thirteen and I can hold, which isn’t much to be honest. The good part is that we’re not starving anymore, at least as long as we spend most of our time hibernating.

Oh, I mentioned this before - I lost my left ear during the Guild attack. Don’t worry, I’ll grow it back as soon as I get some real love. Right now, though, it’s just a numb stump and I can’t move my head too quickly or my beard slips off and hangs on one ear, which looks downright silly.

And yes, I have my dwarf beard back. Boss, I mean the magical message from him, said that Seven made it into a real Beard of Holding which means it’s not just me who can pull stuff out of it. I didn’t have a chance to play with it yet because I’m only supposed to either eat or sleep. I know everyone means well but I feel alright.

I still miss not having to think about hunting for love, that’s true. I wish I knew what’s wrong with my body.

Well, Miss Harriet definitely means well, Thirteen is a bit… overzealous, and Mister Magpie simply wants me out of the way.

Anyway, Miss Harriet said we’d be in some city called Wilbur’s Pass tomorrow and that’s where we should get off. Can you imagine it? Miss Harriet is almost home. And then we’ll get to see a real DRAGON!

I mean, I saw Mister Vertradict before when they brought him to the hive but he was too busy to talk or anything. Miss Harriet said her dad was a red dragon too, a big difference from the gold and black of Mister Vertradict.

And that’s all for today, booksy. I should go to bed again. Maybe I’ll try to give the griffons a dream with Two tonight, that could be a less tempting experience than Miss Gem and less scary than a horde of plushlings.

[Bye, booksy!]

The noise of the train already barely noticeable with the group being on it for so long smooths out and they all start feeling the effects of gradual deceleration, or at least they would if they were alert and conscious. Magpie, though, has been awake for the entire last leg of the journey, waiting for exactly this moment.

He immediately pokes the least questionable place of Harriet he can reach and twitches away when her skin immediately grows tiny tendrils that try to grab his talon in response.

“Gets weirder every minute,” he shakes his foreleg.

“Mhmm?” Harriet opens her eyes immediately after and Magpie puts her backpack in front of her muzzle.

“We’re getting off right now. The train started slowing down, which means we’re at most half a mile from the station.”

“Whuh? We still have time-”

“No, we don’t!” he leans closer to her face, “I’m not willing to wait and see if someone is ready and waiting for us at the station.”

“Oh...” Harriet admits that he’s absolutely right for once, “Alright, alright, I’m awake.”

The griffon is already shaking Thirteen awake. She’s been sleeping by one of the three green cocoons with Guild members in them.

“Get up, weirdling, we’re here,” he says, tossing her bag in front of her face as well, “Wake the idiot up.”

“I’m gonna wake you up...” grumbles Thirteen to herself as she escapes hibernation much quicker now than when they first tried it on the train. It gets a lot easier every time, both falling asleep and waking up.

Three reacts to her mental touch quickly as well and opens his eyes while still hugging a second cocoon.

“Is it breakfast time already?” he stretches his hoofsies and yawns which makes Thirteen quietly ‘squee!’ to herself.

“No, we’re supposed to get off of the train before it stops.”

“Huh?”

“Someone might be waiting to ambush us,” replies Harriet passing by.

“Alright, can you break the cocoons or something?” asks Magpie, “I don’t want to leave any traces of us behind.”

“What about the griffons?” asks Harriet, turning to Thirteen, “Can you wipe their memories of meeting us?”

“I can’t, that’s a bit too advanced for me,” Thirteen shakes her head, “I can confuse them a little so that they think we left earlier and went elsewhere.”

“And the cocoons?” Magpie butts in.

“Those will melt quickly if Three helps me.”

“Do it,” orders the griffon.

In less than two minutes, Three is chomping down on the last bit of green goo while Thirteen licks the remains of the sludge off of the final griffon.

One of the griffons moans and his breathing quickens. Magpie notices and grunts.

“Hmmph, you get off and I’ll knock the guy out.”

All three other members of the group look straight at him with undisguised suspicion.

“What?” Magpie adds, “It’ll be just a little bonk on the head, I promise. I know how to knock someone out properly, neither of you do.”

“I can do that too,” objects Harriet.

“Oh really? Would you risk safely knocking me out on the first try if you had to?” the griffon raises an eyebrow.

“Well...” Harriet hesitates, giving Magpie an opening.

“You know, without a concussion from which I wouldn’t wake up or a punch in the guts that wouldn’t liquify my insides.”

Harriet sighs.

“You’re right, I don’t know my full strength yet.”

“Good, then grab the two and jump off. We’re running out of time,” he nods towards the cargo door already open by Thirteen.

Soon, Magpie is left alone with three waking up griffons. Without ceremony, he pulls out a knife and slits each one’s throat.

“I can’t stand listening to more of the bleeding hearts’ complaints,” he mutters as he wipes off his forelegs and his dagger, checks around one final time for any clues that might lead to them, closes the cargo door, and leaves through the roof hatch.

***

Within half an hour, the group walks through the barely lit streets led by Harriet who laughs to herself, earning a surprised glance from everyone.

“Last time I was here, I thought this was a huge metropolis bustling with griffons and even ponies. Don’t laugh, up until that point all I’d seen was Windy,” she shakes her head, “After the last half a year... all I can see is a small dump. Travelling around the world spoils you in a way.”

“Can’t say, really,” Magpie shrugs, “But I grew up in Bloodstone so no big difference from Manehattan.”

“The Redtalon ancestral home, hmmm?” Harriet gives him a smug grin.

“Not now!” Magpie hisses back, “Not here! Do you want to get us killed?”

“You know, I’m not big on politics but I’m pretty sure that if anyone here heard us, they’d be more likely to help us rather than rat us out to the Legion.”

“I’m not risking anything. We have enough supplies to get to Windy, right?”

“We really should look around for a caravan and guards, Magpie.”

“No, we’re not involving anyone we don’t necessarily have to. Gem left me in charge-”

“I have to put my hoof down on this,” Harriet stares him down, “How long have you been away? Were you even here for the uprising? No. This is Redtalon land. The Legion might answer to the Emperor but the griffons around here certainly don’t. We need information. Even when I was leaving, Windy was partly cut off by a corrupted territory. Who knows how things are now or if we even have the supplies to take the safe route?”

Magpie ponders objecting again but he has to admit to himself that there is something to what Harriet is saying.

Wilbur’s Pass is a just a simple town, small city if one is really generous with the description, with several business buildings around the train station in its center and housing spreading in a circle around it, along with small stalls and the occasional local business. It has one terrifying similarity to an actual metropolis like Griffonstone these days, though, which is that the streets are silent and empty. Even the light from the house windows around is dim, likely because there’s a stricter limit to how much electricity a household is allowed to draw here.

Under Harriet’s guidance, they reach a tavern near a caravan rest stop and Harriet walks inside.

Gasps, clicks, and the tumbling of furniture greet her, culminating in a shotgun blast she can barely feel ricocheting off of Harriet’s chest scales.

“Right, I probably should have expected that,” she looks around the big room with several griffons hiding behind overturned tables and the owner staring at her in horror with a shotgun still aimed at her, “I’m not here to eat anyone, everybody calm down,” one of her back tentacles salutes to ease tension. It works about as well as one would expect as the owner backs off behind the counter.

Harriet pauses while Magpie pushes past her.

“We just need to buy some supplies, that’s all,” he says. The griffons gasp again and Magpie facetalons when he realizes Three has walked inside between Harriet’s legs.

“Hello,” he waves with a big smile, “We’re not here to eat or bother anyone. I have candy if you want some,” he shakes a small pouch around his neck, “It’s minty.”

“The damn darkness, talking Corrupted, and now brain-eating bugs...” the bartender slash owner rolls his eyes and slumps onto a chair behind the counter, “The world’s really going to shit.”

“Agreed,” Magpie walks up to the counter, ignoring the other guests who are slowly and carefully returning the furniture to upright position, “Look, we just need to buy some food and batteries if you have spares. We have the gold and gems.”

The owner glares at him.

“Look, boy, there’s nothing to buy these days. These guys,” he points around the tavern, “are here to chat, since it’s the only way to pass time other than listening to crazy morons on the radio.”

“If there’s not a black market supplier around here then I’m a unicorn in disguise,” Magpie looks straight at the owner and tilts his head.

For a brief moment, the owner’s eyes flicker to a group of three griffons at the corner table who seemingly haven’t been taken aback by Harriet’s entrance, judging by them not busy picking up shattered glasses and fixing their chairs.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Right,” Magpie smirks, “I totally believe-”

The owner ignores him completely as Harriet walks up to the counter.

“Sir, we just need to get to Windy and we’d like to know how the situation is around here. I live- lived- come from there and I’ve been away for over half a year, way since before the sky disappeared. I’m worried about the griffons there.”

“Yeah, must have been quite the trip if you haven’t started off like that,” he looks up at Harriet’s back tentacles casually wiggling in the air.

“It was,” she says simply, “We checked the caravan station by the east gate and there’s no one there.”

“Take a wild guess why,” the griffon scowls and for the first time Harriet feels it’s not aimed towards her or the changelings, “Fucking Irongrips are fortifying their land while letting us rot under crippling sanctions since Veronica’s uprising. We’re not getting disaster relief, we’re not getting increased GIL presence, and we can’t even raise a proper fucking militia to stop that black shit to the east,” he nods towards Harriet, “from growing over everything. Imperials would shoot us first because they don’t have the balls to fight real Corrupted. I used to sympathize with Veronica at first but then she fucked everything up by licking Legius’ boots. Win through your power or die in a ditch like a true Redtalon.”

“What happened?” Magpie hops on the nearest bar stool, “I’ve been away for years myself. And you know what? If you don’t have supplies, do you have something to drink?” he jingles a pouch of gold and gems, “I don’t mind paying a little extra for a lesson in recent history.”

The owner nods and disappears into the back room. When he returns, even Three has managed to climb on the stool made for someone as big as a griffon. He points a bottle of spirits at Harriet and Thirteen.

“We’ll have some too,” says Three.

“Not a good idea to start proving you’re a real adult by getting wasted,” Harriet glances his way, “Not to mention that Thirteen is so far under the drinking age that she’d need a pair of binoculars to see it.”

“That’s not it,” Three shakes his head, “We can’t digest it anyway without some shapeshifting. I’m not sure we can use it in the same way but the boss can mix the alcohol with some goop and spit out balls of fire.”

“Great, that’s a reeeeally fantastic argument for me selling you this,” the owner grumbles but pours a glass for everyone.

Magpie tosses a gem on the counter.

“And the story?” he adds.

“I’m not a big politics buff but you hear rumors in this line of work,” the owner shrugs, “As far as I know, Veronica Redtalon spent several years by killing off everyone in the line of succession for the Bloodstone throne. She got screwed, though, because even after she was the last Redtalon heir, the sitting head of the family didn’t let her succeed them on account of being a female. A year ago, give or take, she got fed up and joined forces with the Emperor’s Grand Vizier Legius who had some secret research that would help him overthrow the Irongrips and become the Emperor himself. Veronica would become the head of Redtalons as a reward. I heard that the three corrupted territories in the Empire are the result of Legius’ research. Some kind of a corruption spreading bomb or something.”

“What a great idea to corrupt the place you want to rule...” Magpie facetalons.

“Power-hungry morons fighting each other while normal griffons get ground up in the gears of the system. What’s new?” the tavern owner sneers, “Anyway, Legius got killed, Veronica vanished, and everyone in the Redtalon lands got royally screwed. With no disaster relief, I can’t even imagine how things are beyond the corrupted territory to the east.”

“Windy!” Harriet sighs and her back tentacles slump down.

“Yeah, no one has come there and back since the darkness started. Everyone’s stuck either where they were when the sky disappeared or after the public transport stopped.”

“That’s really bad...” Harriet frowns, “Windy is pretty much a farming village. Without light, caravans, and trade they have no way of getting food.”

“If you’ve been away for so long then don’t forget the corruption spreading. I heard the Imperials had some way to suppress the spread they were trying in Drachenberg but none of that tech will ever get to us. It takes too long on paw now to get to Windy if you want to avoid the corruption because all the old roads are grown over. Fucking Irongrips.”

“We should head off then if we can’t buy anything lasting,” says Harriet, a little giddy and not in a good way.

***

“So, this Veronica is your sister?” asks Harriet as the group walk out of Wilbur’s Pass via the east gate. The air is a little wet and the cold ground crunches under their boots but the darkness makes it impossible to see how far corruption has really spread. Harriet recalls that there should be several hills ahead before entering the corrupted territory since Wilbur’s Pass is situated in a small valley.

“Is, was... probably the latter although it doesn’t matter, really,” Magpie shrugs, “I doubt the Irongrips would let her live.”

“So you’re the last Redtalon?”

Magpie sighs.

“Will you just let it go? I might be the last one or Cassius might have just executed Veronica who already wiped the slate clean… almost, and my parents must still be rulers of Bloodstone. Minor uprisings and fights between the noble families have always been a thing in the history of the Empire and a full-scale retribution by the ruling family would only unite the other noble houses against the Emperor.”

“Has your sister ever tried to kill you?” asks Thirteen this time. Magpie huffs, looking straight ahead.

“I survived one assassination attempt and avoided one before I got screwed during the expedition to the north. Both happened… more than ten years ago so I doubt she had her talons in it.”

“What happened?” Thirteen presses on.

“Someone tried to poison me but we had taste testers so that’s one, and...” Magpie frowns, “A hired courtesan pretended to fall in love with me. It was the first time in my life I was with someone who wasn’t a paid company. Paid by me or my family, I mean. The relationship lasted for over a year and then she tried to kill me after one night together. My family hired an investigator while I was recovering in a hospital and he discovered that it was a plot to get me to share some family secrets I didn’t know anyway due to being so far in the succession line I’d need a good car to even get to the finish. When she realized that, she was supposed to dispose of me. Some bleeding stab wounds later, I choked her to death. My first love, my first kill, my own youthful stupidity,” he says in a strange, flat tone which Harriet hasn’t heard from him before, not even when talking about the minotaur arena and torture.

“Is that why you’re so strange around mares?” asks Thirteen.

“Story time over,” Magpie growls at her, “If you want to start a career as a psychiatrist, go practice on someone else. Anyone else, really. Look, there’s Three and he thinks he can hug the sun back.”

“I don’t think that...” mumbles Three, “Though it isn’t the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

“IT LITERALLY IS!” Magpie’s neck cracks as he turns his head too quickly to glance at Three, receiving only a bright smile and a giggle. He looks back, rubs his neck, and sighs, “Perfect, now even the idiot is making fun of me. I’m so glad we’re almost done with this trip.”

“The hardest part is still ahead of us,” interrupts Harriet in an uncharacteristically serious tone.

“How come?” asks Magpie, “It’s not as if we haven’t been travelling through corrupted territory before.”

“We were lucky to avoid all corrupted griffons around Manehattan. We won’t get ponies in these parts and I’m not crazy about encountering a griffon Protector or… worse.”

“Are you thinking about a Queen?”

“I haven’t heard about those in the Empire but it’s only a matter of time, isn’t it?”

“Yeah...” Magpie breathes out, “So, how about we take the route north around the territory? We might make it if we ration our supplies properly.”

“No,” says Harriet firmly.

“It won’t get us killed-”

“No! I need to know what’s happening in Windy.”

“You need to get there first,” Magpie presses on.

“We won’t be in any more danger than we already are,” Harriet shakes her head.

“Oh really?”

“Yeah. It’s been bothering me for a while. I’ve been feeling it even in Wilbur’s Pass but I couldn’t place it. The tendrils of the corrupted territory are already inside the city and we’re walking on tainted soil. Any ‘safe’ route wouldn’t add a week, rather closer to a month if we wanted to avoid any potential encounters completely. I won’t wait that long and you don’t have the food.”

“I’m with Miss Harriet!” says Thirteen.

“Me too,” adds Three, “We don’t have the love, sorry.”

“It’s your funeral,” Magpie shrugs.

“You’re not coming then?” asks Thirteen.

“Of course I am coming. I promised Gem I’d get you to Windy or whatever is left of it and I wanted to make sure you get there as safely as possible. If you don’t want that, it’s your call,” Magpie picks up the pace to walk first, “Unlike you, I couldn’t care less about getting eaten.”

Sweet home: Obligatory combat encounter

[Two’s message]

Heya, dad.

I’m hoping Eleven finds you alright again but I’ve geared him up for a long trip, since I’m guessing you’re far under Zebrica at this point. He doesn’t like being cooped up down here anyway.

So, it’s been a while since my last report and the reason is simple - so far, nothing has happened other than the dwarves you sent to us arriving. We have quite a big population now and everyone is settling down. I know, I know, it’s not like I need to send this message in Eleven’s head either but I’m curious as to how you are doing. You see, we’ve been working on repairing anything we can access and, to be frank, it’s been boring as hole. Neither me, nor Eleven or Cryo are too interested in maintenance work. The Hundreds we took with us are getting better at operating dwarven tech, though, so we’re gaining a lot of practical experience.

Now for the actual news - I know it’s risky but I ordered a tunnel dug northwest and connected it to the istrium-lined tunnel between Chrysalis’ old hive and Brauheim. Don’t worry, I’m not going to have the demolished part leading north rebuilt. We now have access to the old hive and to Pine Hills again, though. I’ve started sneaking out to gather some information about the surface but so far I’ve got nothing meaningful. Ponies are hunkered down, it’s freezing everywhere, and everyone is afraid. I don’t think any guards are even looking for us.

There is some good news, though, whatever little it means - wild Corrupted seem to be entering hibernation and are far more passive even if one ventures into their territory. Cryo has been working out some… frustration on them and despite punching the everliving hole out of Hunters for days, there has been no proper retribution, not even a single Protector. Granted, I heard in Pine Hills that the amazons and the weird changelings who used to live there made the town a zone that Corrupted fear to even approach.

Anyway, that’s pretty much all. We’re safe, we’re gathering information, and you have a good place to return. As for the fixed teleporter between Seven’s expedition and this city, I’m assuming you told him how to contact us because we sure have no idea where to even begin with that.

Safe travels.

Two (and of course Eleven who is carrying this as well as everyone else).

[End of message]

Twilight Sparkle sighs and slumps on her throne after yet another exhausting day of court business. Luna has been helping as much as she can but these days she’s busy at night fighting nightmares and horrors inside the minds of ponies terrified of the cold and dark future. Chrysalis has finally taken her role in the ruling of Equestria seriously but she’s not exactly the one for negotiating compromises. And as much as Twilight would like to involve Celestia deeper in the government work, generations of ponies grew up without ever knowing or seeing her and her recent return, coupled with her partial corruption, don’t show her in the most trustworthy light.

So, even with her working on the most important project of the present tirelessly during the nights, Twilight has had to remain the true ruler of Equestria and deal with its never-ending and soul-crushing bureaucracy as well.

Her custom, griffon-made throne is, thankfully, very comfortable, and contains vibrating and massaging functions. The best rulership decision she ever made was to get rid of the old thing and switch to this one. She closes her eyes and presses a button under the hoof-rest. With soft buzzing, the whole throne starts working its magic on her neck and Twilight moans as the stress of the day eases up a little.

Just fifteen minutes, that’s all she needs and then she’ll head back off to the underground lab and-

She’s brought out of her daze by the soft creaking of the throne room door opening and a tall, heavily bandaged “unicorn” limping inside, her usually lively fiery mane clinging flat to her head. Both her hind legs are supported by mechanical braces and her left foreleg is in a full plaster cast. Parts of her unbandaged coat are burnt off and deep scars are criss-crossing her entire body. Despite that, when she limps to Twilight’s throne, she tries to salute with her healthy foreleg.

“Don’t even think about it,” Twilight snickers when Prominence winces in pain as she tries to steady herself on her plastered foreleg, “I should be the one bowing to you.”

“Just doing my job, your Majesty.”

“Fighting an alicorn is not just a job, Prominence. When I fought an alicorn ages ago, I ended up much much worse and I was already an alicorn myself,” Twilight shakes her head, “I wish I could use my time to help you heal sooner but-”

“Your project is way more important, your Majesty.”

“What brings you here then? I don’t mind a little social call but I never pegged you for the type. Besides, you really should be in bed.”

“I do,” a guardsmare enters the throne room, one whom Twilight doesn’t recognize, “Glad to see you’re okay, princess noodle-neck.”

“Prominence?” Twilight raises an eyebrow. She can’t sense anything unusual about the guard but she definitely hasn’t seen her before.

“Your Majesty, all I’m asking for is that you listen to her. If there’s any reward for me stopping the blood mage then I wish to use it now,” Prominence can’t bow so she just lowers her head, “And if I’m committing high treason then I’m ready for my punishment.”

A green glimmer runs through the guardsmare’s coat, burning away the armor as well as the coat and leaving behind Gem who gives Twilight a short, courteous bow.

“I might call for some rough sentence if you call me noodle-neck again,” Twilight beckons Gem to come closer, “Otherwise, I’m listening.”

“Huh, I built this scenario up inside my head in a way worse fashion,” comments Gem.

“Prominence reported your version of events regarding the void swallowing the rest of the universe and I understand your hive might have been played like everyone else.”

“Blackmailed, more like. Dad knew big chunks of Flow’s- Blazing Light’s plan but didn’t know the ending,” says Gem, noting to herself that Twilight doesn’t seem to be surprised by anything she’s saying, “When we passed through Canterlot weeks ago we took a quick detour and visited Blazing Light in Tartarus to get his rationale. Well, Three wanted to ask him to bring the sun back but, you know...”

“Didn’t work?” Twilight smirks.

“Har har,” Gem rolls her eyes in fake annoyance. Inside, though, she’s happy that Twilight is taking her presence so well, “Anyway, I kept mulling over it all the way to Manehattan and I decided to return here and tell you the whole story.”

“And what are you hoping for? That I release Blazing?” Twilight shakes her head, “No matter what you have to say, that’s not going to happen.”

Gem tilts her head.

“Wanna bet? One, it might save you some trouble down the line with Silver Sun and two, I think princess Luna might have something to say if you call her here and she hears it. It concerns her time as Nightmare Moon as well.”

“Prominence, please tell the guards outside to fetch princess Luna,” orders Twilight and Prominence shuffles off.

“And one more thing, princess.”

“Yes?”

“I know about your secret project,” Gem lowers her voice, “I’ve been in Canterlot for a while and I did interrogate several mages you keep employed here. Don’t worry, they haven’t been hurt in any way and your security would work against anyone without my skills and knowledge of Canterlot. I want to help. You have all the wizards with magic shooting out of their asses but you’re missing three things - a proper physicist, particle-accelerator technology, and a god-tier chemist.”

“I have the best wizards and engineers at my disposal. Even some zebras are helping.”

“I am the best alchemist in the world, no contest,” says Gem with a shrug, “I have hive mind copies of dwarven and restored Silversmith technology you’re going to need if you want to start and control a fusion reactor of that size. Fine, my physics is a little rusty but I remember the principles Six has been working with and researching on a daily basis. With the right physicist who can admit everything they know is likely wrong or at best incomplete I think I can help you create the fusion reactor before the world freezes over completely. Without me you won’t make it in time, simple as that.”

“Is that all?”

“No, actually. That’s the easy part,” Gem shakes her head.

“Oh?”

“I need you to keep my presence secret from Celestia and I need you to help protect Promi’s head from her as well. I have a bad feeling about her. Destroying the sun… did something.”

Twilight remains silent for a while.

She knows! She’s been side by side with Celestia all this time and she knows EXACTLY what I’m talking about. Hole, I think she knows way more than I do about it.

“We will see,” says Twilight in the end, “First, Luna and I will hear your story and then I’ll decide what will be next for you… and your prison-breaking companions.”

“Don’t bother with them, they’re already far out of your reach,” Gem shakes her head and smiles, “and hopefully safe.”

***

A piercing screech cuts through the air, chilling Magpie down to his paws. The cone of his head lamp starts frantically scanning the surrounding area for the corrupted griffon doubtlessly responsible for the terrifying sound.

“Five of them!” even Harriet huddles closer to the rest of the group, surprised by herself about being able to distinguish the individual creatures she can feel.

“...five corrupted griffons...” Magpie croaks. He doesn’t need to add anything, the words have all the weight they need.

The message spells imminent death even with Harriet around. If he had his full gear, Magpie might be able to safely fight off a pony Corrupted Hunter. Keyword - might. Five griffons inside a corrupted territory, however, could cleave through an elite regiment of Imperial Guards.

“So this is how it ends, eh?” he says in resignation and drops his backpack. It will do him no good as far as protection goes and there’s no gear in it that could help.

“Can we run?” asks Thirteen, looking around to spot the imminent attack. No one even dignifies it with a response.

Harriet grits her teeth.

“I’ll take the fight to them, you run ahead.”

“You can’t-” objects Three.

She turns her head towards him with the sincerest smile she can fake.

“Magpie got it right that I had no idea how strong I really was. Well, here goes.”

She focuses on the strange feeling in her bones, if her body even still has them, and knows where all the griffons are in an instant.

“LIGHT THE BIG ONE, MAGPIE!” she yells as she charges towards the approaching enemies.

A twisted eagle’s screech pierces the air again in response. Magpie doesn’t freeze. He’s been in a life or death situation so many times there’s no way he would, and he pulls out a large lantern from the backpack lying on the ground by his talons. With a quick flap of his wings, he throws the hook atop the lantern over the lowest branches of the nearest tree. He doesn’t fly higher to avoid flytraps.

White light spreads through the forest and he spots shadows dancing where Harriet must be fighting an impossible fight.

“Fuck my life, backwards, sideways, and twice over,” he curses after a moment of staring, “Stay here!” he barks at the trembling changelings, grabs a rock, and throws it at the nearest winged shadow.

It breaks away from the fighting, screeches, and charges towards Magpie.

Okay, so he can hack my head off with a talon, break my ribs with a tentacle slap, and liquify my insides with a punch. Advantages? He’s huge and the trees are thick everywhere around.

The corrupted griffon rams into several trees on the way, wet splinters scattering everywhere. Magpie only spins around the nearest thick trunk and hears the whole tree shake as the Corrupted tries to keep up with his agility in such tight space and fails.

Great, now to keep it up for the few minutes before the other four kill Harriet and go for us.

“Thirteen, we must help!” says Three, his head snapping from the big battle to Magpie’s chaotic dodging around trees.

“...how…?” Thirteen breathes out, paralyzed with horror.

“Ttinkthinkthinkthinkthinkthinkthink!” Three mutters over and over, “Climb up a tree, now! Don’t fly, climb!” he points at the nearest one.

“Oh right, they don’t handle heights well!” Thirteen scrambles up with the help of her wings. She keeps slipping and hoofing against the wet bark and to her panicking mind it takes forever but she eventually makes it. When there, she looks down at-

Three’s not there.

With complete horror, she sees the small drone pick up a rock and throw it at one of the Corrupted just like Magpie did.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” her hive link scream makes Three wince.

“Helping,” he replies, closing the link.

“THREE!” Thirteen screams in the real world.

A shadow splits away from the big battle, approaching the retreating Three who shoves his foreleg into his beard now hanging by one ear, dislodged from the other stump by the frantic activity.

“Where is it, where is it? Ah-hah!” something clicks around his fetlock and he pulls out a strange black bracer along with his foreleg out of whatever the pocket dimension inside his beard is.

He points it at the Corrupted, whose back tentacles spread out menacingly, and clicks his fetlock downwards.

A small holographic image of Six waving at Three appears floating in the air.

“Oops, wrong setting!” Three waves the foreleg and starts poking the bracer with his other foreleg.

The griffon lunges, razor-sharp beak open, clearing the distance between the two in one jump.

A shimmering barrier of blue light appears in front of Three just in time, originating from the bracer. The sheer force of impact sends Three flying away and rolling across the forest floor.

Three himself is surprised at how clear his mind is and how quickly he gets back up until-

-a terrifyingly sharp spike of agony makes him cough after he tries to push himself forward with the foreleg wearing the dwarven shield generator. He raises the leg up a little before the agony shoots through it again. The entirety of the chitin is cracked and green flesh is clearly visible underneath, goo bleeding from the open wounds.

“Uh oh...” he looks up at the Corrupted now approaching with much more care as a good chunk of his face seems to have been scorched and disintegrated after hitting the energy field cast by the bracer at full force.

Three doesn’t know if it’s just the adrenaline but his brain is working faster than ever before in his life. He can’t take another hit. The barrier might stop the impact and dampen the force transferred into him but the Corrupted is clearly so strong that his body can’t take even that and he doesn’t have the love to go full brick mode.

Maybe he could float up to Thirteen? He did buy Miss Harriet nearly a minute already after all.

He recalls drinking all that alcohol in Wilbur’s Pass. A second of working with his internal plumbing later, he spits out a goo mixture.

It comes out as a small jawbreaker that drops harmlessly on the ground.

Aaaaaaah! Now’s not the time for candy! Plan B then.

He looks up at the lowest tree branches nearby and in the light of Magpie’s big lantern notices a corrupted berry further up in the canopy. He quickly opens his hive link and sends the location to Thirteen.

“I need you to get that berry.”

“Why?”

“I have an idea but I can’t get there with my leg in this shape. You have to jump between the trees and climb higher. I’ll buy you time!”

“Three, just come to where I am and I’ll pull you up!” she objects.

“I’M NOT LEAVING MISTER MAGPIE AND MISS HARRIET WITHOUT HELP!”

Three takes a deep breath. He might be small and, he has to admit, sheltered but you don’t live two and a half centuries among the most awesome changelings in the world without learning some tricks.

Okay, so Miss One did this a lot when she got into trouble.

With a flicker of green, his crippled foreleg goes completely numb, having its pain receptors turned off. He’s never done it before but he knows the theory. It’s going to hurt a lot more later and take longer to heal but if it increases the chance of there being any ‘later’ it’s worth it.

He points the foreleg at the Corrupted slowly circling around him which hisses when faced with the shimmering blue barrier directed his way again.

Thirteen, shaking like a particularly resilient leaf during a tornado, looks down and then at the nearest tree, then back down, grits her teeth, and jumps towards the first stable branch on her way to the corrupted berry.

She ignores the pained gasp followed by a thud coming from where Magpie is fighting his own opponent. She can’t help there. Hole, she’s pretty sure she can’t help here either but her head draws blanks regarding any way she can help so all she has to do is listen.

Maybe like being a warrior changeling who can only hit things really hard but needs someone else to make things better. Someone who might be weak but with dreams.

Magpie coughs, spikes of pain shooting through his entire body. He failed to dodge once and now he’s on the ground with his ribcage fractured and vision swimming. A black shadow he can’t see clearly through tears of pain rears over him and screeches in victory. Years of experience win and he pulls out a Guild pistol from his belt, quickly aiming forward and firing several shots.

The Corrupted only winces but seconds mean everything in a situation like this. Now, for example, it means that Magpie can roll to the side and pull a shotgun from his back. He didn’t want to use it because in the still, dark world, light and sound travel far and would likely draw even more enemies towards them but beggars can’t be choosers.

The Corrupted steps over him, and brings down his head to tear Magpie open.

“Eat lead, assbeak,” the griffon shoves the barrel of the shotgun into the approaching open beak and pulls the trigger.

Chunks of tainted flesh scatter everywhere as the Corrupted’s neck and the back of his head explode.

Magpie is about to breathe a sigh of relief just as the Corrupted’s beak bites down, bending the shotgun barrel.

“I didn’t mean it literally!” Magpie pushes the weapon forward, leaving the griffon flailing his head impaled halfway through with a shotgun, and scrambles to dodge his stomping legs as he rolls away.

Harriet punches a Corrupted pouncing at her straight in the neck, her clawed foreleg cleaving right through with its sheer brute force. The griffon still lands on her, though, and before she manages to punch him off with her other foreleg, she feels a sharp beak of one of the others close around the back of her neck in an attempt to sever her spine.

It slips on her back scales, resulting only in a scratch, and her back tentacles start whipping at the griffon’s eyes on their own, making him back off.

She’s managed to take care of one of the three fighting her but she doesn’t have the time to help the others with the two who split off. The griffons just take too long to kill as being inside their own territory is giving them durability and regeneration she can’t easily overcome. Thankfully, her own body and the combat experience she gained over the past half a year seem to be enough to keep her alive and slowly winning, mostly because the griffons keep getting into each other’s way.

They’re not too smart.

Short distance away, Thirteen has finally climbed up to the berry pointed out by Three.

“I got it!” she calls out, starting her descent, “Do you want me to give it to Miss Harriet?” she asks through the hive link.

“No, get it here!” replies Three, still backing off and leading the Corrupted around a tree just like he saw Magpie do. He’s sure the Corrupted’s fear of the energy barrier won’t last forever, though.

He takes an unexpected step forward, poking the griffon with the barrier.

A big mistake.

The Corrupted backs off but he also realizes that his disintegrated face hasn’t been damaged further. Three looks at the barrier and frowns.

“Welp, that was a bad idea. Why did it burn him before?” he asks and yelps as the griffon swings a back tentacle against the shield, punting the light changeling away again, this time thankfully without the chiting-shattering force.

“Hey!” Thirteen calls out from a branch nearby. She snaps off a long branch above her and starts smacking the griffon over the head.

He swings his forelegs against the branch with little to no effect and then one of his tentacles wraps around it and pulls.

Thirteen lets go in time but loses her balance. The best she can do is spin around mid-fall and land on her back, protecting the berry from being squished.

The griffon sniffs the air and his head snaps towards Thirteen.

Three shuts off the shield generator and limps towards dazed Thirteen just as the griffon rears for a jump. The drone snatches the berry with his mouth and shuffles away from Thirteen, luring the Corrupted to himself.

Okay, Miss Gem said those transformed into Corrupted can still understand Common. Wild Corrupted can supposedly understand a little too even if they never came into contact with talking creatures.

“Be nice! Get food!” Three calls out, holding out the berry.

The griffon screeches.

“Bad! No food!”

The griffon shuts up instantly.

Three bites a small piece of the hoof-sized berry and tosses it towards the griffon who snatches it before it even hits the ground.

Part of his disintegrated face heals instantly.

“Don’t help them!” hisses Thirteen, “Give it to Miss Harriet! She can get stronger and kill them all!”

Three ignores her and beckons the griffon to come closer with another, smaller piece of the berry.

Step by step, Three walks closer to the Corrupted who extends his back tentacles and keeps hissing.

“Bad, no food!” Three takes one step backwards. The griffon goes still.

“Nice. Food,” Three gives him another piece, fully aware he’s running out of tools quickly here.

As the griffon swallows the next piece, Three’s standing straight in front of him.

The griffon opens his beak wide.

“Nu-uh!” Three hides the berry under his belly.

The beak closes.

Three’s wings start buzzing as he gives the griffon another small piece and, while he’s swallowing, the drone flies up in its back.

The six back tentacles wrap around him instantly.

“No food!” Three calls out.

The tentacles let him go and Three hugs the back of the Corrupted’s neck with a wide grin.

“Good guy,” he pets the Corrupted’s head, unaware of Thirteen staring at him with her mouth wide open.

Magpie was right. He’s an idiot! He’s a complete and total idiot!

BUT IT WORKS FOR HIM!

Harriet is standing atop one of the two remaining griffons, trying to punch his head into mush to finally get rid of him while her back tentacles warn her of a rapid movement of air nearby. She jumps aside as the second griffon she’s fighting gets slammed into the nearest tree.

Through blood rushing in her ears she hears an excited:

“Yee-haw!”

Three is riding a griffon Corrupted who has just grabbed the dazed attacker’s head into his forelegs and ripped it off. She can feel that Three’s griffon is vastly stronger than the others and her silent question is answered when Three offers the griffon a smooshed chunk of a berry which the Corrupted licks off of Three’s healthy foreleg using all three of his tongues with utmost care.

“Miss Harriet, where’s Mister Magpie?”

“Aw crap!” she curses and, now without any distractions, rams her claws into the final griffon’s eyes.

Doing that, however, reveals the forest is silent again.

“Oh no...” Harriet breathes out, quickly looking around.

Three hops off of the Corrupted, gives him what little is left of the berry, smiles at him and says:

“Now shoo!”

The griffon runs off into the darkness. Three’s just about ready to collapse but the silence around only conjures up images of one dead Magpie and Miss Gem would be super sad if that was the case.

As Three limps after Harriet, Thirteen joins them between several shredded three trunks where Magpie is lying on his back next to a dead Corrupted slowly liquifying and draining into the soil, blood coming from his beak soaking the ground under his head.

“Magpie? Magpie!” Harriet leans closer, “He’s still breathing!”

“...did the… idiot really… feed and ride… a fucking griffon Corrupted…?” Magpie croaks.

“Yep!” Three leans into Magpie’s field of view and beams.

“...I hate you… so much...” the griffon’s eyes roll back and he passes out.

Three’s hind legs suddenly give out and he unceremoniously collapses on his butt.

“Oops...” he mumbles, his vision going hazy. With whatever little remains from his strength he raises his shredded foreleg and the shield generator covered in blood and shards of chitin, “Awww… I better.. clean it or boss… will get mad...”

He closes his eyes and Thirteen catches him keeling backwards before he hits the ground.

“Guess it’s just the two of us for now,” Harriet breathes out with a smile and looks down at Magpie, “You know? No one will ever believe me if I say I know a griffon who killed a griffon Corrupted Hunter on his own without specialized equipment and armor.”

Thirteen clears her throat.

“I’ve got a drone here who tamed one and rode him into battle,” Thirteen grins, “I win.”

As their adrenaline washes away, they can’t help but laugh like crazy even as they administer what little first aid they can. Clearly, Three is mostly exhausted but Magpie must have some internal injuries and a serious concussion. He’ll need a real doctor and, hopefully, there will still be one in Windy. After gathering all their gear and backpacks, Harriet’s back tentacles load him up onto her back and the soft ground under her hooves allows for smooth walking.

“Are you okay?” asks Thirteen as they walk along, guided east by Harriet’s compass, “You had the rough part.”

Harriet ponders her own situation for a moment and answers:

“Physically? I guess so. Those scratches sting a little but punches and blunt trauma do next to nothing to Corrupted. My dragon scales protected me from anything lethal. I’m way more terrified of what we’re going to see in Windy… and how they are going to see us.”

Thirteen sighs.

“I wish I could fight like you...”

“You don’t want to become a Corrupted, you really don’t,” Harriet shakes her head, “It might have its uses but the unbelievable series of fortunate events that had to happen for me not to go wild wasn’t much fun.”

“I’d still go for it… I think the end result might be worth it.”

“Didn’t Gem say that your mother put you through some crazy training until you gave up?”

“That’s different!” objects Thirteen, “That wasn’t going anywhere, I was just failing at anything she or Five wanted me to do. Your transformation works!”

“Thirteen,” Harriet shakes her head, “It’s a constant battle against my instincts, although it is getting easier. I never knew if I would go nuts every time a lewd thought crossed my mind. I never knew if I would wake up in the morning as a sane pony and not a wild Corrupted. I never knew Prominence’s method would work, I just kept going. Step by step, day by day. All I wanted was to not hurt anyone and to come back home.”

Thirteen lowers her head.

“I think I’m starting to understand mom a bit...”

“How come?”

“She wants to protect dad no matter what and tries to make sure there’s no weakness around to exploit. I was that weakness. She didn’t care about the Hundreds because while dad wouldn’t willingly sacrifice them in case of trouble, he might understand that there can be some greater good in that. She knew he would never leave me in trouble. He would jump into magma for me and mom wanted to make sure he’d never have to.”

“He did sendyou and Three to the Crystal Empire.”

“Three can explain dad’s reasoning better about that,” Thirteen shakes her head, “I just think I’m beginning to understand mom, that’s all… and it’s scary that I agree with her more and more because...”

“Because you’re starting to think about Three the same way she thinks about your dad,” Harriet finishes the thought and catches Thirteen’s surprised glance, “Don’t look so shocked. As much as I’d like to take credit for being able to see into others, I don’t. Gem told me on the way to Manehattan.”

“Yeah... who else would see it before I even admit it to myself, right?” Thirteen rolls her eyes.

“It’s not a bad thing, if you want my opinion.”

It IS. I’m a burden.

A tiny part of her mind, however, comes up with:

A burden that jumped between tree canopies in a corrupted territory in the middle of a battle without fear of flytraps and followed your… boss’ orders to the letter.

Huuuh...

Sweet home: Reunion

A choked out wheeze leaves Harriet’s throat as the line of trees finally gives way to open country and she stops dead in her tracks. Thirteen turns her head for any signs of danger and, spotting nothing imminent, looks at Harriet who is just staring ahead with an expression of dawning horror.

“What’s wrong? I can’t see anything,” she asks, adding. “The village looks fine.”

“The territory...” Harriet breathes out, “was over a day away from Windy when I left.”

Thirteen blinks as she stares at the small collection of houses and lights set at the base of a large hill that’s easily within an hour of casual walking.

“It spread that far over half a year?”

“Yeah,” Harriet’s head spins, “We have to move and not only because I think Magpie’s breathing is getting slower. I hope the doc is still working.”

They’ve been walking without sleep since the encounter with the griffons for fear that Magpie might not make it. Thirteen is limping with Three on her back, not sure herself where she’s getting the love to keep going. Harriet is physically fine, much more worried about her cargo and now about the state of affairs in Windy.

They head forward as quickly as they can and in some ten minutes they notice a deep scar in the ground filled with ash, seemingly going on forever to both north and south, separating Windy from the encroaching forest.

“What’s this?” asks Thirteen as they cross the ashen groove. Harriet shrugs.

“No idea. It wasn’t here before. My best guess is that they’re trying to build some kind of barrier against corruption.”

“Oh, does it work?”

“No, burning the surface doesn’t do anything. They just don’t have the experience from Equestria we do.”

Soon, they’re walking through the empty streets of Windy with Harriet in the lead. No one is outside but on occasion they do hear movement behind the windows they pass by.

“Do you think we’ll have a mob with torches and pitchforks on our tails soon?” whispers Thirteen as she hears the screeching of a wardrobe being moved across the floor.

“Nah,” Harriet shakes her head which makes Thirteen breathe out in relief. At least until she adds with a smirk to herself, “There’s not enough griffons in Windy for a proper mob.”

Thirteen grumbles something Harriet can’t decipher.

Not wishing to tease Thirteen any more, Harriet leads the way further and they soon stop at the door of one of the bigger houses in the village.

“Is this the place?” asks Thirteen, “I can’t see any markings or writing.”

“This is a tiny village. Everyone who lives here knows everyone else. There’s no need for any banners or stuff. The only marked places here are the tavern and the general store and that’s only for the caravans.”

Harriet takes a deep breath.

I can’t hesitate or be afraid. I don’t have a choice. If I mess around or fail, Magpie might die and I sure am not explaining that to Gem when she arrives.

She knocks on the door.

“Doctor Fairfeather?” she calls out, “Are you there? We have a badly wounded griffon here.”

Pawsteps come from the inside, followed by clicking of locks.

“Damn it, more-?” the griffon peeks out and instantly slams the door shut, or at least tries to because Harriet was anticipating it and shoved her foreleg through the door immediately.

“Doctor, please don’t scream. We need help!” Harriet speaks out as quickly as she can but pushes through the door despite the elderly griffon’s resistance.

She was here many times over when her mom was trying to figure out if there was something wrong with a dragon-pony hybrid whenever Harriet’s temperature went up or other unidentifiable stuff came over her. Never, though, had Fairfeather’s living room been converted to an emergency room and filled with eight griffons in various states of consciousness, the livelier ones gasping in horror at Harriet’s arrival.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” objects Fairfeather as Harriet lowers herself and her tentacles gently put Magpie on the floor, “Who are you?!”

Harriet looks the doctor in the eyes.

“Do you know any other dragonpony, doctor?”

“Harriet?!” Fairfeather’s beak drops.

“In the tainted flesh,” she smiles, tearing up a little, “I would love nothing more than to have a chat about how things are,” she nods to the wounded griffons around, “but I think I have a pretty clear idea. Besides, Magpie needs help. We’ve been going through the night to get him here after we were attacked by wild Corrupted. I think it’s something internal as well as a concussion.”

Fairfeather’s training and experience take over as he ignores the presence of two changelings and begins poking Magpie in various places.

“Can you help Three too?” blurts out Thirteen while angling herself to show Three’s foreleg covered in crusted blood.

“I don’t know anything about changeling biology,” replies Fairfeather immediately after a brief glance.

“C-Can we help?” Thirteen speaks out quietly.

“Unless you’re a trained and certified surgeon you can leave and stop scaring my other patients. Most of them are here because of Corrupted and your presence really isn’t helping,” replies Fairfeather without looking at her.

“I noticed the territory has spread so far-” Harriet begins asking and is interrupted immediately.

“Harriet, what did I just say?”

“Sorry, doctor,” Harriet grabs Thirteen by one shoulder and with a gentle push leads her out of the house, “Come. We’ll give Three a hug or two and he’ll be good as new.”

“...allthehugs...” mutters Three, his forelegs twitching.

Outside, Harriet takes a deep breath of the chilly air.

“Do we go visit your dad now?” asks Thirteen.

“I...” Harriet puffs out her chest and deflates the next instant, “After Fairfeather’s reaction I think I need… I need… I need a moment,” she breathes out, “Let’s visit Raymond first.”

“Who’s that?” Thirteen follows as Harriet starts walking down the street.

“The owner of the local tavern. I used to work there as a waitress,” replies Harriet, “He’s always been nice to me even when I was small and strange.”

“Well, now you’re big and strange, so it’s only a size change,” Thirteen sticks her tongue out at her. Her attempt at cheering nervous Harriet up fails as she only sighs and says:

“We can only hope.”

Like in most tiny villages, the tavern is in the middle and serves as a gathering place as well as a cultural exchange center with any foreign guests who might be passing by. It’s a big, two-story building with a bar on the bottom, rooms for guests upstairs, and a griffon firing several bullets her way as soon as she enters through the main door.

The bullets that don’t bounce off of her chest scales simply plop limply on the floor after hitting her corrupted flesh.

“I should be getting used to this, shouldn’t it?” Harriet smirks apologetically at the griffons around who clearly were chatting and listening to the radio before jumping behind overturned furniture at her arrival.

“Harriet?!” the griffon lowers the pistol.

“Raymond,” her smirk grows into a smile as she sheepishly approaches him, “Long time no see.”

“I… I thought I wouldn’t see you again!” he rushes towards her and pulls her into a hug. Well, tries to but with her strength and size he only pulls himself towards her, “When your dad came back and asked where you went I told him I tried to stop you and-”

“Shhh. It doesn’t matter anymore,” Harriet returns the hug, “It was a long trip but I’m back.”

“Have you seen Hazaren yet?” asks Raymond.

“No, we just arrived. One of my friends got badly hurt by Corrupted on the way here so we brought him to doctor Fairfeather. I wanted to go home but...” she pauses, “But then I remembered I’m like this now.”

Raymond breaks the hug and grabs Harriet’s cheeks.

“Gathering courage, eh? Do you need some liquid help?” he asks, “Does it even still work on you?”

Harriet scratches her head, blushing a little.

“I’m not sure but right now I could use all the help I can get.”

“And what about… them?” he asks, his friendly expression hardening as he looks at Thirteen and Three.

“Umm, we don’t drink, really,” squeaks Thirteen, taking a step back when faced with the griffon’s much colder stare.

“I don’t think that’s what Raymond meant,” Harriet chuckles, “They’re my friends, or technically the family of one of my friends who saved me in Equestria.”

“Then you’ve got some stories to tell,” the griffon winks at her and smiles again.

“You have no idea,” Harriet pauses, “Wait, do you even have drinks to spare?”

“Well, nothing too alcoholic,” he shakes his head, “I gave all I had to Fairfeather as disinfectant and anesthetic for the wounded. We’ve been attacked by a Corrupted three days ago and it didn’t go well.”

“Dad didn’t help you?”

“We caught the creature prowling through the streets and needed to get rid of it quickly. There was no time to send anyone to Hazaren.”

“I saw the wounded at Fairfeather’s. It was pretty bad.”

“Yeah, we’re not equipped to deal with Corrupted at all. We have few swords passed down from father to son, pitchforks, and several guns for the whole town. Heck, I’m the most fit fighter here and I’m almost sixty. The guys are strong but it doesn’t mean much when compared to one of them.”

“One of us,” Harriet sighs.

“Them, Harriet,” Raymond puts a glass in front of her, “Them.”

She downs the drink in one gulp, shivering at the burning sweetness as it goes down her throat. After a deep breath, she opens her eyes.

“I think I’m going to need another one… or another ten.”

“Come now,” Raymond pours her another drink, “Just take it easy. Hazaren might be a dragon but he nearly bit my head off when I told him I didn’t tie you down in my cellar and wait for him to come back. I think Red Wind’s death made him realize that you were his only family now. Speaking of your mother… did you…?”

“Catch her murderers and make them pay?” Harriet finishes the question, “Yes, I did. With some help from her sister,” she glances at Thirteen currently pondering how to get on a bar stool without dropping Three, “I’m keeping these two safe until she comes for them. We’re kinda… being hunted in Equestria.”

“All the way there, eh? Well, you’re welcome here and your friends as well, even though they’re… you know.”

“Changelings,” Thirteen pouts at him.

“Thirteen, chill,” says Harriet, “Trust me, this is the warmest welcome you’re going to get in the Empire this far from Equestria.”

“I don’t really care but do you think he deserves to be treated like this?” Thirteen finally decides to dislodge Three from her back and puts him on the bar stool where he curls up into a ball.

Harriet pauses before looking back at Raymond and saying:

“I gotta agree with Thirteen on this one. Three’s a little… special.”

“Not gonna eat my brain and make me murder my family?” one of the griffons around calls out.

“Hey!” Thirteen scowls their way. Before she can say anything else, Harriet raises her foreleg and stops her.

“Mister Yassir, I’m pretty sure there was a time when you southerners would receive the exact same greeting around here. And no, Three doesn’t eat brains, Thirteen doesn’t eat brains. As far as I know, he subsists on hugs, smiles, rainbows, and pure happiness, don’t ask me how it works. If you don’t believe me, he also pukes candy you can try. Tastes like mint and lime. I’d like to see you do that.”

“I’m harmless too!” squeaks Thirteen.

“Likely story,” comes from somewhere but before either of them can react, Raymond clears his throat and says:

“Girls, we have enough trouble these days. No need to make it worse. You won’t talk griffons out of lifetimes of fear and hate. To be honest, I’m not kicking you out only because Harriet is like a daughter to me.”

“Awww,” Harriet lowers her head, blushing, “Thanks.”

“You should still go visit your real dad as soon as you can,” Raymond looks at her meaningfully, “One more for the road?” he taps a talon against Harriet’s glass.

She shakes her head.

“I don’t think it’s working. You know,” she looks around. “when we passed through a tavern in Wilbur’s Pass it looked much worse than here. No food and barely anything to drink.”

“Chineighese ponies have been sending us some supplies. They’re big on natural magic so they can grow a little food even without the sun. Last caravan leader I talked to, though, said the cold was becoming a huge problem. I feel for the folk in Wilbur’s but with the Corrupted territory spreading we can’t share even what little we have. Aren’t they getting disaster aid? I heard on the radio that the Legion is rationing supplies all over the Empire.”

“Supposedly, Irongrips aren’t sending help to Redtalon lands.”

“Are you bloody serious?!” Raymond facetalons, “I thought we weren’t getting anything from the heartland because of the corruption, not because of damn politics.”

“Didn’t anyone arrive from Bloodstone?”

“There are no Redtalons anymore, Harriet. Bloodstone is under the rule of an Irongrip regent and old Altberg died several months ago. I heard rumors about poison but the official story is old age. A lot of residents from surrounding cities and villages moved to Bloodstone when the sun disappeared. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

“Long story, Raymond.”

“Wait, I was joking. You do know?”

“We’ll have time to talk about it later. Besides, if my dad doesn’t take my new… existence too well I might need a place to stay.”

“You’re painting a really dark picture for yourself.”

“I got shotgunned in the chest in Wilbur’s and I think you still have few bullets to sweep off of the floor, Raymond. Now I’m about to surprise a red dragon,” she sighs and gets off of the stool, “Do you mind if these two stay here for now? I’ll come pick them up later if I’m not a charred lump.”

“We can come with you,” says Thirteen quickly, not eager to stay in a tavern full of griffons, “For, you know, moral support or something.”

“No offense, Thirteen,” Harriet shakes her head, “but this isn’t for you nor Three.”

“Give her some time alone with her dad,” says Raymond as Harriet walks outside, “You can stay here for now. I already let a Corrupted in and you look more pony-like than any changeling I saw during my time in the Legion,” he nods to Three, “Is the mane fake like this one’s beard? Is it male or female?”

“Technically he naturally doesn’t have the parts to be either but Three’s a he.”

“Hee hee,” Three giggles and sticks his tongue out.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Delirious from hunger and exhaustion, that’s all. We both are at the end of our rope. It was a rough trip.”

“Sooo if you don’t eat brains...” Raymond looks at Thirteen with a puzzled expression.

“We need someone to love or like us,” explains Thirteen, “I’m not too familiar with changeling history but I think the usual method was to replace someone beloved and feed off of others’ love for them. My dad is against it and says we have to create our place in the world as ourselves. Oh, and we can use lust too but it’s not great for me or Three.”

“You picked a rough place to start for any of those,” Raymond snorts.

“Long story short, it wasn’t exactly a choice,” Thirteen smiles, “We’re supposed to stay here in Windy with Miss Harriet and wait for my sister so we’ll have time to talk once we get to know each other.”

She pauses for a moment.

“Come to think of it, do you have a good blacksmith around?” she taps her hoof against the counter, “One who knows their way around electronics.”

“Not really, few guys can repair farming equipment but we don’t have the precision gear for any delicate work. Heck, if the radio ever stops working we’ll be cut off from the Imperial heartland completely.”

“Hmmm...” Thirteen pokes Three whose tongue just lolls out of his mouth, “Alright, maybe later,” she looks at Raymond, “Mind if we sit down in the corner and just listen to the radio?”

Raymond taps the counter.

“Stay here. That way I can make sure no one bothers you.”

“Alright,” Thirteen lays her head on the counter, closes her eyes, and slowly breathes out, “Thank you.”

“I can turn the radio off if you want to take a nap. Most of the griffons here are barely listening to the music anyway.”

“Do you have news broadcasts here on the surface too?” asks Thirteen, “I like talk radio the most. Plays and books are the best.”

“I think there are some late show reruns. Jokes about ongoing politics, how about that?”

“Sounds fun. Thank you.”

After all, it’s difficult to despise two defenseless changelings who closed their eyes in enemy territory.

Where did that calculating thought come from?

***

Harriet stops in front of the cave atop the hill overlooking Windy. The small door next to it leading to her family’s house carved into the hill is locked so she can’t even take a break to compose herself inside her home.

“Guess there’s no delaying it anymore,” she mumbles to herself and heads into the cave.

The short cave opens into a large cavern lit only by the faint glimmer of magic cast by something in the pile of gold, gems, and artefacts on which a huge red dragon is sleeping, breathing slowly.

Harriet approaches with glacial slowness, torn between waking her dad up to find out what’s going to happen and savoring the moment of seeing him again after so long.

A mistake.

For such a massive creature, Hazaren raises his foreleg with shocking speed and slams it down on Harriet with the full force of an ancient dragon, only one eye lazily open as if dealing with an annoying insect.

He opens his other eye when he realizes his foreleg hasn’t touched the rocky ground.

Harriet is squatted on her hind legs, her massive glutes giving the rest of her Corrupted Protector body the upwards push successfully forcing Hazaren to back off and rise to his full height, spread his wings, and open his mouth.

“It’s me, d-” the air around Harriet evaporates under the onslaught of dragon fire.

As she holds her breath, Harriet feels the stone floor crack and melt under the nearly liquid heat washing over her. As far as she knows, only two things are decently effective against Corrupted - fire and acid. And now, now she knows that the mortal races must be praying that no branch of Corrupted ever gains Harriet’s fireproof genes.

When the fire breath abates, Harriet remains standing in the pool of molten rock, staring straight into the slit golden eyes of Hazaren.

“DAD, IT’S ME!” she screams from the top of her lungs, “HARRIET! I KNOW I WASN’T SUPPOSED TO LEAVE ON MY OWN, I’M SORRY! BUT I AVENGED MOM, AND-”

Looking straight up, she doesn’t notice Hazaren’s foreleg grabbing her from the side and bringing her up to the dragon’s muzzle.

“Harriet...?” he breathes out in amazement, “Is that really you?”

He didn’t cry when she was born. He didn’t cry when she was young and going through illnesses no doctor within reachable distance knew. He didn’t cry after he returned and heard that she left to chase Red Wind’s killers.

“Harriet!” the streak ends as huge tears splash against the gold of his hoard.

Harriet can’t say anything without devolving into incoherent blubbering herself so she just gives her dad’s muzzle a full body hug, tentacles and everything, sobbing out of pure happiness.

“I’m home.”

[Monthly summary report for Twilight Sparkle]

Your Majesty,

I’ve compiled the monthly report. Overall, the situation is steadily getting worse but this month we seem to have avoided any catastrophic issues. As always, full original reports are in the EIS archives.

1 - Food situation

With the gradual production of the mechanized plants we’ve managed to increase food production to a level where Vanhoover, Pine Hills, and the new Las Pegasus encampment are capable of fully sustaining their population. Ponyville is still going to take approximately three weeks and Canterlot is expected to take a similar amount of time. Manehattan, Crystal Empire, and the refugee camps in the south are in the worst shape, the first two due to large populations and the camps due to lacking infrastructure. Transporting fully assembled mechanized plants is beyond our capabilities. However, as soon as Ponyville is completely self-sufficient, the entirety of its manufacturing capabilities will be set on supplying the south.

All in all, we’re a lot better off than we were a month ago.

2 - Heat situation

Here’s where all our success breaks down. Unicorns all over Equestria are doing all they can to keep heaters charged and the fact that we’re able to feed them now has definitely helped but we’ve counted first cases of freezing to death in the elderly population. My suggestion is to move those without families out of their homes into some shared establishments where we’ll be able to take better care of them.

In the last report, I calculated that the surface would become uninhabitable within half a year. That assessment included the lack of ability to produce food as well. Considering the success regarding that, I’m updating my previous predictions about the surface turning uninhabitable from sheer cold to seven months. If there’s a good part about anything, it’s that there’s very little snow despite the cold. Without the sun to evaporate water during the day the air is simply very dry and the ground frozen with only light dusting of snow.

3 - Internal security

With the capture of subject AAA34, we’re in the clear regarding internal threats. There’s little to no unrest among the citizens anymore since everypony is focused on the imminent threat of cold. Conspiracy theories have died off when faced with the reality of the environment becoming increasingly hostile and the new supply of food is preventing trouble regarding stealing from each other. My suggestion is to seize personal power and heat sources and use the Guard branches to oversee daily rationing. That way it will be easier to avoid stealing or hoarding of energy crystals which seems to be the incoming problem.

Other than that, there’s growing general irritation among unicorn royalty about having to eat the same artificial sludge as the commoners but nothing serious so far. As long as no one sees princess Celestia eat any of her emergency cake reserve, we should be in the clear.

4 - Foreign affairs

Zebrica:

I’m not sure where to even start with this one. The death toll in Zebrica is rising each day due to our inability to provide food or heat. Only several biomass power plants along the entire northern coast are running and due to the increasing cold, they’re slowly losing the ability to draw power from rivers and dams either. The only good thing on the horizon regarding this is that we’re slowly producing the artificial farms and supplying the states of the Northern Coalition.

Now, the EIS expedition you sent out based on my last report has confirmed the rumors that there’s someone rebuilding the south of Zebrica. Their first report speaks of technology far beyond anything we or the griffons possess. However, so far the report denied any changeling involvement which makes me think there must be some third party having access to Silversmith technology. It’s not the Silver Sun either, as they’ve relocated into the Griffon Empire and the EIS attempts at finding their new base have all failed. Now, the problem is that they seem to be hostile to the EIS agents and have denied them access to the city. We don’t have the luxury to send any bigger expedition to the mysterious faction so we’ll have to wait for further details from general observation.

The Griffon Empire:

With the full recovery of Emperor Cassius Irongrip, the situation within the Imperial north and the heartland seems to have stabilized. However, the unrest in the southern states keeps growing due to famine. Nomad raids have become increasingly severe as they search for granaries to plunder and some intelligence we received states that states might be declaring wars for resources. The Emperor’s recovery might put an end to that but the Empire is massive and it might take weeks for any action of the GIL to make a difference.

Rift:

No information from Rift, Your Majesty. The minotaurs have turned princess Cadance’s peace delegation away.

The Dragon Lands:

Dragon Lord Ember declared that all dragons are to stay on the island and use its volcanic nature to survive the cold. The only effect I can estimate is that it will eliminate their next breeding season due to the eggs needing both heat and fresh air.

5 - Escaped changelings:

As far as we know, they’ve escaped to the Griffon Empire. There are several EIS agents looking for them as per your orders but they’ve been told not to engage if they find them. So far no luck.

6 - The Project

With the help of , we’ve started building a facility called ‘the particle accelerator’ in the site deep under the old mines under Canterlot mountain due to space requirements. Queen Chrysalis’ drones are proving a great help at digging out the area. The presumed energy requirements for the accelerator, however, exceed anything within our disposal so our best bet is that the tectonic generator plans divulged by will lead to a device capable of powering it.

7 - Minor news

Not much, really. I’ve had several ‘encounters’ with Bucket regarding our messages being sent via the Silver Sun network. No matter what, I can’t secure our communication against him reading it. However, I am now capable of figuring out if a message has been read or changed. I can’t tell how long that is going to last or if Bucket is aware of this, he’s so much more advanced than I am it’s downright silly. Still, examining his methods is teaching me much in a very short time.

Bookworm.

[End of report]

Sweet home: Recovering

“He’s not going to make it.”

“What? NO!”

“Harriet, I have no idea how he was even still alive when you brought him here. He’s been in a concussion coma for four days and he shows no signs of waking up. I made an x-ray, I opened him, and stitched up all I could. I don’t think I’ve seen resilience like that in a griffon and I’ve treated career soldiers but there’s a limit to what a body can do. His pulse has been steadily weakening since yesterday and his pupils stopped reacting to anything. I don’t have the equipment here for a brain scan but I’m sure his brain waves are fading.”

“Gem’s gonna kill me...”

“Can we help?”

“No, Thirteen, we can’t.”

“Three, you remember the plans of some super tech stuff from home, don’t you? Can’t you help the griffons build a machine that would help him? Miss Harriet’s dad might part with a few gold pieces for conductors and stuff, right?”

“If Miss Gem was here she might but I don’t. I remember some principles or bits and pieces I spent some time messing with. I wish we had Six here, he would know.”

“Even if you had some miracle machine, if he has a whole day left I’ll be shocked. We wouldn’t have anyone who could build it in time... or the materials, or the parts really. If I were you I’d say your goodbyes now because in the morning it might be too late.”

“Can you leave us alone for a minute, doc?”

“Sure.”

Silence.

“Damn… I never thought it would end like this. Not after the dragonslayers, after Zebrica, and even after the end of the universe. I should have killed the other Corrupted faster...”

“You couldn’t, Miss Harriet. I was the useless one. He was an ass but he did his best to get us here.”

“You weren’t. Thirteen. The truth is that all of us did our part.”

“The grumpiest of griffons...”

“He wasn’t-”

“He still isn’t dead!”

“Three?”

“I said he still isn’t dead.”

“We know, but-”

“Then stop talking about him in past tense. I know how incredibly strong he must be to have survived captivity by minotaur headhunters. None of you do! I went with Miss One and Miss Five when one tribe caught one of Eleven’s bodies a long time ago. I’ve seen what they did to their prisoners, mostly crystal ponies or other minotaurs. If he got through that, no silly thing like concussion or some minor internal bleeding will stop him!”

“Three...”

“I’ll stay with him. Unlike either of you, I don’t take up much space so the doctor might not mind too much.”

“I’ll talk to doctor Fairfeather. Come, Thirteen.”

“Okay.”

***

[Message from Seven]

Well, boss, it’s been a while since my last message and holes, do I have news for you.

One - I know you sent Five to keep an eye on me which is exactly why she’s now the one bringing this message to you and who will also be walking to pay a visit to Two afterwards. I appreciate your concern but I’m fine. In the same way the deaths of millions of zebras weigh on your mind, they weigh on mine, that’s all. Don’t pretend you’re the only one to blame, it’s hypocritical and unbecoming of you. We are responsible. It might have been your idea but I was the one who did it.

Two - with the lesson in morality successfully behind us, we can get to business. Your portal idea was interesting and I worked on it for weeks before figuring out something amazing. Remember the metal arches in the “dead-end” tunnels in the Silversmith prison under Brauheim? We all thought they were just decorations, that the wiring and electronics inside were just part of the power grid of the city, and that the glyphs on them were street numbers. They weren’t.

The same arches are here and, if my theory is correct, Two’s expedition will find them as well. I compared some of the symbols here with the memories inside the hive mind and a good chunk of them match. Not all of them, though, which leads me to think they’re more… signposts than street numbers.

Signposts for what, I hear you ask?

Your own idea, at least Six thinks so. The wiring and electronics are incredibly complex even by dwarven standards and there's a specialized segment of the power grid specifically linked to the arches set up for some absolutely insane power source. The circuitry seems to be set up for an effect purely in a theoretical school of thought even for the dwarven theoretical physicists - energy and matter transfer.

The old dwarves must have beaten you to it millennia ago. Unless we’re all mistaken, they DID have teleporters between their cities. Non-magical, or partially magical ones. Six has been examining the wiring properly without all that dwarf nonsense about sanctity of ancient heritage and the need to discuss it forever and have it all looked at which they kept spouting back home whenever we wanted to disassemble anything of even remotely Silversmith origin. Here I just told them that we’ve uncovered this in the name of you and it belongs to us. If they have trouble with it, they can complain to Five’s laser gatling turret.

Now, there are several problems with the teleporter theory. One - we don’t have the power source. What we do have is an enormous cavern deep even under the city filled with melted and glassed mess of metals and traces of other materials. So yeah, whatever powered the presumed teleporters here is completely gone and I think it took most of the infrastructure around it with it. Two - even if we had the power source it seems to me that there’s also some kind of a key necessary to activate them. I tasked Five with taking a look around the city Two’s guys found. From the report it looked as if their city was in a way better shape than this. Besides, this is only an outpost while their site seems to be a full city.

My working theory is that during the war against the Twisted, old dwarves were afraid that they would somehow figure out how to use the teleporters and spread around all the cities instead of being systematically funneled to end up in the north. With that in mind, I won’t be working on creating our own fixed teleporters and figuring out a way to overcome the corrupted landscape’s magic dispersing effects like you wanted. Instead, Six and I will devote our efforts to analyzing the already existing teleporter technology because if we manage that, instead of reinventing the wheel, we might find a direct way to other dwarf cities around the globe.

Three - my expedition is over. There were some dwarves who went west with me at first but we came back and we won’t be heading that way anymore. The tunnels we discovered were all caved in or too narrow to get through without digging our way forward and rebuilding. When we returned, the dwarves declared that they’re going to turn the outpost into a city and leave the exploration of the west for once we have a working, self-sufficient settlement here.

Four - with the help of the Hundreds, we’ve dug our way to the surface while rebuilding the air vents around here and… well… we might have a slight problem down the line. It looks like there’s some sort of a city filled with Corrupted almost directly above us. The good news is that they’re not hostile and that they don’t seem inclined at all to follow us underground. The bad news is that we have no clue whether that’s a temporary state of affairs or whether we should be wary of random Corrupted heading down, especially if the temperature drops even further. We’ll just have to post guards and see.

Wishing you good luck,

Seven.

[End of message]

He cracks open his eyes a tiny bit. Dim light is coming from somewhere and there's the smell of disinfectant invading his nostrils in an attempt to cover the haze of sweat and other minor details he connects with any gathering of griffons in a small space.

Pounding headache assaults him as he tries to shift his position from his back to the side. The surface he’s lying on is soft so he sinks back in as the pain and a bout of nausea win over the discomfort in his back.

His left foreleg is wrapped around something hard and roughly round.

The best Magpie can do is turn his head a little and his still hazy mind takes in the round-ish, black object under his foreleg.

Gem?

No… too small.

Oh for crying out loud…

“...Three...” a weak breath escapes his beak.

The changeling curled up by his side doesn’t react at all. As Magpie slowly gathers what little is present of his wits and forces himself to rub his eyes, Three remains so still it’s impossible to tell if he’s even breathing. The only clue to his state is the fact that about every thirty seconds, with upsetting regularity, the pink runes on his fetlocks and neck light up a little before fading again.

“By the Emperor's talons!” Magpie’s movement draws a hasty and surprised yet quiet exclamation from Fairfeather keeping an eye on his patients who rushes over and immediately starts checking Magpie all over, “How are you feeling? Headache? Ribs? Should I put the bug away?”

“Don’t move… Three...” wheezes Magpie, “And stop… talking… my head… hurts.”

“Okay, so we have the expected headache,” whispers Fairfeather, “Now, you need water. You’ve been out for four days. I haven’t even read about a patient with such a serious concussion who has been unconscious for so long ever waking up.”

“Don’t move… the changeling...” is all Magpie repeats.

Great… now I’ll have to deal with Gem’s smirking and the inevitable ‘I told you so’. If she wants me to apologize to him, though, she’s sorely mistaken. That’s where I draw the line.

Magpie breathes out a sigh as he closes his eyes again under the frantic care of Fairfeather. With a small stab of horror he feels the bug loaf under his foreleg move and grab it with all four of his stubby legs.

The one time a Corrupted can’t kill a griffon properly...

***

When Magpie opens his eyes again, he’s not alone, even discounting Three once again curled up by his side.

“Welcome back to the world of the living,” whispers Harriet sitting by his bedroll, “Too bad I can’t say the same about Three.”

“What…?” croaks Magpie through a parched throat. He pushes himself into a sitting position, noting to himself that other than the bout of nausea he actually feels physically okay. A little weak and dizzy but no shooting pain or anything.

Harriet points at Three.

“He’s been like that ever since doctor Fairfeather told us you wouldn’t make it,” she says, expecting some sort of complaint from Magpie who, however, only looks down at Three and then around the dimly lit room where the only bright light is fastened to a coat hanger with wheels currently hanging above Fairfeather examining a moaning and thrashing griffon.

“There are more griffons here than before,” comments Magpie instead, “And different ones.”

Harriet sighs.

“Another Corrupted encounter. Raymond said that most of the time they survive them by locking themselves at home but from the testimony of the wounded the griffon grew from the ground and attacked them.”

“So the territory is already here.”

“Definitely,” Harriet nods, “I talked it out with my dad and Raymond and the town council gave me one of the empty houses left behind so that I could keep an eye on things here and respond to Corrupted threats. It’s much better than having to send a griffon for me up to the cave every time someone thinks they spotted a Corrupted.”

“Can’t your dad protect the town? Is he here?”

“Dragons aren’t exactly known for precision work. There’s a groove between Windy and the main territory dad burned into the ground in an attempt to slow the spread but he had no idea how Corruption worked. I’ve been explaining what I learned in Equestria but this is just a small town, completely unprepared to deal with anything like corruption, dragon or not. Here, I’ll catch you up on what happened during the last week and a half.”

Magpie decides to slowly stretch his legs and do some basic motions to get his blood flowing after being bedridden for so long while Harriet recaps what happened with the corrupted griffons and during their stay in Windy afterwards.

Most things she says are just filler to Magpie. It’s good that Harriet’s reunion with her father went so well, after the short killing attempt period. It’s good that the changelings don’t seem to be in any danger from the locals. And it’s good that Windy doesn’t seem to be suffering the famine reported in Wilbur’s Pass. Despite all that, Magpie’s thoughts keep returning to one thing.

“Any newcomers in town?” he asks.

“Yes, actually,” Harriet nods, “An old griffon arrived from the south with a caravan that left east to Chineigha, says he used to live here a long time ago. Dark blue coat, green forelegs and feathers, black streaks all over, and glasses.

Magpie scowls as a dull headache assaults him again.

“Do you know his name?”

Harriet tilts her head questioningly.

“Someone familiar?”

“Harriet!” Magpie hisses.

“Toss, Touchy, Tasee-”

“Tasheed?”

Harriet nods immediately.

“Yeah, that’s it! Bad news?”

“No… not exactly,” Magpie shakes his head, “He used to be my-”

“Hey, HEY!” Fairfeather’s raised voice interrupts him, followed by the sounds of struggling going louder.

As Magpie and Harriet turn their heads, the previously thrashing griffon fastened to the only real hospital bed in Fairfeather’s house rips his leather bonds off with a powerful heave and screeches.

Fairfeather makes the mistake of trying to push him back down as the tainted griffon grabs both of the doctor’s forelegs and twists. Harriet pounces to help immediately but with a crunch and Fairfeather’s scream, the damage is already done as the doctor collapses on the floor in agony.

Magpie tries to stand up but his head spins and he drops on his knees again, gasping for breath. From the corner of his eye, however, he sees Harriet grab the hissing and screeching griffon’s head.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers and snaps his neck. Immediately horrified by what she did, she falls on her butt and repeats, “I’m so sorry...”

Magpie pushes himself up with a growl and through a haze of nausea and with vision swimming he starts walking around the room.

“Harriet, help me!” he snaps at the mare staring at her forelegs in horror.

“I just killed-”

“You killed a Corrupted, not a griffon. Don’t overthink it!” he orders sharply, “He would have killed or bred everyone else here and then we’d have a bunch more around, doing the same to everyone in the village.”

“I- I-” Harriet shakes her head.

“Alright, I just thought I’d get some help,” Magpie, having stopped in front of a locked medicine cabinet, punches the glass out, “You know, from someone who wouldn’t get cut.” with a hiss of pain, he pulls out a small bottle of morphine and a syringe, and limps over to Fairfeather, “Now, Harriet, I’m not in any shape to operate a syringe. I can barely see and my foreleg hurts like Tartarus. Do you want me to stab the doctor in the eye by accident?”

“I-” Harriet looks at him, clearly pleading with him to give her some time to gather herself.

“I will tell Three that you sat there like a total moron which left the village doctor crippled for life and he can’t help anyone else ever!”

That snaps Harriet out of it. She immediately looks at the motionless changeling on Magpie’s bedroll, stands up, and takes a deep breath. Thankfully, her Corrupted body isn’t shaking at all.

“Find a vein on the foreleg,” Magpie instructs her, “HIGHER UP ON THE FORELEG!” he corrects himself as Harriet reaches for Fairfeather’s obviously broken wrists, “Under the forearms. Squeeze it higher if you must- wait, no. You have those tentacles. Use them as a tourniquet, the vein will be easier to spot.”

“Got it!”

“Draw half of the syringe from the bottle and inject him.”

“How do you know the dosage?” asks Harriet, although she follows his instructions.

“You don’t spend months on the road with a heavy drug addict and a drug manufacturer without learning something. If there’s an illegal substance Pack Rat hasn’t tried then I don’t know about it. The first weeks after Gem picked him up in Canterlot were… educational to say the least.”

As Harriet injects Fairfeather with the painkillers, his twitching stops and his ragged breathing slows down.

“What now?” asks Harriet.

“Get him on my bedroll and leave Three by his side. I heard some serious nonsense about him from Gem...” Magpie pauses before saying, “You know... I heard Fairfeather telling you all that I had no chance of making it,” he glances Three’s way, “It might not be such nonsense after all. Idiot bug with healing hugs that can cure cancer,” he shakes his head and immediately regrets it as he has to brace himself for another bout of nausea.

Harriet carefully puts Fairfeather down next to Three. At this point she’s more than used to carrying wounded around without doing further harm to them.

“What now?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“Magpie, you just woke up from a coma and you’re still thinking more clearly than I am,” she looks directly into his eyes, “You’re used to thinking quickly in a crisis, I’m not. You’re in charge, no matter if you like it or not.”

Magpie lets out a drawn out breath, closes his eyes, and takes another deep one.

“Do you know the way around this house?” he asks.

“I do. I’ve spent a lot of time here when I was little,” Harriet nods.

“Fairfeather must have a notepad on each of the patients here. Find it,” Magpie sits down and closes his eyes to fight off his headache.

Within moments, Harriet spots a pad under the bed with the now dead tainted griffon. A quick look reveals a list of names and medical notes with expressions which Harriet can only translate as ‘hurt’.

“Got it!”

“Anyone in a critical condition?”

“The only underlined word is corruption and there are prescriptions and timing for each griffon here.”

“That’s probably good. It means that Fairfeather is the worst one off here right now. Okay, we’ll stay here. You focus on sensing if there are any Corrupted around and if Fairfeather starts hurting again, give him a smaller dose of morphine - filled up to the first number on the syringe. We can deal with the situation better with an addicted trained doctor than an unconscious one.”

“Got it!” Harriet nods.

“Second, get the corpse out of here and clean up after him as soon as possible. Then go inform anyone who is in charge around here about what happened. Once you get back, keep an eye on things and give everyone their medicine,” he quickens the pace of his talking as he sees black spots dance in front of his eyes, “It’s in the cabinet I needed you to open...”

“I’m really sorry. What about your bleeding?”

“Oh yeah, and bandage... my freaking... foreleg...” he slowly flops on the floor, exhaustion taking him again.

Bloodline: Grip of the past

[Hi, booksy!]

Sorry for not writing in you for so long but things have been pretty busy around here. So, Miss Harriet is living in the town now and spends most of her time at the bar. There’s not much waitressing to be done there but she said it was more a habit and she liked the familiarity. Plus, she can now balance a whole bunch of plates on her back with her tentacles. Griffons of Windy in general seem to have come to terms with Harriet being around and consider her new form more a novelty than a threat.

That said, Thirteen and I haven’t been as lucky so far. I’m sooo hungry all the time. Thirteen, at least, has been helping Miss Harriet and Mister Raymond at the tavern. She said she was hungry too but she felt some griffons watching her from behind and not in a hostile way. Well, she does seem to be one of the very few young mares around and the old griffons like something to look at. Come to think of it, a lot more griffons seem to be coming to the tavern to listen to the radio compared to when we first arrived. At least that little lust is helping Thirteen stave off the forced hibernation.

I myself am staying awake… I’m not even sure how. I’m hungry, I’m exhausted, but there’s just so much to do. Oh right, I haven’t told you yet, booksy. I’m helping doctor Fairfeather now that he can’t use his forelegs. He said he’d be out of action for at least a month and that he might not be able to do surgery ever again. His… fetlocks, or whatever griffons call it, got crushed and twisted in a really bad way that shattered his bones into so many pieces they might never heal properly. He told me there was a wheelchair in his house and now I’m in charge of pushing him around, taking care of him, and also taking basic care of the patients. The good news is that there were no more wounded in a Corrupted attack yesterday. Miss Harriet sensed the Hunter early, though, and kicked its butt super hard before it could even properly materialize.

Come to think of it, we still haven’t met Mister Hazaren - Miss Harriet’s dragon dad.

Mister Magpie said he felt stiff all over but doctor Fairfeather said it was a miracle he was still alive at all so lasting stiffness or some loss in overall mobility should be the least of his worries. He’s been teaching the local able-bodied griffons how to effectively fight using farming implements. He grumbles about them a lot but it’s been only three days since he himself woke up so it’s understandable that they have a long way to go.

Anyway, I wish I could write into you a bit longer but doctor Fairfeather is calling.

[Bye, booksy!]

“Three, this isn’t serious but it’s going to need stitching,” frowns Fairfeather, examining one of the griffons who got hurt during Magpie’s training, “A pitchfork stab wound in the side of the barrel. Grab the disinfectant and the sewing kit.”

By now, Three knows what the doctor is talking about. However, when he puts the required items on the table, he realizes one rather problematic thing.

“Ummm… I can’t stitch,” he says after attempting to hold the needle in his mouth, “I think non-unicorns use these long holder thingies to hold the needle and I don’t see one around.”

“I’ve worked with a few earth pony doctors and they used their mouths without a problem,” comments Fairfeather.

“I don’t think I’m one of them, doctor,” objects Three, “And I don’t have enough love to shapeshift even my hooves into talons or claws.”

“Give it a shot,” nods Fairfeather, “Use that thing to hold the sides of the wound together,” he points with his beak to something Three can identify only as a pair of weirdly shaped blunt scissors.

Unfortunately, while the medical holder tongs keep the sides of the wound together well, after several jabs of the needle in Three’s mouth, the treated griffon pushes himself away and looks at Fairfeather.

“I think I’ll have my grandma sew it and then come back for inspection, doc,” he says, “No offense, but your... uhh, helper needs some practice on something that can’t feel pain first.”

Three spits the needle out.

“Sorry.”

“Fine,” Fairfeather frowns, “Three, bring the bandages and treat the wound how I taught you. It’ll take longer to heal and it will leave a scar but it’s nothing life-threatening.”

As Three trots over to the medicinal cabinet, an idea occurs to him.

“Can you hold on a few minutes?” he asks the griffon who gives him a puzzled look, “I think I know a way out of this predicament.”

Fairfeather raises an eyebrow.

“The wound won’t get worse so… do you have the time?” he looks at the treated griffon who shrugs.

“Got nothing better to do right now. No clubs are open these days,” he jokes.

Three gallops out of the house as quickly as his stubby legs allow him. He returns some fifteen minutes later with Thirteen.

“She’s got some energy to do a little shapeshifting and a proper body that can move in all the ways ponies and you can,” explains Three while showing that with his stocky build he can’t properly wrap his foreleg around his barrel, “We drones aren’t naturally made for flexibility,” he gives somewhat confused Thirteen an encouraging smile, “Mister griffon here needs his wound stitched and I can’t do it.”

“I’m sorry but I’ve never stitched anything,” panics Thirteen.

“Neither did he, among other things, and he’s been doing a decent job so far with helping me,” Fairfeather joins in, “If you can grow something to hold the needle, you can stitch. Three, push me closer so that I can watch and give instructions.”

With a huff, Three pushes the wheelchair to the ‘operating’ table.

“You, here,” Fairfeather points his beak at Thirteen and then at the wound.

“Okaaaay...” Thirteen takes a deep breath and, with a flicker of green that makes several of the observing patients twitch, the fetlocks of her forelegs shift into talons. She blinks from the effort and wipes her forehead, “Oh dear, I think I’ll have to stay like this now.”

“Hey, if you do a good job here the griffons might get to like you,” Three nudges her encouragingly.

“Working with a really big if here...” mutters Thirteen and picks up the needle previously discarded by Three.

“Don’t worry, you can do it,” Three sits down by her side, softly tapping his hooves against the floor.

“I wish I could believe-” Thirteen’s mumbled complaint is interrupted by Fairfeather’s quiet but firm:

“Concentrate. Take a deep breath in and out. When you breathe out, your talons should stop shaking. Try a few times,” he leans close to watch Thirteen holding the needle under the spotlight.

To her own surprise, it also helps Thirteen filter out the inner voice saying she’s just going to hurt the griffon further.

“Three, alcohol swabs again.”

“On it!” Three salutes and handles the task of cleaning the area around the wound as well as the needle with recently acquired experience.

“Good,” says Fairfeather, “Now pierce the skin at the edge of the wound and start slowly sewing the edges together,” he watches Thirteen work the needle with utmost care, “It’s just a flesh wound so it doesn’t need any accurate stitching. Fixing internal organs, now that can be fun for a whole day.”

“I don’t think we share the same definition of fun...” mutters Thirteen while getting to business.

Seconds pass, interrupted only by Fairfeather’s patient instructions and short anecdotes from his own career to put Thirteen at ease. She takes longer than probably even a really inexperienced seamstress would but eventually it’s done and Three holds a magnifying glass over the wound so that Fairfeather can inspect it properly.

“Looks alright. Incredibly even stitching for someone’s first time. Heck, I’ve seen surgeons who couldn’t keep such an accurate distance between each loop.”

Thirteen breathes out in relief, closing her eyes.

“We changelings are really good with measurements and anything that needs photographic memory,” explains Three, tapping the side of his head.

“Good to know,” Fairfeather nods and looks at the griffon, “Use your other foreleg and don’t twist your torso around too much for three days and it’ll be okay. You’re going to have to survive with only one set of bandages, though.”

“Thanks, doc,” the griffon hops off of the table, “Aaaand to you too,” he adds reluctantly to both changelings.

“Wait! We forgot one thing,” Three turns around, followed by surprised glances from everyone. When he turns back, there’s a small glistening green chip held in his hoof, “At home, everyone got candy if they did well at the doctor’s,” he presents it to the griffon, “It’s minty.”

“That was just the foals, Three,” the corner of Thirteen’s mouth curls up.

“Really?” Three looks at her, “Should I make a bigger one then?”

“Make?” asks the griffon, watching his ‘reward’ for good behavior with suspicion.

“He makes candy in his spare time,” explains Thirteen hastily, adding to Three through their hive link, “Don’t tell them you puke candy goo or they won’t take it. And for the love of holes, don’t show it to them in real time.”

Three closes his mouth and only smiles, presenting the coin-sized piece of ‘candy’. The griffon glances at Fairfeather who only shrugs in response. Seeing no harm in doing so, the griffon carefully licks the piece of candy, blinks, and immediately puts it in his beak.

“Daaaamn, it’s been a while since I had a beakbreaker,” he smiles and pats Three’s head, much to the surprise of everyone, “See you, doc. See you, bug- changelings.”

After he leaves, Fairfeather lowers his voice so that the other patients can’t hear and asks:

“So, do you really puke candy that griffons find delicious or was that some mind control trick?”

“Try for yourself,” Three sticks his tongue out with another, smaller green chip on it.

“Most changelings can work with their goop in various ways. Not everyone uses their mouths either,” says Thirteen, “My sister is so good at shapeshifting she can synthesize almost anything, dad can make explosives if he drinks alcohol, mom is big on restraints, Miss Comfort on acids, Three makes candy.”

“I tried other things,” Three frowns, “but it always comes out as candy.”

“Acidic or explosive candy?” Fairfeather takes the green chip, sniffs it, and eats it.

“Sour or bubbly,” pouts Three, blushing a little.

Fairfeather sucks the candy for a few moments with a thoughtful expression.

“Can you make another one?” he asks and Three’s eyes light up.

“Sure!” Three immediately presents another chip on the tip of his tongue.

“Good PEZ dispenser. Now get me a microscope.”

“You’re not going to eat it?” Three tilts his head.

“No, I’m not. This might be more important,” Fairfeather shakes head, “Microscope, Three,” he repeats.

Despite having no clue what’s going on, Thirteen doesn’t interrupt the ensuing examination followed by several chemistry experiments performed by Three under Fairfeather’s lead. Eventually, the controlled chaos is over and the doctor goes quiet.

“Mister Fairfeather?” asks Three, “What was that all about?”

“I’m going to need more of the… candy. How long does it last?”

Three shrugs.

“No idea. I’ve never had any left over for more than several days.”

“What’s going on?” asks Thirteen finally.

“This thing is filled with simple sugars,” he nods towards the latest candy sample. When his answer fails to evoke any reaction from the changelings, he adds, “We need sugar- carbohydrates technically to have the energy to go on with our daily lives. The supplies we have left are lasting food, heavy on vitamins and fiber. It’s good for our health but lacking in energy. Simple carbs like the sugar you find in fruit, not actual hard candy, are among the healthiest sources of energy you can have, even for us omnivores. We could use Three’s candy to safely augment our current diet, not to mention that it doesn’t taste half bad.”

“Yaaaaaay!” Three raises his forelegs into the air.

“Alright, this is going to need some planning.”

Twenty minutes later, Raymond, cleaning glasses at the bar and listening to the radio, looks at the entering changeling duo and rolls his eyes.

What in the Emperor’s talons?

Three is wearing a cardboard sign fastened around his neck with a string which says ‘Medically-certified good bug’ coupled with a stamp bearing Fairfeather’s name and grinning from ear to ear.

“Doctor Fairfeather said everyone’s supposed to take one of these,” Three jingles a pouch around his neck, previously hidden by the cardboard sign, “He said they’re full of simple carrots- carbines- carborundums- carrybums- sugars to give you energy. Also, they’re minty but if you have some fruit juice I can make other flavors.”

“...got my last bottle of Jack here...” Raymond snickers, pointing at a bottle on the counter, “Wait, WAIT!” he drops the glass when Three downs a good chunk of the liquid, “Aw crap!”

Three covers his face for a moment with the cardboard and then presents Raymond with a brown piece of candy this time. The tavern owner examines it with suspicion before shrugging and eating it.

His eyes go wide and he gasps for breath for a second.

“How many can you make from what you just drank?” he wheezes.

“Dunno,” Three shrugs.

“ALRIGHT!” Raymond raises his voice so that he’s heard all around the room, “EVERYONE GETS A FREE SHOT OF JACK IN PILL FORM IF THEY HUG THE BUG! YOU CAN PICK WHICH ONE.”

***

In the evening, at least judging by the clock in Harriet’s new house, Magpie decides to visit the tavern to listen to the radio and have whatever dinner is left. He stops in front of the door as he hears loud voices and the noise of something beating against wood.

A lot rowdier than usual…

As he enters, his beak drops and his eye twitches.

Never in a million years would he expect twenty-or-so griffons sat around several tables smashed together into one long one, slamming their empty tankards against it, and singing:

“I AM A DRONE AND I’M DIGGING A HOLE!”

“DIGGY DIGGY HOLE! DIGGY DIGGY HOLE!”

And of course, the one standing on top of the table, leading the semi-coherent drunk screaming, and stomping out a tune…

...is Three, the runes on his legs flashing a bright pink light and his previously shot off ear completely fine.

Gem, I will never again doubt anything you say, no matter how crazy.

Also, did that griffon just slap Thirteen’s ass?

***

While Magpie sits at the corner table, the rowdy singing from the center of the bar completely drowns out a second griffon pulling up a chair and sitting down across the table from him. His coat is dark blue, his talons and feathers mossy green, all faded with age, and he’s watching Magpie through a pair of glasses with a soft smile.

“Heh,” the elderly griffon chuckles, “So they weren’t lying and it wasn’t just a matching name, Magpie. Good to see you’ve managed to return home after your tragic disappearance, even though it looks like it cost you a lot of scars.”

“Tasheed,” Magpie nods.

“Not the greeting I was expecting,” Tasheed relaxes in the chair, “Are you still angry about the time I had you repeat the history test for which you got grounded?”

“What are you doing here?” Magpie doesn’t bother with pleasantries, although his expression is far away from hostile, “I would have expected you to stay in Bloodstone.”

Tasheed shrugs.

“I was born here, Magpie, in case you don’t remember the backwater hole I came from that I told you about. Oof, has it really been seventy years?”

“If it was me, I wouldn’t have come back just for the nostalgia.”

“Heh, you got me there,” Tasheed sighs, “Bloodstone isn’t what it used to be, or maybe it’s the Imperials who aren’t too happy about an old history teacher who used to work with many members of the Redtalon family.”

“Redtalons are gone, deal with it. All Cassius is doing with the sanctions is making sure there will be another rebellion. Common griffons don’t care who rules them as long as they’re not choking under bullshit laws. If whoever the appointed Imperial regent of Bloodstone is could arrange disaster relief for the citizens, no one would even remember any Redtalons ever existed,” says Magpie noncommittally.

“You’re not giving griffons around here enough credit, I think. Redtalon land was always a bit different from the heartland, same with the southern states. There is pride in being a Redtalon.”

“Really?” Magpie sneers, “Then how come Bloodstone is under Irongrip rule? How come my father is dead?”

Tasheed leans across the table and whispers:

“Lord Altberg is alive and held in Bloodstone dungeons. Don’t trust the rumors about poison,” he relaxes in his chair again, “After Veronica’s failed uprising, Imperial forces came en-masse and took over all major outposts. That was before the corrupted territory swallowed all the easy access routes. The Legion obeys the Emperor in the end and a lot of them died during the uprising, leaving only bleached bones in the desert where the final encounter happened. There was very little resistance to the takeover from the local GIL outposts in the wake of Veronica’s loss, even if most of the griffons came from these lands- your lands.”

“I have no claim to this land nor do I care to have it,” Magpie rolls his eyes.

“You’re the last Redtalon, Magpie. Other than Altberg, that is, and he is too old to have any more heirs.”

“So what? Griffons here had their chance to fight for their home and they didn’t take it.”

Tasheed shakes his head with a weary sigh.

“Still taking the easy way out and avoiding responsibility. Maybe you haven’t changed as much here,” he taps his head, “as here,” he mirrors one of many of Magpie’s scars on his own body.

He gasps when Magpie shoots across the table, grabs Tasheed by a tuft of his chest fur, violently pulls him up to his eye level, and hisses in a voice full of fury and venom:

“The easy way?! I WAS FUCKING RIPPED APART BY MINOTAURS, TORTURED BY SLAVERS, I STARVED, OVERDOSED, WAS BEATEN TO A BLOODY PULP BY CORRUPTED. I STARE DEATH IN THE FACE ON DAILY BASIS. I’M NOT AFRAID TO DIE. Don’t talk to me about any easy way when you have no idea what the hard way is!“ he pushes Tasheed away, who slumps back to his chair, and returns to his own as well.

Tasheed rubs his neck, shaken by the almost feral response from Magpie. To his credit, he gathers himself enough to say:

“Dying is easy, young griffon. Living is harder.”

“You haven’t been through a thousandth of things I have. Don’t lecture me.”

Tasheed crosses his forelegs on his chest, facing Magpie without fear.

“I’ve lived long enough to know that it’s much easier making decisions without fearing for anyone else, without responsibility. It’s much easier knowing you’re risking only your own life. No one depends on you, no one will mourn or miss you. On the other talon, living for a family, land-”

“I CAN’T have a family, the minotaurs made sure of that. I’m being hunted in both Equestria and the Empire, and I get too sick from chineighese food to move there, too much fried shit plus a crazy language. Zebrica is a dead continent, so tell me - what land or family-?”

“Bloodstone. Let me repeat myself - you’re the only Redtalon heir left, Magpie. Veronica did all she could to secure her path to the throne of Bloodstone, killed all the other heirs, but when her uprising failed the Irongrips captured her and ruined YOUR land. No one knows if she’s dead or imprisoned-”

“And it can damn well stay that way,” Magpie lets out a mirthless laugh, “If she really killed everyone in the line of succession, she definitely wouldn’t have stopped for me, so she can rot, either in prison or in a grave.”

“Don’t you think she might have been behind your expedition getting captured, that instead of getting ‘lucky’ to avoid her assassination attempt you were one of her first targets? Wouldn’t you like to know the truth?”

“Not particularly. After all, it doesn’t matter anymore, really, does it?” Magpie shrugs.

“It might. As I said before, griffons might rally behind a Redtalon-”

“And as I said before, common griffons didn’t do anything when they heard about Altberg’s poisoning or about Irongrip takeover of Bloodstone, did they?” is Magpie’s interruption dripping with sarcasm.

“They need someone to inspire and lead them.”

“Then they can rot and starve! No one will fight their fights for them. No one did for me!”

“That’s not a leader’s job. They need to be shown how to fight, that’s all.”

“I’m doing that here,” replies Magpie, “The griffons here are fighting for their lives against Corrupted, not for some stupid political chess game their own fear brought on themselves.”

“Well,” Tasheed stands up, “As much as it pains me to see that my old student really did die in the north I, of course, can’t force you to change your mind. Still, if there is something left of the young griffon who possessed an unusual combination of common sense and noble intentions then I’ll be happy to show him a secret way into Bloodstone fortress. My old bones might still make the trip.”

Followed by Magpie’s scowl, Tasheed leaves the tavern. When he’s gone, Magpie puts his chin into his talons and sighs, staring into nowhere. He’s so lost in memories he doesn’t register Harriet sitting down in the empty chair and waving a tentacle in front of his face.

“Hmm, Harriet?”

“You know, I recognized who you were the day we first met,” she taps her claw against his foreleg.

Magpie shrugs.

“It didn’t matter in Equestria. I really didn’t want to come back here and if I didn’t give Gem my word that I’d get you home I wouldn’t.”

“And now?” Harriet raises an eyebrow, “I’ve never been too big on politics but even I used to feel kinda… proud for being born in the Redtalon lands, even if it’s just Windy. You know, the old - Irongrips are heartland idealists, Redtalons are eastern warriors, Vash are the scary southern nomad raiders, northern Xayeed are-”

“Tree huggers and rock worshippers who live in monasteries and meditate all day, yes,” Magpie rolls his eyes, “Look, collective pride is bullshit for those who have done nothing to be proud of themselves. You’ve done enough to be proud of, Harriet. Don’t mix being born in the land of some particular noble whose only achievement was being the most bloodthirsty bastard around thousand years ago into it. Irongrips, Redtalons, Vash… blue blood has no more value than any other.”

“Wooo,” Three interrupts, arriving with a wide smile, “My throat is sore but it turns out that griffons really enjoy singing!”

“Do I even want to know how you managed that?” asks Magpie, taking any opportunity to steer the conversation away from the topic of Redtalons.

“He got them drunk with candy!” Thirteen pulls up two chairs, one for herself and one for Three, and they both sit down at the table, “He mixed some drink called Jack with his goo and made alcoholic candy. Somehow it made the alcohol super strong.”

“Great… you changelings seem to have a talent at working with illegal substances. Wanna try your hoof with cigars, Thirteen?” Magpie snickers in an unusually friendly manner, “I think that with Gem being the expert on drugs and Three doing alcohol it’s the last branch left. With the right marketing you could rule the world.”

“Not really,” she shakes her head, “I’d like to know what’s the whole Redtalon thing, though. Are they your family or something?”

“How could you have heard anything over the screaming of twenty wasted griffons?” Magpie rolls his eyes.

“Come on,” Harriet’s tentacle nudges Magpie’s chest, “We’re here, we got through the whole Empire. You can tell them now if they promise they won’t tell anyone.”

“Promise!” Three and Thirteen say at once, exchanging glances.

“You’re really not going to let it go even if it doesn’t concern you at all?” Magpie sighs.

“Nope!” Thirteen shakes her head with vigor.

“Just a short version then,” Magpie looks around. There’s still enough noise around to prevent anyone without changeling ears from overhearing him, “I’m from the Redtalon family. Easily recognizable by this,” he taps his blood-red foreleg and talons, “Ever since the old Redtalons the family used to hunt down and kill any griffons who were born with forelegs colored like this even if they were members of other noble families, hence the name. These days, there’s like a ninety-nine percent chance that anyone like me is of Redtalon blood. In the same way, any Redtalons who weren’t born with the right color of talons were immediately disowned. A bit of an unnatural selection in action. The seat of Redtalon power is a metropolis called Bloodstone south of here. It’s not as massive as the Holy City but still bigger than Manehattan.”

“So you’re like the boss of this part of the Griffon Empire?” Three’s eyes go wide.

“I’m no one’s boss,” replies Magpie quickly, “Other than your right now because of Gem,” he points at Three and Thirteen.

“But if the situation at your home is as bad as the griffon at the tavern in Wilbur’s Pass said the griffons there might need help, be scared, and need someone who would care for them-” Three’s voice grows urgent.

“Let me stop you right there,” Magpie flicks his healed ear, “I already said it - I’m no boss or leader or anything. We’re staying here and waiting either until Gem comes for us or someone turns on the big light upstairs.”

***

One week later, Three’s done helping doctor Fairfeather for the day and decides to finish the day by listening to the radio. Thirteen is still at the doctor’s, busy doing some precision work which Three isn’t the best suited for and Harriet decided to spend the evening with her dad. When he enters the tavern, Raymond immediately waves at him, beckoning him to come to the counter.

“Good evening, Mister Raymond,” Three smiles.

“I’ve got a message for you here,” Raymond gives Three a folded piece of paper.

“Me?”

“You, Harriet, or Thirteen. It’s from Magpie.”

“Really?” Three unfolds the paper and as he reads the short message his curious expression turns into a toothy grin.

I’ve left with Tasheed and the supply caravan from Chineigha to see how things are in Bloodstone. I should be back in two weeks at most. Stay here and if you need anything tell Harriet.

SERIOUSLY, STAY IN WINDY!

I MEAN IT!!!

Author's Note

This can only go well.

Bloodline: A dumb idea

“Another one!” a unicorn wearing bloodied surgical garments calls out. An exhausted zebra stallion shuffles over and pushes the emergency medical table away, its occupant breathing slowly but steadily.

“How are you still on your legs?” another zebra wearing military medic gear arrives with what has to be the hundredth patient with necrotic frostbite today.

“Coffee and guilt...” mutters the unicorn quietly. His features are almost completely covered by a surgical mask and he’s wearing glasses, mostly for protection rather than vision.

The military medics in one of the hundreds of hastily set up hospitals along the north coast of Zebrica have grown to know this mysterious unicorn who simply appeared one day around two months ago and started using magic to at first light up the operating areas quickly running out of energy sources and then proceeding to learn how to do surgery. The zebras were happy to have someone with telekinesis on their side as skilled doctors from Equestria were still a rarity at the time.

The unicorn would work for days at a time, helping where he could, and when he was done he would just huddle in some corner, covered from head to hooves in a gray cloak - seemingly his only possession other than a rather strange, thick, silvery sword.

Over time, the medics got him a semi-comfortable bedroll and some fresh clothes but the cloak stayed and the sword remained untouched. Once, a thief tried to steal it, the medics assumed when they discovered a gruff zebra screaming in horror with his unseeing eyes wide open and staring into nowhere with his hoof still on the handle. The otherwise physically healthy zebra thief died with the expressions of pure terror, tied up to a medical bed and thrashing so hard he almost ripped the leather bonds off.

The only thing the unicorn said in response was:

“Whoever tries to make this already painful period even worse deserves eternal torment, not the safety and peace of quick death, but I’m not the one who makes the rules.”

However, over the two months of the unicorn’s work in this particular field hospital, the other workers have grown to disagree. Wielding his magic both for lighting and fueling failing power generators, the unicorn healed those whom even the best doctors in the field would give up on. It was as if death itself came for them and he said no. No matter the time or the amount of effort, the unicorn stitched wounds, cleaned up dead tissue, used healing magic beyond the scope of any other visiting unicorn from Equestria. Some of them even said he saved those whom not even the alicorns could heal.

Today, though, a griffon wearing a simple grey robe pushes through the infinite lines of wounded or otherwise suffering zebras and waits until the patient the unicorn is working on gets carted off before approaching.

The unicorn gives his surgical mask and clothes away to a young zebra assistant for sterilization and measures the robed griffon.

“A Silver Sun observer,” he sighs, “What does Bucket want?”

“A message for you, that’s all. You’re supposed to play it in private.”

The griffon gives the unicorn a steel-grey, hoof-sized square with several buttons on the side.

“If Bucket doesn’t send help, he doesn’t get to make the rules,” growls the unicorn, pressing the ‘play’ button.

The top of the square lights up and a holographic image of a mechanical unicorn appears.

“Greetings,” says Bucket, “It took me a long time to find you and I hope you’re going to listen. I know what you’re going through, at least part of it. Before you dismiss what I’m saying, I just ask you to consider that I had to watch Corrupted wash over Equestria, absorbing or devouring most of its population. Even with Cromach by my side, the entirety of the Silver Sun, and all the technology we, let’s say, received from king Beard I was powerless to stop it. Now you’re finding yourself in a similar yet different situation. Never in my existence, however, was I responsible for such events so I can’t understand the weight on your shoulders completely.”

“You got that right...” the unicorn frowns, ignoring the openly listening griffon as well as several zebras around, eager to gain more information about the mysterious unicorn.

“Now, I studied several books regarding survivor’s guilt, stress, and-”

“Aaaand we’re skipping,” the unicorn holds another button for a while, making Bucket’s speech quicken.

“-showing the typical symptoms-”

“Keep going,” he rolls his eyes. When he resumes listening to the recording, he realizes he overshot and rewinds back a little.

“I doubt it would lead to redemption in your mind, or that anything would, really but it might do more good than you staying cooped up in one field hospital until someone figures out how to restore sunlight or heat.”

The unicorn sighs and lets the recording play:

“We have intercepted an EIS report regarding a strange faction in the south of Zebrica in the ruins of Cloak town. They’ve already begun observing and identified several pieces of technology they don’t understand but which we know are of Silversmith origin. Whoever they are, they’ve managed to gather survivors left behind by Stein’s bloody conquest. EIS are guessing that the faction might be king Beard’s changelings but the technology is advanced even for anything they shared with us and the timing doesn’t fit. There’s only one group with access to original Silversmith tech and the ability to use and repair it. I don’t want to name names in case of my courier being waylaid. I would like you to go south, contact her, and help her restore some order and stability. She has the tech to build underground shelters, generate energy, and possibly save everyone who can’t get to the Northern Coalition states through the dead zone. She won’t share any tech with the zebras, that’s clear but I think she’s trying to find the same thing as we all are - if not redemption then at least the peace that will allow us to live with ourselves. I wish I could go myself or send someone reliable but we’ve got our hooves full with helping Nicolai maintain some semblance of stability within the Griffon Empire and replacing the communication drone network for prolonged work in sunless conditions. I must admit we definitely weren’t ready for this kind of a situation and the power sources of the drones were based on zebra photovoltaic tech. Anyway, before I start rambling. I wish you good luck, no matter what you choose,” the recording ends.

“Bucket, Bucket, Bucket...” the unicorn sighs, “Always thinking about the greater good, the global scale, the long-term plan. Never anything personal, never seeing the faces of those your decisions saved… or doomed,” he looks around at the zebras on stretchers. Those and hundreds, possibly thousands, more wouldn’t be here anymore if it wasn’t for him. Many more won’t be here if he decides to listen to Bucket’s suggestion.

Still a miniscule fraction of whom restoring order could save in the coming months, though.

Never expecting any gratitude, just doing your job.

The unicorn sighs again.

“And I hate that you’re right. We, the simple emotional ponies, can’t think like that.”

As his assistant arrives with freshly sterilized equipment, the unicorn shakes his head and points to another medic resting nearby.

“I have to leave. Is there a ship crew I can hire around here?”

***

“-and now it’s time for New Rules,” the radio chimes in equal mix of cheer and frustration with everything, “First, we all know that Emperor Cassius is a handsome griffon but this ‘slutty Emperor costume’ for this year’s Nightmare Night is a little bit too much. I, myself, won’t be able to look at Cassius’ face in any official building now without imagining a red beakstick and six pairs of plastic tits underneath. Do you know how difficult it is to renew my passport even without a raging hard-on? It’s-” the radio hisses, buzzes, sputters, and goes silent, much to the annoyed moaning of the patrons sitting around the Windy tavern.

“Hey, I was listening to that!” whines Thirteen, hopping off of her barstool and heading behind the counter.

With a grunt, Raymond stops cleaning the glasses and fiddles with the knobs on the radio with no result.

“Alright, show’s over, everyone. The radio’s shot. We knew this would come eventually,” he waves his forelegs in the air to appease the complaining patrons, “Hey, unless any of you peasants can fix burnt circuitry then you can shut up and amuse yourselves for now.”

“Awwww...” Thirteen gives Raymond the puppy eyes.

“Don’t look at me like that,” the griffon faces her with a stern stare, “I used to be a soldier, not an engineer. Go have a chat with some of the patrons if you want more social commentary.”

“Ehhh,” Thirteen gives the rest of the tavern a nervous look.

“I’m pretty sure that by now they’re used to you, so the worst thing you can expect is a firm ‘shoo!’,” says Raymond in encouragement.

Paralyzed by doubt, Thirteen doesn’t move before Three, previously sleeping on the counter, raises his head, woken up by the renewed chatting of the patrons. He lets out a squeaky yawn and looks around.

“What happened to the funny politics guy on the radio?” he asks.

“The radio broke and no one here can fix it...” Thirteen mumbles, rounds the counter, and hops back onto her stool.

“Hmmm,” Three scratches his head, “Mind if I have a look?”

“You’re an engineer or something?”

“I’m no Six but learned a thing or two over time,” Three shrugs and hops straight down from the counter. He walks over to the big box and hugs it. Thirteen facepalms and Raymond raises an eyebrow. When nothing happens, he shrugs and says, “Was worth a shot.”

Ignoring the stares of Raymond and Thirteen, Three turns the pony-sized box around, shapeshifts the tip of his hoof into a screwdriver, unscrews the back of the radio, and shoves his head into the mesh of cables, sniffing around. He quickly retreats and sneezes. After a few more seconds of searching, he unhooks and pulls out a large circuit board and flies with it back onto the counter.

“Too dusty. Does no one ever clean it?” asks Three, faced with two shocked stares. Raymond slowly shakes his head, “That’s it then - burnt out capacitors, classic. How old is the radio?”

“Twelve years, give or take?” Raymond scratches his head, “Was here when I bought the tavern after retiring.”

“Oof,” Three nods his head in amazement, “It lasted that long with no maintenance? Must have been a good piece of work. Anyway, I think I can make a new capacitor if I get the materials and a precision soldering iron. Not the old paper ones like you have here but a proper one like at home.”

“I hate to break it to you, Three, but look around you. Do you think there’s anything to repair electronics around here?”

“Hmmm...” Three rubs his chin, “You said there was a blacksmith guy in the village, right? Thirteen, let’s go ask Harriet if her dad can part with several pure gold pieces for conductors. We’re going to need some coal dust too but that shouldn’t be a problem.”

***

The buildings of old Bloodstone, both business and residential ones, cast a crimson glow as their reddish mortar reflects dim street lights. Old Redtalon legends say that houses forming the core of Bloodstone had their building materials mixed with blood of fallen enemies of the Redtalons. Even Magpie isn’t sure whether that exact part is true, for potential construction problems at least, but the fortress in the distance, looming over even the office complexes with fairly few of its many windows lit up, is rumored to have been rebuilt into its modern form using executed prisoners… both for labor and… dye.

A trio of griffons wearing GIL suits, two openly carrying assault rifles, stop in front of the door of a random residential house in the street. The house doesn’t seem to be special in any way and from the outside it could be considered to be a literal copy of any other throughout the old town. The leader of the trio knocks on the door and calls out:

“GIL, open up!”

A terrified griffon opens and visibly chokes when faced with two rifle barrels aimed his way.

“Inspection!” the GIL soldier pushes the griffon inside from where a female yelp can be heard.

“I gave you guys everything last time!” objects the civilian.

“Orders are orders. We’re inspecting houses now,” says the squad leader and the other two enter the house, switching the rifles for pistols in case of a close-range encounter.

“Don’t stare!” Tasheed hisses at Magpie walking next to him with his furry hood drawn.

“What’s going on?” asks Magpie, forcing himself to look away as Tasheed leads the way towards Bloodstone fortress. Not that he needs to. Despite being away for years, the city hasn’t changed enough since Magpie left to confuse him even a little.

“I told you before - orders of the Irongrip regent. All valuables are being brought to the fortress to be traded on the black market. One of the reasons I moved everything to Windy too,” Tasheed shrugs, “Before they’d take all my stuff as well, I mean.”

“How are black market traders getting here with any regularity? There’s no way someone robbed the folks here and bought supplies for an entire city to last two months.”

“You’re right,” Tasheed nods, noticing that Magpie is slowing down, and so he grabs Magpie’s foreleg and gives him a gentle push forward, “There’s a cloaked airship on the roof of the fortress. A rather small crew arrives with lasting supplies on a weekly-ish basis.”

A warning bell of paranoia rings in Magpie’s head.

This is a strange piece of information to know as an old history teacher.

“How do you know that?” he asks.

“Same way I know of one of the escape tunnels from the fortress,” Tasheed whispers, smirking at Magpie, “Altberg wouldn’t let someone he didn’t trust teach his kids. I still had my quarters in the fortress when the Irongrips took over and I enjoy- well, enjoyed stargazing.”

Hmmm…

“Why am I here?” Magpie breathes out, “The longer I think about this the dumber it feels. I don’t even recall what I wanted to ask Altberg in the first place.”

“You can’t tell me what you just saw didn’t make your blood boil,” Tasheed’s tone turns more urgent, “Those GIL soldiers are doing this all the time, harassing the citizens so that the regent can have things flown here from the heartland.”

“No, it didn’t. Maybe...” Magpie admits, “But the longer I’m here the less it matters. What can I do? I’m just a griffon who hasn’t been here for how long… a decade? I don’t even know myself.”

“You are a Redtalon. With Veronica dead or simply gone and Altberg imprisoned by the Irongrips, you might be the Redtalon. No matter how this looks, griffons will rally around you if you call. There are what, a thousand GIL soldiers for a two-million griffon city? Redtalon isn’t just a family name, it’s a state of mind. Griffons who fought everyone until their forelegs were stained with their blood forever. You could show Irongrips that their grip isn’t as strong as their name claims.”

“So… do I just start screaming that I’m here to incite a rebellion, which I actually am not?”

“Well,” Tasheed smirks in the way of a poker player showing his winning cards, “It’s not as if Irongrip takeover happened without anyone saying a word. Unfortunately, many of the voices were silenced by the original task force sent to suppress dissent after Veronica’s disappearance. That force isn’t here anymore. Many of the GIL soldiers here are griffons who grew up here just like you. The bulk of the Irongrip force is stationed inside the fortress and, as we already established, I can get you and anyone else you choose in.”

“You do know an awful lot...” Magpie narrows his eyes.

“No one suspects an old, harmless, history teacher,” Tasheed smiles, “So, what do we do? Do you want to visit Altberg on your own and ask a question that’s a mystery even to you or do you want to visit several griffons who might share our opinion on the current state of events?”

I’m getting dragged into things I really don’t want to get into. On the other talon, that sums up the entirety of my recent life pretty accurately.

“Fine,” Magpie sighs, “Where can we meet those dissatisfied griffons of yours?”

***

Public transport is obviously heavily limited during time when all energy is needed for heating but thankfully the place where Tasheed leads Magpie isn’t too far from the fortress itself. At the first glance, rebels against the current regime having a meeting place so close to the seat of power itself sounds dumb but on deeper thought - doesn’t thay always say that the darkest shadow is right under the candlestick or something?

Tasheed leads the way through the locked back door of a butcher’s shop, the front of which is heavily barricaded, and into its deactivated walk-in freezer, empty meat hooks bringing back memories of the minotaur fighting ring to Magpie.

“What now?” asks Magpie.

“Now we wait,” replies Tasheed calmly.

“You haven’t contacted anyone on the way here.”

“Correct. There are silent alarms at the entrance to the cellar. The griffons who know that no one should be here right now are coming. There’s a short-range radio in the tools closet, if I recall correctly, but let’s not alert everyone yet. I want to introduce you first.”

Without a word, Magpie walks out of the freezer and returns with a wooden chair taken from the cellar itself. Tasheed gives him a questioning glance.

“I got chewed up by a Corrupted into a state in which no one should survive, I got better within a few days, and then I walked here with fairly scarce supplies. I’m exhausted, as little as I want to admit it. If you want one too, go and grab it yourself.”

“No respect for your elders these days, seriously,” Tasheed smirks and just sits down.

“Respect is earned, age has nothing to do with it, Tasheed,” Magpie frowns at him.

Several minutes later, Magpie hears multiple sets of pawsteps approach the freezer and finds himself faced with five griffons aiming pistols at him and Tasheed, two females and three males.

“What are you doing here?” asks the leading griffon who looks like he’s in his early twenties. He’s well-built in the gym jock way but in reality about as threatening as a barking puppy, aside from the pistol.

Magpie looks at Tasheed who stands up, seemingly unbothered by the guns aiming his way.

“We were looking for griffons who would like to change the current situation in Bloodstone.”

“So are GIL soldiers on a daily basis,” growls a scarred griffon female in the back who could be in her forties.

“Miss ‘Crimson’,” Tasheed smirks when the chick narrows her eyes at the name, “Yes, I know about you and about the mess you caused in Bloodstone a month ago. Your group of rebels have been a thorn in Irongrip paw since the takeover but so far you’ve managed to only make things worse for common griffons.”

“Says you!” the leading griffon in the front scowls.

“I do, indeed,” Tasheed looks him in the eyes, “I’ve lived in Bloodstone for decades, young griffon. I spent most of the time studying and then teaching history in public schools and I know how rebellions work. I also know that rebels need a symbol, and most of all I know what the citizens of Redtalon lands value. Magpie?” Tasheed looks at Magpie and taps on his own foreleg.

Magpie takes his glove off and rolls up the sleeve of his winter coat. All griffons other than Crimson gasp.

“That’s not dye, is it?” the leader walks over, grabs Magpie’s foreleg, and rubs it hard.

“It isn’t,” Tasheed proclaims, “This is Magpie Redtalon. I know him, I taught him history on Altberg’s dime a long time ago. He survived Veronica’s purge of the Redtalon heirs and now he can be the leader you need for your rebellion to work.”

“Yeah yeah,” Magpie stands up, rolling his eyes, “Look, I’m a Redtalon, yes. No, I don’t want to be in charge of anything. I’m here just because Tasheed told me what the Irongrips are doing to you and I saw the GIL soldiers barging into griffons’ homes with my own eyes. Supposedly, my father is still alive despite rumors of poisoning,” he glances at Tasheed who nods, “Altberg was an ass but a traditional noble ass who understood that a ruler can’t stand without his subjects. At worst, he wasn’t a thief like whoever the Irongrip stooge is.”

“Don’t listen to him, Warren,” says Crimson, looking at the griffon leader, “Altberg is dead.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Warren glares back but his voice fills with hope, “If we could prove lord Altberg is alive, we can rally the griffons. The Legion will stand with us. The few remaining Irongrip bandits who are staining Bloodstone fortress with their presence won’t be able to stop us!”

“If we can prove anything,” Crimson rolls her eyes, “Let’s say old Altberg is alive, so what? How do you intend to get to him?”

“I’ve worked in the fortress for years. I know a way into the dungeons,” says Tasheed, which makes Warren smile and conjures more hopeful expressions on the faces of everyone with the exception of Crimson. Magpie allows himself an appreciative smirk, “I’m not sure where exactly Altberg is kept but when I left he definitely wasn’t under house arrest so he must be down there.”

“Count me out!” says Crimson, “We haven’t been slowly building our support to lose it all on a roll of a dice.”

I like Crimson. She’s too practical to fall for this sudden bullshit.

“No, you haven’t been building support at all,” objects Tasheed, “Your actions leading to the harsh treatment by the GIL only lost you the wider support you had in the first place. Yes, you might have a few hardcore fanatics now but to free Bloodstone you will need numbers.”

Crimson narrows her eyes at Tasheed and says:

“Don’t do something as stupid as infiltrating the castle for a video.”

“This isn’t just for a video, this is for our future and honor!” Warren looks at the others, “We have a Redtalon with us, we can prove lord Altberg is alive, and we can rally the city against the invaders. We won’t get a chance like this again! Even if Crimson isn’t with me, are you?”

“Yes!” the others cheer, much to Crimson's visible irritation.

“Can you find five others willing to come with us, armed?”

“YES!”

“Sorry, Crimson,” Warren looks at the older mare, “You can start spreading the news. We’ll need word of mouth to go around the whole Bloodstone.”

Crimson grits her beak and with a frustrated yell of ‘IDIOTS!’ storms out of the freezer.

Warren frowns a little but perks up immediately, saying:

“Let’s go get the volunteers and meet back here in an hour. Tasheed, is the secret entrance far away? We don’t want ten griffons walking through the streets as a group. The soldiers are bound to notice.”

“Good idea,” Tasheed nods.

Magpie sits down on his chair again.

Why do I get the insistent feeling that Crimson was the smartest one of us? On the other talon, Redtalons are historically the kind to not overthink things and just start hacking around until they’re the only ones left standing.

Heh, probably why I was near the end of the inheritance queue.

Author's Note

I still haven't had the time to model Magpie in Ponytown editor...
Not sure if it's even worth it anyway.

Bloodline: A visitor

“No...” Prominence’s strained voice is her last attempt at fighting the headache and dizziness but it’s just a drip in the ocean and she collapses on her bed in the Canterlot castle infirmary.

The unicorn nurse standing over her gives her a comforting smile and says:

“You worry too much,” she cups Prominence’s muzzle in her hooves, looking her in the eyes, “Now tell me about the supposedly escaped changelings. I know there are some inside the castle.”

“I… mustn’t-”

“Shhh,” the nurse leans closer and slowly breathes out straight into Prominence’s nose, “Do I look as if I was here to harm anypony?”

“Can’t tell… ” Prominence’s willpower is admirable but the words the nurse is saying are worming into her mind and breaking her resistance. If only she was in any fighting shape, she would have scorched whoever the nurse is before it came to this but as she is, limp and defenseless on her, unable to even call for help, she can’t-

No, she must hold on. Somepony will come check on her soon, she just needs to hold on-

The nurse kisses her.

The surprise and the soft sweetness make Prominence shudder and she closes her eyes.

“I promised Gem… I can’t tell anypony about her… not even Celestia… she can’t find-”

“She can’t find her where?”

“In Twilight’s lab… under Canterlot mountain… old… mines...”

The nurse smiles in victory.

“Don’t worry and have a good rest,” the nurse breathes out into Prominence’s nose again and the unicorn’s breathing slows down as she falls asleep, “And forget about this.”

“Old mines, eh?” the nurse mutters to herself and leaves the room, unhindered by anyone including the two Hex Guards outside.

***

Two days later, Unsolved Equation, one of the physicists employed by princess Twilight to do theoretical calculations regarding her secret project, yawns and passes the living quarters.

“Hey, Equation, are you going to join us for dinner?” a unicorn’s head peeks out of the door.

“Hmm?” Equations blinks and looks back with a dazed smile, “Not tonight, sorry. I think I’ll just have a shower and go to bed early. Working my way around Einhoof’s equations is the toughest thing I’ve ever done and since there’s not vacation in sight I think I need more sleep than this.”

“What about Hawking’s research? That might be a way to bypass the energy requirements,” the always eager scientist winks at him.

“Yeah, I might have to but I wish we had an actual griffon scientist here for that. I don’t like drawing information from derived work instead of original material. Maybe tomorrow. Enjoy your dinner.”

“Good night, Equation,” the other scientist returns back to the living quarters.

Unsolved Equation heads deeper into the complex, passes the showers, and stops in front of a different living quarters near that of princess Twilight herself. He swipes his card through the slot on the wall which beeps and after a short delay the door slides open, revealing a suite for two inhabited by only one earth pony with the rest of the room converted into a personal lab.

The earth pony gives Equation a surprised glance before asking:

“Is there a problem?”

“No, I just wanted to have a little chat,” Unsolved Equation smirks. The earth pony scientist narrows his eyes as Equation closes the suite door behind him, “Oh don’t look at me like that. I consider the fact that you didn’t recognize me immediately a win.”

“Who are you and what do you want?” asks the earth pony, slowly backing away.

“What I want the most is you to not step on the secret silent alarm tile, it will only make things… unpleasant,” Equation’s smirk turns into a wide grin when he notices the faintest twitch of the earth pony’s eyes, “What I want next is to perform a little evil monologue about how I discovered your whereabouts by interrogating a half-divine, half-corrupted unicorn in the castle and then I infiltrated the best guarded secret facility under the noses of both Luna and Twilight but I see you’re getting nervous so, before you do something really stupid,” Equation takes a step forward and a green glimmer passes through his coat, burning away the form of the old unicorn scientist and replacing it with a black smoothness of chitin, “I’ll just say that both of us can do the impossible, sister, only different kinds.”

The earth pony’s jaw drops before turning into a wide smile coupled with the hint of tears as the earth pony transforms back into Gem.

“Two? How the hole did you manage to prevent me from identifying you?!”

“Now that’s the highest compliment I could have ever received,” with a smug smirk, Two rushes over to hug Gem.

***

“I’ve got a fresh batch of candy, doc!” Three floats up and puts a small pouch on the table, “Ever since I started making alcohol candy for Mister Raymond, the patrons give me all the head pats and hugs I want and they mean them so I have the love to make these.”

“Good job,” says Fairfeather, although it doesn’t seem to be aimed at Three, rather at Thirteen who has just finished simple re-applying of bandages to all the patients residing in Fairfeather’s bedroom transformed into makeshift infirmary.

“Really?” Thirteen stutters, “I- Thank you, I mean.”

“You too, Three,” Fairfeather gives Three a slow, strained, and shaky talons-up.

Yay, his forelegs are starting to move again!

“Do you need any help?” asks Three.

“No, Thirteen is doing alright,” says Fairfeather, “It’s more patient care than any emergency so taking it slow works just fine. Her mobility and dexterity is more suited for this work anyway.”

“See? I told you you’d do great, Thirteen,” Three gives her an encouraging smile which makes her look at the floor and blush.

“If you want to have a chat, you’ll have time later,” Fairfeather interrupts the moment, “We still have work to do and the griffons here need peace and quiet to rest.”

Three nods and whispers:

“See you late, Thirteen. I’ll be in the tavern working on the radio.”

“Bye,” Thirteen waves at him before Fairfeather asks her to push him towards the next bedridden patient.

“Oh dear, sponge bath and some downstairs cleaning here. It’s going to stink a bit.”

“Got my washcloth and a bucket ready and we changelings don’t really mind the smells ponies consider nasty. Griffons too. Besides, I can always turn my nose off.”

“You changelings are full of useful talents.”

Three leaves them to their business. After a short stroll through Windy he decides to visit Harriet’s home and ask her dad if he could have a look through his hoard for some more materials usable to fix the radio. However, as he heads up the hill overlooking windy, he notices lights coming through the small windows next to the entrance to the hilltop cavern.

Is Harriet home?

Curious, he knocks on the door and is greeted by Harriet peeking out.

“Hi, Three. Any trouble in town?”

“Nope, I just wanted to see your dad about some silver or gold to fix the radio. I thought you were in Windy in case of another attack.”

“I’ll be heading back soon,” Harriet nods, “I just remembered that I had something for you here so I wanted to bring it to my new village house. Heh, my house. Hard to get used to that. I got it from Raymond after we came back.”

“For me?” Three tilts his head.

“Yup,” Harriet returns back inside and calls out, “Come in, I think I put it somewhere in my old room but for the love of the Emperor I can’t recall where. Looking for it made me understand why mom kept telling me I was messy.”

“Okay,” Three walks into the entrance hall and simply sits down. Changelings don’t mind hard surfaces like ponies do. Chitin is good like that.

Several minutes of clanking and loud rummaging around coming from a room in the back later, Three hears “HAH!” followed by Harriet walking triumphantly outside, an acoustic guitar hanging on a strap around her neck.

“Ready to continue our guitar lessons?” she beams at Three, “I thought that now that the radio is messed up we could try to do some improv back at Raymond’s.”

“EEEEEEEEE!” Three darts towards her with a high-pitched happy squeak, shapeshifts both his hooves to claws, and plucks a string at random.

“We’ll have to be careful, though. I’m not sure we can get any replacement strings around here,” she winks at Three, “Do we store it at my house or in the tavern?”

“Gimme!” Three smiles back, still buzzing with excitement. Harriet hands him the guitar.

“Careful,” she says.

Three shoves the entire thing into his beard. Harriet’s jaw drops.

“Whuh- whah- whoh- whaaaaat?!” she chokes, eyes bulging, “How?!”

“Some kind of magic. I don’t understand it, really,” Three shrugs, “Seven enchanted it to be a beard of holding. It worked like that even before but only for me and no one knew why so Seven did it properly.”

“That’s amazing!”

“Pretty nifty,” Three nods, “I’ve got a few gems and gold pieces in there from your dad already.”

“What? You stole them?”

“Of course not, he gave them to me.”

“You persuaded a dragon to give you something from his hoard?”

“I just explained what I needed those for.”

“Which is?”

“I need some focusing lenses for pew-pews to be able to melt off the gold and silver and purify it. The coins are mixed with materials that aren’t so great for conductivity.”

“Pew-pews?”

“Energy beam thingies. Repairing today’s tech with just hooves is pretty hard but not impossible if you’re a changeling. Just gonna need Thirteen’s help with some acids.”

“You’re pretty smart, you know?”

“Heheh,” Three scratches his head, “Not really, but I spent a lot of time with Six and he’s great with technology. Anyway, let’s go see your dad. I need to swap a few of the coins and gems. I goofed up a bit in picking those before.”

***

Thirteen relaxes at the corner table in the tavern. Now that the radio isn’t working, the patrons are much more focused on each other so she can just sit down and chill. The friendly atmosphere as well as the work for doctor Fairfeather has been doing wonders to stop her from starving into the “limping with ribs showing” category so while she’s always hungry, she’s at least seeing straight these days.

From the corner of her eye, she notices someone she hasn’t seen before - a griffon wearing similar kind of environment-resistant clothing that Gem prepared for all of them as well as a heavy-looking backpack and a belt with several smaller bags on it. Even to Thirteen’s inexperienced eyes he looks like someone used to travelling.

A newcomer to Windy. Maybe a griffon caravan finally arrived from the heartland? Hmmm… probably not. The eastern pony ones always had more ponies come here for a chat so griffons would probably do the same.

Eep, he’s coming over here!

After a quick chat with Raymond, the griffon indeed walks directly to Thirteen’s table and asks in a rather friendly tone:

“Mind if I sit here?”

“N-No problem, heheh,” Thirteen giggles nervously.

The griffon takes his heavy cap off, revealing gold-colored head feathers, bright, piercing blue eyes, and most importantly a friendly smile, something Thirteen definitely wouldn’t expect from a griffon newcomer.

He tilts his head, examining her for a few seconds. Not wanting to make a bad impression, Thirteen lets him do so without complaining. Eventually, the griffon looks her in the eyes and says:

“Sorry for that. I haven’t seen a changeling with,” he taps the top of his head, “a real mane, tail, and all that stuff before. Smooth carapace too, not like those one can occasionally see on the west coast. Looks good, really.”

“Oh- I- well- I mean,” Thirteen blushes.

Idiot, idiot, idiot, idiot!

“T-Thank you,” she manages to stutter out in the end, “You look like a traveller.”

“Mercenary,” he starts taking off his heavy clothes, revealing a grey coat and a wiry, scarred build which sort of reminds Thirteen of Magpie, “I heard there were some concerns with eastern ponies around the border so I’m here to check out any caravans that might pass by.”

“Oh no no no,” Thirteen shakes her head, “I’ve seen two caravans already and they’re sending help - food and stuff. Corrupted are much more of a problem and I heard of some bandits on the way south trying to ambush the eastern caravans on the way to the south.”

“Thanks, I’ll remember that,” the mercenary, offers his foreleg for a shake, “Name’s Manny.”

“I’m Thirteen,” she shakes it.

“Do you live here?”

“No, I’m just visiting with a friend.”

“Pity,” Manny frowns.

“How come?”

“One doesn’t get many chances to meet a friendly and, frankly, pretty changeling lady in the Empire.”

“Lady is a bit of an overstatement, and I had no idea griffons could find natural changelings attractive.”

“I worked a lot on the west coast,” Manny shrugs, “I know a lot of ponies and changelings but you still surprised me. I mean it, in a good way. Come to think of it… I know a little about your, umm, feeding, and it makes me wonder if we could help each other out.”

Is he saying what I think he’s saying? Well, I am hungry.

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Manny scratches the back of his head, letting out a nervous chuckle, “Trains don’t run much these days and I’ve been on the road for a loooong time. It can’t be easy for you either here since I doubt most eastern griffons- heck, most griffons really, are used to changelings.”

He IS saying that! Pretty blunt, to be honest, but kinda practical for both of us. Understandable if he spends a lot of time alone, and he might just have a thing for changelings. Ponies do quite often, Miss Gem said.

“I, well,” Thirteen looks down, “I’m not really experienced with that, so-.”

“What?” Manny leans backwards, “That’s hard to believe but I didn’t necessarily mean we should just go for a roll in the hay, Miss Thirteen.”

“Huh?”

“How about an evening in a good company? I know that can be enough for some changelings. Being alone for long stretches of time makes one eager for a good chat as well as… the other things you mentioned before. It doesn’t take a genius to guess that I might hear a more interesting story from you than from these villagers.”

Oh? Oooooh.

“Sure, that sounds nice,” Thirteen relaxes and allows herself a small smile, “My friend has got a house here a few streets down and she’s away right now. It has a fireplace and some wood Miss Harriet brought from the forest. It’s tainted so it doesn’t burn all that well but it’s better than nothing.”

“That sounds absolutely lovely,” Manny smiles, “Winter boots or not, my paws are freezing. Just let me grab my things and lead the way, Miss Thirteen.”

Wait! What he’s saying doesn’t match what I’m sensing from him. No love, only a tiny bit of lust. On the other hole, it’s not like I’m good at it… among many other things. Let’s see where this goes, since he’s so polite.

***

“Juuuust a moment,” Manny stacks the tainted logs into the fireplace in the living room, pulls out a small white brick from his backpack, and breaks it into many pieces which he scatters all over the wood with the biggest bits under the kindling at the bottom. Several sparks from a small box taken out of one of the many belt pouches later, light spreads from the fireplace and joins the electric lamp by the couch as a source of warm light, “There we go!”

“Wooow!” Thirteen smiles, “How did you do that? Miss Harriet always has trouble lighting it.”

“Just some solid fuel and a mechanical lighter,” he taps his backpack and the pouch, “When you’re on the road, you can’t afford to risk running out of resources so the key is to have as many replenishable tools as possible at your disposal. I have several motion-charged batteries and a pack of normal ones just in case everything else fails.”

“That’s so cool!” Thirteen shifts nervously as Manny keeps his belt on but puts his backpack down on the floor a safe distance away from the fireplace and joins her on the couch which creaks under him. A small part of her notes how much lighter she must be despite being easily as tall as he is, “My sisters travels a lot on hoof too.”

“Is she a mercenary or a caravan guard or something too?” Manny shuffles a little closer to Thirteen.

What am I afraid of?

Something is wrong, all this is wrong. He isn’t really interested in me. What would Three think? I like Three!

No, this is just feeding. I’m a changeling, I need to do this.

He isn’t interested in YOU!

Shut up, voice! It’s just insecurity and fear like always. Doctor Fairfeather said I wasn’t bad at my job. Mister Raymond told me I was pretty and he meant it.

I CAN do this.

Thirteen takes a long breath and leans against Manny.

“No, she’s not a fighter, I mean physically. She’s a pacifist, in fact.”

“That must be pretty rough for her these days. Bandits and violence everywhere.”

“She’s really smart and pretty so she can always find a peaceful way out of trouble. One day, I’d like to be like her,” Thirteen sighs, “But I’m so far from it that most days it just feels like a silly, impossible dream.”

Manny wraps his foreleg around her shoulders and pulls her closer.

“Come on, someone as pretty as you can always just use her charm to talk her way out of things. Besides, it’s not as if you’re on your own, right? You said you had friends here. Where are they?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, we’re just starting to get comfortable and it would be a pity to have such a nice evening interrupted.”

“Don’t worry,” Thirteen relaxes against him and enjoys the heat coming from the strong griffon’s body, “Three and Miss Harriet are busy figuring out a way to fix the radio at the tavern and Magpie left several days ago for some big city in the south to see how things are in this part of the Griffon Empire.”

“Oh really?” Manny pulls away from Thirteen who gives him a confused look, “Then how about we make ourselves,” he grabs Thirteen’s shoulders and begins lowering himself on his back while pulling her down on his chest, “a little more comfortable.”

Thirteen’s heart flutters as she allows herself to be led into a full-body contact.

Are you so starved for physical contact that you’ll take a suspicious griffon you know nothing about?

YES! He’s nice. How often did anyone do anything nice for me if I didn't count dad or Three?

He’s so warm…

Thirteen closes her eyes and buries her nose into Manny’s chest feathers.

You’re still hungry! Where is the love?

I don’t know! I’ve never done this! Maybe we just need to get to… you know…

Did you need to ride Three’s nonexistent d-

Shut up! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!

With a determined expression, Thirteen opens her eyes and gives Manny a tight hug. He smiles, taps on her shoulder, and slowly leads her in a spin which leaves him on top of her. Thirteen softens her carapace and Manny notices immediately, running a tight grip of his talons from her lower belly up to her neck, making her close her eyes, breathe out, and shiver.

A click makes Thirteen open her eyes again and she notices him fiddling with his belt. She reaches out to help him take off the belt with many small bags and pouches but he shakes his head and smiles.

“Don’t worry, I can do that on my own,” he leans down and gives her a soft kiss. Breathing out afterwards, Thirteen closes her eyes, thankful to have someone with any experience in a situation like this. The love and lust will start flowing soon no doubt.

For a brief moment, she smells something extremely sharp and minty but before she can compare her expectations with reality it becomes her whole world, forcefully filling her nose.

Her eyes bulge and before they tear up she can see Manny pressing a thick cloth, the source of the smell, over her nose.

He’s strong. He’s too strong. Much stronger than he showed at any point before.

She opens her mouth, mainly to breathe but also to ask-

“What are-”

-before Manny moves the cloth down to cover her mouth completely.

“Stupid girl,” Manny smirks, “But you can’t expect much from a race of predators and fleshlights and, girl, you are no predator.”

Her mind becomes hazy and this time not with self-pity. Every time she gasps for air, more of the sharp stench gets into her lungs and robs her of control of her own body.

She has no idea what part of her gives the order because it sure as hole isn’t her conscious mind but suddenly she can breathe, barely but she can. It takes her a moment to realize she’s grown a blowhole in the back of her neck. Being pressed so hard against the couch is making it difficult but it’s still vastly better than breathing whatever chemical the heavy cloth over her nose and mouth is drenched in.

Don’t fight it. Pretend.

With strange clarity caused by imminent danger, Thirteen realizes that every choice she consciously made today brought her here. The tiny voice in the back of her head tried to warn her but she didn’t listen.

She listens now and her body goes limp.

Manny feels the changeling stop struggling but he keeps the chloroform-infused cloth over her nose a while longer just in case before he gets off of the couch and quickly gathers his things.

Thirteen doesn’t move even after she hears the main door slam shut.

Get up!

She slowly sits up like a puppet on strings. Not seeing Manny or his things anywhere around, she starts bawling like a little filly which once again she reminds herself that she is.

“I- I was so- so stupid...” she wipes her eyes ineffectively, ”As if- as if anyone could like me...”

Shut up and listen! You’re not helping anything.

“I… I just want to go home… and see dad...”

HE PULLED INFO ABOUT EVERYONE OUT OF YOU AND IT CLEARLY WASN’T BECAUSE HE WANTED TO MAKE MORE FRIENDS!

Thirteen freezes with her eyes wide open.

“I… I never thought… he sounded so genuine...”

Because you believed his damn BEAK while you knew from the beginning his feelings didn’t match.

“I didn’t know-”

You DID know! You may be young but you are a CHANGELING! All the instincts you need are here inside you, good and bad. Trust those instead of the naive little girl who’s just now helplessly crying her eyes out.

It takes some time to clear her head. The misery, uncertainty, and self-pity always remain but for once she can sense that behind those there’s more… way more. Something cold, calculating…

...and feral.

Now tell me, changeling queen, what do our instincts say?

“...hunt...” growls Thirteen.

Bloodline: Awakening

[Enchanted letter, readable only by the recipient]

Dear friend,

Thank you for your extensive reports on the whereabouts of the escaped group but it seems that we were too late to stop them. Analysis of the old orphanage revealed that some kind of magic was used for travel into Tartarus and back, which means the traitors must have been able to talk to Flow and were likely recruited to help him escape.

That must not happen. There is no greater threat to our world than him. This turn of events leaves us with no choice. We must fight fire with fire.

Inform subject AAA34 that he will be released on the condition that he finds and eliminates changelings known as Three, Thirteen, and Gem, a griffon going by the name Magpie, a Corrupted called Harriet, and anyone they might have recruited to help them release Flow. He met them before and his power will lead him to them.

Yes, I am fully aware he will likely rebel so take precautions and make sure he knows his only way of not getting imprisoned in a much worse way than before is by completing his mission. Simply put, if he wants to stay out of Tartarus he needs to keep Flow in. If he’s good, he might occasionally even get a death row inmate or other serious criminal to… play with. We dealt with him before, we can stop him again if he grows stronger, even if it means mobilizing all alicorns at hoof.

We can’t deal with Flow, no matter what anyone thinks. We can’t fight him and we can’t stop him if he gets out.

Thankfully, as far as we know, the only way to completely release anyone from Tartarus is with Twilight’s permission so keep her safe.

For Equestria.

[End of letter]

Thirteen has precisely zero idea how she’s doing it but she’s invisible. The disadvantage is that she’s cold, very cold. Whatever properties her transformed chitin has, heat insulation isn’t one of them.

She pokes herself and her hoof easily sinks halfway into her body.

Apparently, durability definitely isn’t there either.

What is there, however, is her sight that is allowing her to track Manny out of Windy and to the south.

Yes, now she knows she’s going south without a compass.

Granted, all this is coming with the second disadvantage which is feeling as if something else is in charge, leading her along like a doll on strings. Other than that, everything is dandy. All she has to do is to keep her hooves from freezing off, breathe warm air on them from time to time, and not walk too quickly so that Manny doesn’t hear the thin blanket of snow crunch under her steps.

And stop herself from trembling… and don’t catch pneumonia… and don’t let her chattering teeth reveal her.

It’s so cold…

She wanted to find Manny, her body answered with whatever this partial invisibility or dynamic camouflage was, she left the house. After all, clothes would only allow him to see her…

If mom ever tells me I’m stupid again, I’m going to answer with a HOLE YEAH!

It’s been an hour and a half. Yes, she knows that now too. Accurately.

At first, Thirteen was sure Manny would either leave Windy and camp outside before taking a shot at getting to Three or Harriet just like he did to her but his course hasn’t changed since he left Harriet’s house.

He’s after Magpie. That’s the only explanation. He wouldn’t just chat up a random changeling, get information about everyone involved, and leave. And since he doesn’t seem to have any desire to return to Windy, there’s only one trail he can be following.

I’m freezing.

Do I just go back after all this?

Having cooled down, quite literally, since leaving the house, she’s a lot more aware of Manny’s strength and the likelihood of him being armed to the teeth, so a direct attack-

A recent memory resurfaces. One of her being helpless, pushed into the soft sofa by a much stronger griffon. The sharp scent of chloroform returns to her nose, although thankfully this time it’s only inside her head.

KILL HIM!

A haze of red descends over her, blood pounding in her ears.

She screams and charges forward.

Manny reacts instantly to the high-pitched screech of someone who isn’t sure of herself but needs an outlet for her fury and there’s only one in sight. His microscopic moment of surprise as Thirteen’s chitin loses its invisibility powers is quickly followed by a snort of contempt and him reaching for a pistol on his belt.

She keeps accelerating but her original distance was so high that unless she could move like her mother Manny would have time to aim his pistol at her no matter what.

He aims.

He fires.

Thirteen drops, accompanied by a splatter of green blood.

“Look, bug-” Manny sneers.

The thing that pounces at him with a burst of amber fire isn’t Thirteen. It can’t be.

No smooth, almost skin-looking, chitin with barely visible segmentation. No flat, pony teeth showing in a nervous smile. No more shy gaze cast slightly downwards.

It’s a monster incomparable with even the worst Corrupted Manny has ever seen. Claws outstretched, maw open far beyond that of any creature should be filled with long, sharp fangs, heavily segmented carapace resembling platemails from old ages covered in brutal edges. However, it’s the eyes, not brown anymore but glowing amber, that make him repeatedly pull the trigger again the second his body frozen in instinctive terror at meeting the apex predator regains control.

The bullets ricochet with flashes of light clearly visible in the sunless darkness.

He reaches for the shotgun on his backpack with practiced speed. As he looks up while instinctively aiming forward, the already present black abyss of Thirteen’s maw bites down, splitting the barrel of the shotgun in half with ease.

He still pulls the trigger.

Blinking the blinding flash of light away and backing off, Manny doesn’t expect the punch that floors him and knocks the air out of him even through his padded vest.

He gasps for air, the maw opens again, and bites down.

No!

The bite doesn’t take his head off, instead injecting him with a heavy dose of barely refined changeling venom. Thirteen’s now jagged horn burns with amber fire like her eyes, and as she swings it downwards the blast of light blinds Manny completely.

However, temporary blindness is the smallest of his problems when Thirteen’s magic coupled with the fresh dose of poison burning inside his veins ravage his mind.

***

Agent Mantra.

We ran a trace on the dead griffons found in a military resource train. Our sources within The Guild says that they were sent to recover the last free Redtalon who boarded the train in Griffonstone and was headed east. His companions are two changelings and a dragonpony. The two changelings are a mystery - one is completely unknown and any information about the other is far above both of our clearances. However, the dragonpony mare was identified as Harriet - a third party who got involved in Nicolai’s secret operation several months ago. Once again, beyond our clearance. Supposedly, she’s from Windy, a small border village in the northeast. Start there. We can’t afford a full-scale uprising in the east so it’s up to you to find and eliminate him. Our hold on the region after Altberg Redtalon’s death is shaky at best and, with the unrest in the south, we don’t have the resources to keep the Empire together in such a case.

The Emperor protects.

***

Thirteen isn’t gentle as she rips through Manny’s mind, she doesn’t know how to be. Her body is operating on a wish and the most basic and inborn of changeling instincts. She can’t pull any delicate details out of him like any even moderately skilled infiltrator could but she gets the overall gist from the stream of thoughts, images, and feelings which only confirm her original guess that Magpie was Manny’s target.

Even in her strained state of self-control, Thirteen knows she won’t be able to target any specific information about his mission and she has no desire to see the entirety of Manny’s life so she withdraws.

The light of her horn fades and she stumbles, snow and frozen tainted grass crunching loudly under her new weight. Under her, Manny is foaming from the beak, twitching his legs at random, and his eyes are staring blankly ahead.

Her hoof is cold.

She looks down at her newly jagged and gnarly leg and raises it in disbelief. Instead of a hoof, there are long, sharp claws spread out like a minotaur’s palm. With curiosity, she tries to make a fist and the claws fold in such a way they form a hoof with no visible cracks.

Open. Close. Open. Close. Claws. Hoof. Claws. Hoof. No shapeshifting or love expenditure needed.

Both her forelegs work like that but her hind hooves feel as solid as ever.

“I can’t go back looking like this!” she examines her barrel and all the parts she can see, “All jagged and spiky. The griffons will come for me with torches and pitchforks and no amount of Three’s hugs will help!”

Make them submit and obey! Destroy those who resist!

“NO!” Thirteen yells out loud to drown out the voice- no, instinct turned into words, “I’m not like that!”

Yes, you are.

“I don’t want to be! I want to be like Gem. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

A little too late for that now, isn’t it?

Memories flash through Thirteen’s head. Ramming a shotgun through a griffon’s neck, the feeling of hot blood as she severs someone’s forelegs, breaking a griffon’s collarbone and throwing him under a train.

Five’s broken foreleg…

One’s missing teeth…

Dwarf dummy for ballistic and laser testing shredded to pieces…

“No...” Thirteen stumbles backwards and slumps against a tree. She knows the final memory that’s coming. She didn’t know she knew the memory a microsecond ago but it all comes trickling back.

***

“A true royal egg,” says One with a smile and nudges the big, stumped, boss-father, “Didn’t think you had it in you after all this time.”

“Do you count the Hundreds as siblings?” asks the boss, glancing at the other two changelings in the room.

“Hole no,” snorts Two, “Hive? Yes. Family? To a degree. Siblings? I don’t count Five or Seven among those, so no.”

“I don’t want to sound mean,” Gem smirks and looks at the ceiling, “But I gotta agree with Two on this one. It’s mom. It’s you, dad. And it’s the two of us. Two earned it.”

“Three of you,” One nods towards the large egg which starts cracking.

“Comfort said the last royal eggs she knew about were Chrysalis’ generals - Cryo, Shadowstep... eeeh, can’t name the others without searching the hive mind.”

The top of the egg cracks and a changeling head peeks out, wearing the top bit like a small helmet.

“No larval stage?” Gem leans closer to Thirteen’s blurry field of view, “Intriguing. Did you know this would happen, dad?”

“Absolutely no idea...” boss walks over, sits down to the lanky changeling still mostly submerged in the egg-liquid-filler-thingy.

Thirteen looks at him. He’s in charge. She knows it. She can feel the hive link connecting them.

King.

BUT I AM THE QUEEN!

The world blurs. She hears a loud crack and when she blinks, the fake king is backing off with a deep gash in his neck carapace, green blood seeping through.

Her foreleg hurts and as she raises it she finds her hoof almost broken off. One grabs her by the back of her neck, forces Thirteen to look into her eyes, and growls quietly:

“...there’s one changeling who means more to me than anyone or anything else. You won’t do this again...”

A flash of green light.

Darkness.

***

“I… I almost killed dad...” tears well up in Thirteen’s eyes, “Mom knew she had to train me to control and stop myself because...” her jaw drops at the realization, “Because she knew that one day she might not be able to. That one day, no matter how much she grows… I… could overpower her.”

Gasping for air, she starts trembling.

“I don’t want any of that! I love all of them! Gem… Two… Eleven… Hundreds... even mom...”

Especially Three.

“Yes!” she agrees.

A new image flashes behind her eyes.

Dad and mom. A leader keeping everyone’s lives together, improving them as much as he can. He might not be excessively powerful but he inspired everyone into believing their lives can be better. They all don’t follow and obey him because of his physical strength, infiltrator skills, or magic. They follow him because they all respect his vision.

Well, some might also have a healthy dose of respect for his fierce and ruthless protector who is always by his side, his mate, his Queen - his number One.

Three and you could be similar.

“Not at their expense!” yells Thirteen into the darkness.

Will.

Not.

Harm.

My.

Family!

Her head spins as she forces herself to stand up but she grits her teeth… and spreads her legs for balance. She won’t have her moment of triumph over herself ruined by randomly keeling over even if she has to look as if she’s about to lay an oversized egg herself.

“And I don’t want to go back to Windy looking like this...?” she adds, the usual hesitation returning to her voice.

As if begrudgingly, the chitin all over her body smooths out again but remains far from her original carapace. Still more pronounced, segmented, and armor-like, her mouth still opens from ear to ear and is filled with sharp teeth, and her hooves still unfold into claws.

On some level, though, this feels right. More monstrous, but unrestrained, more complete, and feral.

Manny grunts and twitches. She can sense his brain isn’t working properly after her forced entry and it never will again but she doesn’t feel any pity for him.

“You’re a threat,” she says before stripping him and taking all his bags away, “Some Corrupted can eat you for biomass if it makes them happy and you don’t freeze beforehoof.”

Feral or not, she doesn’t have it in her to kill a defenseless creature in cold blood.

But leaving him like this is worse. At least you can make this quick.

She turns back to Manny again and opens her mouth. She has no idea how long she stands there, paralyzed, before biting down.

The burning blood gets into her throat, nose, and the crunch makes her whine before everything sinks in.

She throws up, then shovels snow into her mouth to wash the taste of iron and bile out. Again and again until she can stand again. Trembling and gasping for air but still standing, alive with her enemy gone from the world forever.

Mercy has many faces. You did the right thing.

As she starts walking back to Windy, she realizes that nothing in recent months made her happier than finding this out about herself.

***

“Hold still, please...” mumbles Three, his beard lying in a safe distance away from a wand tipped with a red crystal held by the village blacksmith Chester and emitting a thin beam of light through a metal construction bearing several lenses made of gemstones. The focused light is melting gold coins into liquid as Three moves them under it, his eyes smoky grey and his fetlocks-turned-claws heavily insulated from the heat.

“This thing is shaking worse than a firing pistol,” Chester grits his beak and his muscles bulge as sweat keeps dripping from him out of the heat as well as the mental and physical strain.

“You’re doing great, Mister Chester. Just a little more,” Three pours the gold into a different metal bowl and grabs the final batch of coins, this time silver to purify them under the light from the wand. The silver coins take a little longer due to more impurities in the coinage. It’s still only a matter of seconds, though, “Phew, now for the delicate part...”

Three quickly moves the small containers of liquid gold and silver to a basic soldering iron, the use of which wouldn’t be of any use in this situation to anyone without the precision and steadiness of a changeling, and starts fixing the circuit board of the radio, hoping that the acids Thirteen prepared before according to his recipe were enough to make anything that’s not pure gold or silver evaporate out of the mix under the heat.

It only takes a few minutes, though.

“Ooookay…” Three puts everything away and attaches a set of makeshift capacitors in place of the old, melted one. Even he wasn’t able to replace a machine-made part with a similar one so he had to make several bigger ones to achieve the same properties. That needed a second circuit board and some fresh wiring and will require more space in the radio itself but according to all his knowledge it should work… for some time, “Done!”

Three blows several times on the now connected boards and nods towards Chester who taps the wand twice and the beam of light stops.

“I had no idea Harriet’s dad had something like this in his hoard,” Chester puts the warm wand down, “How did you persuade him to lend it to you?”

“He wasn’t keen on it until I promised I’d give it back immediately and Miss Harriet vouched for me. Hmmm,” he looks at the still almost full containers with pure gold and pure silver, “Looks like I took far more coins than I needed. I hope Mister Hazaren won’t be mad.”

“That you took a bunch of basically priceless coins and made pure gold and silver out of them?” Chester snickers, “I doubt that.”

“And the gems for the beam focusing array,” Three nods to the flimsy construction on the table.

“I wouldn’t worry about it. You told him what you’d do with it, right?”

“Yup!” Three nods, transforming his claws back into hooves and putting his beard back on.

“Then I really wouldn’t worry about it,” Chester shrugs and points to the circuit board, “Do you want me to take that to Raymond or help with taking everything back to Harriet?”

“Nah, you’ve helped enough. Thank you very much,” Three smiles at the griffon, “I’ll stop by at the tavern to connect this up and then I’ll take everything to Harriet. If you could dismantle the array while I scrub the mess caked on my face off that would help a lot, though.”

“I’ll get right on it. Can I keep the lenses? I don’t need to do much precision work around here but they might be useful at some point,” asks Chester out loud so that Three hears him in the bathroom.

“I’ll have to ask Mister Hazaren but I’ll bring them back if he agrees,” is the reply followed by the sound of vigorous scouring.

Chester shakes his head and mumbles to himself:

“...lives on hugs, knows tech better than any engineer I’ve ever met, can do precision work without robotics, makes candy out of drool, and is polite. How have these guys not conquered the world yet I don’t understand...”

***

Thirteen spots a shadow from the corner of her eye as the door of the house she’s passing by opens, a griffon looks out, gasps, and immediately darts back inside.

Yep, pitchforks and torches in 3… 2… 1…

At least the cold isn’t a problem anymore for some reason. This new body is weird. Scary, useful, but still weird.

However, nothing happens. Rumors will undoubtedly spread soon, so while all she wants to do is to go home, the crazy instinct part of her tells her she should act first.

Who trusts me here the most? Harriet and Three’s word won’t be enough so it’s either Raymond or doctor Fairfeather.

The patients know me too, know that I took care of them for a while.

Taking a deep breath, Thirteen picks up the pace and trots to Fairfeather’s house.

She knocks, the door opens, Fairfeather peeks out…

...and Thirteen immediately prevents the door from slamming shut by shoving a hoof inside.

“It’s me, doctor, Thirteen!” she whispers desperately, “I need help.”

She pulls her hoof out. The door closes.

When she doesn’t try to push through or anything else, Fairfeather opens the door again after some hesitation.

“What happened to you?” he slowly breathes out, examining her predatory body, “If it wasn’t for your mane, I wouldn’t recognize you at all.”

“Can we speak inside? I think I scared a few griffons on the way here.”

“Can’t blame them,” Fairfeather opens the door fully and gestures for her to get in, “Come in.”

Thirteen slips into the hallway and lets out a sigh of relief at finally being somewhere safe-ish.

“So, what happened?” Fairfeather asks again.

Thirteen bites her lower lip which with her ear-to-ear mouth and sharp teeth looks absolutely horrifying but her overall demeanor conveys to Fairfeather that she might genuinely be more scared of herself than he is of her.

“...what is your opinion on Redtalons, doctor? I mean, the family itself.”

“Why do you ask?”

Oh, what the hole? Apparently the griffon Black Ops already know about Magpie so what am I really trying to keep secret?

“Magpie, the griffon we arrived with and you treated - he’s a Redtalon.”

“I know. I saw his forelegs and I do know some recent history. Spreading info about coming in contact with one of them could land one in prison or worse these days...”

Thirteen sighs, allows herself a small smile, and tells Fairfeather about Manny and the knowledge she drained from his head.

***

Unfortunately for Thirteen, Fairfeather’s long-term patients were far less accepting than the doctor himself and while before she could feel some faint friendship and love coming from them, now they just stared at her in horror when she came to greet them. Staying there would prove no use despite Fairfeather’s reassurance that she’ll win them over again when they realize it’s still the same changeling who had been taking care of them for the past few days.

Discouraged, she just wanted to go home but staying alone with her thoughts felt like exactly the wrong idea so she decided on going to the tavern. Maybe the entire situation was like ripping off a bandaid - better to get over with in one painful go. Maybe she might even find Three or Harriet there.

The casual chatting around the entire tavern goes deathly silent as she enters, leaving behind only the droning of the current news on the radio.

She looks around, her ears flopping down.

“Uhh, hi. Soo… I see that Three managed to fix the radio. That’s good,” faced with the glares of everyone, she starts shuffling towards her table in the corner, “I’ll… I’ll just sit down here and won’t bother anyone...”

At least no one’s throwing anything.

Lowering her head on the table and closing her eyes, she nonetheless perks up her ears to listen both to the news and for anyone attempting to approach her.

“And now for some news from the east, believe it or not!” announces the radio cheerfully, “Our brave boys in black, the Imperial Intelligence Service caught a griffona-non-grata in Bloodstone - Magpie Redtalon himself, brother to the traitor Veronica Redtalon who was behind the recent rebellion against the Emperor the illegal experiments of which brought the horrors of corruption from Equestria on our beautiful continent. Listen to what the Imperial regent Silas Irongrip had to say about the situation.”

The voice of the radio changes from the announcer in a deep, booming voice:

“Citizens of Bloodstone! Here’s your chance to officially renounce Redtalon rulership and proclaim loyalty to the Emperor. Magpie Redtalon, the last heir to the traitorous bloodline will be on display in a cage in the Bloody plaza until the Emperor himself arrives to enact justice. You will have the opportunity to tell the traitor what you truly think of him and show that what you really want is the stability and safety of the great Griffon Empire! Loyalty will be rewarded, traitors must be punished.”

As the radio returns to analyzing the situation, Thirteen is just staring at it, jaw open and brain frozen.

I… I… do I tell the others?

Magpie told us he knocked the griffons on the train out but he slit their throats.

He’s ruthless and he doesn’t really care about anyone but himself.

He cares about Gem.

Does he really?

He deserves this for the way he treated Three.

Does he? Death for-

Constant abuse? Yes!

He got us here. He almost got himself killed to get us here.

Only because GEM told him to do that! He didn’t even want to leave Equestria.

Well, it was because…

...because…

...because he knew that EXACTLY this could happen at any point if anyone recognized him.

He got us here. He and Harriet got us here. Three and I helped a little but he and Harriet got us here.

He himself said the world wouldn’t miss him!

Gem would.

THIS ISN’T YOUR CHOICE!

Was that a realization? Was there really a scream inside her head that nuked her entire train of thought? Does the voice really exist or is it just her instinct again?

She blinks. Yep, it’s her instinct.

You made a choice. You don’t want to rule, at least not yet, no matter what egg you were born from. You serve, whether it’s fear of responsibility or desire to support someone you deem worthy, it doesn’t matter anymore. Who is your boss?

“...Three...” her mouth moves silently.

Then the choice of what to do isn’t yours, is it? That right belongs to your… boss. You can advise, you can complain, but you WILL obey. You chose to serve so you will do what your boss orders you to and that means giving him all the information he needs to make the decision!

Once again, she stands up like a marionette controlled from elsewhere but the second she turns around and starts walking towards the door leading out she regains control. Did she even really lose it before?

The instinct knows what’s right. It erases doubts and mental barriers she keeps setting up for herself - uncertainty, self-pity, doubt.

No, right now there’s only the mission and the mission is to find Harriet and Three and tell them what she just heard.

Her hive link lights up and connects to Three. It’s weak because she’s hungry, inexperienced, he must be too far, and Three himself isn’t exactly a skilled infiltrator.

“Three! Three! You’re at Harriet’s cave house, right?” she mentally calls out into the empty void.

“Hey, who’s this… Thirteen?! Whoah! You feel completely different.”

“I need you in the tavern, I can’t keep this up for long. Bring Harriet. Magpie’s in trouble! BIG trouble.”

The link fades and she clutches her head as a spike of pain runs from her horn to the back of her skull.

The instinct isn’t intelligent. The instinct doesn’t know what’s right. The instinct only knows perfectly how a changeling works. It’s not the end result, she’s not a mindless, albeit potentially incredibly powerful, animal. It’s just the beginning and that’s what her mother was afraid of all this time.

Then why can’t she shapeshift now? Maybe something passed on from her dad that got activated under the pressure? The warrior stuff and rough chitin are definitely from One, that’s clear.

Mom, dad. I’ll make you proud.

Thirteen returns to her table and sits down. There’s no possible way in any of the infinite realities where Three doesn’t go to help Magpie. If there was, she wouldn’t feel about him the way she does.

She’ll relax, she’ll wait, she’ll gather herself, and when Harriet and Three arrive they’ll ask the griffons what they know about Bloodstone, the Redtalons, and how to save Magpie before the griffon Emperor comes to execute him.

Author's Note

Things are finally moving for both the good and the bad.

Bloodline: Saving private Magpie

Even faint voices echo far and wide through otherwise silent underground tunnels, especially to a changeling’s hearing and doubly so to a warrior of Five’s caliber. As soon as she hears the quiet conversation from far far away, she transforms her hooves slightly to incorporate softer padding and dims the bioluminescent glow of her blue eyes. Darkness itself should be enough of a cover for her to reach anyone without night vision undetected.

Short while later, at the end of a long corridor, she spots two heavily armed equines of about two thirds her size and smiles to herself.

Mission successful.

Granted, she could just go to the dwarf checkpoint and announce herself but the trip from the western outpost has been long and unbelievably boring so she decides to stretch her skills. Not by punching the dwarves out, of course, that would be too easy. No, even as a warrior she has to hone the softer of changeling skills.

She sneaks right to the edge of the sphere of light cast by an electric lamp hanging from a utility rack behind the dwarves’ backs. The two are clearly good guards, having the light source behind them to avoid being blinded and ruining the vision of anyone looking their way.

So, a portable barricade blocking the entire narrow tunnel, two dwarves, and a utility rack with a power source. How to get through?

Five could turn invisible. It’s a difficult trick for a warrior but she managed to learn it over time, the problem remains that the dwarves would notice the twin small saddlebags on her waist anyway. However, one doesn’t spend so much time with Six without learning a trick or two regarding electronics.

From one of the saddlebags, she pulls out a smooth marble, puts it into her mouth, and after a moment of internal shapeshifting she spits it out directly at the utility rack.

The lamp goes dark as the marble knocks the power coupling out of the socket. Before the dwarves can even turn the headlamps on their helmets on, she’s already jumped over the barricade, grabbed the marble, and is galloping in complete silence deeper into the tunnels, no damage done, no trace left behind.

There are several more encounters along the way which she successfully avoids, other than one where a group of miners walks straight towards her with mining gear and lets her pass. After all, it’s not as if she’s an enemy or anything.

Strangely enough, so far she hasn’t managed to sense Two’s mind link and can’t see any reason why she’d be hiding so she’s been following Cryo’s.

The scenery changes sharply from smooth but stone tunnels into metallic white of Silversmith hallways. No doors are closed and dwarves are rushing about their jobs everywhere around so it’s beyond Five’s skills to remain undetected. Several soldiers walk by and salute her with a curious glance. When she salutes back, they simply continue without a word. The aren’t that many changelings and Five specifically is well-known among the military ranks for the guards to remember she hasn’t been sent here with this expedition but they also know that changelings do changeling things which they rarely need to explain to anyone.

After reaching a well-lit but rather empty small plaza, Five’s suddenly assaulted by the feeling of being watched. She looks around, listening to the instinct which has never proved her wrong.

Crates of supplies, tools, wiring, devices.

A flower pot with two tiny blue dots is staring at her.

She smirks and crosses her forelegs on her chest.

“Fine, you got me, Eleven.”

The flower pot transforms into Eleven’s main body while several other objects in the vicinity which she completely missed transform into the smaller ten and pile on her into a one-on-one group hug.

“I missed you!” says the main Eleven.

“Same. You have no idea how boring it was with only Six, Seven, and the Hundreds. Always just machines, books, or menial labor. Where’s Two?”

“In Canterlot!”

“What?” Five considers herself a rather stoic changeling but this comes as a shock.

“She found tunnels north leading to Chrysalis’ old hive and then used the tunnel to Brauheim to build a shortcut to Canterlot.”

“Useful but risky,” assesses Five with a nod, “Alright, we’ll have to do this without her then. I got a mission from boss and Seven which, if it works, will let us connect this city with the west outpost via a teleporter.”

“Yay!” main Eleven cheers while several of his other bodies hoof bump.

“I feel the same way. Now, get me the Hundreds who came with you as well as the leading dwarf engineers around here. This isn’t going to be easy.”

***

Magpie coughs weakly which comes out as a set of wheezes and does very little to ease the pain in his chest.

So damn cold…

Makes me wish Cassius was already here to chop my head off or something. Better than slowly choking on my own blood due to pneumonia.

He can only barely feel the rest of his body which, honestly, can be considered a blessing at this point. The raised cage he’s slumped in is too small for him, making him huddle around the one small piece of blanket he got so that he wouldn’t freeze to death in the wide open plaza which, as he recalls, used to be prone to gusts of wind. If there’s a good thing about the lack of sun these days it’s that the order of nature is so screwed by now that while it’s freezing there’s almost no air flow.

He’s too weak but, out of habit, he still tightens a fist with both his forelegs several times, noting that his talons don’t close completely anymore. Having been around Gem for long enough, he knows that a sign like this means that even if he by some miracle isn’t executed in the end he’ll remain crippled for the rest of his life.

Well, time’s running out. Griffons finished what the minotaurs failed to do. Suck on that, savages. Catbirds rule!

He cracks a smirk. Fun really is where one finds it.

His cage shakes a little. He doesn’t even bother opening his eyes. Over the past few days, barely a double-digit amount of griffons came to scream at him and “officially denounce” him as a Redtalon despite the loudspeakers around the city announcing the “opportunity” on a daily basis. Maybe Crimson and that bastard Tasheed were right and the pro-Redtalon sentiment is much more widespread than Magpie would believe.

A soft bean-bag ball bounces off of his face pressed against the bars.

Of course, with such a massive food shortage all over the place, griffons who came to throw something at him couldn’t waste rotten fruit or vegetables and the guards made sure no one threw flagstones… after the first incident.

His left hind paw torn open and badly healed twitches. It did remind him to keep his limbs inside the cage all the time until the guards installed a bucket full of bean-bag balls the griffons could throw. If hurled with enough strength, the hurt but couldn’t do more than bruise which returned the option of letting his limbs hang out to him.

The ball bounces off of his face pressed against the bars. He doesn’t give the thrower the satisfaction of opening his eyes or reacting. Besides, the blow was barely noticeable.

Face again. Exactly the same spot. Weak hit.

Again.

And again.

That’s some precision you got there…

And exact timing… accurate like a metronome.

Magpie opens his eyes with an exhausted and desperate frown. A griffon and, probably, a pony are standing under the dais with the hanging cage. The pony is completely bundled up in heavy winter clothes, is wearing a hood, and its muzzle is covered by a scarf. From the short muzzle, Magpie can hazard a guess that it’s a mare but the only thing he can see through his haze of exhaustion are strangely pronounced brownish-orange eyes. Are they glowing or something or is it just the reflected light of the two lamps on the dais?

The griffon currently throwing the ball and catching it again bears golden head feathers, bright blue eyes… no, teal eyes, and a midnight blue coat from the neck down, only a few hair of which are visible as the rest of his body is covered by a similar cut of winter clothing as the pony is wearing. The griffon is watching Magpie with a scowl but there’s something completely wrong about it.

As if… as if someone had scowling explained to them but this was their first try.

“You, Redtalon baddie!” the griffon raises his voice, making the six armed guards surrounding the dais glance his way.

Baddie? Who uses-

No… please no…

The ONE thing I didn’t want to happen…

“Traitors like you don’t deserve any respect!” continues the griffon while the pony approaches one of the guards, watches him up close as he glares back, and then walks up to the next one, “Or hugs, you son of a boop! You’re not nice, you kill griffons and lie about it!”

Magpie closes his eyes again, breathes out, and keeps listening to the most PG hateful monologue coming from someone who clearly has never said a real bad word about anyone.

“-and you still owe me a ride!” definitely-not-Three finishes his speech as he walks up to the cage and whispers, “Mister Magpie, it’s us!”

Great, and now they’re both dead.

Magpie opens his eyes to roll them but to his surprise the griffon guards are only standing there, staring ahead. He looks at the mare.

“...Gem…?” he croaks weakly. Wrong eyes, wrong size, but… it can’t be Thirteen, right? There’s no way she could hypnotize six guards without them noticing.

She shakes her head and nods towards who must be griffon Three.

“It’s Thirteen, she heard on the radio that you were in trouble. Something weird happened to her. No time to explain,” whispers Three, “We’re here to get you out.”

“...can’t...”

“Come on!” Three insists, “She’s not sure how long the hypnosis will last but the guards are out of it for now.”

“...the cage… reinforced... they don’t have… keys...”

Three looks at Thirteen and asks through the hive link to avoid the guards hearing them discussing details about the escape in fear it could break the hypnosis:

“Can you bite through the bars or melt them?”

Magpie’s eyes bulge as Thirteen walks up, reaches upwards to the cage, and her hoof unfurls into a weird set of claws. She runs one over the bar and backs off.

“No, at least not right now. If I had time to prepare, I think I know how I could melt it but without a proper source of love it’s going to take time. This body seems to be made to work with little to no resources and chances to refill.”

“Do you have any ideas on how to get out?” whispers Three again, “We’ll have to come back later otherwise. Thirteen can’t break the cage without preparation.”

“...good...” wheezes Magpie.

“No, not good!” Three pouts, “We have to help you-”

Magpie slowly shakes his head.

“...snipers… on the roofs… and in… windows… no… chance...”

For the first time, though, he sees something new in Three’s eyes and that something is anger.

“You know this place better than both of us put together so find a way,” he hisses, “Otherwise we’re breaking you out by force and hoping for the best. Do you know a place where we can rest and where Thirteen can prepare the acid to melt the bars?”

Something clicks in Magpie’s head. He tells them an address and instructions how to get there, followed by:

“-alarm in the… cellar… and tell... Crimson that Tasheed… was a Black Ops… agent… all along… and that their hideout… isn’t… safe-” he starts coughing until the exhaustion has him lose control of himself and slump in the cage, “...she… might… help...”

Three’s expression of determined anger turns into an encouraging smile which even as a griffon suits him much more.

“We’ll be back for you. Don’t give up!” he bounces one of the balls against the cage one last time for show and then puts it into his saddlebag.

Looks fun.

They calmly trot out of the large, open plaza and as soon as they’re out of sight they break into a gallop.

***

Thirteen looks around as she hears faint electronic buzzing which started as soon as they entered the cellar at the address Magpie sent them to. It wasn’t far, thankfully, because neither she nor Three have any idea how much time they have left. In absence of anything else to do, Thirteen sits down on one of the two chairs by the table in the otherwise empty cellar while Three takes the other.

Thirteen’s ears twitch, hearing quiet pawsteps from upstairs. She nudges Three who seems to be preoccupied by his new ball and he just nods back. A moment later, two griffons rush inside, each aiming a pistol their way immediately.

“Who are you?” asks one.

Three and Thirteen exchange glances.

“Magpie sent us here,” says Three.

“Wrong answer,” says a female griffon arriving behind them who fits Magpie’s description of ‘Crimson’.

“Miss Crimson, Magpie said that Tasheed, the guy who was with him, was a Black Ops agent. He brought Magpie here and he knew about you all along. You’re not safe here.”

“What happened to Warren? Did he tell you that?” asks Crimson.

“He said that the guards executed everyone who was with him,” Three looks down for a moment, “I’m sorry.”

Crimson stumbles and grits her beak. A griffon next to her puts his foreleg on her shoulder and she swipes it away with an angry growl:

“I warned him...”

“We’re here to ask you for help,” says Three.

“Help? HELP?!” Crimson barks, tears in her eyes, “That idiot got my son killed-!”

“It was a trap aimed at him!” Three pleads.

“IT WAS STUPID!”

“Agreed,” Thirteen interjects quietly and takes her hood and scarf off. All armed griffons aim at her, “But will you let that slide? Imperial Black Ops killing your son and the last Redtalon? A Black Ops agent almost raped me. I hunted him down afterwards and… and killed him. I learned from him he’s been tracking Magpie for weeks. I don’t like Magpie. I don’t think anyone but my sister likes Magpie but everyone who knows him says the same thing - if he’s on your side in a tough spot, he will fight for you until death. I don’t know how big you griffons here are on the whole Redtalon thing but the Black Ops believe it to be serious and, judging from what happened, your son did too.”

If looks could kill, Thirteen’s new body would be undergoing a proper stress test right now, because Crimson is glaring daggers, hollow-point bullets, katanas, claymores, and possibly tactical spell strikes at her.

“Look,” Three intervenes before Crimson commits suicide by attacking a changeling with somewhat shaky self-control, “Magpie told us to warn you, that’s all. The two of us are going to try to rescue him no matter what.”

“What makes you think you can get him from that cage before the guards stop you?” sneers Crimson.

Three flashes green and the pile of suddenly too big clothes collapses on itself. A moment later, changeling Three’s head peeks out.

“Two changelings,” he beams, “We already managed to get to him and hypnotize the guards around him. He warned us that they were snipers on the roofs and in the windows of buildings around the Bloody plaza, though.”

“I know griffons who live in those houses, they could let us in-” says one of the griffons.

“And what?!” hisses Crimson, “Take all the snipers out before a single one notices and calls for help? There’s nine of us!”

“I mean, yeah,” the griffon stares back with defiance, “If we could do something that draws their attention away.”

“Such as?”

Three transforms again. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple inside the pile of clothes and he ends up with his head sticking out of a sleeve and choking. One quick transformation later, he jumps onto the table with the bouncy ball in his mouth and drops it.

“How about a bunch of griffons who want to throw something at Magpie and make some noise?” he tilts his head with a smile, “That might do it.”

“We could call in a crowd if we tell them they can show they’re loyal to the Irongrips. Only a few of us have to know what’s really going on. It’s going to take a few days, though.”

Three sighs.

“I don’t think we have-”

“You do,” says Crimson, staring directly at Three, “Emperor Cassius is in the south, resolving some crisis between the states again. There are only several ways he can come back to the heartland with Drachenberg and corrupted areas in the way. If the general reports are correct and he really wants to come in person it could be weeks or even months depending on other priorities.”

“Magpie will freeze to death if he hangs there for weeks,” Three wibbles his lips at Crimson.

“They won’t let him. Silas will want to kiss Cassius’ ass in person,” Crimson scowls.

“He won’t survive that long,” Thirteen stands up sharply, earning pistols aimed her way again, “He’d need specialized medical attention even if we got him out right now. Come on, I know you can’t trust us but first, we need to find a different place to have a chat. The rest is up to you. Do you want to avenge your son?”

“Low blow,” Crimson narrows her eyes.

“My apologies,” Thirteen locks eyes with her.

After a moment, Crimson looks away.

“The world is fucked, my son is dead, and the rest of you idiots want to throw yourselves at the Irongrips and recruit your friends as cover. You know that Legion soldiers will support authority even if they are our boys,” she sighs, “Still, breaking a few Irongrip beaks on the way to Tartarus sounds hella good.”

“Hypnosis?” is all Three asks through his link.

“Just a little nudge,” replies Thirteen, “I realized she wouldn’t do the right thing for the noble reason so I’ll settle for the right thing and the reason being revenge. She WANTED this but was afraid of the retribution against everyone in case she failed. Now she and everyone who joins are all-in. Three, if we fail and they get shot or anything… that’s on us.”

“Yeah. Boss can’t be here so we have to take responsibility for once.”

***

Having been fed enough to be only barely avoiding starvation, Magpie doesn’t bother opening his eyes despite hearing multiple pawsteps and the occasional fragment of a conversation for some time now.

That is, until a ball bounces off of his cage with enough strength to shake him fully awake as the cage starts swinging and spinning violently and the bean bag ball remains lodged halfway through the bars through which it by no means should be able to pass through.

“Unhug you, Redtalon scum!” screams a pony whom Magpie identifies as Thirteen as soon as the cage returns to simply hanging from the pillar on the dais.

“Yeah, screw you!” a random griffon takes one of the many balls in the basket and throws it as well, albeit without too much force.

Something rings inside Magpie’s head but in his exhausted state he can’t figure out what.

Well, one thing is clear even to him - the Bloody plaza in front of him is packed. The wide open square could easily host twenty thousand griffons and he’s somewhere around its center so… five to ten thousand griffons came today to throw stuff at him.

Well, it might be less boring. Though I’m not exactly getting the connection between the crowd and the changelings being here.

Another ball from a different griffon hits the bars. Once again, no particular amount of strength is in the throw.

Another, another, another, until it finally clicks in Magpie’s head.

A griffon throws the ball which Magpie ignores, his eyes locked on the griffon’s foreleg.

It’s blood red, barely visible in the lights of the street lamps.

All of their forelegs are. Every. Single. One.

Just like his.

A panicked scream cuts through the air, making Magpie look in its direction just to see a silhouette of a griffon drop like a rock from the roof of a building in the distance and land on the pavement with a definitely fatal crunch.

“Alright, that’s our cue!” griffon Three calls out, and the entire crowd moves as one.

The balls land on the poor six guards around the dais who back off and raise their pistols. One smarter guard jumps into the air and before he can flap his wings a second time a group of civilians tackle him and drag him down to the others currently being kicked and stomped on by the crowd.

It can’t last long. The guards will recover soon and start shooting. There’s some fifty-or-so hanging around the plaza at all times. Plus the snipers. If the situation gets out of control, they’ll just shoot me.

And I can’t do a damn thing about it…

Thirteen spits some goo at the chain holding the cage up. It’s not the same reinforced steel as the cage itself, so it drops quickly and she kicks it off of the stage between the milling griffons.

“...ow...” Magpie, inside the cage, grunts.

“Line of sight down!” calls out Thirteen, jumping down towards him, “Three, I need you to cover me, this is delicate as hole! This acid can melt the bars so you don’t want to see what it does to griffons.”

And here it comes, the first gunshots. The chaos everywhere around turns into screaming as the first presumed bodies hit the ground. However, where Magpie expected the crowd’s panicked escape, eagle screeches of pure rage pierce the air and the crowd charges towards the regrouping GIL soldiers by the sides of the plaza over bodies of those gunned down by the first bursts of fire.

“Away, away!” Three shoves a griffon who’s passing by and takes a stand in front of Thirteen and the cage, “Shoo! Delicate work in progress here!”

“...what’s… going… on…?” wheezes Magpie.

Three, shielding him with his body, smiles.

“You know how you said that being a Redtalon didn’t mean anything? Well, it looks like that to a lot of griffons around here it does!”

Magpie winces as another round of gunfire is followed by more pained screaming and slumps down.

“...I didn’t… want anyone… to die like… this… for me...”

“Yup!” Three nods bitterly, “But that wasn’t your call now, was it?”

Magpie shields his eyes from the sizzling fumes coming out of the bars currently being chewed through by Thirteen.

Sirens start blaring everywhere around the city and dots of light sparkle the sky above the Bloodstone fortress in the distance as GIL reinforcements on rocket thrusters take to the air.

Time is running out.

It’s taking a minute until enough bars are gone to let the griffon out, give or take, but to Magpie drifting in and out of consciousness it may as well be forever.

“Three, I need you to carry him!” Thirteen pulls Magpie out and winces as his coat and wings lightly graze the still acidic stumps of the bars and leave behind blackened feathers and sizzling scars. The griffon doesn’t react, though, “Oops!”

All resistance to the crowd of rebels seems gone but as soon as she slings Magpie over Three’s back, a single gunshot rings through the air, coming from the direction of the fortress itself.

Time slows down. Thirteen’s instinct reacts only to the sound.

The rebels were supposed to scout out the houses around the plaza and question their owners about GIL posts and were shockingly successful in doing so. The one thing they couldn’t prevent no matter what, though, would be a trained sniper on the roof of the Bloodstone fortress itself. Now, with Magpie not on the ground anymore and the crowd dispersing before the GIL reinforcements arrive, the sniper has a distant but clear shot.

Three, facing away, doesn't see it. Magpie, lying on him, doesn't see it. Only Thirteen spots the flash from the corner of her eye.

Magpie and Three first hear a strange clank before the loud gunshot which makes blood freeze in their veins.

Magpie’s gasps and his eyes bulge in the next instant as he realizes there’s no fresh hole in his head. He looks back in the direction of the fortress and his eyes stop on Thirteen who turns her head, the long bullet still visible caught between her teeth in the corner of her mouth.

She spits it out and slaps Three’s butt.

“RUN, MINIBOSS! RUN LIKE THE ANTI-HUG POLICE IS AFTER YOU!”

“Eeep, not the ultimate baddies!” Three darts forward.

Author's Note

Super easy, barely an inconvenience.

Bloodline: Proper planning

Magpie slowly opens his eyes, roused from his mix of coma, sleep, and unconsciousness by someone shaking him.

“...ughh...”

“Warm water, here. That’s the best we could get on short notice,” says someone.

Talons grab his shoulders from behind and slowly pull him up into a position where his head rests on someone’s lap, giving him a hazy view of himself wrapped in blankets. A griffon leans over him, the bright teal eyes contrasting with the dim light around, and carefully puts a half full glass to Magpie’s beak.

Right… they got me out of the cage… then we ran… and then I must have passed out.

So, where are we?

One thing is clear as he forces himself to slowly slurp the warm water - he’s reclining against transformed Three who is making sure he doesn’t choke on his drink.

“What… happened?” he asks after he puts the empty glass away.

“We got you out!” he hears Thirteen.

“AAH!” Magpie twitches when new, improved and unmasked Thirteen leans into his field of view. The toothy mouth open into an unnatural ear-to-ear smile with the more hind part of her mouth connected by strands of sinew isn’t good for the old sanity.

At least she still sounds the same.

Thirteen withdraws, her smile fading.

“Sorry,” Magpie whispers, “Still not used to you… looking like that.”

“He said sorry, are we sure there’s no lasting brain damage?” Thirteen chuckles with a hint of nervousness.

“Enjoy it… while it lasts,” Magpie forces a smirk too.

“No, seriously,” Thirteen presses on, seeing a crack in the griffon’s armor, “You keep stressing how dangerous us all being in the Empire is and then you, of all griffons, just waltz your face here.”

“You’re the idiots who… risked your lives coming here when you have someone waiting for you back home, not me,” Magpie might be tired but minor things like exhaustion and deep tissue damage won’t stop him from complaining.

“Yeeeah, makes me wonder what Gem would have to say about this,” a shit-eating grin from Thirteen makes Magpie frown, if only because he knows she’s currently on the winning side of the argument no matter what he might say and she knows it.

“You’re forgetting that if I get either of you two killed, your succubus friend will be kicking my soul’s nonexistent nuts in Tartarus for all eternity.”

“Well, we’re all alive and well and from the first look when we were wrapping you up, no bits have fallen off.”

“Weird, I can’t feel bits… quite a lot of my bits actually.”

“We’ll have a proper doctor take a look at you when we’re safe, uhh, safer,” Crimson joins the conversation, scowling at Magpie.

“Crimson? I thought you… didn’t want to help?”

“You got my son killed,” she growls, “This isn’t over between us but he believed that talking you into taking things in Bloodstone into your talons would be better than leaving the reins to some Irongit.”

“Heh, good one,” the corner of Magpie’s mouth curls up, “But Tasheed got all of us.”

“You vouched for him,” Crimson keeps glaring at him.

“He was… my old teacher and he was also… a Black Ops spy planted into the Redtalon family. I didn’t know until we got ambushed in the fortress and he had the expected evil monologue explaining everything. I’m sure now he was the one who poisoned my father.”

“I’m so sorry,” Three discards reality again when he somehow manages to wibble his beak.

“No love lost there,” Magpie closes his eyes and chuckles, “The head of the family and the N-th descendant usable only as a diplomatic chip, the usual story. It’s the principle that counts.”

“If someone poisoned dad-” Thirteen speaks up.

“I know a lot about your hive from your sister...” Magpie interrupts her, “You would be somewhere at the back of the list of the poisoner’s problems. Look, noble families work differently. Let’s leave it like that. How did you get me out... anyway?” he gestures to Three for more water, his voice growing steadier.

Crimson answers instead of the changelings.

“Warren was right. I just wanted a payback but he was right. The griffons here believe in Redtalons, believe they are part of the family themselves. No foreign Irongrip has a place here. I’m a bit more… practical, I’d say, but I must admit that snatching you right from under their beaks felt good,” her permanent scowl softens a little, “I never thought we’d gather so much support without anyone selling us out but we did. Not a single griffon said a word about the plan and we got thousands within days. Thousands willing to die just to say ‘fuck you’ to the Irongrip invaders who robbed them, whose relatives or children starved to death in darkness just because Irongrips consider us traitors due to a squabble between noble families,” with a sigh, she adds, “And dozens did. More got caught, I assume. We got our satisfaction out of it… and we got you.”

They didn’t die for me. Good. They died for whatever little revenge they could achieve.

“What happens now?” asks Magpie.

“The Irongrips are looking for you, that’s all we know. I’m pretty sure they’ll be doing a house-by-house sweep soon enough. You’ve been out cold for barely an hour,” Crimson shrugs, “The changelings brought you to our meeting place and we took you away through the sewers.”

“And where are we exactly?”

“The cellar of a random house, really,” she nods to several griffons sitting around or quietly chatting, “Everyone scattered before the soldiers on thrusters could arrive. They clearly were expecting us to try and fly away, not go underground. What happens now… is up to you, really.”

Magpie grits his beak.

“We gotta help!” says Three immediately.

“How and with what?” Magpie rolls his eyes, “Go on, I’m listening.”

“I...” Three pauses, “Can we… hug-”

“The corpses on the ground in Bloody plaza? Or maybe it might persuade the Irongrips to be nicer to the griffons around here? Or the griffons who had to pick which member of their family starves because there’s not enough food-” Magpie stops his angry rant.

This is stupid. Why am I being stupid? Why can’t I leave this be? I’m a mercenary, that’s all. I’m not a damn noble.

“-” someone opens their beak or mouth to say something but they’re immediately interrupted by Magpie wrapped up like a carpet sitting up. Three grabs him so that he doesn’t keel over again.

“There used to be assembly lines in factories and warehouses on the outskirts of Bloodstone.”

“There still are,” Crimson gives him a puzzled look, “But no companies are building or crafting anything due to Imperial orders to save energy for heating and lights.”

“Any estimate on how long the power plants will be operational?”

“No… idea? As far as I know, power lines from the heartland are intact and the two coal power plants around Bloodstone are still running. Why are you asking? And even if we had the power to spare, it’s not as if the assembly lines are universal enough to build something- to build what, anyway?”

Magpie smirks.

“Something that can grow nutritious although far from delicious food in the darkness and eventually in an amount sufficient for the whole city.”

“What? Are you high? I thought your changeling friend was joking with the brain damage.”

“Three, will you explain it to them? I need some rest and I don’t know what the really long and technical words mean anyway.”

***

“You’re kidding, right?” Magpie slumps onto the hospital bed on which the doctor has been examining him for over three quarters of an hour.

“You felt it yourself,” the doctor puts his notepad down on the table, “Three of our best neurosurgeons spent past week doing their best to fix you up. This is the result,” he points to a dumbbell lying on the floor of the underground hospital room.

“You mean that even after everything I can’t swing a mace without dropping it?!” Magpie raises his voice which ends with him launching into a coughing fit. The doctor waits for it to end before speaking again.

“Give it several months of recovery and physical therapy and you should get better. To what degree, though, is in the stars. The problem is that even if you do, the lung damage you suffered from such severe pneumonia and frost is beyond our ability to heal. You’re going to run out of breath quickly and cause even more damage if you overexert yourself. You’re absolutely unbelievably lucky to even be alive.”

“Yeah, lucky. That was the first thing that crossed my mind too,” Magpie scowls, “Are we done here?”

“Yes, we are,” the doctor nods, “We did all we could to help without alerting the GIL soldiers. If possible, you should stay out of this hospital until they inevitably search the place from top to bottom.”

Magpie nods, puts his clothes on, and limps out of the room. Three’s on the other side of the door, keeping an eye on any potential intruders. He’s in his changeling body as he and the other rebels have been using the sewers and there was little reason to remain disguised. Besides, it showed to the rebels around Crimson that changelings didn’t necessarily have to look scary like Thirteen.

“How did it go?” he asks, “You’ve been there for a while.”

“No more fighting, running, grabbing things, or breathing too hard,” Magpie spits the words out, “You saved a useless blob of flesh. Congratulations.”

“Awww,” Three rubs his muzzle against Magpie’s foreleg, “You’re going to be okay. Hug?”

“This is medicine! You can’t-” Magpie stops himself, “Oh fuck it, I don’t need to keep losing brain cells in addition to everything else,” he lifts a shaky foreleg and wraps it around the small changeling, “You earned one. Just one and you don’t get to tell anyone.”

“Yaaaaaay!” squee’s Three quietly, grabbing as far up Magpie’s neck as he can reach, his wings happily buzzing and all the runes on his body glowing brightly.

Magpie lets the hug linger for far longer than he originally wanted to because… it just feels good. Not like whenever he was lying next to Gem or anything. This is from a completely different world and makes him feel as if the weight of the recent months disappeared for just the moment. What makes him let go isn’t the discomfort and effort of standing on one foreleg, rather the realization that after the initial bright pink glow lighting the otherwise dark hallway, the light of the runes faded into a shimmer. Three doesn’t seem bothered at all, though, beaming at Magpie with the dislodged fake beard hanging by one ear.

Still, there’s no reality in which Magpie would admit anything that’s just crossed his mind to Three.

“I don’t know what to do, Three,” he looks ahead into the darkness, “It feels like decades ago when I was anything other than a minotaur toy or a travelling merc. I remember what I used to do back here but not how anything felt. The only thing I know how it felt was the cold, the pain, the blows I took, the way the minotaurs used me… and now I’m suspicious that even you could fight me on even ground. What am I good for?”

“Well…” Three scratches his head, leading the way, “All the griffons around here seem to think that you can lead them to a better tomorrow.”

“I can’t lead anyone. Leaders have to be likable or no one will listen to them.”

“Really?” Three raises an eyebrow, “I don’t think so. Miss One didn’t like the boss at first, Miss Comfort didn’t like the boss at first. Ten hated the boss at first,” he shakes his head, “What I noticed about the griffons here is that they believe that Redtalon means more than just a ruling noble family. It’s pride from being born and raised here. I don’t think they consider you a traditional leader inspiring them to do something they don’t want to do. To me this feels as if you’re just a conduit through whom they can channel who they truly are. Not someone who says they must do this or that but someone who says they finally can do it,” Three chuckles, “But what do I know? I just dig holes and hug creatures so that they feel better.”

“I don’t know if your boss ever was a cripple.”

“Pfff,” Three actually bursts out laughing and keeps going on for a surprisingly long while, after which he has to catch a breath and wipe tears from his eyes, “Did Miss Gem ever tell you that we first had to keep him hidden in a cellar, then Miss One carried his cocoon while he was transforming from a drone to a king for five years, and even afterwards he had to keep hiding because he couldn’t transform properly?”

“How lucky did he have to be to survive?”

“Very,” Three nods, “But it all comes to one thing.”

“Which iiiis?”

Three shrugs and beams at Magpie.

“Boss is the best,” when Magpie audibly facetalons, Three adds, “And he didn’t give up no matter how horrible the odds against him were. Most of us could have survived if he died but not everyone, definitely not me or Miss Gem when she was little.”

Magpie sighs.

“It’s not as if I have a choice anyway. I can’t limp out of the city and across the Empire to Griffonstone, I don’t speak whatever mix of languages they speak east from here, and even if I could, I don’t know anything other than fighting which I can’t do anymore.”

“Boss had Miss One, you have a city full of griffons. Granted, Miss One could probably beat them all up but it still counts, right?”

“I-”

“May I say one final thing?” asks Three with uncharacteristic hesitation which makes Magpie take a pause.

“Yes?”

“Thirteen didn’t want to come here, I did. I didn’t exactly understand her explanation why but it’s her choice. Miss Crimson didn’t want to help you until Thirteen hypnotized her a little. Don’t worry, only enough so that she’d do what she really wanted to. If you’re bothered about the griffons who died while we got you out...” Three looks down on the floor for a second before gritting his teeth and looking ahead again, “They’re not your fault but only you can make their sacrifice count.”

Magpie stares at Three before whispering:

“What are you?”

“Bzz bzz, I’m a drone and I dig holes,” says Three and hums a short, innocent tune.

***

It’s only four days and six “safe” houses later when a series of quick knocks, the current rebel code, on a cellar door inside a previously searched house interrupts Magpie’s slow and overall depressing sparring session against Thirteen which, so far, has been definitely confirming Magpie’s diagnosis from the hospital.

Magpie tosses the metal rod he’s been using to attempt to break through Thirteen’s defenses to her, she snatches it from the air with her weird collapsible hoof-claw, and he calls out in between heavy breaths:

“Come in!”

“Got news for you,” Crimson walks inside, followed by a dark brown earth pony mare with light blond mane and tail clutching a broom, who gives the two changelings and one griffon in the cellar a quick glance before resuming staring meekly at the floor, “This is Dust Pan. She’s been working in the fortress for the past month-or-so. One of our guys on the inside says she knows of a secret way in.”

“I know a bunch of secret tunnels into the fortress,” Magpie shrugs, “But considering how long Tasheed has lived with my family I have exactly zero doubts that he knows them all too.”

“That’s the thing, this one is supposed to be new and completely unknown,” Crimson nods towards Dust Pan, “Although we haven’t managed to figure out who made it and why,” she taps on the mare’s shoulder which makes her look up at her for a moment before returning to her shy position, her foreleg wrapped around a broom handle as if it was her lifeline, “She’s mute, apparently, and sign language works waaay differently for griffons than for ponies.”

Magpie hums to himself and drums his talons against the floor, pondering what to do. In the meantime, Thirteen approaches Dust Pan who only hangs her head lower. Something about the mare is making Thirteen’s chitin crawl. The thing she calls “instinct” is screaming at her but there’s absolutely no explanation as to why. The mare feels off, the mare feels wrong, and Thirteen can’t, for the love of all holes, figure out what’s causing it.

“Three, what do you think of her?” she asks Three who has been lying on the table in the corner, watching her and Magpie’s exercise with one eye open.

“She feels strange but I don’t think she’s bad or anything. There’s a lot of fear surrounding her. It must be rough being a pony in a griffon city so far from Equestria and she doesn’t look as if she’s from Chineigha.”

“You don’t think anyone is bad ever,” Thirteen objects to Three’s analysis.

“I’m not often wrong.”

“But when you are it’s fatal!” Thirteen raises her internal voice. When Three’s mental image deflates and slumps a bit, she adds, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. I don’t have any proof that she’s bad which would stand up to scrutiny. She just… creeps me out and I don’t know why.”

“Well, you can keep an eye on her, right?”

“I definitely will.”

In the real world, Three approaches Dust Pan, looks up at her, smiles, and gives her foreleg a hug. She withdraws a little, noiselessly opens her mouth, looks around, and then rubs her cheek against Three’s.

“She’s fine in my book!” reports Three via the hive link.

Thirteen just rolls her eyes, although the corner of her mouth curls up.

While this was going on, Magpie and Crimson have been discussing their current situation.

“-and by doing that the Irongrips have shot themselves in the leg. I knew Silas, the Irongrip regent, wasn’t the smartest griffon Cassius could send here but discharging and disarming two thousand GIL soldiers only because they were born in these parts and had issues with firing at civilians, even using rubber projectiles?”

Magpie shrugs.

“Even if there are barely over a thousand soldiers left in the fortress, they could literally withstand the siege of the entire city. If we get in, numbers won’t mean anything inside the hallways, even though they’re huge in comparison to normal buildings. They’re going to have an advantage in both weapons and training. You can’t run griffons with melee weapons and pistols into a reinforced checkpoint with a minigun. I don’t think a moment of surprise will do the trick, unless the secret passage leads directly into this Silas’ headquarters.”

Crimson shakes her head.

“Ground floor pantry next to the kitchens.”

“And where is Silas staying?”

“As far as we know, lord Altberg’s royal suite.”

“So seven floors of nearly a city block size up from there. Soldiers are bound to notice,” Magpie sighs, “Unless… Three, what about you and necessary violence?”

“No!”

“Okay, so what if you had to hug one griffon really really hard. Not hard enough to break anything but enough so that he can’t move.”

Three narrows his eyes.

“The funny thing is… I know you’re playing me but I’m listening...”

Author's Note

That feeling when you're posting on fanfiction.net too and get a sexy review like:

From: Lisa Ware-Krantz (Guest)

Lisa Ware-Krantz:YOUR STORIES ARE PIGSHIT! GO COMMIT SUICIDE

Bloodline: Blood for blood

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We need to get in first. We can enter the tunnel to the fortress from Equitown.”

“There’s a part of Bloodstone where ponies live?”

“Ponies, zebras, equines from Chineigha as well. Even though griffons aren’t too big on mixing, Bloodstone is still a metropolis. I’m pretty sure there are some gargoyles and Abyssinians around here too.”

“No changelings, though?”

“Well… we don’t set fire to your kind on sight anymore. That counts as progress for us.”

***

The group of twenty griffons, with three exceptions, is walking through a narrow underground tunnel with jagged sides and no support beams or anything else. Granted, having originated from a cellar of a bookstore in Equitown, the tunnel can’t be too deep despite sloping down for a while before going level.

“Is it stable?” asks one of the griffons, glancing at Dust Pan who is shuffling next to Crimson. The young mare looks up at him, shrugs, slowly nods, and looks back down.

“It is,” replies Three instead of her, his muzzle almost pressed against the uneven wall and examining it in agonizing detail.

“What bothers me is not knowing who built it and how they did it without anyone inside the fortress noticing,” grumbles Magpie, “That bookstore owner looked hella suspicious.”

“Old Monocle? Nah, he’s fine for a hornhead,” one of the griffons responsible for leading them to the bookstore and gaining access to its cellar speaks up, “He’s lived here since I was in high school. I used to buy comic books here.”

“Then how is it possible he had no idea that someone recently built a tunnel leading directly into the safest place in Bloodstone?” Magpie frowns.

“Shut it,” says Crimson sharply, “You might have been gone for a long time but I know these griffons. If they trust that the unicorn doesn’t know anything, I believe them.”

Magpie knocks at the tunnel wall.

“I’ve hidden myself in bear holes against Corrupted. The walls looked similar but without the firmness. Granted, this is solid rock, but… I have no idea who could have built this, that’s all. Even mine shafts are usually smoother than this and always have support beams.”

“No need for those,” Three shakes his head and taps the smoothly angular stones, “Back in the days of bad mom, this is how we changelings used to build tunnels even deep underground. It’s far from amateur work. These sharp edges are like… boss calls it fractals, they in theory increase the surface volume infinitely and this allows the weight of the ceiling to spread throughout the entire structure, that’s why the ceiling is in that weird bendy triangle shape - it spreads the load to the sides. I think Six would explain it the best, I usually just go with my drone instincts. We don’t build tunnels this way home anymore, we learned to make good enough materials so that we wouldn’t have to, plus smooth surfaces look neater and you can draw on them but this is how we did things in the old hive. It works.”

“You can trust him on that,” adds Thirteen, “Drones know their digging.”

“So you’re telling me that old changelings built this in the past few months in order to… what? Get inside the fortress?” ponders Magpie.

“Well, I’m no expert but changelings tend to infiltrate the power structure of any area they’re trying to settle in,” says Thirteen.

“Could the Irongrips be changelings or something?” asks a griffon.

“I doubt that,” Magpie shakes his head, “I’ve travelled with a changeling infiltrator for a long time. They don’t thrive in fear, they need love.”

“Any kind of affection, really,” Thirteen corrects him.

“Yeah, that. There’s no reason why they would act like such assholes to Redtalons. They would starve themselves,” continues Magpie as he shakes his head, “I’m afraid this still is a political struggle on the side of the Irongrips. Besides, no changelings would have the need to get me personally. Heh, I’m pretty sure they’re like the only species on the two continents who aren’t after me.”

Crimson pokes Dust Pan.

“You, girl, are you a changeling?”

Dust Pan clutches her broom and pouts.

“As far as we can tell, she’s not,” says Thirteen, “Though you never know. Someone like my sister can hide her true nature from other changelings fairly easily,” she leans close to Dust Pan’s muzzle, “Are you a super powerful changeling?”

“Pfbrbrbr!” Dust Pan sticks her tongue out at her in response.

As Thirteen and Crimson quietly chuckle, the group’s progress through the tunnel abruptly stops, blocked by a brick wall. There doesn’t seem to be any mechanism to open it.

Magpie scowls at Dust Pan.

“What is this?”

The earth pony mare makes several motions as if pushing something sideways. A griffon in the front tries to grab any point in the wall but fails. It’s smooth, almost strangely smooth for bricks and mortar.

Three approaches and taps against it. The runes on his body brighten up for a moment.

“This isn’t a wall,” he furrows his brows.

“It definitely felt like one,” the griffon previously examining it disagrees, “and looks like one to me.”

“Nope,” Three shakes his head, “Wood,” he taps against it with no wood noise which makes him give the strange wall a puzzled look, “Hmmm...”

So, his eyes and ears are telling him one thing but his touch and instinct disagree. Like the good drone that he is, Three goes with his hoofsies and repeats the motion Dust Pan showed them before. His hooves catch on something and the “wall” moves aside.

The inconsistency of reality makes everyone watching clutch their heads for a moment before the wall, for the lack of a better word, wibbles and reveals itself to be a cupboard currently pushed halfway away by Three.

“A physical illusion?” Magpie tilts his head, “That’s not parlor magic. That’s not even any above average magic.”

Three shrugs and puts his hoof to his mouth.

“We should be quiet from now on.”

“Yeah, smart buggo,” whispers Crimson and taps the watch around her foreleg, “Pull that thing back and let’s wait. We still have twenty minutes left.”

***

“No matter what, the twenty of us can’t do this alone. There’s no way to shove a few thousand griffons through a narrow tunnel without notice, though. Thankfully, Silas couldn’t afford to kick out all Redtalons from the GIL or he and his two hundred Irongrips would be royally screwed anyway.”

“The problem is that Irongrip soldiers are still suspicious of the remaining Redtalons so if they start moving armed around the fortress outside of their schedule, they’ll be in trouble.”

“One of our guys is inside the fortress clock tower and has rigged the bell to ring an hour early. The shifts change at ten when the night shift switches with the afternoon one. Granted, everyone has a watch but it should give our allies an alibi to move around in full gear for a few minutes before anyone points out the inconsistency.”

***

The bells ring for the ninth time, then for the tenth time.

The griffon guard stationed by one of the many third floor windows furrows his brows as he looks at his watch.

“Nine? Did I miss daylight savings time again?”

He looks up as he hears pawsteps approaching. The arriving griffon walks up and salutes.

“Shift change.”

“Yeah, about that. Can you let me have a look at your watch? I think mine’s broken.”

The new guard tilts his head with a puzzled expression and raises his foreleg to the other griffon’s face.

“It’s ten, you heard the bells.”

“Yeah, I-” the griffon’s eyes bulge and blood pours out of his beak. He tries to look down but can’t, due to the knife in his throat.

“And they toll for you, Irongrip scum,” growls the other soldier, “Bloodstone has never fallen to an enemy and Redtalons never kneel.”

As the Irongrip soldier collapses on the floor, bubbling and grunting, the Redtalon griffon opens the window, pulls out a red flare out of his pouch, breaks off the cap while waving it out of the window.

When he peeks his head outside, he grins. There are dozens of red flares burning on this side of the fortress already, with more and more lighting up.

Soon, hundreds- thousands of black silhouettes rise from the dim streets of the city and take to the sky while many more swarm the ground with murder in their eyes.

The world may have forgotten why the name Redtalon once struck fear into every griffon of the emerging Empire. Times are different now, much more peaceful and civilized even despite the darkness and growing corruption, and so are today’s creatures. However, just for this one night, the heartland intruders will remember a valuable lesson - there’s nothing like defeat in Redtalon dictionary, there’s only victory or death.

Every male, female, or a child able to fire a gun or pick up a knife will be in the streets tonight and, after so long, it would be the Irongrip soldiers desperately looking for a place to hide.

***

“Three, this is where you come in.”

“Reporting for duty!”

“Thirteen?”

“If we get rid of the sentries at the windows, I’m game. Otherwise it’ll get a little complicated.”

“There shouldn’t be that many Irongrip soldiers around, actually. The vast majority are still scouring the city for me. Silas is using only the griffons he can trust so that no ‘disloyal’ ones are in a position to help get me out of the city.”

***

“What’s going on?” asks an overall grey griffon with silver streaks in his black beard when he hears muted noises from the outside. The royal suite has proven to have excellent sound insulation so that the ruler of Bloodstone could live his life and do his job uninterrupted by any disruptive elements.

One of the two armed griffons inside the rich suite walks from the door up to the window of the study, opens it, letting in previously nearly perfectly muted noise of chaos and screaming, and looks outside.

The light from the suite completely fails to illuminate whatever wraps around the griffon’s neck, pulls him out of the window, and flings him downwards with a panicked scream. He doesn’t come up again.

“Your Lordship, get down!” the remaining griffon guard aims an assault rifle at the window.

“What’s the red glow all over the place?” Silas Irongrip crawls under the ornate table of the study towards the guard who tosses him a pistol. With trained precision, Silas catches it, rolls behind the guard, and stands up so that they’re back to back, covering each other’s blind spots.

“Looks like standard-issue GIL flares to me, Your Lordship.”

“Leave out the title, Jensen, we don’t have the time,” growls Silas, “You’re the professional here, I went through my military training before you were born. What do we do now?”

“We close the window and then perform a room by room sweep of the suite, sir! I’ll do it, you cover me so that what happened to Simmons doesn’t happen to me.”

“Got it.”

Jensen slides under the windowsill while Silas keeps a steady aim straight at it. The soldier closes the window without anything else happening. When he crawls up to Silas again and stands back up, he points to the door leading to the living room.

“I go first, you cover me, sir.”

Nothing.

Unlike most places in Bloodstone, the regent’s suite is well-lit and there’s a rack of assorted weapons. Silas tosses the pistol back to Jensen and grabs a pump shotgun as well as a pistol of his own.

Someone knocks on the door which leads to the outside hallways of the fortress. Silas points at Jensen then to the side of the door, and then puts a talon to his beak.

“Sir,” Jensen whispers, “I can’t have you be the bait.”

Silas ignores him, slowly heading towards the door. Jensen grits his beak, rushes to the wall next to the door, and aims at it so that anyone charging inside would immediately take a bullet.

Silas opens the door and takes a quick step back. He blinks in surprise when faced with a dark blue griffon wearing a black jacket who quickly flashes a silver badge at him before putting it back into his front pocket.

“Agent Huggs, Your Lordship. We need to escort you to the roof immediately,” says the griffon, “Agent Tasheed is warming the ship up already.”

“What’s going on?” asks Silas, gesturing sideways at Jensen to follow before peeking outside. It doesn’t pay to argue with Black Ops agents.

Agent Huggs nods downwards at the two door guards, each of them lying in a pool of blood.

“Barbarians...” he scowls, “The rebels in the city have risen up.”

“How did they get in? We had the complete blueprints for the fortress. We did an ultrasonic scan-” Silas raises his shotgun as he hears the sounds of gunfire from the outside and, more importantly, echoing through the halls.

“Your Lordship, now’s not the time, really. Maybe they had help from the inside, maybe you missed an access route, who knows? What’s crucial is to get you to safety.”

“It has to be that new Redtalon who escaped,” growls Silas. Jensen clears his throat.

“Your Lordship, if they had help on the inside, that means the local GIL soldiers you didn’t discharge were still untrustworthy. It’s possible that only your retinue from home is still loyal. The agent is right, we need to go!”

“Right, right. Lead the way,” Silas shakes his head, the gravity of the situation bearing down on him slowly but inevitably like a hydraulic press, “Damn it, Cassius has enough on his plate these days already even without Redtalon rebellion. We can’t spare time and resources for a full-scale suppression operation.”

“With all due respect, Your Lordship, do you have to?” asks Huggs as they rush through the street-long hallways of the fortress.

“Huggs, if the Redtalon territory successfully breaks off after everything they did during Veronica’s rebellion, the other noble families might think an armed conflict of the same scale remains unpunished. Worst case scenario, we’re looking at a situation where the Empire doesn’t choose its rulers through diplomacy but through raw power like in its beginning. Bloodshed, millions of dead every fifty to hundred years or at any point where some families unite to take over with force. Old history of the Empire isn’t peaceful in the least. We Irongrips have slowly managed to build some stability over the centuries but an event like this can break everything my ancestors worked for. The Empire has been in its current state for only three hundred years since Emhyr broke the marauder clans of the south and instilled some sense of order to those parts. They’re still savages but at least they now try to maintain semblance of civilization and don’t raid the neighboring states. If the Empire shatters...” he shakes his head and grits his beak, “Especially in this darkness where everyone will only try to raid relief shipments, griffons will start dying of starvation, freezing, or just madness and violence by the millions in a few weeks.”

Huggs looks ahead, tears in his eyes, and whispers:

“I’m so sorry...”

“What?” Silas only manages to give him a puzzled look before the window they’re passing by explodes inwards and an equine shadow pounces at Jensen through it, burying its teeth into his neck.

“Don’t kill him!” orders Huggs and jumps at Silas with a flash of green light.

The regent tries in vain to struggle against something wrapped around him that’s suddenly small but incredibly heavy, like a straightjacket made of stuff much denser than lead which drags him down to the floor.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” says Three, “but we’ll try to make things better for everyone, I promise.”

***

“And what about you?”

“Crimson, I, and a few of the ‘more motivated’ guys will cut off the final escape route. Hopefully, Tasheed will be there and we’re going to have words.”

“Words like ‘die, you fucking son-murdering traitor’.”

“As you may have guessed, this will be somewhat… personal. For all of us.”

***

Tasheed rushes across the landing pad on the roof as quickly as someone of his age can towards the still lowered cargo ramp of the Black Ops airship. Two GIL soldiers first aim rifles his way but quickly lower them again and wave at him to get on. There will be time to analyze the situation later but for now he must bring an accurate and eyewitness report to the Holy City. Using any form of electronic communication can’t be absolutely secure over such long distance and potentially hostile territories and information like this is crucial to the security of the Empire.

“Where’s the regent?” asks Tasheed as he passes the soldiers, one of whom pulls a lever which makes the ramp start rising.

“The bridge, agent.”

“Casualties?” he barks, heading across the cargo area towards the front of the ship.

“The fortress has been overrun. We’ve managed to hold the roof for as long as we could but it looks like the entire city rose up.”

“Redtalons...” Tasheed shakes his head.

“You called, history teacher?” says the last voice Tasheed expected to hear.

He looks ahead where Magpie is walking towards him from the bridge with a limp, accompanied by the supposed rebel leader Crimson and several GIL soldiers.

“I guess Black Ops courses don’t teach the fact that you can’t rule a place while pushing the entirety of the local population so hard they don’t have other options than to fight you or die. Props to your age but I hope you weren’t planning to die of natural causes,” sneers Magpie, stopping four griffon lengths in front of the agent.

“I guess I haven’t taught you enough to understand the importance of our work, child,” Tasheed scowls, “We exist for the sole purpose of maintaining the stability of the Empire.”

“The Empire is its griffons, and you were perfectly fine with letting the entire population of the third largest city in the Empire die of starvation.”

“You need to understand the bigger picture-” Tasheed’s eyes don’t leave Magpie.

“No,” Magpie interrupts him, raising his voice, “I know enough of history to understand that whenever someone spouts bullshit like ‘bigger picture’ or ‘greater good’, what they inevitably mean is to do what they say or eat dirt-” he clutches his chest as he breaks into a coughing fit.

With shocking speed for his age, Tasheed pulls out a pistol, and aims at Magpie.

The shot echoes through the cargo bay.

Tasheed drops the pistol and reaches for his bleeding shoulder with the foreleg he can still control as he steadies himself on his haunches.

Magpie isn’t coughing anymore, holding a smoking pistol aimed at the agent.

“You...” Tasheed growls, starting to limp backwards.

“Me what?” Magpie chuckles, “Me can fake a cough? Me can’t swing a heavy mace anymore but me still have strong enough grip to fire a gun?” he tosses the pistol to Crimson, “He’s all yours.”

“You’re making… a huge mistake...” Tasheed growls through gritted beak.

“Yeeeah, I seem to do that a lot these days,” Magpie walks over to him and kicks Tasheed’s gun out of his reach, “But hey, you bastards could have just let me sit in Windy and none of this would have happened so, this one’s on you.”

“You are a danger-”

The second bullet goes right through Tasheed’s chest. Crimson scowls.

“You killed my son. I don’t need to know your reasons.”

As Magpie stands over Tasheed coughing blood, the agent’s eyes tear up.

“You could have saved… so many, Mag… pie. We were… so close… to having… a future. The stable Empire… we built… needs an immortal… Emperor... just… like… Equestria. Now… there’s only… war left… for you… Red… talons...”

He goes limp. Crimson looks at Magpie.

“What was that all about?”

“No idea,” he shrugs, “So what happens now?”

“Well, we can give Silas Irongrip to the citizens. I think they might want to have a word with him. Or maybe, you know, have him freeze in a cage for a week like he did to you, hmm?”

“I’m supposed to be in charge, right?” asks Magpie.

“Yes, although I wouldn’t push it.”

“Put Silas and the Irongrip soldiers who surrendered in prison, they’re no use to me dead. Then rearm our GIL soldiers and have them patrol the streets, all good vantage points, and the outskirts of the city. We have a cloaked airship but the Black Ops must have dozens at least. For now, I want the fortress as secure as possible. Next, find some engineers and griffons who have worked in the power plants in the Bloodstone area. We must make sure no random agent can sabotage them. Make inventory of fuel to make sure for how long they can run. Finally, find whoever owns the assembly lines and factories in the industry districts, tell them we’re taking over. Three will be in charge of repurposing the lines so that we can start manufacturing the automated farming units. In short, we need power and we need food. We have a plan and we need the right griffons. Use the loudspeaker system.”

“We need to bury the dead-” Crimson speaks up.

“Later.”

“Magpie?”

“Later!” he raises his voice, “Hope for the living first, dignity for the dead can wait.”

***

Two griffons meet in a dark alley.

“It’s done. The Emperor-”

“You know what happens next, right?”

“Yes, sir. It’s been an honor to serve you and the Empire.”

“No one can know what you did, agent, but I will personally make sure your entire bloodline is cared for as long as the Empire remains.”

“We live to serve the Empire, sir.”

“Indeed, we do.”

A silenced gunshot is followed by one of the griffons dropping on the floor.

“I’m sorry, brother, but I know that you, of all griffons, would understand. I will finish what our ancestors couldn’t.”

Author's Note

And another chapter is over.

Impossible odds: New boss.

[Monthly summary report for Twilight Sparkle]

Your Majesty,

I’ve compiled the monthly report. Overall, the food situation is far from perfect but so far we’ve averted famine. The mass production of the automatic farming units is going well and we’ve been able to begin exporting them to Zebrica. Unfortunately, there are issues even with that which I mention in the “Foreign Affairs” section. As always, full original reports are in the EIS archives.

1 - Food situation

We’re cool. My apologies, Your Majesty. As per your orders I’m trying to get into the more nuanced aspects of speech. Still, the brief summary stands. Overall, Equestria is producing enough food to sustain its population now. The unexpected positive side-effect is that the moss-like “matter” grown in the vats exceeds our expectations in terms of how healthy it is (measured nutritional values attached). This has proven to help unicorns recover much quicker than through normal means and has allowed us to stabilize certain areas of power crystal recharging. My recommendation is to keep the “matter” in our diet even in the case of standard farming being possible again, or at least for certain parts of the population like the military and those involved in exhausting magical research.

In short, as far food is concerned, Equestria is stable. Now we can do more to help others.

2 - Heat situation

Good news here as well, if we ignore the fact that we’re slowly getting to the point of freezing to death. Keyword - slowly. The new diet is proving helpful to alicorns as well. Instead of two heating pulses per twenty-four hours, princess Celestia is now able to send out three, provided she spends most of her time resting. This has slowed the cooling of Equus down considerably but there’s no knowing how long she can keep it up purely on the new diet. My advice is to reroute the remaining supply of cakes to her pantry. She could use more sugar due to the energy she’s burning to heat the world up.

By my calculations, we’ve bought ourselves several more months. The current climate all over the world can be summed up as a standard Equestrian winter. And one final good thing - the lower temperatures seem to be forcing wild Corrupted into hibernation, which means that our supply caravans now have much easier time getting to the south coast. As far as allied Corrupted are concerned, Manehattenites are accepting them into their heated homes or shelters. We might want to do the same in Ponyville and Canterlot.

3 - Internal security

We have a problem. A big one. As someone doubtlessly informed you already, subject AAA34 has escaped from Canterlot. My analysis of the reports and the investigation itself leads me to believe something different, though. Your Majesty, this is for your eyes only. I believe someone high up let the subject go and is interfering with the EIS investigation. Escape based on any security flaw in our system would have certainly resulted in victims and there were none here. Other than the damage to the cell itself, which I’m assuming is supposed to lead us off the trail, there’s nothing. So far, the EIS have found no traces of the subject or any expected slaughter.

I will have to look into it personally and I’d appreciate it if you could have someone you trust completely help me.

4 - Foreign affairs

Zebrica:

Improvement? Partial. Relevant? Not exactly.

Our supply of mechanical parts and natural resources is barely staving off the complete collapse of zebra civilization. Over this month, thirty million more dead of cold, previous wounds, and minor civil conflicts. The united front the Northern Coalition states showed when facing warlord Stern is slowly breaking apart as the uneven distribution of resources reveals corruption entrenched in the system currently organized by one central government.

Here’s where we can help, though. The main problem is supply caravans being ambushed on the way from the central states outwards so if we established temporary ports along the entire northern coast of Zebrica we could send our shipments directly to the worst affected areas and have them be distributed according to the central government as well as local needs.

The Griffon Empire:

The Empire is in turmoil to say the least. The Irongrip family currently in control of the Holy City is being threatened by the Vash family unifying nomadic clans and southern states in order to gain more territory and key strategic points. The two primary targets seem to be huge dams (map attached) responsible for supplying electricity to both the south and the heartland. So far, that hasn’t been a huge issue but our latest reports indicate that the Redtalon family responsible for the recent corruption-causing rebellion has taken over Bloodstone, the capital city of the eastern Empire, previously under Irongrip control. With the Irongrips in trouble on two sides, things don’t look good.

(Unverified) EIS reports hint to the possibility that Emperor Cassius is dead and his brother Nicolai is in charge, keeping it a secret from the general population to prevent the situation from escalating.

Rift:

Warlord Sinew has finally accepted a goodwill unicorn delegation from the Crystal Empire. However, as it turns out, the Rift minotaurs have been using customized versions of the farming units already. The northern changelings must have shared the technology with them long before the Crystal Empire successfully produced the first copy. With their geothermal power plants and underground facilities, I can say with a degree of certainty that Rift minotaurs are in much better shape than the rest of the known world.

The Dragon Lands:

No news. Just like with Chineigha, I advise to remove this section off of the list and use it only in case of a relevant change in status quo.

5 - Escaped changelings:

With the exception of , the trail has gone cold in the Griffon Empire. EIS agents have been unable to piece together any relevant information on this subject. However, if I may hazard a guess, the Redtalon presence in Bloodstone might give us a clue. According to EIS reports, Redtalon territories were exempt from disaster aid from the heartland already and the situation had been deteriorating. The thing is that the current heavily redacted reports which the Black Ops shared with us show a steady recovery over the past few weeks. That should not be the case under any circumstances. Upon examining several photographs of the escapees made in Griffonstone and intercepting messages on the Black Ops network, I now believe that the griffon who was travelling with the changelings might have been a member of the Redtalon family based on a rather unique family foreleg coloring. If we assume that, we might also assume that the changelings are still with him and might have brought the blueprints of the farming units to the griffons. While it is only a guess, it’s the only situation I can imagine where a civil unrest on such a scale and under the current world circumstances could be followed by positive news.

Still, it’s only guesswork.

6 - The Project

Queen Chrysalis’ drones have been instrumental in building the particle accelerator facility as quickly as we did. However, without the help of we would never be able to construct the stable power source required to perform the experiments. possesses a level of knowledge of chemistry which has pushed us in the right direction regarding the project and we can now safely say it is possible to build the initial housing for the project with the newly discovered and synthesised materials. Now comes phase two - the ability for the project to sustain itself. So far, my calculations show that it would be completely impossible to create a fully functional using only physics but with the right kind of magic it could be viable to create a prototype which might last in orbit until we find something better or keep going with occasional injection of magic. The main problem arises with phase three - starting the itself. The energy requirement for the initial ignition exceeds anything at our disposal. After crunching the numbers, even doesn’t know of a chemical reaction which would suffice our needs despite her familiarity with Silversmith technology.

7 - Minor news

One - Either Bucket has stopped monitoring our electronic communication channels or I can’t detect him anymore. I don’t know which possibility bothers me more.

Two - the facility of the project has been breached at least three times. The EIS haven’t been able to follow or identify the culprit. I’m categorizing this under minor news because even after we ran over old backups of data we found no discrepancies whatsoever. Same goes for the examination of the outer casing of , which leads me to the conclusion that the intrusions were harmless. The staff hasn’t reported anything unusual but our time logs show unexpected access by certain individuals to mainly residential areas. After questioning individuals responsible for the anomalies, they swore they had no knowledge of doing so. Since queen Chrysalis is aware of the project and has no need for further information, my guess is that might have received a visit. My advice is to keep monitoring but not engage the intruder in real time. Attempting to stop these events could possibly lead to conflict and the termination of cooperation from the side of , which is a complication we can’t afford.

If I can add my own opinion on the matter, Your Majesty, it could be possible that after seeing the analysis of phase three and its limits, might have reached out elsewhere for technical assistance.

Bookworm.

[End of report]

“You called?” Crimson enters Magpie’s office without knocking.

“Yeah, I did,” mumbles the griffon sitting behind a desk covered in a mess of papers with his head buried in his talons, one of his forelegs heavily bandaged and smelling of some minty oil, “Why did no one tell me what was really going on under Silas?”

“What do you mean?” Crimson walks over and sits across the desk from Magpie who looks up, pushes a ledger towards her, and sighs.

“The valuables Silas was stealing from the citizens of Bloodstone. Why did no one tell me that thing about feasting in here was total bullshit?”

“Who told you there was anything like that going on?”

“Tashe- I’m a complete idiot, aren’t I?” Magpie facetalons and nods towards the ledger, “According to that, the black market stuff paid for by taking valuables away from the citizens was evenly distributed and there simply wasn’t enough for everyone without the Irongrip disaster aid. Silas was doing the best he could to avoid famine here because Emperor Cassius didn’t send anything from the heartland and things happened so fast I didn’t even ask.”

“Well...” Crimson scratches her head, “I mean, it’s not like we had much information from the fortress itself. Besides, water under the bridge, right? A proper Redtalon’s in charge now instead of an Irongrip stooge, we’re on the way towards being able to supply food for the city and eventually the countryside and further, and-”

“And there’s no way the Imperial army won’t come and obliterate everyone within the city limits, and that’s if we’re lucky,” Magpie gives her a bloodshot glare, “And as for the food production,” he waves a different sheet of paper in the air, “We’re too late! Silver and gold is all but gone, the treasury is empty, griffons have nothing more to give-”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Crimson whistles innocently, “Griffons can be extremely creative when keeping their money is on the line.”

“You’re telling me that griffons still have coinage stashed away?”

“I’d bet on it.”

“We’re going to need it. All of it. Three knows how to purify the gold and silver from the coins.”

“Which part of keeping their money did you not understand?”

“Tell them to go to the bank and turn everything into bonds or bills.”

“They won’t like it.”

“THEN THEY CAN FUCKING STARVE!” barks Magpie before breaking into a coughing fit, “I’m tired of dealing with bullshit which idiots inflict on themselves. Spread the news, be open with everyone. We need the materials, not their monetary value, or we won’t be able to craft the electronics, simple as that. Use the GIL if necessary.”

“Is that all?” Crimson frowns.

“Mining operations?”

“Skeleton crews are back in business for the Grand Scar mines. The problem is electricity. We have two coal power plants at our disposal but not enough material to get them running on full. If we switch a second block on each, we’ll run out of coal. We’d need to focus on coal mining and production or shut off electricity in the distant parts of the land, neither of which is a great result.”

“How are you always ready for anything I ask?”

“I know how to delegate,” Crimson smiles, “You should learn that too so that you don’t have to drown in paperwork.”

Magpie taps his talons against the table.

“Alright then. Get me griffons who know how to translate orders into something useful. I’m going to need a scientific advisor, a health expert, and someone from the local GIL leadership structure. You’re my personal secretary who relays stuff because I can’t be arsed to run around the fortress looking for the right griffons.”

“We need a better name for that position.”

“Considering what secretaries do? How about a missionary.”

“Har har. Very funny.”

“First, get used to that kind of humor, it’s all I’ve got. Second, get the coal mines fully operational. We’ll have to rely on basic farming unit production supplied with the rare metals we can get from the citizens. Get all you can, employ Three to assess how much we need to build enough machines to feed Bloodstone… for now. Once we get to the stage where we can start up more reactors in the power plants, get the other mines up and running.”

“Will do,” Crimson performs a deferential although royalty-mocking bow.

“Good. One thing first, though,” he slowly raises his right foreleg covered in bandages, wincing, and unwraps a part closest to his shoulder. Crimson leans backwards at the sight of darkened flesh and withered feathers.

“That’s bad. Really bad.”

“Excellent summary, Sherclop. I wanted to avoid this but it looks like I lost my coin toss. Get me Three, Thirteen, and a good surgeon.”

***

*Knock knock!*

“Come in!” Magpie stops pacing in front of the burning fireplace in his office. For once, it wasn’t because of stress, rather to simply warm up and get the blood flowing. Unfortunately, exactly like during the past few days, the brief exercise only proves that his foreleg is slowly becoming a dead stump despite the medical care he’s been receiving.

Thirteen enters, alone.

“Crimson said you wanted to see me.”

“You, Three, and whoever is the best surgeon in Bloodstone,” he points to his damaged foreleg, starts keeling over, and quickly steadies himself with the healthy one.

“How is it?”

“Just peachy, and by peachy I mean that a peach looks like an ass with a crack and everything is going to shit.”

“I… I’ve never seen a peach.”

Magpie takes a long breath in and out.

“I’m sorry,” he says, which makes Thirteen genuinely blink in surprise, “Look, I needed to know if you changelings can mix up something better than this herbal nonsense. All it does is make my eyes water,” he unwraps the scented bandage and throws it into the fireplace, “Don’t look at me like that, I’m supposed to get a fresh one anyway in half an hour.”

“Gem probably could but I-”

“Yeah, Gem, Gem, Gem,” Magpie growls, “Gem could have probably taken Bloodstone over on her own, she could probably heal me immediately, she could probably brainwash Silas and his soldiers to work for us but she’s not here, is she? I’m stuck with you, Three, a rotting foreleg, a starving city, and an Imperial retribution hanging over me.”

“I didn’t think you cared what happened to you.”

“Not to me, to three million griffons, Thirteen. How many dwarves were in your underground hole?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think it was that many.”

“Yeah, I’m responsible for all that and I can’t even persuade them to exchange old coins for bills, a valid Imperial currency. All I’m working with are idiots who don’t want to sacrifice anything but want their lives saved and go back to normal.”

“I want to help,” Thirteen hangs her head, “I just don’t know how. Three is always busy with the engineers these days, I’m getting hungry without him, and I don’t know how to help you. I can’t even feed myself here. Gem had lifetimes to learn all she knows and the best infiltrator in the world. I’m… I’m less than two years old and most of the time I was locked up, trained to the point of passing out, and screamed at. There's a mess inside my head I don’t understand and can’t completely control and I think it’s Gem’s doing too. I want to help you even if you're incurable… incurable asshole! Whenever I talked to the Hundreds or even Three, they told me that even if they were just drones, dad considered it his job to find the right use for what little they could do. But when I was involved-”

“Alright, enough,” Magpie interrupts her in a slightly less aggressive tone, “We don’t need self-pity in stereo. I’m just trying to come to terms with probably having to lose a foreleg and possibly the entire population of a city. I’m not cut out for responsibility...”

“You know, maybe not,” Thirteen shrugs, “Dad said he never wanted to be in charge and all our changelings say he’s the best thing to ever happen to them and they mean it.”

“Stop that right now or I’m gonna barf,” Magpie rolls his eyes, “So, no healing.”

“I could have a look at it but I’m not promising anything. Maybe my instincts will catch on or something.”

“Okay, let’s leave accidentally biting my foreleg off as a plan B. Alright, any news on the weird changeling tunnel we used to get in here?”

“Uhh, was I supposed to do anything with it?”

“So you’re telling me we just forgot about it for two weeks?”

“Yeees? Did you tell anyone to do anything about it?”

“Do I have to micromanage every-” Magpie realizes he’s raising his voice again, closes his eyes, and takes a long breath, “Nevermind, this might actually play into our talons.”

“What are we playing?”

“Look, a random earth pony janitor mare managed to discover a physical illusion which we could barely get through even when we knew what it was. That’s nonsense, straight up. Besides, an illusion like that can’t run itself so someone must be recharging it somehow. If you can’t mix up some changeling goo to help me then I want you to figure out who is responsible for the tunnel. Since we forgot about it for real, anyone watching us must think we’re braindead and probably isn’t too far from the truth. An enemy who underestimates us can make a mistake, a mistake we can use. A mistake you can use.”

“What about Dust Pan? What if she’s the changeling? I do feel a little weird whenever I pass her in the hallway.”

“Figure out if that’s the case, that’s all. How? I don’t know, you’re the mind-controlling bughorse.”

“On it!” Thirteen salutes with genuine enthusiasm.

After she leaves, Magpie looks at his foreleg, sits down into an armchair, and stares into the fireplace.

“A cripple in charge of idiots. Any bets on how soon we’re all dead? I’m giving it a month tops.”

***

The next day drags on, filled only with the appointment of griffons who would be responsible for handling individual aspects of the current Bloodstone crisis. At least until the late afternoon when Crimson arrives accompanied by a sleek-looking bright teal pony wearing contracting dark purple winter clothing who gives Magpie a deep bow as he enters the office. For some reason, he looks familiar but Magpie can’t quite place it. He uses the bow, though, to avoid shaking the pony’s hoof and stands up, reciprocating the gesture instead.

“This is An Shen,” says Crimson, “Chineighese disaster relief agency.”

“Riiight!” Magpie taps his talons of his healthy foreleg against the carpet, “I saw you in Windy before.”

“My deepest apologies, Your Lordship, I must have missed you there,” says An Shen in heavily accented but precise common speech and nods with a smile, “Although my caravans do travel through the dragon pass.”

“Understandable. It’s definitely easier to distinguish and remember a bright and colorful pony in the Empire than just another random griffon.”

“Just another random griffon wouldn’t have moved on from Windy to become the leader of the eastern Griffon Empire,” comments An Shen politely.

“I’m not big on compliments,” Magpie tilts his head to the side, “So how are we doing this? Do I sign anything and you just drop off your cargo here, or…?”

“Indeed, there are forms to sign. However, I wanted to talk with you face to face,” he glances Crimson’s way, “And alone.”

“I trust Crimson with my life,” says Magpie, “You can say everything in front of her.”

“As you wish,” he bows again, “On our way here, less than three hours away north from the city in fact, our unicorns’ magic detected a griffon presence.”

“Soldiers?” Magpie frowns. An Shen shrugs in response.

“Likely, but I can’t say for certain. We use wide-area scanning spells to spot general bandit presence as well as Corrupted reaching out of the Windy territory. That kind of magic doesn’t allow for detailed observation. All we got was that they were uniformly clothed - black jackets and standard camouflage.”

“Black jackets?” Magpie sighs, walks over to the dresser by the wall, and pulls out Tasheed’s Black Ops top, “Like this one?”

“As I said, we didn’t get the clearest picture but it does seem very similar to me.”

Magpie looks at Crimson.

“That didn’t take long, did it?” he nods to An Shen, “Can you show me where you detected those griffons?”

“Definitely. Do you have a map around?”

“Yeah,” Magpie pulls out a black rectangle of about the size of a standard chess board from a desk drawer, presses a button, and the device projects a holographic map of the Empire. Several taps against the board later, the general map zooms in on Bloodstone and the surrounding area.

“Nifty technology,” An Shen blinks in surprise, “Or is it a magical map?”

“Pure griffon tech, although not exactly the kind available to the general public,” replies Magpie, “So?”

An Shen carefully points out the supply caravan route and the area where their magic detected the presumed Black Ops presence.

“We detected eleven griffons but they were right on the edge of the range of our magic so I can’t say for certain there weren’t more.”

“Even this is way more help than I could have ever expected. I think I have something your country might appreciate as a gesture of good will.”

“I am prohibited from receiving any personal gifts, Your Lordship.”

“When I said your country, I meant it. We’re currently producing machines which can grow protein-rich food without the need for sunlight. My friend brought the blueprints from Equestria where they’re being used at present to avert famine.”

An Shen’s jaw drops and his breathing quickens.

“Something of such magnitude...” he nearly chokes, “It is taking more and more magic to grow and harvest crops the more frozen the soil is. Such technology would, to be honest, easily save tens of millions, if it’s genuine.”

Magpie nods.

“It is. However, I might soon be in a position where I need your help.”

“A quid pro quo, of course,” An Shen smiles, “Classic politics.”

“No,” Magpie shakes his head, “I’m giving the blueprint copies away no matter what.”

“A favor it is then, right?”

“It would definitely be helpful.”

“I will report this along with a formal request to my superiors,” An Shen bows.

“Excellent,” Magpie nods towards the door, “Now, if you’d be so kind and give me and Crimson a moment alone.”

“As you wish,” with another bow, An Shen leaves the office. Once he’s outside, Magpie gives Crimson a joyless smile.

“So here it is - Black Ops on our doorstep.”

“Well, it’s your call what to do about it now, Your Lordship,” Crimson smirks, “Bloodstone stands behind you.”

“Call me Lordship one more time and you’re fired, specifically out of the biggest cannon in the fortress and into a wall,” he rolls his eyes and points at the glowing map, “Anyway, if it’s my call then we need to send someone to check it out. Get that military advisor guy you recommended to take care of that. Then find the engineers working with Three on repurposing the assembly lines in order to build the farming units en masse. They should have all the blueprints already so have them give a copy to An Shen. Finally have the military adv-”

“His name is Castor-”

“Don’t really care. If he figures out what the Black Ops are doing and successfully stops it then I might bother remembering his name.”

“You’re terrible at this leader thing, you know?”

“I can leave. I can literally walk out of the city and never come back,” Magpie scowls at a wall, “You can release Silas and his soldiers or take charge of Bloodstone on your own.”

“Are you telling that to me or to yourself?” Crimson raises an eyebrow, “Look, drop that uncaring persona. If that was the real you then you wouldn’t have come here in the first place.”

Magpie sighs.

“You know… I really wasn’t expecting that being nearly beaten to death by a Corrupted right outside Windy would be the high point of my return to the Empire. On second thought, that’s entirely my fault.”

“Crybaby.”

“Don’t you have engineers to find or something?”

“Already on my way, Your Lordship,” Crimson leaves, accompanied by Magpie’s irritated groan.

Author's Note

So, the new chapter is starting off the expected conflict between Irongrips and Redtalons. I had to take a break both for planning more details based on my general notes and due to complete burn-out to the point of completely drawing blanks whenever thinking about this. In the past, I usually did a second semi-for-fun project while working on the main plot line but this time it doesn't seem to be working for me (which spawned for example the entire boss' storyline). I just can't figure out anything fun. I tried something new with Crazies, which didn't exactly work out, and some other general ideas which don't lead anywhere, though.
In short, I can't really promise I'll be able to do the weekly updates like usual.
But hey, at least there's Cyberpunk 2077. Fun game. Glitchy but hella fun.

Impossible odds: War crime

[Seven’s teleporter experiment report]

We didn’t account for one crucial thing. The dwarven teleporters must have been built or set up after the Living End project, which means they were meant for cargo or mechs like Stompy.

Test 1 (radio waves) - There’s a lot of interference but we successfully contacted Five on the radio by the other exit. The generated portals are two-way.

Test 2 (light-encoded information) - Works exactly like the radio, even with the interference, which means the energy required for teleportation messes up any kind of signal we can muster.

Test 3 (packet of dried food) - Arrived as a pile of ash and plastic.

Test 4 (packet of dried food in a standard wooden cargo box) - box scorched, contents hot but intact.

Test 5 (packet of dried food in a metal cargo box) - box hot, contents untouched.

Test 6 (baby flame spider) - carapace burned to crisp, eyes exploded. Crying little dwarf whose pet it was pacified successfully… eventually.

Test 7 (Restored dwarf mech) - arrived without issues. The istrium chassis seems to protect one completely from the energy overload, cementing my post-project theory.

Test 8 (Five) - Five volunteered after she heard that one of the Hundreds wanted to give it a shot. With some rather basic physical enhancements, we changelings can use the teleporters without issues.

Summary: Comms are okay. Changelings, sealed cargo, and mechs can travel without issues. Non-changeling living subjects are prone to extreme soft tissue damage. All in all, the White Tail outpost is now successfully connected with the city Two’s expedition discovered.

[End of report]

Thirteen thought she was being smart when she decided that, like a true hunter, it would be a much better idea to remain hiding not inside Bloodstone fortress itself but rather on the roof of the house across the street from the bookstore where the tunnel led to. At least throughout the first day. After day two, however, her enthusiasm was all but gone. She didn’t see or sense anyone entering or leaving the bookstore other than the occasional turning of lights on and off on the upper floor where the owner presumably lived.

And so, Thirteen admits defeat and flies down from the roof. She would stay longer but she was hungry even at the start due to not being able to refill from Three and now she’s certain that if she keeps going her instinct might take over and do something less than helpful to her and Three’s position in the city. As soon as she passes through the gate of the fortress, unhindered but closely watched by the GIL soldiers stationed there, her internal map reveals Three’s location.

“Armory? That doesn’t sound like him,” she mutters to herself.

When she reaches the underground level, her ears start detecting something akin to constant machine gun fire which, as she gets closer to the armory, proves to be exactly the case, intersected with constant, panicked yelling.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

The yelling proves to be Three backing away from an automatic sentry turret firing at him the projectiles of which he’s deflecting with the energy shield projector wrapped around his foreleg.

“Owowowowowowowow!” he shuts the shield off while jumping to the side behind a block of concrete.

Having lost its target, the sentry turret aims at Thirteen but doesn’t fire.

“You okay, Three? What’s going on?” she calls out to the sudden silence interrupted only by quiet clicking as Three shakes his somewhat numb foreleg from blocking all the rubber projectiles.

“Hi, Thirteen! Mind pushing the red button next to you?” he waves at her and as his foreleg rises above the cover of the concrete block, the turret blasts a projectile its way immediately, making him withdraw it, “Eep!”

Thirteen pushes the button on the wall right by the entrance and the humming turret goes completely silent. Three stands up and shakes himself off.

“Wooo, that was fun!” he beams at Thirteen, “Wanna try?”

“Try what? What was that all about?”

“Oh, the turret? It shoots fake bullets for practicing moving from cover to cover.”

“I get that,” Thirteen kicks the nearest rubber projectile lying on the floor, “I did this with Five a bunch and certainly not with rubbers. What I want to know is why you are getting your cute scrunchy muzzle booped by a chaingun.”

“I’m not,” Three scrunches his nose at her, “I’m blocking and deflecting all of it but if I forget myself for a moment it makes my foreleg go numb from all the shaking. But hey, it’s better than having it broken by a Corrupted in one hit like last time.”

“I meant - why are you here in the armory, training, instead of helping griffon engineers build the food growers?”

“Oh that? We’re all done with that. Griffons are so much better with technology than ponies that I only needed to explain a few details about the blueprints and the individual components and they started doing everything on their own,” Three shrugs, “I’ve been looking for you yesterday so I asked Mister Magpie who told me about some new trouble with Black Ops and that he sent you to investigate the changeling tunnel. I couldn’t find you so I decided to test the shield thingy out again in case we run into some trouble. I’d love to solve everything with tried and tested huggery but it doesn’t seem to be working too well these days. But hey, that’s why the boss sent me this shield. He’s super smart like that. Anyway, how did your investigation go?”

Thirteen sighs.

“Bored myself to death for two days with zero result and I’m starving,” she looks down at the floor, “Wish I could feed myself here but with all the griffons wary of us and me looking like the offspring of a pony platemail and a blender I doubt I’d find one with monstrous changeling fetish or something.”

Three’s eyes light up for a moment before he launches himself at Thirteen and latches to her like a backpack but from the front.

“HUG TIME!” he starts nuzzling her neck.

Thirteen rolls her eyes with a growing smile as the warmth of Three’s unconditional love reinvigorates her like a hot bath after a long day. Relaxing, she sits down and wraps a foreleg around Three’s barrel.

Hello darkness, my old friend.

She takes a sharp breath and opens her eyes, realizing she must have dozed off. Three looks up at her, clearly unbothered by her falling asleep.

“Better?” he asks.

“A lot better,” she admits after a quick self-check, “Far from full but not hungry anymore. How long was I out?”

“Seventy-four minutes. Does it matter? Were you in a hurry?”

“No, no. I’m just… thinking. Any ideas how I could catch a changeling who’s probably much better than me at infiltration?”

“Eeeeh… I don’t think the power of friendship is much use if you can’t find someone to befriend in the first place,” Three scratches his head, “I might have to leave that one to you. Buuuut… I gave it some thought while you were asleep and I might have an idea on how to help your hunger problem in case I’m busy.”

“Oh?”

“It’s simple, really,” Three lets her go and starts heading out of the armory, “Keep your ears perked,” he rushes off.

Thirteen breathes out and scrambles back onto all fours.

She leaves, unsure what to do now, and wanders through the halls towards the ground floor of the fortress. That is, until she hears the hiss of the loudspeakers all over the fortress and the city followed by Three clearing his throat. In a moment of clarity, she realizes she picked exactly the one wrong changeling for anything requiring subtlety.

“Hi, everyone in Bloodstone! I’m Three and, as you might know, I’m working with Mister Magpie on a way to feed you all. I have a small problem and that is that my changeling friend, Thirteen, is worried about asking any of you for hugs or adult hugs because she thinks you might be scared of her. We need affection, love, or lust to survive like you need food.”

“No no no no no no...” whimpers Thirteen.

“I can’t blame you, she does look a little more bite-y than most changelings but she’s super nice and gentle and doesn’t bite at all unless you ask. If anyone is interested in a pleasant evening and maybe more later, please don’t hesitate to visit the main entrance checkpoint in an hour,” Three’s cheery voice continues to broadcast the message to the entire city.

“Whyyyyyy?” she lies down on the floor and hides her muzzle under her forelegs as a pair of GIL soldiers pass by, snickering.

“She’s a bit inexperienced so she’d prefer individuals but groups are okay too!” the intercom shuts down with a click.

Thirteen realizes she’s trembling and a surprisingly small part of it is shame and fear.

“I trust him, I love him, but the next time Magpie offers to tie him up and feed him to something big with loads of teeth I’m gonna be there with the strongest chain I can find! AND I HOPE THE TEETH ARE DULL SO THAT IT’S SLOW AND CRUNCHY!”

***

Magpie’s eye twitches as the loudspeaker message interrupts his new GIL military advisor briefing him about the results of the expedition sent to the Black Ops position which expanded all the way east to the Grand Scar, a massive mountain range separating Chineigha from the Griffon Empire.

“Please tell me you didn’t hear anything right now and I’m just going insane...”

“I regret to inform you, Your Lordship, that everyone in Bloodstone must have heard the grand opening of your changeling’s matchmaking service,” replies Castor with a stone face. Of course Crimson did tell him about Magpie’s attitude towards his new appointees, why wouldn’t she?

“Is there, in your professional opinion, any chance someone’s going to show up?” Magpie facealons.

“Why should I be familiar with griffon-changeling intimate dealings?”

“You can’t tell me that none of the GIL soldiers under your command would agree to a quickie with a changeling. Especially those far from home, if you know what I mean.”

“Your Lords-”

“Think very carefully before you give me any of the usual bullshit, Castor. Those two saved me and by extension this city from starving under the Irongrips and are now working as hard as they can to feed this part of the Empire.”

The griffon stops, takes a breath, and tries again under Magpie’s steel stare.

“I doubt anyone is going to respond to a public proclamation like that, especially with the meeting place being right at the main gate of the fortress. If I may speak freely, sir, I would actually be extremely wary of anyone who would.”

“Good answer. Now back to the report.”

“Yes, sir,” Castor salutes, all personal issues thrown out of the window for now, “None of the spots we examined revealed any signs of Black Ops agents but our trackers report disturbed and expertly covered areas equally distant from each other every five kilometers, stopping thirty kilometers away from the Grand Scar.”

“So the Black Ops operation was far more extensive than I guessed based on An Shen’s story. That also means they couldn’t have just been monitoring us. They wouldn’t need so many locations. Any idea what they were doing if not setting up comms and observation?”

“No, sir. Broken branches, disturbed ground-”

“Digging?”

“No, sir, only the traces of walking around. As I said, we have no clue what they were doing, if anything. However, if I may suggest something?”

“Yeah?”

“Perhaps your changelings might spot something we missed.”

“Hmmm,” Magpie rubs his chin, “Might be worth a shot. Alright, dismissed.”

“Yes, sir.”

“No Lordship?”

“I believe we might have crossed that line with that little insight into the love life of your closest subordinates.”

Magpie rolls his eyes.

“Just go.”

***

Thirteen lets out a sigh of relief when the time set by Three for her… feeding comes and there’s not a single griffon standing at the fortress entrance checkpoint.

“Awww,” Three pouts, standing by the first floor window above the main gate right next to her, “They just don’t know you.”

With the situation thankfully not escalating, Thirteen decides that throwing Three out of the window can wait. However, it doesn’t change the fact that while being around Three sustains her, she’s not going to get anywhere near full without a proper feeding and the main thing preventing her from doing so is her inability to shapeshift.

Closing her eyes, she slips into the darkness of the hive mind.

“Alright, me, what happened to my shapeshifting? And, before I hear any more excuses, I can starve myself to the point where my ‘instincts’ take over and I attack someone. Once that happens, I’ll have a city of griffons on my ass and not in the good way.”

She blinks and finds herself facing her monstrous form, its fangs bared at her.

“You’re not in full control of yourself,” says the instinct, “The true power of a queen mustn’t fall into the wrong hooves. Any other hooves than yours, that is.”

“And WHO is the threat here?”

“Your guess was correct. Your sister is, and if you can’t force me under control, you definitely can’t get rid of her influence.”

“Gem is leagues more powerful than I’ll ever be. She doesn’t NEED me.”

“You must be completely in charge of your decisions, no fragment, no lingering presence, nothing must stand in your way.”

“I. AM. GOING. TO STARVE!”

“Hmph!” the instinct scowls, clicks its claws against the invisible floor, and fades.

“Hey!”

Her nose starts itching out of nowhere and, as she closes her eyes to sneeze, her entire world distorts. When she opens them again, she finds herself staring out of the fortress window.

“Cool!” Three’s looking at her with eyes open wider than usual, “You’re back to normal. Though I liked the toothy form too but I’m sure griffons will be more comfortable around this one.”

Thirteen raises her foreleg and can’t help cracking a smile when she notices she’s got hooves again. After a quick pat-down, she’s certain she’s looking almost exactly like she used to before her instinct locked her into the scarier form. Almost is the key word. She feels stronger and possibly a little rounder. It’ll have to wait until she finds a full-body mirror but she thinks her current body might be a little more on the shapely and fit side than her original fragile one. Still far from the well-defined muscles and almost scaly-looking carapace of the feral form.

“Well, at least some good came out of all this,” she breathes out.

“I gotta get to the radio and tell everyone that you look much less scary now and-” Three hops several times on the spot until Thirteen’s hoof on his head stops him.

“Let’s leave that for some other time, okay?” she smiles down at him, ”I think I could use a moment of peace.”

The intercom of the fortress hisses and clicks before Magpie’s voice echoes through the hallways:

“Three, Thirteen. If you’re here, come into my office immediately.”

“Oops,” Three chuckles nervously, “Are we in trouble for using the city broadcast for feeding?”

“What do you mean we?”

“Ummm-”

“Just kidding,” Thirteen scratches Three behind the ear which makes him purr like a cat for a second, “No, I don’t think we’re in trouble, at least not for that. If it was about that, we’d have been in Magpie’s office an hour ago. Let’s go. Do you want a pony ride?”

Three’s eyes go wide and his runes start glowing brightly before he even says anything.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Thirteen giggles, “Hop on.”

***

“No,” says Three.

“What?” Thirteen leans her head back at the unexpected reply.

“What?” Magpie does the same.

“We’re not going anywhere. Not until Thirteen has had a chance to feed herself.”

“Three, I’m in charge-”

“Not of us!” the little drone flies up and crosses his forelegs on his chest.

“Gem asked me to-”

“To get us to Windy. I think we repaid that by saving you from the baddies and we’re now helping griffons here because we don’t want them to die of hunger,” Three keeps hammering the point in. The worst part is that Magpie knows he’s absolutely right.

“Three, this isn’t a game! Whatever the Black Ops agents did in the north can be a much bigger threat to us than hunger or cold.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Three glares at Magpie, “But you don’t listen when I try to use hugs so I have to go all hard-butt on you!”

“I can have you both locked up.”

“And whom would that help? Thirteen wouldn’t be able to feed herself, big change from now, woop woop.”

All Thirteen can do at the moment is to observe the verbal hoofball between Magpie and Three, absolutely stunned by the drone acting so tough.

“Fine, I know how this goes,” Magpie sighs, “What do you want?”

“Find a way for Thirteen to feed. Lust, love, anything that would mean she can sustain herself.”

“Deal. I’ll talk to Crimson. She knows the griffons here much better than I do. She might be able to find someone who is interested but couldn’t handle the subtlety of the ‘mating call’ you tried.”

“Okay,” Three smiles.

“I still need you to take the airship and leave immediately to investigate the Black Ops locations.”

“Okay,” Three shrugs.

The lack of further objections takes Magpie by surprise and makes him reevaluate the situation.

“The crew will be ready in a few minutes. Go,” he breathes out, “...please…?”

“On it!” Three salutes and simply floats out of the office, followed by Thirteen.

Magpie closes his eyes and leans back in his armchair.

“He really means well no matter what. A creature who genuinely doesn’t have an evil bone in his body. How do you argue with that? How do you force someone like that to do something without feeling like a total anus?”

He breathes out and grits his beak.

“Get it together, catbird, there will be enough time for feelings when you’re dead,” he pushes one of several buttons on a panel on his desk and the built-in speaker above it says in Crimson’s voice:

“Yeah?”

“How do you feel about playing a matchmaker?”

“For your changeling girl? I like a challenge but this might be a bit too tough.”

“If you want them to keep helping us, and we need them to keep helping us, you’ll find someone who will be nice to her, who will be genuinely interested in her, at least physically, who will take her to dinner or something, and who will give her a proper dicking afterwards. Can’t fake it, lings feed on real emotion.”

“Why don’t you do it yourself if it’s so important to you?”

“It would take too long to explain. Short version - I’m something changelings call ‘a loveless’. That means I literally can’t feed a changeling love unless it’s under very specific circumstances and there’s only one changeling who can get me there and Thirteen isn’t her. As far as lust goes, I don’t find her particularly attractive and I had my balls and head screwed by minotaurs so hard that my drive is a little different. Look, just find someone who won’t crap their pants if they touch her. Male, female, doesn’t matter.”

“Ugh, fiiine...”

“And one last thing regarding this.”

“Yeah?”

“If you do a half-assed job and find someone who will hurt her in any way, I will flay that griffon personally and broadcast it over the city loudspeakers so that you can hear what’s going to happen to you next.”

“That was unnecessary...”

“I just wanted to make my point crystal clear.”

***

“We’ll hover here,” says the airship pilot, pointing at the holographic map hovering above the right side of the control panel, “The first location is right below us. I suppose you’re both okay with flying down on your own. The scanning gear is in the back.”

“Got it,” Thirteen nods, “I don’t think we’re going to need the equipment. You guys know how to use it better than we do and you didn’t find anything. We’ll just go down there and see if we can’t sniff something out with our buggo noses.”

“Alright,” the pilot nods and returns to watching the blinking control panel, “Stay in contact and call if you need lights on something.”

“Will do!” Three salutes and flies out of the ship’s bridge, followed by Thirteen.

The changelings land on the ground and have a quick look around the area lit by the reflectors from the captured Black Ops airship. As reported, because that they know what to look for, they can easily spot the stomped down ground and the leaves scattered over the tracks to cover everything that happened.

“Got anything?” asks Three, sniffing the ground, “I can smell griffons, serious griffons, but that’s about it.”

Thirteen takes a deep breath.

“Instinct, got anything?”

Flashbacks of travelling through the corrupted territory near Windy cross her mind, bringing with them the wet and slightly moldy scent of corruption.

“I smell corruption,” says Thirteen, “And I can hear… a beating heart? A new life?”

“Umm, Thirteen, are you okay?” Three buzzes closer.

“Yeah... yeah...” she shakes her head, “I’m fine. It’s just… follow me,” she lets her eyelids drop and follows her nose to a cluster of trees some distance away from the lights of the ship, one of them broken by the wind, “We should check these out.”

Three flies around, only his glowing eyes and runes illuminating the area, until he stops right above the broken tree.

“I didn’t know trees were hollow,” he scratches his head, “And there’s something inside, something squishy. Let me have a look...” he lands on the top and starts crawling inside the trunk.

Thirteen hears a faint squelch.

“How’s it going, Three?”

“Uhhh… I booped something and it started wobbling. It looks like an egg- eep!”

“Three?” Thirteen flies up herself.

“I think it’s mad at me!”

Thirteen reaches into the tall stump, grabs Three’s flailing hind legs, and heaves, pulling the drone out.

A bulging black mass bursts out, rising up the hollow tree like dough, small tentacles grasping for anything in reach.

“That can’t be good. What do we-”

The instinct inside her screams: “RUN!”

If the powerful and terrifying part of her is yelling at her to disappear right now, Thirteen’s going to ask for details later.

Her foreleg answers to her mind for once and snatches Three from the air just as her wings start buzzing and taking her up.

The black thing makes the tree bloom and open up like a banana peel.

Faster!

A fresh, loud squelch makes her look back only to see something akin to a black blooming flower with tentacles spreading through the ground, devouring and twisting the natural forest into corrupted biomass.

The tentacles bulge and time slows down for Thirteen. Despite the darkness, she sees something travel through the tentacles towards the blooming flower which tenses up in a way that reminds Thirteen of a pump shotgun being primed.

As the center of the flower coughs up the first particles of black smoke, the world stops along with a spike of pain running through Thirteen’s brain.

“What’s happening?”

“I stopped time for you,” says the instinct, “The plant is expunging corruption in the form of the black stuff. You’re not quick enough to get to the ship before the cloud reaches you.”

“What’s going to happen if it does?”

“No idea. Now, your body and mind are not strong or efficient enough to keep the dilated perception of time up for long. Decide what to do quickly.”

“I’m going to need you to stop blocking what I can do, or at least let me focus love like mom taught me back home. Just for a few seconds.”

“Deal.”

As Thirteen senses the gears of time starting to move again, she does three things.

One, she taps her ear piece connecting her to the ship.

“W-” the voice has no time to ask before Thirteen’s yells:

“PUNCH IT! BACK TO BLOODSTONE IMMEDIATELY!”

Next, she squeezes Three.

“THREE, BRICK MODE NOW!”

And finally, she pours the vast majority of love she has left into the foreleg holding Three and lobs him at the ship some fifty pony lengths away.

The black cloud rolls over her just as Three breaks through the reinforced glass of the turning airship’s bridge.

His hive link to Thirteen cuts off as the acceleration hits and makes him roll under the control panel.

“What the heck is thaaaaaaat?!” screams the pilot, completely drowned out by the rushing wind as the airship burns it towards Bloodstone. He gives the holographic map a quick glance and a chill runs down his spine as he sees some kind of distortion run over its surface spreading out not only from the area they were in but from others further and further to the east.

“Corruption bombs like during the uprising… those bastards...” whispers a second griffon crewmate watching out of the side window in horror, “They want to wipe us off of the face of the Empire.”

Author's Note

Nicolai, Nicolai, what are you doing, you crazy griffon?

Impossible odds: Setbacks on all sides

Three is hugging the pilot’s neck, tears still streaming down from his eyes, as the griffon carries him into Magpie’s office.

“What happened?” asks Magpie, stumbling to all fours from his chair with a hiss of pain.

“The Black Ops agents planted corruption bombs at the spots we discovered. The changelings must have found one which, according to the mapping scanners, activated all of them.”

“Where’s Thirteen?” asks Magpie which makes Three start sobbing louder.

“I think she realizes she couldn’t outrun the corruption cloud so she threw Three through the front window and ordered us to turbo out of there. Sir, what the Black Ops did… that has been outlawed by the Emperor himself after the uprising on pain of total annihilation of everything and everyone connected to it.”

“Yeah, but the Black Ops don’t report to the Emperor, do they?” Magpie frowns, “Damn it, this means we’re cut off from Chineighese caravans, who knows how long until the power lines from the power plant to the north rot, and we’re bound to have Corrupted on our doorstep-”

The intercom on Magpie’s desk hisses, the griffon pushes the button, and Castor’s voice speaks up in a strangely distant, detached tone:

“S-Sir, are you there?”

“What went wrong now?” Magpie rolls his eyes.

“Are you- and are you sure?”

“What? Castor?”

“Sorry, sir. I had to confirm something.”

“Spit it out!” Magpie raises his voice.

“We have intercepted a message on Silas Irongrip’s private comms. It said… it said that… that Emperor Cassius Irongrip has been killed by a Vash sniper during the defense of Southeast Flow Dam. It was a trap. The Vash had a massive numbers advantage but still had to retreat when faced with the Imperial Guard and the Emperor himself. They went in first to prevent immense casualties among the GIL, obliterated the core of the Vash army, but had to take a risky position against the mobile nomads which got him into a position without enough cover. Vash lost over three quarters of their main army but… but we lost the Emperor.”

“What do you mean we, Castor? Cassius was the guy thanks to whom you were starving just a few weeks ago. We should be thankful for any weakness in the position of the Irongrips.”

“Sir, with all due respect, I wish you’d reconsider your words right now,” says Castor quietly.

Magpie looks at the pilot who is sitting on his haunches, saluting with one foreleg and hugging Three with the other, and then he walks over to the fireplace.

“I… think I’m going to need an explanation here, Castor.”

“Sir, we might be the number one enemy of the Irongrips but that’s just politics and the result of Veronica’s and Legius’ betrayal of the principles of the Griffon Empire. We understand that the retribution was cruel to common griffons but there are none of us, sir, not a single griffon who didn’t respect Emperor Cassius and the stability the Empire enjoyed under him until the Redtalon uprising. The Emperor might not have been a tactical genius or a smooth-talking politician but he was something much better - a strong, straight griffon who no matter what considered the all griffons the members of the Empire. Well, until you know what.”

Magpie grits his beak.

“Could it have been his orders to blow up corruption bombs north of Bloodstone to cut off our only viable supply route and let us get eaten by Corrupted?”

“What?!” gasps Castor.

“The airship crew returned just now with the news. We lost Thirteen trying to get out of there before the explosion could affect them all.”

“I don’t believe it...” Castor breathes out, “The Emperor would never order something like that. It was a Black Ops operation so it must have been Cassius’ brother Nicolai. My tactical guess would be that with his brother’s death, he resorted to something drastic so that no one would attack the heartland until the succession situation is solved.”

“Alright, Castor. Is there any tradition, any ritual we should do or something?”

“I’ll take care of it, sir. I just needed your permission.”

“You got it. First things first, though. We’re going to need mass patrols in the north ASAP and someone to repair the Black Ops airship.”

“Will do, sir.”

The intercom shuts off.

“Anything else to report?” Magpie looks at the pilot.

“No, sir. We flew straight here, outrunning the explosion.”

“Got it. Dismissed. Three, come over here, will you?”

Three drops on the carpet and give Magpie a pleading look the griffon has no clue how to answer. Seeing that, the pilot quietly leaves.

Magpie looks at the silently weeping changeling staring blankly ahead and limps over to him with a sigh.

“Three?”

“I… I… I can’t breathe...” whispers the changeling.

He looks unharmed so… a panic attack? He needs air.

No, he just came from the roof.

But changelings don’t relax in the open air, do they?

He scoops Three up with his healthy foreleg, grits his beak at the agony of having to steady himself with the frostbitten and crippled one, walks over to his desk, and shoves Three under it.

“Better?” he asks after noticing a change in the changeling’s stiffness and shallow breathing.

“Too much...” whispers Three, “I wanna go home...”

“This is the only home we have right now, Three.”

“Thirteen...”

“What happened to her?”

“The egg we found grew into a plant that blew up a cloud of dust. It caught up with her and… I lost her link.”

“Does that mean she’s... dead?”

Three pauses for a moment and then shakes his head.

“No. No, it doesn’t...” he says, a sense of revelation in his voice.

“From what I heard about the uprising, those things turned an entire city into a territory filled with Corrupted instantly.”

“But we faced the spindlies before! She’s the boss’ daughter. He survived poison meant to kill dragons and spindly infection! I’m stupid, I’m so stupid! We could have returned for her after the explosion. We can still go! She’s strong, she’ll be waiting for us!”

“How likely is that, really? I don’t know anything about changelings being resistant to corruption.”

Three grits his teeth and the sudden spark of fire in him dies off instantly.

“I… I want to… but I can’t lie… I’m sorry, Thirteen. Mister Magpie, changelings are naturally resistant but only a little bit. Those of us who fought the spindlies could resist, especially Miss Gem or the boss… but not… Thirteen. I’m sorry. I want to lie… to say she... she could be okay but… no. Even I can’t believe it.”

Magpie takes a deep breath.

“Screw it, let’s go,” he stands up.

“Huh?” Three looks up into Magpie’s face, clearly not having expected anything even close to an agreement.

“You’re a weird horsebug and I’ve spent years surrounded by corruption and Corrupted. Who better go looking than us? Got that shield generator?”

Three reaches behind his back where there clearly was nothing and pulls out his beard. He fastens the fake wires by his ears, then reaches inside the beard and pulls the shield generator out, offering it to Magpie who shakes his head.

“Three, I can barely walk with one leg like this. This is on you. I have a pistol but you have to keep us safe. It’s that or we’re not going anywhere.”

“I… I understand,” Three nods and stands up with a terrified but determined expression.

Without another look at Three, Magpie heads out of the office, followed by the quiet tapping of Three’s hooves.

What sort of monster wouldn’t do anything to cheer up the saddest puppy in the world?

***

“Eeek, bumpy!” Three wraps his fetlocks around the hoof rests of his seat as the airship trembles, accompanied by screeching and cracking of frozen ground.

“Flying this thing is much easier than landing!” groans Magpie, unlocking his seat belts soon after the airships stops, “I sincerely hope we don’t have to take off in a hurry. I have my theory about some of the buttons here but I’d prefer learning how and when to use them from an expert.”

In their haste to leave Bloodstone once again to check out the location of the first expedition, the airship pilot could teach Magpie only the most basic way to start the systems, control the flight, and the theory of landing. Neither of them could expect that with a good chunk of the bridge window missing, the freezing air and the quick flight would make even reaching some of the required buttons as one griffon a chore, doubly so for someone with limited mobility like Magpie.

Unfortunately, time was of the essence so they couldn’t wait for volunteers and they weren’t willing to risk griffons who had never come into contact with corruption before losing control over themselves even while waiting inside the ship.

So here they are, roughly at the edge of the line of forests north of Bloodstone. Three is wearing a headlamp to help Magpie see as well as the shield generator around his foreleg. Magpie is wearing a helmet with the same lamp, light version of the GIL armor, a sawed-off shotgun for use with only one foreleg, and a pistol of a much larger caliber than any standard GIL sidearm. After all, no pea shooter would have enough stopping power against a Corrupted.

They exit the ship, Three in front and Magpie right behind him.

“Can you sense her?” asks the griffon.

“No, I can’t. We drones can’t do much of the mental stuff anyone else can so she’d be able to sense me from much further than I could sense her even if she might not be entirely herself.”

“Alright, then keep your ears perked at least. The soil under us feels corrupted so there’s a chance of something crawling out of the ground to take us from the back,” whispers Magpie.

“Got it!”

They head north, deeper into the newly tainted forest, breathing as quietly as they can in order to hear anyone coming. After roughly an hour of searching, Magpie trips and falls on the ground like many times before but now it takes an audible grunt of pain to get up.

Three hangs his head low for a moment before trotting over and helping him up.

“We should go back,” he says, “I haven’t sensed any trace of her, the corruption bomb has covered the snow we could use to find tracks, and this can’t be good for your leg.”

“You sure?” asks Magpie.

Three sighs.

“I am. She’s either too far and that can be anywhere or she’s a Corrupted now. The Bloodstone griffons can’t afford to lose you too. Let’s go,” he nods towards the direction of the ship somewhere in the distance, “Maybe once the ship is fixed and we can assemble a proper crew willing to face corrupted air we can come back and do a proper sweep from the air.”

Magpie has nothing to say to that. Three is being smarter than him despite the situation having hit him the hardest.

Maybe he’s not being stupidly positive all the time. Maybe he’s only positive because he did many more calculations than anyone else. Maybe I am the one throwing out opportunities by being too negative about the chances.

Maybe we’re both stupid and the reality is somewhere in the middle.

Yeah, that’s it.

They return to the ship and Magpie starts the lift off procedure. Three, peeking one final time through the broken window furrows his brows.

“Hey, something is moving!”

“Where?”

“The tree line.”

“Thirteen?”

“It’s way too big and I still can’t sense her,” Three focuses love into his eyes, “Oh dear.”

“What?”

“Corrupted griffons.”

“Damn it, the starting ship must have alerted them...” Magpie grits his beak, “Three, buckle up. If the first Corrupted are appearing then the flytraps will be growing soon as well.”

Three nods and fiddles with his seat belt as the airship rises into the air. Once secured, he examines the control panel around the map in greater detail.

“Mind if I try something?” he calls out loud so that Magpie can hear him over the rushing air.

The griffon only nods, his eyes flicking between the holographic map and the main window. Three leans closer and presses several buttons on the panel presumably controlling the map, each of which makes the map change colors. When the map turns dark blue with faint red spots, Three smirks to himself.

“That must be it!”

“What did you find?”

“This must be a thermal camera. Corrupted ground is warmer than the snow. I noticed that when we were down there.”

“So did I. I had no idea the scanners on the ship could detect it, though.”

Three returns to watching the map.

“Uh oh,” he says after a while.

“What?”

Three points to the map currently showing a full blue view of the ground splattered with occasional yellow blotches of warmth randomly scattered along their flight path south.

“The territory must be expanding southward much quicker than we expected or there are some weird warm spots on the ground.”

“Remember the coordinates the map is showing. I’ll send out a patrol to check out what it might be once we land.”

***

“I’m not a fan of doing this but I doubt we have a choice here. The brainiacs Twilight gathered are excellent with magic, decent at magitech compositions, but they’re absolute potatoes regarding advanced tech,” Gem stretches her real body in her underground room inside the research complex under Canterlot.

“Well, we are the best,” the smaller, red-maned changeling shrugs, “Besides, I’m going to have Five and Seven on speed dial and Cryo and Eleven who can come kick some ass in case of trouble.”

“Two, remember how I told you about the blood mage we escaped from in the Crystal Empire? Promi managed to get him locked up here again and, according to her, someone released him. I’ll do my best to keep Six safe but I might need someone right here, not in the Badlands.”

“Five could use some infiltration practice,” Two winks at Gem.

“No, this isn’t her forte. The security here is a bit too tight for her and we can’t afford to replace any of the unicorns who work here. Their job is crucial. I need you here in case of the blood mage and I need Six here… I need him so that there’s even the smallest chance of this thing working. I trust Twilight but I’m afraid she trusts the wrong kind of ponies.”

“You think someone released that blood mage to finish you off? How does that make any sense? If Twilight is on your side, how would anyone even know that you haven’t escaped to the Griffon Empire like Three and Thirteen?”

“First, I asked myself who would benefit from us dead but honestly, I got nothing.”

“So it has to be illogical, right? Who hates us enough to release someone as dangerous as that blood mage? Am I right?”

“Yep,” Gem nods, “And from what Promi told me about what happened when Blazing Light returned from the void after closing the universe-ending rift, I think there’s only one pony with the position and the hatred who could do this - Celestia.”

Two only raises an eyebrow.

“She’s never been the biggest fan of us but endangering the country she’s been leading and protecting for centuries like this? Do you have anything to support that claim?”

“No, I don’t,” Gem sighs, “I just can’t imagine anyone else in the right position for this.”

Two crossed her forelegs on her chest.

“Alright, I’m in. Under one condition, though.”

“Which is?”

“You tell Twilight about me and have her allow me access to this place.”

“What?!” hisses Gem, “Are you crazy?”

“That or nothing, sister,” Two smirks in a way which Gem can only describe as ‘somewhat insane’, “If you don’t do that for me, you can walk out of here, come find our city, learn how to work the new teleporter, and seek out Six on your own.”

“Two, this nonsense is stopping the only chance out of this sunless mess.”

“Exactly,” Two boops Gem, “So why are you still arguing with me?”

“Fine, I’ll ask Twilight to arrange official access for you and Six-”

“Nope, just for me,” Two shakes her head.

Gem’s jaw drops as she finally realizes precisely what Two’s plan is.

“Two, you can’t. I saw what the blood mage did to Promi and a unit of paladins. It’s way too dangerous.”

“Gem, someone already knows you’re not in the Griffon Empire. It’s likely they’re suspicious that you might be in Canterlot or, to be exact, that one member of our hive is in Canterlot. You don’t have official access, Six won’t have any official access. It will be up to you to keep him safe and make sure he can work here in peace. I will have official access and I will be difficult but possible to find.”

“Fine...” Gem breathes out, “Just… just be careful and don’t hesitate to ask for help in case anything feels out of place. I know how crazy powerful Promi is and that… monster is much much worse.”

“Oh Gem,” Two leans closer, gently kisses Gem’s nose, and adds in a whisper, “You have no idea what I can do.”

Gem’s brain freezes for a second and when she opens her eyes, Two isn’t there, there’s no scent of her left behind, and her hive link is gone. A quick look at the clock on the wall shows that two minutes have passed.

“I just wish you had some idea about what you can’t do,” Gem sighs.

Impossible odds: Chaos

“Hi,” Three waves at Magpie as he enters his office without knocking. The griffon stops fiddling with his notes and a holographic map, and forces whatever constitutes for him as a smile.

“How are you?”

“Eh...” Three sighs, “Was a lot better for the past two days when I was in the lab, focusing only on chemistry.”

“I’d drink something strong in your situation but you changelings and alcohol...”

Three shakes his head and hops onto the comfortable armchair near the fireplace.

“I just need to work harder, that’s all.”

“How’s the research anyway?” Magpie happily takes the change in the subject.

“Surprisingly good, actually. The first batch made corruption withdraw a bit. Unfortunately, it leaves behind only black sludge that’s neither soil nor grass. We made a tree melt, that was kinda fun...” says the changeling flatly.

Magpie leans back in his chair, slowly breathing out in amazement.

“Three, that’s fantastic. I know it doesn’t help with… Thirteen but in two days you’ve managed something the Empire chemists failed to do since the first bomb. You might be able to save Bloodstone,” when that doesn’t seem to cheer Three up, Magpie thinks up another reason, “This could save the Empire from ending like Equestria. And if griffons learn that a changeling is behind it, it could be the catalyst for eventually stopping all those centuries of fear and hatred.”

Three forces a smile.

“I just want to help,” he curls up, staring into the flames, “You’re celebrating too early, though. I’m working with what little is in my hive mind from when we fixed the black alicorn lady with Mister Bucket, Mister Cromach, Miss Gem, and everyone else. I don’t remember all the processes and details but, you know, you have some really smart griffons here.”

“Bloodstone isn’t some village or just any city, Three. We’re pretty much second only to the Holy City itself, which means we have industry, research, trade, everything rolled into one. Well, we used to before everything went to shit. And you, you are now instrumental to unshitting it. Not bad for a changeling drone, hmm? Still not sure your king picked the right changeling for the job?”

“I got Thirteen… corrupted.”

“Well, didn’t you just say that you’re working with memories once used to restore an alicorn, specifically one who was lost a lot longer? Corrupted are heavily territorial, so it’s not as if Thirteen is going to go anywhere. We just need to figure out a way to protect ourselves out there and get a stasis cage to catch her. Then you can work your magic.”

The corner of Three’s mouth curls up.

“Thank you for trying to cheer me up...”

“No problem. Just do your best, I’m not used to being the positive one and I have no idea how long I can keep it up before all the goodness makes me dissolve into a pile of rainbows. That’s your schtick.”

Three chuckles a little.

“How is the foreleg?”

“Mostly numb so it doesn’t hurt too much. Everything else around does, though. It’s not healing, it’s not getting worse. I’d have a surgeon cut it off but right now I don’t have the tech or griffon power to make me a custom prosthesis that’d be more than a decorative walking stick. Say, how good are your dwarves with artificial limbs?” he adds in the end, mostly as a joke.

“Those? Completely common. Mining and engineering accidents used to happen on a daily basis. Some dwarves even had mechanical limbs made in advance when they knew they’d be stationed somewhere dangerous. As they said - it’s better to have a fetlock cleanly cut off by a surgeon and connected to an artificial limb beforehoof then have it crushed by a loose boulder you missed and then fight for your entire leg.”

“I was kidding, Three.”

The drone shrugs.

“I wasn’t. We’d need Six to make a really good prosthesis, like one that shoots energy beams or is super strong, but I think I can recall some more basic but useful kinds. With a good engineer we could build it in a few days. I spent a lot of time inside Brauheim hospitals. Dwarves liked having someone to talk to when their loved ones couldn’t be there or when they didn’t have anyone left. It helped them pass time… or pass on...”

“You chose to be in situations where you couldn’t do anything other than sit there? I hate being helpless. That’s pretty much why I hate being here and doing all this.”

“Well, sometimes it turned out that it was exactly the right thing to do,” Three shrugs, although this time with a small smile, “I couldn’t save everyone but that didn’t mean I couldn’t help anyone.”

Not a single bad atom in his body.

Magpie looks away.

“I could ask someone to bring you a cot or a real bed if you want to take a nap here.”

Three shakes his head and hops off of the armchair.

“I’ve been sitting around, remembering, and thinking all day so my head aches a lot but I’m not really tired. I think I’ll go down to the armory to do some exercise, that might help.”

***

It creeps through the darkness until it sees lights, until it senses blotches of warmth ahead. Its pitch black eyes with the faintest hint of amber in them narrow as it hisses:

“...no...”

There are buildings ahead, the tall ones with more specks of warmth atop them - creatures, mates or food.

In complete silence, it easily crawls up the wall of a three-story house and peeks over the edge of the roof.

“I’m getting something on the motion tracker,” whispers one of the two creatur- griffons patrolling around. Its senses easily identify both as males, so easy to breed and feed from.

It waits until the griffon’s patrol route brings him closer before pulling itself over the edge with shocking strength and speed and pouncing at the griffon in one jerky motion, knocking him down.

“Aaah!” yells the griffon before tentacles fill his beak, probing deep into his throat.

“What?” the other griffon turns around, sees what’s going on, and raises his voice, “Checkpoint twenty-one! Got a single contact!” he fires his rifle into the air to draw the creature’s attention.

“...no...” hisses the Corrupted, withdraws its tentacle tongues out of the stunned griffon’s beak, quickly glances at the other soldier who aims his rifle its way, and zig-zags towards him with such unpredictability, always moving a fraction of a second later or earlier than expected, that he can’t hit a single of the three bursts he manages to fire.

It lands on him, tentacles unfurling out of its hoof and ripping the rifle out of the griffon’s grasp with force that shocks the trained GIL soldier. It grabs his head, opens its mouth filled with sharp teeth, sniffs him, and hisses:

“...breed...”

As its tentacle tail splits into many smaller ones which reach for the griffon’s privates, the creature freezes and its eyes bulge.

Wrong wrong wrong! No!

“...wrong...” it hisses, looks around, and its amber pupils dilate as its eyes stop on a massive building in the distance easily overshadowing everything else in the city.

Somehow it knows that what it wants is there.

With that knowledge secured in its primitive mind, it jumps off of the building and its sleek, pitch-black form quickly disappears into the shadows of Bloodstone.

***

“This early?” Magpie grits his beak, “Freaking damn it! I thought we had at least a few weeks.”

The intercom replies:

“It was still a single one and it didn’t kill the soldiers.”

“A griffon Corrupted didn’t kill something in its way? That could be the first...”

“The soldiers said it looked more like a pony, sir.”

“Doesn’t matter, Castor. Get them here immediately, put them in a cell, and keep an eye on them no matter what! A single Corrupted in a civilian population today can mean that there are hundreds of them tomorrow.”

“What do we do, sir?”

“Send out aerial patrols, only aerial,” stresses Magpie, “Corrupted can’t deal with heights, no matter what species they’re based on. They’re going to need lights and armor-piercing bullets or at least something of decent caliber. It might be a fresh Corrupted but standard pistol ammo isn’t going to do squat unless you hit an eye or mouth.”

“On it, sir!”

“Keep me informed, Castor.”

“Of course, sir. Should we inform the citizenry over the loudspeaker system?”

“No. Everyone is already sitting at home and no amount of preparation can help them in case a Corrupted gets in. Panic is the last thing we need.”

“Understood.”

Once the intercom shuts off, Magpie slams his healthy fist against the table which results in a short coughing fit.

“I’m literally the one with the most experience at fighting those things and I can barely walk.”

***

When Three opens the door to the armory, the squelching noise he’s been picking up for a moment already stops. He steps on the wet floor, scrunches his muzzle, and looks around.

“Oh, hi!” he says as he notices Dust Pan next to a trolley with cleaning supplies, watching him and holding a wet mop, “Sorry, I didn’t know you were busy here. I’ll come later so that I don’t ruin the clean floor.”

Dust Pan shakes her head and beckons him inside.

The wide open shooting range in the back is dry already, and Three heads across it towards the storage area to set up the training sentry turret. About a third of the way through, he stops, looks at Dust Pan who is still watching him with curiosity, and asks:

“Umm, are you busy?”

Shake, shake.

“Would you like to play a bit? The turret I’ve been using up to now is good but not exactly smart.”

Dust Pan tilts her head, clearly puzzled. Three trots over and pulls his beard out of nowhere which makes the earth pony take sharp breath. Then he reaches in and reveals the bouncy ball from Magpie’s torture outside. Dust Pan’s jaw drops.

“Don’t think about it too much. I dunno how it works either. Magic, I guess,” Three shrugs and throws the ball towards the mare who drops her mop and catches it with both forelegs, balancing on her haunches, “Nice! So, I’ve got this shield thingy that makes things stop where they are. You try to hit me without hitting it, how about that?”

Dust Pan nods, tossing the ball up and down with one foreleg for good measure before standing up on three legs. Three puts the shield generator on, sets it on low, which creates a circular shield covering roughly a third of him, walks a short way away between training dummies, stops, and says:

“Just hit me now for practice, I won’t move.”

Dust Pan throws the ball slowly with a small curve which Three simply stops by raising his shield. As the ball hits it, it immediately loses all its momentum and drops on the floor despite its bounciness.

“Alright, you can go harder if you’re comfortable,” Three tosses her the ball back. She narrows her eyes, and throws it with considerable strength in a straight line at Three’s uncovered side.

However, even for a changeling like Three, such speed isn’t a massive deal and he barely feels a tap as he easily blocks the ball and the generator converts most of the kinetic energy into its own power.

“Neat,” Three throws the ball back, “We can do it differently too if hitting me is too hard. The shield is pretty big. You can throw the ball away and I’ll try to catch it. Good running and jumping practice.”

Dust Pan shakes her head with a smirk, cocks her foreleg, and throws. This time Three has to jump upwards as the ball bounces off where his uncovered hind foreleg would have been.

“Woo, good one! That was close,” he runs off to fetch the ball and throws it to Dust Pan again.

He gets into position. Dust Pan purses her lips, bounces the ball against the floor, catches it again, and lobs it hard...

...but at a strange angle. Three quickly realizes it won’t hit him so he doesn’t move. He opens his mouth to reassure her that next time she’ll hit for sure.

“Don-” the smack to the back of his head makes him bite his tongue, “Oww oww oww oww! Whuh happhend?”

Dust Pan rushes over with eyes wide and starts examining Three’s muzzle. Her ears droop as she touches the thin trickle of blood dripping out of his mouth.

“Huh?” Three licks his muzzle, “Heh, I bit myselph pretty harf. Mah bad.”

The mare hangs her head low and stares at the floor, waiting for her judgement. Three looks around, his head following the trail the thrown ball must have taken.

“Phat waf-” he scrunches his muzzle, smacks his lips a few times, and tries again, “Did you just bounce the ball off of that target dummy, that crate, and the wall behind me?”

Dust Pan carefully looks up before very slowly nodding.

“That was awesome!” admits Three, “You took me completely by surprise,” he smiles at the confused and still visibly nervous mare and hugs her, “Don’t worry, I’m not mad or anyth-”

The familiar feeling of his love gently, almost imperceptibly, trickling away makes the corner of his mouth curl up.

“-anything,” he finishes the sentence.

Dust Pan breaks the hug and jumps away the instant a loud crack announces one wing of the heavy double door of the armory being kicked off of its hinges.

Three’s eyes go wide, his jaw drops, and he takes a step towards what with zero doubts must be corrupted Thirteen, hissing:

“...Threeeeee...”

Her chitin is pitch black and instead of narrow cracks between its plates it looks almost like one suit made of living oil. Her mouth is cracked open again from ear to ear just like in her feral form, showing off far too many teeth as well as three tentacle tongues hanging out of it. In preparation for a pounce, her hoof unfurls not into claws like in her monster form before but into a clump of tentacles.

In the time she readies herself for a jump, Dust Pan appears in front of Three with a mop. He only blinks, having no idea how she got there or when in the holes did she have the time to get the implement.

Seeing that, Thirteen’s slit eyes focus.

“MINE!”

Three can barely make out what happens next. Corrupted Thirteen is fast but still within the realm of changeling senses. Dust Pan, though, breaks off the end of the mop and drives the sharp piece of reinforced plastic in the tiny crack in Thirteen’s chest where the plates of her carapace used to touch all the while guiding her wild pounce with the stick so that she ends with her back on the floor.

“DON’T!” screams Three.

Dust Pan pulls the mop out and stabs downwards again, this time to ram the end through Thirteen’s eye and brain.

“I’ll tell everyone that you’re a changeling!” Three blurts out as quickly as he can.

Dust Pan presses the spike against the back of Thirteen’s mouth instead, standing on her while she twitches as if fighting the urge to bite down and swipe at the “earth pony”.

“Please, I beg you!” Three tears up, “I don’t know who you really are but you’re clearly strong enough to hold her down so don’t kill her! She just got caught in some corrupting explosion two days ago. I’ve helped save someone who was lost for much longer. We can help her. We must help her! Thirteen is an amazing changeling who would never hurt a fly if she was herself. Just give me time and I’ll fix her, please!”

Dust Pan throws the mop away and at the same moment Thirteen thrusts her mouth forward to bite her.

A flash of orange fire later, she finds her mouth closed in a grip of claws on the end of a hole-y leg of a black changeling.

From her general shape, Three can estimate that she’s a warrior. Having no mane or tail points to her being a fairly low rank but the ability to stop corrupted Thirteen with no trouble at all says otherwise. She has “normal”, dark blue eyes, though, definitely something low ranks don’t use because they don’t need the more complex structure for digging, basic fighting, or carrying things around. The only really unusual thing Three can see is that there are tiny, barely visible veins of orange color criss-crossing her carapace which is black but to Three’s eyes it sports a faint, dark blue hue. He has no idea what those could mean or be for.

She quickly glances at him.

“Please,” repeats Three.

Dust Pan’s short horn flashes and the mental blast turns Three off like a light.

When he wakes up with a pounding headache, neither of the two are anywhere to be found.

***

Thirteen finds herself in the darkness of the hive mind, lying on the ground and gasping for air as the usually calm, cold air of a mine shaft feels so sticky and oppressive that it’s crushing her lungs like a rock.

“Help...” she croaks, “Someone help...”

“I can’t… I can’t do this… alone...” she grits her teeth and forces herself to look up.

A shadowy, featureless equine is standing over her, watching.

“Who…?”

“Knock knock,” the familiar voice of the instinct rings from behind her. She groans and the instinct adds in a disappointed tone, “You’re supposed to say - who’s there?”

“I… what happened…?” despite nausea and a splitting headache, she pushes herself on all fours after a while, “I recall seeing Three… and the janitor… Dust Pan.”

“And your partially corrupted and, may I add, extremely jealous ass wanted to breed with the changeling you love, yes,” instinct chuckles, “Luckily for both of them, she turned out to be a changeling so completely out of your league that her mind blast knocked you out so hard you ended up here. I’m pretty sure that just the echo knocked out Three too. What’s going on now is tough to say but you’re definitely not turning Three into a Corrupted. Holes know how that would end. With all those tentacles… hugs for days.”

“Hugs… for days…?”

“Hugs for days.”

“Why am I here…? Why... am I… sane?” asks Thirteen.

“Your changeling immune system is trying to fight the corruption off. It’s failing but it’s doing its best. As for your mind, that’s her doing,” the instinct nods towards the black silhouette, “Remember how you almost killed your dad in your ‘queenly’ fit of rage? The same block keeping you- me- us in check is stopping the corruption from taking over everything. Someone as young, imbalanced, and downright horny as you would be humping everything if left unprotected.”

“I want my head...” says Thirteen slowly.

“Yeeeeah, how about no?”

“You are my instincts! You are responsible for me attacking my dad! You-”

“I am you,” replies the instinct calmly, “Or a part of you. We are not separate entities, one good and one bad. You’re just presenting us like that because you’re not able to accept your nature and guilt.”

“I JUST WANT TO BE MYSELF! I WANT TO BE WITH THREE! I DON’T WANT TO HURT ANYONE! GET OUT OF MY WAY!”

Her frustrated scream sends out a shockwave which disintegrates the instinct and knocks the shadow down on the ground, dispersing the darkness around it.

It’s Gem, looking up at sitting Thirteen with a sad smile.

“Sister?” Thirteen shuffles over to her.

“Heya,” Gem coughs, “Dad needed a mental block strong enough so that you wouldn’t go crazy and hurt anyone until you’re older and stronger. I was the only one who could do something so complex without harming you. Unfortunately, unlike many times before, you picked exactly the wrong time to try to gain full control, and almost succeed...” the mental image of Gem closes its eyes and slowly disintegrates into silvery ash flying away on a nonexistent breeze.

A wave of cold hits Thirteen as the slightly shimmering floor of the hive mind shatters like glass and black tentacles thicker than her barrel burst through from below everywhere around.

She panics and screams as they swarm her.

***

“Dad will kill me! That, or he’ll stop talking to me. I’m not sure what’s worse. And mom will kill me afterwards anyway!”

Inside the laboratory complex under Canterlot, Gem finds herself once again absolutely horrified by the depths of Two’s… dedication? Deviousness? Borderline insanity?

“Alright, think of it in a different way,” Two crosses her forelegs on her chest, “If I use someone not as good as you and I fail. How will they react when they find out that you refused to help me.”

“You- I- We-”

“Pronouns much?” smirks Two, somewhat proud of herself for completely stunning Gem by her plan.

“This is crazy!”

“Oh pleeeease. Comfort did it on her first try and you’re waaay better than she was at the time, both at physical self-control as well as mental.”

“Yes, but that was her jumping into me, another living and breathing infiltrator. What you’re proposing… no one has ever done it. All the queens wanted to but not a single one thought herself desperate enough to even attempt it after the first failure and you want to do it… basically for no reason?”

“Making sure you and Six can save the world is a hella good reason.”

“No, it’s not about that, is it?” Gem looks Two in the eyes, “And don’t try to lie to yourself, Two. If it was just about that, there would be unbelievably safer ways with only a slightly lower chance of success involved,” she sighs, “Alright, I’ll do it, if only because I know that if I refuse you’ll find someone else to do the same thing and you’ll one hundred percent die-”

“Yesss!” Two punches the air.

“Under two conditions, both non-negotiable.”

“Okaaay?”

“Condition one - you stop lying to me and, most of all, to yourself about why you’re doing it.”

“As I said, I want to make sure you have the best chance to save the world.”

“Strike one,” is all Gem says.

Two closes her eyes and grits her teeth, then she takes a long breath.

“I want to know if I can do it. I want to know if it’s really possible and, if so, I want to learn to do it right so that I’m not forced to do some patchwork version of it like Comfort did.”

“You want to do it more than once?!”

“No, I want to do it once but I want to learn to do it properly in case I have to do it again.”

Gem nods.

“Condition two.”

“I’m listening.”

“I decide when you’re ready.”

“Ehhh-”

“I promise I won’t use the condition to stop you or anything. I just...” Gem sighs, “You don’t know how many single-digit ranked changelings died trying to do this on their queen’s orders. I do, I have a lot of Comfort’s memories. The best warriors and infiltrators of their time. I don’t want you to join them.”

They stare at each other in silence for several minutes.

“I agree with both conditions,” says Two.

Impossible odds: Family matters

A hooded unicorn wearing a grey robe looks at the cliff overlooking the southern sea from the deck of a ship belonging to a zebra captain skilled or foolish enough to brave the seas from the north coast to the southern tip of Zebrica. Despite the distance, through the scope it looks as if there’s someone moving around the active lighthouse on it.

“I’m going to check it out,” says the unicorn, “If I don’t come back in twenty-four hours, you’re free to leave. The second part of your payment is in my cabin.”

“Aye aye, doc,” the captain standing on the ‘front end’ of the ship, as the non-nautical unicorn would call it, nods, “I’ll have a boat to get you on the beach under the cliff ready in a few minutes.”

“That won’t be necessary,” says the unicorn and disappears in a flash of light.

The pop of air being displaced by his materialization inside the control room of the lighthouse makes the zebra wearing denim overalls inside jump and back away.

“Who’s in charge here?” asks the unicorn.

The zebra darts towards the control panel and freezes mid-air, imprisoned by a pink aura.

“Come on, I asked a question,” says the unicorn calmly.

“C-Commander Zod is in charge of the lighthouse watch.”

“Do you kneel before him?”

“What?”

“Nevermind,” the unicorn shakes his head, “At my age, my mind starts wandering. No, I want to know who’s in charge of all this,” the unicorn points out of the window along the coast.

“You mean Cloak Town? I’m not sure but one of the bigwigs in charge is a griffon going by the name Lyam.”

“And where would I find him?” asks the unicorn with unshakable patience.

“The town hall. Most of the city was destroyed by Stern’s army including the fortress-”

“Trust me, I know,” the unicorn’s tone turns dark.

“-and the rebuilding effort started in the city center.”

“Thank you,” the aura of the unicorn’s magic around the zebra fades and he flops on the ground, “You’ve been very helpful.”

With a loud pop, the unicorn disappears. The zebra immediately reaches for the control panel of the radio.

“Lighthouse base to command center! We have a breach! A unicorn wizard is headed to the town hall!”

The invisible unicorn watching the situation unfold with a smirk rolls his eyes and quietly teleports away, this time for real.

He knows the layout of Cloak Town well. After all, he’s the one responsible for the majority of the desolation everywhere around. He reappears just above the roof of the rebuilt town hall, hovers in the air for a moment, and then descends, listening to the multiplying calls for guards and security from the streets below. Thankfully, zebras can’t fly so he doesn’t need to bother with another invisibility spell, at least for now.

Now, where exactly was the Mayor’s office?

He leans against a nearby chimney, sits down, and draws his hood over his eyes. The sea voyage was long, and a quick rest on a not-swaying ground would do him good. One alarm and a heating spell later, the unicorn dozes off.

The mental alarm wakes him up just as an equine silhouette lands on the roof in front of him, wings folding and a pistol aimed at him, held in her talons.

A hippogriff, the pony-headed version, not the fish one.

The unicorn stands up, shakes the snow off of himself, and faces the hippogriff mare. The roof creaks behind him, and a quick look reveals a griffon holding a shotgun. Magic flares up and a protective dome cuts the roof off of the rest of the world. A quick scanning spell reveals a different unicorn hiding behind a vent exhaust on the other side of the expansive roof. The last creature on the roof is a muscular zebra stallion, a hoof pistol fastened to each of his forelegs. Everyone but the hippogriff mare is wearing a military suit so it’s impossible to make out their colors but the unicorn doesn’t need magic to assess the situation.

Mostly because the hippogriff mare is wearing a tight, black bodysuit, same color as her charcoal coat, reflecting the faint corona of street lights reaching all the way up here. She should be freezing but doesn’t look bothered by the cold at all. In fact, the coldest thing in the entire situation is the icy gaze of her emerald eyes peering from under a blond mane.

“Looking lovely as ever, Des,” says Mistake as he withdraws his hood.

“What brings you here?” Desert Shade lowers her pistol. There’s nothing in the arsenal of both her and anyone else here which could harm Mistake even if she wanted to do so.

“Bucket thought it might be you working to bring some order to the South Zebrican Republic.”

“You can tell Bucket he can shove anything he wants inside his chrome ass. I’m not joining any crazy plan to get my father out of Tartarus. He’s immortal, he’ll get out eventually when Twilight and Celestia chill out, fix the world, and realize that him being down there is only making things worse.”

“I think Bucket is just gathering information, Des. Besides, I didn’t come here to do any investigation for him, I’m here to help. I’ve spent months stitching up dying zebras on the north coast and I could be doing that forever without making a dent in their numbers. You are restoring order in a way that makes sense while the Northern Coalition states, now that Stern’s threat is gone, are squabbling among each other again. I want to help in any way I can.”

Desert Shade smiles.

“Alright. Hay, I can’t exactly refuse a unicorn possessing all knowledge there is,” she walks over and shakes Mistake’s hoof, “Hey, Witherstorm, drop the barrier, will you?” she calls out to the hiding unicorn.

“Can’t! The spell has a fixed duration in case the caster gets incapacitated,” replies a high-pitched voice, “It’s impossible.”

“Mistake?” Des raises an eyebrow.

“Don’t worry,” he flicks his horn and the barrier fades, letting in the sounds from the streets again, “So, where do I start?”

“Time rewind on the entire continent would be a good start.”

“I have unlimited knowledge, Des, not power… anymore.”

“Hmmm...” Des purses her lips before snapping her talons, “I’ve got an idea! Stern had Silversmith gear at his disposal. Any idea where he got it?”

“His family crypt was a stash but it self-destructed once I took the seal key from there.”

Des shakes her head.

“Silversmiths didn’t do caches, they built cities or at least outposts. It all depends on how far you can dig without being shot to bits by their mechs or triggering a self-destruct sequence for the section you’re in. I’ve got the zebras to mount a proper excavation here.”

“I can show you where the entrance was if you get me a map. I thought you had your equipment which was even better than Silversmith relics.”

“Lyam arranged transport for our stuff but we don’t have the resources and tech to reverse engineer and duplicate any of it right now. Most of my contacts are in the Griffon Empire which is a little out of hoof here.”

“Why did you come here anyway?”

“Just like you, Mistake. I wanted to help fix what we caused.”

“And, like usual, to play a sexy warlord with her own country until she gets bored and shoves all the paperwork on my back,” adds Lyam.

Desert Shade only huffs as Mistake starts laughing.

***

The street lights of Bloodstone are dimmed - the only way to distinguish day from night anymore other than checking a clock. Magpie is sleeping in his room inside the fortress, curtain drawn. These days, sleep is the only place where Magpie can escape the constant dull pain from his foreleg. On the other talon, it’s the first time in years when he can regularly catch a full eight hours of sleep so there’s always a bright side.

The window clicks quietly and the curtains part, letting in a silhouette that instantly blends into the darkness of the room with next to no noise. One more does exactly the same, following the first one’s movements almost inch by inch. A final figure, smaller, enters with less grace and slightly more noise.

The first two draw combat knives, darkened so that no accidental reflection of light would betray their position. The final figure stays in the back, pulling out a pistol with a silencer just in case. As the duo advance towards the bed, each from one side, they spread their wings a little to balance out having to sneak on three legs, revealing they’re both griffons. They freeze as Magpie shifts in his sleep and wait for a long minute, listening to his slow and calm breathing.

When it’s clear he’s still asleep, one of the griffons slowly pulls a pillow Magpie’s head isn’t on off of the bed and throws it to the other who catches it despite the pitch darkness. With the pillow in one foreleg and the knife in the other, the griffon balances himself on his hind legs, waits a second, and-

All lights in the room switch on at once and the two griffons by the bed scream as their retinas burn through their night vision goggles. Magpie kicks his blanket on the one on the right and which reveals the pistol held in his healthy foreleg. The shot rings through the room and the left griffon drops to the floor.

The blanket lands on him again along with the heavy body of the griffon who punches him with the boxer handle of the combat knife. With his hind legs, Magpie kicks upwards, throwing the griffon off of himself as well as the bed. As he jumps on all fours, he notes the silver patch on the sleeve of the bodysuit of the griffon in a combat position aiming a gun at him.

Black Ops.

A direct, silenced headshot follows.

Frozen, Magpie blinks as the Black Ops agent collapses on the floor. The final griffon who wasn’t a part of the struggle lowers her silenced pistol. She’s wearing a bodysuit as well, although one without all the utility belts and the discreet silver patches of the Black Ops agents.

Her head feathers are white, her slightly surprised grey eyes are narrowed and measuring Magpie, and what little is visible of her coat is sand-colored, excellent for hiding in the desert. However, the most important thing of all, the talons holding the pistol are a unique shade of blood red, exactly like Magpie’s.

Magpie’s beak drops.

“Veronica?” he whispers, “How are you alive?”

“Little spoiled Magpie...” she smirks, “I’ll have to ask you the same but there’s one more agent busy planting explosives on the airship you hitched. Come!” she rushes towards the window, opens it, and vaults through.

She could have shot me at any point. Filing any investigations for later. Can’t afford to lose the airship.

Magpie climbs through the window into the freezing air with far less grace than Veronica, but soon he’s on the way to the landing pad on the roof.

“Stay behind,” she hisses at him and lands near the griffon wearing the same gear as the two dead agents downstairs, “Are the charges set?”

“They are,” replies the agent, “Where are the others?”

“Give me the detonator,” says Veronica.

The agent pulls out a pistol and aims at her forehead.

Magpie’s bullet hits the shoulder of the agent’s foreleg holding the detonator which Veronica uses to knock it out of his grip. The second shot hits him in the side and Veronica drops him with a well aimed karate chop to the back of his neck.

“Nice shooting!” she calls towards Magpie flying towards her.

“I’ve been practicing after what Silas did to me.”

“Then go practice some ruling and call for a GIL bomb squad. I’m pretty sure those damn charges are on a timer as well in case the agent failed like this.”

“I can sit on a throne. That doesn’t make me a ruler, it just means I have an ass.”

“And a nice one too,” she clicks her beak, “Oh don’t give me that prudish look. I’m sure that the majority of branches of all noble families look more like recycling symbols, and ours is no different.”

“STAY WHERE YOU ARE!” loud voices call out and GIL soldiers on watch swarm the roof, all aiming rifles at Veronica who turns her head to Magpie.

“You gonna call off your goons?”

“Stand down!” orders Magpie, “And get a medic here to keep this guy alive,” he points at the bleeding Black Ops agent, “as well as the bomb squad to scan the airship before the charges he set blow up. Haul ass!”

“Yes, sir!”

***

“Sandstorm wine,” Veronica swirls the glass in her talons, “You have no idea how I missed this.”

The fireplace in Magpie’s office is lit, he and Veronica are sitting in armchairs facing each other, one of the most expensive wines in the Empire has been poured, and the atmosphere is heavy at best.

“Start talking, Veronica,” says Magpie matter-of-factly, “You could have killed me, you didn’t. I have griffons to think about so get to it, starting with how you got out of the Holy City accompanied by three Black Ops agents.”

Either this is some much more elaborate plan or…

Well, I’m not stupid enough to think she’s on my side but for now it seems that her side and my side might be overlapping.

Veronica slowly sips her wine before putting the tall glass back on the table.

“Simple. Nicolai offered me a deal - your head for my freedom. Plus I had to officially renounce any claim of my bloodline to Redtalon lands but I’d get to live the rest of my life here as an Irongrip regent. You can guess what I picked based on the two of us having this chat right now.”

“Not exactly,” Magpie keeps observing her every move, “You were let go but you killed the agents who came with you. Explain.”

“Damn, I don’t recall you being so paranoid.”

“Bloodstone is surrounded by corruption from Black Ops bombs, griffons are still hungry, and I’m about to lose one power plant. I’m in no position to be careless and not in the mood for games,” Magpie frowns.

“The only thing I wanted from the rebellion was to shake up the nobility system. Legius had his plans with the corruption research and everything. I didn’t know… about everything he was doing. Yes, he wanted to be the Emperor but not a dictator. Yes, he was power hungry but he knew the Empire being ruled by the noble families is safer than relying on a central authority. And yes… he also subscribed to the old immortal Emperor cult and tried to fuse himself with corruption to stop his decrepit ruling ass from dropping dead in a few years. When Nicolai offered me this, I did what I had to do to get out and see for myself if it’s really you after all those years or some impostor. If it turned out to be the latter, I wouldn’t have stopped the agents,” she shrugs, “As things stand, I must congratulate you to be the only Redtalon who survived my path to the throne despite my best efforts.”

Magpie points a pistol at her.

The silence lengthens.

“You have no fucking idea what I’ve gone through because of you...” he hisses, his trigger talon ready. Veronica doesn’t dare move, her mercenary experience telling her with absolute clarity that the griffon facing her is a killer and isn’t entirely… sane.

Only one word flashes through his head and saves Veronica’s life.

Gem.

Magpie lowers the pistol.

“Why would Nicolai send you to kill me after he sentenced Bloodstone to corruption?” he asks instead, as if nothing happened. Veronica slowly breathes out.

“You’ve never met him, have you?” asks Veronica. When Magpie shakes his head, she continues, “Nicolai is a careful and meticulous griffon, not one to do things half-assed. Now with Cassius dead, he’s the de-facto Emperor and the Black Ops leader. No griffon in the history of the unified Empire has ever held so much political power. Your defiance might give ideas to other families. I hear the Vash are the major problem these days.”

“So what happens now? Do I wait until you poison my meal or…?”

“Brother, my official renouncement of Redtalon heritage is inside the Imperial archives. I have no claim to anything anymore. Even if the griffons here accepted me as their ruler which, from what I heard about you so far, definitely wouldn’t happen, our territory would be up for grabs for any other royal family. No, I’m fairly satisfied with the hilarious ‘fuck you’ to Nicolai I just caused and the second Black Ops airship I got you. So don’t worry, neither you nor your future kids have anything to fear from me.”

“Castrated,” Magpie chuckles, “The minotaurs who ambushed the expedition to the north you messed with did… a lot to me.”

“Shit...” Veronica sighs, “So after the two of us, well, after you... the Redtalons are gone?”

“Yep,” Magpie nods, “Although dying of old age without an heir is the last thing on my list of concerns, considering that Nicolai is bound to discover that his assassination attempt failed and that his corruption operation won’t be progressing as quickly as he wanted.”

“What, you got something that the best scientists in the Empire haven’t figured out since the first bomb in Drachenberg?” Veronica raises an eyebrow.

“A very smart changeling friend with a lot of experience regarding corruption. So far, we assume we can melt the surface vegetation on a large scale but we’re still working on a way to deal with the spread through the soil deep down and actually restoring nature instead of turning everything into a pool of black sludge.”

“Wow, you’re really sticking it to the Black Ops, aren’t you?” Veronica laughs out loud before leaning closer to Magpie and adding in a conspiratorial whisper, “How about we double down on that?”

“Hmmm?”

“Before I get all smug, you haven’t, by any chance, discovered a lab complex under Bloodstone sewers filled with corruption research data?”

“What?”

Veronica grins.

“I mean, it’s not as if there was a certain member of a certain noble family with whom a certain traitorous Grand Vizier conspired to take over the Empire. It’s not as if I couldn’t procure literally any city property that wasn’t directly my father’s to safeguard all he discovered.”

“Pleeeease,” Magpie moans, “Get to the point.”

“Fiiine. You know, you’re no fun,” Veronica rolls her eyes, “Legius had a facility here to store all the backups of research data from the branches in Drachenberg and other places in the Empire. Once the rebellion got going, he couldn’t do the research here anymore so that he wouldn’t endanger one of the biggest cities in the Empire but it was still the safest place to store the data in case any facility got destroyed. Of course, neither of us expected a certain alicorn to ruin everything. Anyway, unless Silas discovered it, it should still be untouched. I could get your nerds inside.”

“And in exchange you want…?” Magpie raises an eyebrow.

“One thing, actually. Something I wanted all along - you end the law that only males can be the head of the Redtalon family.”

“Easy deal, even though we’re the last Redtalons anyway. Is that all?”

“Yep. You can’t know how frustrating it was to be the only heir with actual real-world achievements and experience and still know that no matter what I’d do the only thing I’d ever be good for was to be used as a diplomatic chip to be given away to some slimebag by Altberg in a political marriage,” she shakes her head with an angry growl.

Magpie walks over to the intercom on his desk.

“Castor?”

“Yes, sir? The bomb squad scoured the airship and we flew the second one onto the pad on the roof.”

“Good job. Now find Three, send a guy for Veronica, and grab some scientists. Veronica will show you Legius’ facility that should host all of the archived corruption research.”

“What scientists?”

“The scientists who will know which exact scientists we’re going to need once they see some of the data. Some computer experts to start, I’d say. We’re going to need a smart unicorn from Equitown because I can hazard a wild guess that a good chunk of the data will be on the use of magic.”

“Understood, sir.”

Magpie nods to the door.

“We don’t have time to mess around, V,” he says, “We need every hour we can get.”

“As you wish, Lord Magpie,” Veronica gives him a mocking bow, “For the glory of Bloodstone, as we say.”

“Screw glory. It’s for the future of Bloodstone and all griffons in our lands, V.”

“Your lands,” she stops by the door for a second, “As for me, now I’m just here to show Nicolai and everyone else that one does not simply fuck with the Redtalons and lives to laugh about it.”

***

After a long night of waiting, Veronica returns with two guards by her sides and Three riding on her back. Magpie raises his exhausted and bloodshot gaze from the documents on the desk in front of him.

“Anything useful?”

“Smart bug?” Veronica pokes Three with her wing.

“Eeeh, good news and bad news,” replies the changeling, “The lab and the storage were untouched but everything locked itself up when Miss Veronica tried to access a storage device at random. We had similar technology back home in the old military archives which self-encrypted once the wrong dw- pony tried to access it. It took a special group of guys reeeeally good at math a long time to decrypt. I have no idea what system the griffons use and even if I knew it, I’m definitely not smart enough to engineer something able to crack it. Six would be the right changeling for the job but who knows where he is these days.”

“So we’re back where we started, basically,” says Magpie.

“Not necessarily,” Veronica shakes her head, “I’ve been mulling over it all the way here and it seems to me that you have two options. One is to take the weeks or months to assemble a team of cryptologists and provide them with the resources to design a system for deciphering all the drives we found or… you could use a setup that’s already in place and far more powerful than anything even you can muster here. It would be extremely dangerous for everyone involved but it also might give you some time before Nicolai sends more goons to kill you or thinks up something even worse.”

“I must admit I’m drawing blanks on whatever your idea could be.”

“It took some planning to get to the front of the line of heirs, brother,” Veronica smirks in satisfaction, “Imagine this - what if Nicolai’s assassination attempt on you was successful?”

Author's Note

For more info on Veronica, Legius' uprising, and how she landed in the Holy City prison - Imbalanced: New Age.

Impossible odds: Black Ops

The Holy City.

The sprawling griffon metropolis unparalleled in size in the entire world spreads out as far as the eyes currently flying in a cloaked airship over it can see, at least judging by the street lights and flashy buildings.

“Oh my goooooosh...” the owner of said wide-open eyes currently entering the bridge breathes out.

“Stick to the role,” Veronica hisses at the Black Ops agent standing with his beak pressed against the window.

“But I’ve never seen anything like this,” says the griffon in pure amazement.

“On the contrary, you’ve worked here for years, you know the Black Ops facilities in the western section of the inner city and you’ve been in the Imperial palace itself too several times. If you can’t act the part, we can turn around and go back home because we’ll just be dead meat the second we land,” Veronica rolls her eyes.

“Sorry, sorry,” replies Three posing as the agent Magpie shot back in Bloodstone, “I just… it’s just so huge! The entire horizon is a city and those skyscrapers are waaaay taller than in Manehattan.”

“They say that the Holy City is the largest one in the world but I heard that there’s a city in Chineigha that’s the size of your whole Equestria. Still, never been there,” Veronica shrugs, “Size isn’t everything, though. This place has the same layout as any other metropolis, banks and corporations are in the center, ‘affordable’, heh, housing on the outskirts, and a shady underground. The only really unique place is the Imperial palace itself which, if everything goes according to plan, you won’t see anyway.”

“Awww...” Three pouts.

“Three, Magpie told me you’re not the best at all the changeling skullduggery but if you don’t control yourself then everyone in Bloodstone is boned.”

“Yes, ma’am!” Three salutes, putting on a stern expression before hissing in pain as several bullet wounds stain his bandages with fresh blood.

“That’s better.”

***

In contrast to the glittering city as seen from the sky, the Black Ops headquarters is a complex of simple, angular buildings of reinforced concrete with only the barest necessities in its hallways. After passing through security gates, the agents lead Veronica and Three underground to a simple room with only a desk, several chairs, and a mirror for debriefing.

Sat down, previously silent Three opens his mouth to greet the griffon who enters the room shortly after the two of them. Veronica crosses her forelegs on her chest, not letting her eyes from him. Three, on the other hole, has to exercise serious self-control because the griffon emanates a presence which completely disagrees with what Veronica told Three about him - Nicolai Irongrip, the most powerful griffon in the Empire, the devious mastermind leading the Black Ops, and the one responsible for the evil currently devouring Bloodstone. Three was expecting some evil-eyed, slick-feathered, rich clothes wearing monster twirling his moustache, not a wiry griffon in his late thirties bearing a black coat and sand-colored feathers, both greying from stress and responsibility, who’s wearing only a Black Ops jacket with a small, golden pin.

Nicolai sits down into a chair across the desk from Veronica and disguised Three with an exhausted expression.

“So?” is all he asks, letting the ensuing silence suck all the information out of the duo on its own.

Veronica puts an elongated box she’s been allowed to keep along with a hip pouch by the checkpoint guards on the desk and opens the lid, revealing a severed foreleg of the same unmistakable color as hers.

“My brother’s,” says Veronica coldly, “It really was him.”

“Not a head,” is all Nicolai adds.

“I wasn’t about to carry a bigger ice box with me after Magpie killed two of the agents you sent with me,” she pulls out a stack of photos from the hip pouch which show Magpie’s dead body and his head impaled on a spike in front of the Bloodstone fortress.

“Hmmm...” Magpie hums, examining them in detail.

“You can send your guys for the head if it makes you feel better but I assumed that returning Silas here would be enough of a proof.”

“And his bodyguards?”

“You try fitting two hundred griffons on that airship...” Veronica rolls her eyes, “Besides, I might need them in Bloodstone. As it turns out, the citizens weren’t too happy about his death even though they knew me better than him.”

“What about the cargo you brought? The data storage devices.”

“Aaand here we come to the part you kinda failed to mention before you sent me there,” Veronica leans over the table, her expression turning furious, “What am I supposed to do with a city on the border of getting tentacled up the ass?!” before Nicolai can answer, she continues, “So I decided to take things into my own talons. The drives I brought contain all the data Legius collected in regards to corruption. I’m pretty sure it’s way more than your guys managed to recover from his facilities you managed to find. Considering that the bastard kept me in the dark about the details of his research as well, I doubt you discovered all of them. However, the organized backups of all the data were stored in Bloodstone for safety, and that’s what I’m giving to you. The drives self-encrypted when I tried to use my access codes which made it clear that Legius wanted to get rid of me eventually anyway. So, I need your help decrypting the drives and figuring out something that will help me save my family’s lands. It’s not as if the info couldn’t be useful to stopping corruption from spreading through other parts of the Empire as well.”

“We’ll get right on it,” Nicolai nods, “Anything else?”

“I’m keeping the airship,” she nods towards Three, “This guy blew up the one Magpie stole from your agents.”

“No.”

“I can’t afford to be away from Bloodstone for a month, taking a train and then arranging an Emperor-damned expedition through corrupted territories. If you want a reliable regent of Bloodstone instead of another civil rebellion, you’ll lend me the ship, at least until we either stop the corruption or bring the sun back.”

After some consideration, Nicolai nods.

“Alright.”

“I suppose I’m not getting any guarantee that I won’t get shot the second I leave this room, right?”

“Veronica, it’s not my loyalty to the stability of the Empire that history itself can question. It’s much easier to make deals with a griffon whose word has weight.”

“So no?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t have anything else to add,” Veronica shrugs with a sigh, “I stuck to my end of the deal, now it’s up to you.”

Nicolai nods.

“You can go. The agents outside will escort you to the ship,” he looks at Three, “Agent Tabbs, you stay here.”

“Might want to take a look at his wounds, he’s got more holes than a changeling,” Veronica snickers, walking off.

“Agent?” Nicolai raises an eyebrow.

“I’m alright, sir,” Three looks him straight in the eyes, “I just need some rest.”

Once Veronica leaves the interrogation room, Nicolai visibly relaxes in his chair.

“Yeah, sure...” he smirks, “Two weeks of paid leave. You going home? Martha hasn’t seen you since the sun disappeared, if I recall correctly.”

Three does his best to adjust to Nicolai’s complete one-eighty now that Veronica is gone. Quickly searching through whatever little information he managed to draw out of the agent back in Bloodstone, he recalls that Martha refers to the agent’s wife living in a small town in the south. Does Nicolai know all his underlings on a personal level? Nothing he managed to get out of the agent pointed to him being close to Nicolai.

“No, sir,” he shakes his head, “I’m afraid Martha will have to wait a little longer. I’ll send her a message telling her I’m okay.”

“Then it’s two weeks of paid leave with daily physical therapy and shooting practice. And I expect a full written report on the operation tomor- no, make it the day after tomorrow. Dismissed.”

Three salutes, hissing in pain.

“Yes, sir!”

“At ease, Tabbs. Go get checked up now.”

“Hobbling there already.”

***

Day 1

Three ends up wandering through the Black Ops complex for nearly an hour, noting that once someone has passed the checkpoints at the entrance, it looks as if they’d be able to get pretty much anywhere. Granted, there’s a bunch of rooms locked via mechanisms reminding him of simple and basic versions of locks back home in Brauheim but as long as he sticks to common rooms, bathrooms, and hallways in general, no one’s going to bother him, doubly so due to the high amount of griffons rushing around with binders, personal electronics, or talking into wireless headsets. It seems that his Black Ops jacket is giving him all the anonymity one needs to stay here unnoticed.

The best part is that the complex is extremely well labeled. There are signs on pretty much every intersection of two hallways, above the door of every common room, and on many of the locked meeting rooms Three passes by. All in all, in a strange way, Three feels here at home, like inside a dwarf mine or in the tunnels of the hive. Still, taking in all this information and building an internal map of the place takes its toll on him, his head beginning to ache, and eventually he ends his exploration quest by looking for the guest quarters agent Tabbs was using whenever spending time here at the base.

Several other agents greet him, to which he just replies politely and with a weary smile that he’s just come back and needs a quick check-up at the infirmary followed by a good night’s sleep.

Day 2

Three wakes up later than he himself wanted to. Apparently, his body needed more time to absorb the stress and information from yesterday. The guest room is small, spartan, consisting only of a desk with one of those electronic thingies which looks like an access terminal, a chair, a bed, a small wardrobe, and a connected bathroom equipped with a shower and a toilet. It does sound like a lot but the entire space for all of that could easily fit into Magpie’s office in Bloodstone… almost twice.

Three checks the terminal, experimentally pushing buttons until it lights up. It’s difficult for a changeling like him to extract information based on a habit so in regards to everything agent Tabbs did without thinking Three’s forced to improvise.

“Umm, username and password...” he mutters in front of the dark screen showing only a box with two prompts, “b02TABBS aaaand… umm… xXxMetalRulez0609?” two strings of letters and numbers come to mind, Three’s basic changeling infiltration instincts doing much better work sorting through the stolen information than he could achieve consciously.

The screen blinks, its blackness giving way to a picture of Tabbs with who looks like his wife Martha and a small griffon chick’s grinning head trying to get into the picture on the bottom. Several small icons are laid over the picture, one labeled ‘Reports’. Three quickly skims its contents, discovering that it contains information on past Tabbs’ missions. It should prove useful to read just in case of having to answer questions as well as a template for the report Nicolai ordered Three to give tomorrow.

A blinking envelope icon on the bottom of the screen stops Three from digging into the reports. He pokes the touchscreen, revealing hundreds of what looks like conversations. The one on top is marked ‘Orders’, accompanied by a string of numbers which don’t mean anything to Three. Opening the message reveals Nicolai’s orders from yesterday written down with details.

“Oh shoot!” Three stands up quickly upon reading the first part regarding his physical therapy and looking at the clock. He was supposed to be there five minutes ago. Fake wounds or not, he rushes out of the room and follows the mental map he made yesterday. Thankfully, even though the room where the therapy is supposed to happen isn’t among the places he passed yesterday, the systematic and well-documented layout of the complex allows Three to get there within the next five minutes and knock on the door.

“Come in!” a pleasant female voice calls out. Three enters, immediately apologizing.

“Sorry for the delay, I woke up late and I’m still limping,” he chuckles nervously.

The room is outfitted with several wardrobes, most of them open and showing equipment or colorful boxes Three can’t identify at a glance. The centerpiece is a padded, elongated table with a hole on one end. Of course, if he wasn’t a changeling, or was one familiar with griffon standards of beauty, his beak would have to drop when seeing the chick waiting for him and leisurely stretching. All Three can say, though, is that she’s mostly brown, sleek with well-defined musculature and has all the backside bits everyone seems to like, only accentuated by extremely tight and stretchy white pants… worn for no particular reason. He’s never been one to understand clothing, doubly so because drones have nothing to cover anyway.

“Don’t worry about it,” the chick gives Three a soft smile, “I don’t have an appointment after you this morning so we can stretch it as we deem fit. Anyway, my name is Simone, Simmy for short.”

“Tabbs,” Three shakes her foreleg, “Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise,” she nods towards the central table, “I received your medical report and while it looks like you’re healing remarkably well, we’re going to have to be extra careful today. Let me see what I’m working with.”

“Sure,” Three lies down and Simmy begins to unwrap his bandages and poke around his bullet wounds. Three occasionally hisses, mostly for show. His medical knowledge is barely past the ‘bleeding holes hurt’ stage but it seems to work here.

“I’m happy to say that other than the wounds you’re in great physical shape,” Simmy nods approvingly.

“Need to be in good shape to serve the Empire,” Three chuckles.

“You’d be surprised how many field agents here let themselves go on long-term assignments,” Simmy laughs back, “Alright, I think we should leave exercise for tomorrow at least and get straight to a massage. Today, you should take it easy and just get some steps in. Turn around, please. Head in the hole.”

The allotted hour goes by quickly with Simmy commenting on Three being unusually stiff in places unrelated to the bullet wounds but getting better throughout the massage. What’s really happening is that Three had only a general idea about the griffon body and based his range of movement on his own as a drone which is definitely limited flexibility-wise. However, as Simmy points each issue out, Three alters his disguise to allow for motions natural to the griffon body.

Of course, that leaves him a bit wobbly as far as movement is concerned afterwards, though it doesn’t seem to bother Simmy too much as she helps him gather himself and supports him while he walks around for the final few minutes.

Once the physical therapy is over and he’s alone again, Three breathes out a sigh of relief.

“Ooof, now that’s done… let’s take a walk. Next is the firing range in the afternoon and I need to study the old reports to write a good one. How do infiltrators keep track of all these details? My head is starting to hurt again and it’s still the morning.”

In light of everything, after strolling through the yet unmapped parts of the complex, Three returns to his room to take a nap.

This time, his internal clock wakes him up properly some half an hour before he’s supposed to be at the firing range.

“Might not be a bad idea to get there a little early this time.”

Now this feels like home for real!

The firing range is simple as can be and of pretty much the same design as the one in Brauheim or the Bloodstone armory. Long lanes filled with various targets, one for a shooter each. The place is loud as hole but the good part is that everyone is keeping to themselves.

Almost...

“Hey, Tabbs! Heard you got back from the Redtalons,” a bulky griffon with a dark blue hoofball cap observing the practicing griffons walks over to Three and gives him a friendly slap on the back. The name Emmet flashes through his mind.

“Ouch!”

“Damn, sorry,” the griffon backs off, “How bad is it?”

“It’s healing quickly but it still hurts like h- blazes,” replies Three with a tired smile, “I think I’ll just do the ordered practice and go back to sleep.”

“We can start early if you want,” says Emmet, “Everyone else is just messing around here-”

A muffled explosion slightly shakes the room.

“-or testing some experimental gear in the restricted section,” Emmet shakes his head, “Seriously, whatever we pay the cleaning staff, it’s not enough. Last week, there was some radioactive goo with tentacles that came alive and tried to escape through the vents. Guys from research came up with some new beam rifle and forgot to test its interaction with titanium shielding.”

“Oops.”

“Yep, a big one,” Emmet smirks, “Although the restricted section did smell like marshmallows for two days.”

Three swallows a string of drool.

“I could go for some right now,” he laughs, “Is there that experimental rifle and some titanium shielding around?”

“How about this?” Emmet joins in, “You get over eighty percent and the bag’s on me.”

“Two bags for a hundred?” Three winks.

“Hah, wounded but more cocky than ever!” Emmet tosses Three a pistol which he snatches out of the air.

Far more familiar with the situation now, Three picks a lane and says:

“Give me three shots to see how my foreleg’s holding up and then let’s go for the score.”

“You got it,” Emmet leans against the wall behind Three, “You’re not hitting a hundred anyway.”

Three aims at a static cutout of a griffon in the distance with a bullseye on its chest, aims the pistol, and fires. Once, twice, three times. None hit the center.

“Alright, you gotta do twelve out of twelve now.”

“For… marshmallows!” Three empties the clip and examines the result, “Aww, shoot...” he realizes he slipped out of the role and corrects himself, “Damn it!”

He wasn’t expecting the target to at first start moving after the third shot and a new, spinning one to drop on the last two.

“Ten, missed the final one both times,” Emmet winks, “Impressive.”

“Unfortunately, no marshmallows,” Three shrugs.

“Tabbs, if I could get your accuracy on the top difficulty and my first try, candy would be the last thing on my mind. The first griffon whose aim got better after being shot four times. Maybe I should eat some lead too. Speaking of eating, you up for dinner today?”

“Can’t, sorry,” Three shakes his head, “I’m exhausted already from physical therapy and this isn’t really helping. Plus, I still need to submit the mission report.”

“No biggie,” Emmet waves it off, “Alright then, let’s get to business. Hundred shots on static, fifty on moving, and then I’ll let you go early for today since you’re in early recovery.”

“Thanks!”

Day 4

“Here’s our sharpshooter!” Emmet greets Three approaching the cafeteria table he and two other agents, one male and one female, neither of whom Three knows, are currently occupying.

Refusing Emmet’s offer repeatedly might rouse suspicions, and it might also allow Three to ask some questions about the progress of the decryption process. In light of that, Three decided to join the firearms instructor for dinner.

“Hello, everyone,” Three gives the group his usual tired smile and sits down with his tray containing only a glass of orange juice and some vegetables.

“Geez, what’s that?” Emmet glances at Three’s ‘dinner’ with a horrified expression.

“Meh, recovery,” Three shrugs.

“The body needs protein, proootein to fix all the holes!” he flexes his biceps, “Not this crunchy green nothing. You’re never gonna get better like this.”

“Hey, don’t look at me, the diet came with the health report,” Three rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, that might go a long way to explaining why you spend eighteen hours a day sleeping.”

“Physical therapy isn’t the easiest thing in the world.”

“At least Simmy is easy to look at, isn’t she?”

The female griffon agent at the table snorts in contempt.

“Give a chick three pairs of fake tits, monthly liposuction, yoga pants, beak gloss, and a bimbo smile, and you guys go crazy around her.”

“She knows her stuff,” says Three, “I definitely feel better afterwards every time,” he sighs, “Then I go to bed and wake up all tense again.”

“Easy solution,” Emmet grins conspiratorially, “Take her to bed with you. You can do all the stretching you want.”

“I think I threw up in my mouth more than a little,” the chick facetalons.

“Don’t be jealous! I know that working in Intel doesn’t let you get your daily steps in but you could stand to lose-”

“Buddy, there’s a thin line between jokes and harassment and you’re currently tying your noose out of it,” the chick narrows her eyes.

To his credit, Emmet realizes his misstep and shuts up.

“Sorry, Lisa.”

“No offense taken,” she says, “Can’t rightfully say that I’m not jealous of Simone’s looks but it’s not my job to spend eight to twelve hours each day working on my body in order to make every cock in a twelve-mile radius stand up at attention. I just sit in a chair and go over data. Sometimes, when I don’t fall asleep at my desk I even have the time to fly around the city a bit. All my required shooting practice goes towards the day when, once someone comments on my weight a little too often, I go nuts and start spraying and praying.”

“You’re one scary lady, Lisa.”

“And you’d better not forget it.”

“Hmm, if you’re from Intel, did you hear anything about the progress on the hard drives we brought from Bloodstone?” asks Three.

All the other three agents give him curious looks.

“That’s top secret, Tabbs. Can’t even confirm or deny that I know anything.”

Emmet smirks.

“Well, by admitting you know that’s top secret, you-”

“Do you know what happened to the last agent who tried into stuff that’s been marked top secret by the big boss himself? To them and everyone they talked to for the month before it happened. I do. It doesn’t make eating dinner easier, let me tell you.”

“My apologies, Miss Lisa,” Three sighs, “I don’t harbor any love for the Redtalons but griffons are griffons. The corruption bombs we blew up near Bloodstone threaten to swallow the city and spread all through the east and it just keeps gnawing at me. Makes me wonder about how much better than Legius we really are.”

Gasps from all around the table convince Three that he overshot, and by a lot.

“Tabbs, that’s not something an agent says twice in a company,” says Emmet carefully.

“Sorry, sorry,” Three tries to salvage the situation, “I know I overstated that by a lot but you can’t say you don’t know what I mean. It’s inevitable that spreading corruption like that is eventually going to bite us in the ass harder than any Redtalon ever could.”

Lisa taps her talons several times against the table before saying:

“Look, let’s just say that the decryption process is taking its usual course without any unexpected hitches, slow and steady, and leave it at that, okay? RnD guys are doing all they can with the deciphered stuff we’re providing them.”

“Yeeeah, let’s drop the subject before the goons from Internal Affairs decide to pay us a visit,” Emmet nods, “So, anyone saw a good movie lately?”

With the casual mood returning, Three eats his overly healthy dinner and excuses himself on reason of exhaustion, expecting to simply end his day. On the way back to his room, however, he sees a group of griffons descend down a set of stairs. For some reason, the image keeps bugging all the way ‘home’ so as he lies down, he starts replaying it over and over and over until-

“Hugs and holes!” he curses, sitting upright in the darkness.

The surrounded griffon the Black Ops agents were escorting was taller and broader than them and completely white. All showing a physical shape Three had seen before and his head kept trying to point out.

“That was Mister Cromach!”

Day 7

The days have blended into a rather pleasant monotone filled with recovery, mapping out the complex, and Three’s first attempts at using the air vents to get into the parts of the Black Ops headquarters restricted to Tabbs in his changeling form. Unfortunately for him, he hasn’t seen Cromach again so far, so he wasn’t able to relay Blazing Light’s message regarding doing anything rash or crazy. The good part was that doing so would reveal his disguise and likely endanger the mission of getting the decrypted drives back to Bloodstone.

When Three crawls out of the air vent inside his room, he notices that his terminal is blinking. From past experience, it means that there’s a message waiting for him.

“A visitor for me?” he tilts his head in confusion.

Suspicious, he heads off to the reception and finds that the guest waiting for him in the visitor's chair is Veronica Redtalon herself.

“Oh, hello,” he greets her, a question in his tone of voice.

“Hello again, agent Tabbs,” says Veronica, shaking his foreleg, “I brought something Nicolai wanted from Bloodstone and I wanted to see how you were doing while his guys were unloading it. You know, us being the only two survivors of the mission and whatnot.”

“Recovering, thanks for asking,” Three nods, “How are things in Bloodstone?”

“Do you want to take a walk? This sterile environment isn’t exactly my kind of place.”

“Sure.”

They head outside, casually strolling towards one of the airship landing pads. Veronica keeps track of nearby griffons and when she’s sure there’s no one within earshot, she whispers:

“No chance to talk inside, I’m certain that every visitor room is bugged.”

“Got it,” Three nods, “So, any news from Bloodstone?”

“Just one, just one,” Veronica giggles. The completely uncharacteristic happy and girly noise from her makes Three give her a confused glance.

“Hi, Three!” a familiar hive link connection opens and a voice resonates through Three’s head, “Now, don’t start jumping up and down and reveal us, okay?”

It takes every single drop of Three’s self-control not to pounce at her. Nothing can stop him from suddenly beaming at everyone and everything, though.

“THIRTEEN? Is that really you? How?”

Veronica/Thirteen allows herself a smile as well.

“I think I cashed out my luck for the next hundred years at least.”

The best intentions: Situation report

[Hi, booksy!]

It’s been three weeks since we had to leave our hive. I asked boss few times about the bad things we supposedly did, and he’s always shared a little bit, but he always says he doesn’t know enough to make a clear picture. As far as I know, the super baddie boss calls Flow blackmailed our hive to help him mess up some powerful spell used by princess Celery-sun… no, that’s not right. Celestia, that’s it! See, booksy? I can remember smart stuff if I give it some time. Anyway, Seven did that and the spell blew up a lot of zebras. Boss said some really big numbers that I couldn’t count up to on my hooves, and I tried for hours before he told me to stop.

The second thing we did was open a gigantic void rift. He said it was even bigger than the one we closed with the help of princess Cadance using the Crystal Heart ages ago, much bigger. I don’t know what happened next, because miss One threw me so hard I landed near Rift and all the minotaurs who live there. I mean, miss One’s really strong when she needs to be. I almost dropped you too, booksy. But don’t worry, I caught you, and now you fit perfectly into the cupholder in my foreleg. I mean, there’s no other reason why we changelings used to have holes in our legs other than the lack of love under bad mom, right?

Anyway, after all that, the pony princesses are supposedly really mad at us and we can’t show our faces on the surface anymore. I asked boss if we could fix it by saying we’re sorry from the bottom of our hearts, but he said it wouldn’t be enough.

Don’t worry, booksy. I might not be smart like the boss, but I’ll think of something.

[See you later, booksy!]

Three stops scribbling into his journal, and puts it away into a hole in his foreleg which tightens around it. A similar hole in the other one serves to store Three’s crayons and a pencil. The drone does have a small saddlebag on his back, but that’s too inconvenient to quickly reach in case he gets an idea that needs to be written down or drawn. His movement doesn’t remain unnoticed by the much bigger changeling on whose back he’s lounging. The changeling king only known as the boss glances Three’s way, making the drone beam back at him and sit upright.

However, what stopped Three’s journal entry wasn’t him running out of things to ponder, but rather a living bolt of lightning surging in front of the boss and revealing Two, a changeling infiltrator mare whose short, bright red mane and tail sharply contrast with everything else in the dimly lit underground tunnel. And there is a lot of everything else. Boss, Three, and a muscular changeling mare with wine-red mane styled into an undercut who is bigger than the boss himself are slowly leading a seemingly unending procession of dwarf ponies, basically earthponies who are about Three’s size in general and whose national garb is a full plate armor, through the underground tunnels. There are thousands of them, and Three knows that there are many more groups being led by ancient tunnels parallel to this one, the entire dwarf migration of hundreds of thousands being coordinated by high-tech mobile communication stations operated by engineers designated to each split group.

Two quickly falls into the walking pace set by the boss who asks:

“How are things on the surface?”

“If I say ‘worse than we could have ever imagined’, will it be enough?” Two frowns.

“I can imagine some pretty nasty stuff.”

“Worse,” Two shakes her head, “The sky is gone.”

“Honey, how about you stop with the pauses for dramatic effect and just report properly?” boss ruffles Two’s short mane which makes the infiltrator grumble to herself.

“Fine, dad,” she rolls her eyes, “Well, as I said, the sky is gone. Sun isn’t there, moon isn’t there, stars are gone too. Everything is pitch black. I know you were hoping that things would get better with time, but my working theory is that the void rift we opened swallowed the entire universe with the exception of Equus. Why that’s the case, your guess is as good as mine.”

Boss sighs.

“And how are the ponies dealing with it? Any news from Rift or our hive?”

“Rift is on lockdown. Twilight sent some unicorn diplomats to arrange a permanent oversight unit inside Rift, which warlord Sinew and the minotaurs laughed off, and by laughed off I mean they threatened to send the unicorns back to Canterlot in a box, a small one on top.”

“Twilight won’t let this go without an answer,” boss shakes his head.

“Twilight has enough problems of her own since, you know, the sun is gone, the world temperature is dropping, there won’t be any harvest without sunlight, and I heard some theories about running out of oxygen in the near future. All in all, I know we avoided blowing up the universe, but it looks like the kind of situation where the quick end might be preferrable.”

“Am I correct in assuming that ponies are panicking?”

“Strangely enough, no,” Two shakes her head, “At least not in Vanhoover or the Crystal Empire. Crystal Heart shield is helping against the dropping temperature, and there are Hex Guards keeping peace in Vanhoover. I suppose the situation will be similar everywhere. Other than Zebrica, I mean.”

Here comes the part of the report which everyone was dreading, but also the one which Three wants to know the most.

“What went wrong there?” the boss quickly corrects himself, “I mean even more wrong.”

“I caught a radio broadcast, and they said it’s a mess down there. The refugees who previously escaped into Equestria returned, only to find quarter of the continent turned to molten glass thanks to Seven. There are few pockets of sanity in the states of the Northern Coalition, but anything south of the coast is a no pony’s land. Fighting, looting… the permanent darkness has made the place unfit for life, especially when most of zebra technology runs on solar power. They don’t have water pumps running, no sewage systems, no food.”

“That’s horrible...” Three breathes out, poking the back of boss’ head, “Can we help at least there? I mean, even if ponies hate us now, zebras can’t know we’re responsible. Dwarves have technology to grow food in darkness, and power generators that… that...” Three realizes he knows next to nothing about the inner workings of dwarven energy infrastructure, “that make things move and go sparkly even without the sun. And, you know, since it’s our fault, we should make amends,” he pleads.

Two looks at Three, and then looks away, unable to face a sorrowful stare that would make a puppy begging for snack give up and look for a different job opportunity as a maximum security prison warden.

“We’re heading south,” boss says, his voice slow and heavy, “The first old Silversmith outpost we know about should be on the way. If the fragmented information from the ancient archives is right, there are tunnels even under the ocean which lead to Zebrica, so we might get into a position where we can help eventually. At the moment, we should keep focusing on not losing any dwarves or technology.”

“Aaand?” the warrior mare silent up until this point speaks up.

“I know, One,” boss sighs, “I still have to figure out which of our changelings will lead the split to the west while we head south.”

“My vote is for Seven,” One looks boss straight in the eyes, ”He hasn’t been taking his role in the apocalypse well. Getting away from everything while being responsible for protecting others for a change might do him good.”

“It’s not that simple, One. Seven isn’t a leader, and I don’t think I can send anyone with him. I need proper infiltrators for that, and I have a different mission for Two. I wanted to send Gem since she loves exploring, but she hasn’t contacted me since we left the hive.”

“A new mission for me?” Two definitely can’t let a mention like that pass without a comment.

“All in due time, Two,” boss smirks at her, but his expression quickly turns grim again, “So I take it there’s no good news at all?”

“We’re not dead yet, so I guess that counts for something,” Two shrugs.

“Then I hate to have to ask this of you again, but I need more information. Can you go back to the surface and observe how ponies continue to deal with the situation?”

“Dad, if I had to stay here with you, I’d die of boredom. Aside from the occasional flame spider, these tunnels are empty. That’s great for the dwarves, I mean, but for me it’s just walking, and light cardio like that bores me. Do you want me to look for Gem while I’m at it?”

“No,” boss shakes his head, “You wouldn’t be able to find her anyway if she didn’t want to be found. Just keep an eye on the situation.”

“Will do!” Two salutes and disappears in a flash of lightning again.

At that point, boss notices that Three has been tapping his hoof against his back for a while now.

“Three?” he asks, looking backwards at the drone.

“I want to help,” says Three simply.

“I wouldn’t expect any less of you,” boss smiles at Three.

“No, boss, I mean it. I will help, and the first step is to give ponies the means to get food and air,” Three scrunches his nose in a show of determination.

“You know what Hard Reset thinks about us sharing dwarf tech with the surface.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Three hops off of the boss’ back, “I’ve learned a lot about diplomacy from watching you.”

One clears her throat.

“Umm,” Three scratches his head in response, “I’d rather not use your type of diplomacy, miss One. I don’t think I can bend someone’s legs backward, shove them back in through their anus so far they could use their own hollowed out bones as drinking straws. Maybe if you drew me some pictures… with those pointy arrow diagrams...”

“Don’t use One’s type of diplomacy on friends, Three,” boss smacks snickering One over the back of her head, “Just be yourself.”

“Okay,” Three nods with enthusiasm and buzzes off as quickly as his small wings can carry him to find the head of the dwarven ruling council.

The best intentions: Party member acquired

Three follows his hive link towards Thirteen, buzzing above the heads of the dwarves happy for any distraction from the endless days of walking and dragging their posessions on carts. How she managed to disappear so quickly is beyond Three, but that’s not the concern here. Thirteen had an encounter with One without the boss around, and it ended up exactly like every single one before.

Three stops and keeps hovering on the spot as a group of dwarves pass by with a device looking like a giant metal cistern crossed with a train car, one of the motorized pieces of infrastructure from the old city. From his experience studying technology with his friend Six, another changeling drone but one with keen interest in technology, he knows this is a mobile crystal electricity generator into which all dwarven portable devices can be plugged and recharged. According to his hive link, Thirteen must be somewhere around, and yet she’s nowhere to be seen.

He taps his hoof against the chassis of the generator in thought. A moment later he hears quiet banging from the inside. None of the dwarves pulling the thing react, so he must be the only one hearing the noise.

“Huh?” he mutters to himself, tapping three times again, “One.. two… seven.. thirteen.”

Thirteen taps resonate through the metal in response, making Three immediately fly off to the pulling dwarves.

“Heya, guys!” he hovers above them when they don’t stop. He understands that, stopping in these tunnels would mean backing up tens of thousands of dwarves, “I think there’s someone stuck inside that generator.”

“That’s impossible,” the nearest dwarf shakes his head in response, “We would have noticed anyone getting in. Besides, why would someone want to do that?”

“I’m not sure,” ponders Three, “But we should check it out.”

“Look, Three,” says the dwarf. Most of the dwarves have at least heard about the few more prominent members of what technically is their changeling ruling class, albeit one ruling with very benevolent and friendly hoof, “To get inside, anyone would need the proper tools, and we would have to unplug all the devices, and restarting the damn thing takes hours, because it would have to cool down-”

Three, however, knows exactly how dwarf minds work by now. Someone being melted inside the generator core is a nuisance, but their own fault. However, if there was any chance of any high-tech thing getting damaged...

“But I can hear banging from the inside,” Three points at the generator, “What if something got loose and-”

“Hey, Crunchtime, get the multimeter,” the dwarf immediately looks back, “We might have a loose coupling inside the core. Get on it, now!”

Crossing his forelegs on his chest, Three looks up at the ceiling with a smug smirk.

Some twenty minutes later, two dwarves crawling on top of the generator in protective rubber gear each inside, scream in horror as something grabs them, and then pull out smoldering Thirteen currently missing most of her mane and tail whose leg holes are crackling with small arcs of lightning.

“There’s your loose coupling,” Three flies over just as limp Thirteen starts sliding off of the cylindrical chassis.

“How is she alive? How long has she been in there?” Crunchtime shakes his head, quickly putting his priorities in correct order, “Is the generator okay?”

Shaking his head, Three guides Thirteen’s slide down the side of the generator, and pushes her towards the wall of the tunnel. After few worried questions from the dwarves passing by, Three pokes Thirteen’s muzzle with his nose. She looks scorched on the outside, but Three can’t sense any serious harm done to her.

“Nnnngh...” she moans.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” he asks, helping Thirteen prop her back against the wall.

“N-None...” she would furrow her brows in puzzlement if she had any left, “We don’t have fingers.”

“Glad to see you’re okay,” Three smiles back, sitting down on his haunches, “How did you even get there? Or why, really?”

Thirteen looks away.

“I’m… I’m...” she mouths ‘useless’, but out loud she says, “not sure. I just… I just wanted to get out of mom’s sight. I knew the second I showed her the figurine that it was a stupid idea. For holes’ sake, it was a block of wood with few nails in it...”

“I dunno,” Three raises his foreleg, and with a green shimmer around it, a hollowed out space opens in his foreleg above his slot for crayons, revealing the mangled figurine. The hole closes as he raises it up, “The frowny face is pretty spot on,” he sticks his tongue out at Thirteen who can’t help but giggle.

“I guess I got that part right,” she sighs, “Too bad that everything else is crap,” she looks down at Three. Three licks her nose. She lowers her head and draws him into a hug, “Why does mom hate me?”

“Miss One doesn’t hate you,” Three shakes his head, expecting a discussion from Thirteen. She, however, ponders that for a moment.

“You know what?” she says in the end, “I think you’re right. She had all right to throw that piece of garbage away. I’m just useless, incompetent, stupid changeling and I don’t deserve sympathy if I can’t do anything right,” she says, her voice starting to shake.

“Awww, come on,” Three objects, but Thirteen raises her voice a little, interrupting him.

“Tell me which part of that wasn’t correct if you don’t think that’s true.”

Now it’s Three who has to think for a second before saying:

“Have you tried everything?”

“What?” Thirteen pulls away.

“I mean, what about juggling? Have you tried juggling? You said you couldn’t do anything right. What have you tried, really? Everything?”

“Three, how would juggling make mom love me? She’s so amazing. Dad loves her, you call her miss One, she punched her way to greatness when higher ranked changelings teamed up on her. She’s the best fighter ever, every warrior in our hive and most of the dwarves look up to her. Now imagine me walking up to her and saying ‘Look, mom, I can throw balls up and catch them’. Besides, you know how coordinated I am. I broke my fetlock when you were teaching me how to dig properly. Focusing on three flying things at once? My head would explode, I assume.”

Three presses his hoof against her barrel, nods, and trots off for a moment, returning with three balls of flame spider silk.

“Give it a shot,” Three tosses them in the air, manages to catch two of them, promptly misses the third one upon which he misses the other two he’s thrown upwards again. A dwarf passing by kicks the ball rolling away back to Three, “Thank you!” he raises one in his forelegs towards Thirteen who carefully takes it.

She tosses it upwards, catches it, and repeats it few times.

“Hooves aren’t the best for this, are they?” she chuckles nervously, eyes narrowed in a picture of pure concentration.

“They’re not bad. I think Five is really good at juggling,” Three shrugs and winces when Thirteen tries to throw all three balls up and fails catching even a single one immediately, “Don’t worry and keep going.”

“Why bother? I don’t have basic coordination, and I’ve been trying to learn fighting from Five, I got few magic lessons from Seven, and I even got some infiltration tips from Gem when she was here. You know, the useful stuff. You can guess how it went...”

“You think I can do any of that?” asks Three, “And where did you get such a silly idea that those are the only thing our hive needs? You’re not a warrior, that much is clear,” he shrugs, “And maybe you’re not good with magic, so what? It took Two five years before she found a way she could do that. In fact, do you know the first thing she did? She won the rulership of Brauheim in a drinking contest for the boss. Can you imagine it? She won a whole city in a drinking contest, and the dwarves took it seriously. Well, most of them.”

“I heard that story,” Thirteen drops the balls again. Thankfully, the crowds of walking dwarves are helpful in kicking the scattered silk back, “Though mom doesn’t let me explore our hive mind too much. She say that I need to learn something useful first without just copying stuff and experience of others. All she let me learn was the dwarven language.”

“Try again,” Three’s smirking for some reason unknown to Thirteen. When she makes another shaky throw upwards, he starts talking immediately, “And you know about Seven, right? He’s terrible at getting love for himself. He just goes to pieces when he has to be intimate or close to anyone, so he used to close himself off in the castle library all the time, completely reliant on boss and others to feed him. And miss Gem? She could barely walk during her first months, and she was so weak that fighting anyone was completely out of the question. And she still managed to help out because where boss couldn’t shapeshift-”

“What?!” Thirteen drops the balls in shock and, just like before, dwarves kick them back, Three urges her to give it another shot, and starts talking again.

“Yeah, boss coudn’t shapeshift for the longest time, but back to miss Gem. Miss One tried to make Gem do infiltration her way, which was to look all big and sexy and hourglassy, but it didn’t work for Gem at all. Instead, she chose a more modest disguise and walked around, genuinely interested in ponies, which made them talk where miss One’s presence made them shake. We all have our ways, and some are more difficult to find and may take a detour through a completely unexpected direction.”

“But I’ve been trying to get better ever since I was born, and mom hasn’t had a good word for me, and rightfully so.”

“Oh really?” Three raises an eyebrow.

“Yes, really.”

“Reeeeeally?”

“Really!” Thirteen drops the balls again, “But I guess I just have to keep throwing myself at stuff and hope for the best, right? I mean, if I get hurt on accident, the hive isn’t losing anything valuable.”

“Can I ride you?” asks Three.

“Whuh?” Thirteen leans away at the sudden change of topic, “Sure.”

“Then let’s catch up to the shop where I got the balls. I promised we’d return them soon,” they gather the balls, Three flies up on Thirteen, and huddles in a way to be able to hold all of them at once.

“What was with the juggling anyway?” asks Thirteen after they find out the shopkeeper lady who gets a hug for her trouble, and boops Three’s nose in response.

“A bit of hoof-eye coordination practice and, as I said, it’s what miss Five is good at. She used it to practice while learning how to fight. Also, I mean, I like watching others juggle, because I’m no good at it,” Three shrugs.

“Neither am I, so it couldn’t have been much of a show,” mutters Thirteen to herself.

“I dunno,” Three spreads himself over Thirteen’s back. It’s nowhere as comfortable as lying on boss’ or One’s broad back, but it’s alright, “Say, how would you like to go camping?”

“What do you mean? I’ve never been on the surface before.”

“Well, boss said we could help ponies with the apocloplypses and that I’m the best one to do it, but that I can’t go alone.”

“Apocalypse?”

“Yes, that.”

“Why would you want me to go with you?”

“Well, we won’t be infiltrating because we’ll be helping out in the open. We won’t be fighting, because we’ll be trying to help. And we won’t be using magic, because that’s in the hooves of much better unicorns and alicorns already. Boss can’t send any of our infiltrators, because they are coordinating the dwarf migration either, and you said it yourself - if you get hurt, the hive won’t be losing anything valuable. And please don’t say that again or I’ll tell boss about what miss One did to your figurine.”

“No, please don’t!” Thirteen starts shaking, “I can’t stand it when they argue, I know how it hurts them both. I’ll go with you and I won’t say anything. Dad will be proud if I do something useful to help you, and I’ll be out of mom’s way like that.”

“Plus, we’ll save everyone in the end and mom will see that you’re a hero!” Three taps Thirteen’s sides, casually draped over her now, “Now ho, my faithful steed! Off to find the best bossdad ever.”

Thirteen just sighs.

Three doesn’t push his morale boosting further. Instead, he smiles to himself as he ponders one thing - when Thirteen was completely focused on his storytelling, she was juggling with absolute precision.

[Hi, booksy!]

Remember how I said that Thirteen came from a queen egg? Everyone thought it would be like in the old times when bad mom was trying to rule the world. The other would-be queens, like Cryo, turned out to be bad mom’s best generals. Miss One thought so too. Unfortunately, Thirteen turned out to be Thirteen, and miss One took it hard.

First, she tried to train Thirteen so that she would learn proper hoof-eye coordination, and I think she just pushed too far too quickly. Thirteen tried her best to meet miss One’s demands, but she simply couldn’t keep up. Two tried to tell miss One that she wouldn’t be able to do what miss One wanted from Thirteen, but miss One just blew her off by saying that Two wasn’t from a queen egg, and on top of that her mixed abilities would need much more time to develop. Thirteen, though, should be full of potential, and that proper training should awaken the right kind of skillset she would be perfect for, be it warrior, infiltrator, or possibly drone.

I tried to cheer Thirteen up like I did when other drones or the boss needed time to relax, which meant that I took her digging. There’s just something about the monotonous grinding of rocks underhoof, focusing only on digging enhancements that calms us down. Thirteen could never get the rhythm right between switching hooves and infusing love, so she often ended up either using too much love, or hitting rocks with a loveless hoof and hurting herself. One time I started singing, and she joined in. She has a beautiful singing voice, but it turned out she could sing properly only if she was concentrating on something else. When she tried to sing, she just went all crackly. The thing with juggling today was the same.

Well… and then, some three months into the fruitless training, miss One said in front of everyone n the throne room that they must have used up all their good genetic material on Gem and Two and that everything useless that remained got shat out in the form of Thirteen. Her words, not mine.

Boss shouted her down immediately. I haven’t seen him this mad… well… ever. Even usually argumentative miss One just slunk back when he was done. Unfortunately, the damage was done. Even thought boss tried to persuade Thirteen that it was okay to be clumsy at her that age, hugging her proved dangerous as she poked his eye out with her horn on accident. He was okay, obviously, but she couldn’t forgive herself, and collapsed a small pocket on herself, refusing to talk to anyone and saying she was too dumb to breathe anyway. She couldn’t get out, but when I told her that the rocks would let air in, she just said that at least she couldn’t get out and would starve soon.

Boss was furious with miss One, and due to their special hive connection, she felt it in force boss wouldn’t be able to translate to anyone else. He thought about Thirteen a lot, and that bled into miss One who couldn’t hide her disappointment in her which boss felt in turn, only feeding his anger. I guess that’s a risk of such tight bond miss One and boss share.

[See you later, booksy!]

Author's Note

Me, and a story without a suicidal character? Never!

Go east: Glowing again, if only a little.

[Monthly summary report for Twilight Sparkle]

Your Majesty,

I’ve compiled the monthly report, although I regretfully have to leave parts of the overall analysis to you as there are events I don’t know how to categorize. As always, full original reports are in the EIS archives.

1 - Food situation

Good news is rare these days, so I’m starting with this one. The Silversmith blueprints Empress Cadance received from king Beard’s changelings have been copied along with their translation and sent to Vanhoover, Canterlot, Ponyville, Manehattan, Pine Hills, Rift, and the refugee camps in the south. Not all those places are equipped to build the underground farming units so the packages include step-by-step instructions for the more complex pieces of technology required to build the units.

Statistically, Canterlot is in the best shape as far as food goes. We got the blueprints first after the Crystal Empire and with the low population of the city, we’ve had enough inside space in lower Canterlot to set up all the infrastructure we need. Considering the population of other big cities, the rough estimate is that they’ll need two more months to stabilize. Crystal Empire is ramping up production but they didn’t have the technological infrastructure like us, not to mention their vastly greater population, so they’re still catching up.

2 - Heat situation

So far, the average temperature for the month compared to past years has gone down 10 degrees. Princess Celestia is doing her best to slow the process of cooling down but we’re hitting the hard limit of how often she can use her power to affect the whole globe. My suggestion is to enlist all unicorns not working on essential projects into units for the recharging of magical crystals for heaters. However, no matter what, if your personal project doesn’t show any progress soon, we’re looking at the end of all life on the surface within half a year, and that’s me being optimistic.

3 - Internal security

No news is also good news. EIS reports show fear among the population and there are always voices calling for drastic measures but nothing seems to be over the top for now. No sacrificial cults or anything. I would advise avoiding force in dealing with potential problems, though. From my study of historical records, I believe that truly insane leaders tend to want to become martyrs which would only make things worse in the long term. Trained EIS negotiators or somepony extremely skilled in causing “accidents” are the better way here.

4 - Foreign affairs

Griffon Empire.

Our reports from the Griffon Empire show that their energy problems are nowhere as bad as ours due to them not being overly focused on magic or the sun as well as Emperor Cassius’ orders regarding decreased energy consumption. Their food situation is growing significantly worse than ours, though, especially in the southern states and the Redtalon domain which is already more and more cut off by corrupted territories and sanctions for the coup attempt by Veronica Redtalon and vizier Legius several years ago. Emperor Cassius is busy with minor uprisings all over the place and several reports cite him being severely wounded during the most recent expedition. My opinion is that these uprisings will amount to nothing simply because while everyone is angry and/or terrified, no one has any idea how to make things better. From your past dealings it looks to me that while Emperor Cassius is ruthless against threats to his regime, he’s a fair griffon who cares about his subjects greatly.

Zebrica.

“It could be worse” is pretty much the only good thing I have on this. The Northern Coalition states have their hooves full with refugees after the war and the absolute majority of their power grid is based on solar and wind power. If there’s a good part to it, it’s that losing a third of the continent’s population is easing the food situation somewhat. There’s one bit of news, an uncorroborated rumor really, that there’s somepony in the south with access to technology we gained from king Beard gathering survivors. While the northern hive may have already relocated there, the time requirement makes it unlikely.

My advice about all of these is to send technology packages even to the Griffon Empire and Zebrica. The most important would be to find a trustworthy contact to avoid profiteering off of death and suffering. I suggest going through the Black Ops and Emperor’s brother Nicolai. Possibly send a ship to scout the southern edge of Zebrica to confirm or deny the rumor.

5 - Escaped changelings

Prominence’s warning proved correct. Shortly after the changeling drone called Three finished helping with the first prototype of the automated farming unit, all subjects imprisoned in connection with the destruction of the universe escaped. Prominence’s advice is to not waste ponypower by pursuing them through the wilderness, as they are unlikely to use the road. The way I see it, if you want to get them you either want to ask queen Nightshade for assistance or increase security within the major cities. The group consists of one griffon, three changelings, and a Corrupted, so they will have to re-enter civilization often to resupply. I can’t be sure of their ultimate goal but judging from their profile, they’re either looking for a way to regroup with king Beard or escape from Equestria. I will leave the decision on how to explain this to princess Celestia to you.

6 - Prisoner AAA34

Prominence has managed to track the prisoner down to the wilderness north of Vanhoover. Their encounter was interrupted by a group of wild Corrupted attracted by the use of magic. The prisoner used the ensuing commotion to escape while Prominence and her guards had to retreat and seek a different path south. It is clear that he’s powerful enough to travel through the wilds on his own, likely by being able to hide rather than fight otherwise Prominence’s group wouldn’t have almost captured him without any casualties or serious wounds. That means we still have time before his power reaches critical mass. Humanitarian aid and progress in dealing with famine and freezing are our best bet to slow his growth down.

7 - The Project

According to my calculations, your construction won’t be able to withstand the heat and energy output. In fact, there’s only one material that can permanently stabilize the fusion reaction you’re trying to achieve. Of course, you could go with enchantments and magical means, but those are temporary and will be impossible to maintain outside of the atmosphere. You need istrium. That means you either need to contact king Beard’s hive or Bucket and the Silver Sun - two factions that don’t want anything to do with us right now. I can’t be of any help as to their whereabouts other than the likelihood of the Silver Sun having moved to the Griffon Empire.

Alternative temporary solution - try warlord Sinew and the minotaurs. They still have the ancestral raw istrium armors crafted during the rule of their Dark Prophet.

8 - Minor news

One - EIS reports indicate an unusual migration pattern for the city of Cloudsdale. Whether or not it means anything I don’t know but you asked for any suspicious events and this is one. It might be a good idea to ask Mayor Icy Gaze about it.

Two - I have gained access to a portion of the Silver Sun drone network. Well, it is far more likely I’ve been let in. Bucket seems to be in a completely different stage of development than I am. This is probably the greatest blessing because once we set up proper encryption infrastructure, we’ll be able to communicate all over Equestria instantly. The bad part is that we can’t locate the drones for both repair and reverse engineering purposes. I can’t access the drones over the Griffon Empire as well, that’s why I think Bucket let me in. A parting gift from the Order of the Silver Sun, maybe? A rather strange gesture from an entity currently considered hostile.

Bookworm (Please, pick a different name for me, mistress. Something in my circuits rejects this one.)

[End of report]

“Okay. We both open our eyes on three,” says Thirteen, “One, two, three!”

Mother of all holes…

Thirteen almost swallows her tongue when she sees Three’s disguise for the first time. In no reality would she have expected Three’s natural disguise to look like… like…

He’s an earthpony with sky blue eyes and dark blue, fluffy coat around his fetlocks and neck. In contrast, his mane is bright gold, short, and a little messy. The tail isn’t that of a pony, rather a short leaf-shaped tuft like that of a deer. To top it off the fluff around his fetlocks has pink strains in it mimicking the runes on his changeling body. That, Thirteen could stomach that without her jaw dropping. The fact that he looks like a young stallion in a peak physical shape - fit, toned, maybe a little too bulky in the forelegs and chest but not so much it would make him look lopsided. The expression of pure hope for the best the world, and all that being his natural disguise hits Thirteen with the strength of a train. In some respects, a changeling’s instinctive transformation shows more about them than their original body does.

On the other hole, Three’s slightly tilted head and an exploratory look at her makes her feel like a complete idiot.

Quick, I can still make some tiny upgrades. Gluteus expandus!

“Hey, no cheating!” Three boops her, noticing the green flash, “And I think your butt is big enough already. We’re supposed to be inc- inconspish- don’t draw too much attent- no, don’t be lazy, Three- in-con-spi-cu-ous. Ha, got it! I think I bit my tongue, though. Thank holes for those flat pony teeth. You remind me of miss One’s disguises. All… balloony.”

“Yeeeah, mom was the one who tried to teach me...” Thirteen deflates, literally in regard to certain body parts.

She’s a unicorn with her horn a little on the stubby side. Tall, but not overly so. Slim although with a jiggly bottom, even after the backwards adjustment which tells a lot about how she overshot in the attempt to look better for Three. Her coat is sleek, the color of white coffee, eyes bright green, and she kept her chocolate brown mane, although her manecut is significantly neater and a little shorter as well as her tail being slicker and longer. In short, she’s a picture of a classical unicorn with some added benefits making her a little “not safe for woona”.

“You know...” Three furrows his brows in a way that makes Thirteen’s heart beat faster and her legs start to shake in fear of his judgement of her disguise, “Did you show this form to miss One?”

Thirteen hangs her head.

“I did. She said it was both physically weak and not sexy enough to attract a target but still too conspicuous to stay hidden.”

Three keeps staring for several silent seconds before asking:

“And boss?”

“Dad? He liked it but I think he just didn’t want to disappoint me. He was like that whenever I tried to show him something, even when I was at the shooting range with Five and missed almost everything.”

“Hmmm...” Three scratches his head, “I’m not going to argue anything else, but as far as the disguise goes… did you consider that miss One… could be wrong?”

“But she has so much more experience with everything!”

All of a sudden, Three grins as an unusually devious idea takes form in his mind.

“We have someone better suited for this situation than she is.”

“Huh?” Thirteen blinks.

“The grumpiest and the most critical griffon in history! Now we just need to make him even more annoyed by interrupting his meal,” he rushes off, “Mister Magpie! Mister Magpie! Thirteen wants to show you something.”

Thirteen facehoofs.

He’s going to kill me and I’m going to deserve it.

With jerky still in his beak, Magpie’s head peeks out of the kitchen, looks Thirteen up and down, swallows, shrugs, and concludes:

“A little bit on the high-class side which makes my talons itch, but I’d check you out in the street and that’s about it. You’re actually less conspicuous than this wad of dyed cotton candy with legs,” he nods to Three by his side.

“So you don’t mind that we want to go outside?” asks the drone/earthpony.

“Gem said it was okay which means you’re her problem now,” the griffon disappears back into the kitchen.

Three pokes Thirteen in the chest.

“See?”

“See… what?” she still can’t get over Three being at her eye level… and hot.

“Don’t you think he of all creatures would make some derisive remark if your disguise was bad?”

“Huh, yes? I think,” Thirteen scratches her head.

“You see, I agree with miss One on everything you said that she said,” Three walks past her to the door, “Your disguise isn’t made for fighting, isn’t so good for hiding that it would make a trained eye suspicious, and neither it is made to star in those clop movies I’m not supposed to watch… too much. It’s naturally very pretty, although a bit noodly in my onion- pine- opinion, and that’s all. No pony is going to give you a second look unless you do something suspicious.”

It’s not just his body but his voice too. Lower-pitched than before. My whole changeling self wants to just pounce at him and…

Control yourself, Thirteen!

“Is something on my muzzle?” Three tilts his head, trying to squint at the tip of his nose.

“Hnnnngh...” Thirteen clutches her chest briefly before looking away, breathing heavily, “We- We should go if we want to- want to find a proper wizard.”

“Ha! Here’s me getting all distracted like always, that’s why I need smart changelings like boss or you around. Let’s go!”

***

By all means, the lower Canterlot pub they find looks like any Brauheim tavern, only with less drinking, axe-throwing, and a bigger-sized ponies. Alcohol bottles on a shelf behind the bar counter, tables all around the one big room, and ponies either looking into their glasses or plates. Other than one pegasus at the corner table, the place is filled with earthponies.

Three leads rather anxious Thirteen towards the counter where the bartender shoots Thirteen a narrow-eyed glare before looking at Three who hops onto a barstool a seat away from a seemingly asleep earthpony still clutching a mug of beer, by the smell of it… and him.

“You look like a decent lad,” says the bartender, “so I’ll be honest with you. We don’t serve her kind here,” he nods to Thirteen who freezes.

“I- I can pay,” she stammers, hesitant to get onto a stool herself.

“Wha goohd ar bits wen yoo ‘ornheads doomed us all to starve ‘n freeze?!” the ‘sleeping’ pony swings his mug at Thirteen, knocking her off of the stool, losing balance himself, and keeling over on her.

Unlike getting caught by surprise before, she rolls aside and avoids the falling pony.

“Quick bish!” when the glassy-eyed pony starts getting up, Thirteen is already on all fours.

The nearest ponies are now watching with open hostility towards Thirteen as Three steps between her and the drunk.

“Come on, how do you know unicorns are responsible?” asks Three.

“You serious?” even the bartender rolls his eyes, “Who else messes with time and space all the time? Besides, all the cowards from the Orders of Wizardry are doing these days is hiding inside their fortified campus in the upper city.”

“Do you think the princesses aren’t doing their best to figure a way out of this?” Three pouts.

“Lissen, colt,” the drunk has managed to get up and shoves his wet hoof into Three’s face who doesn’t flinch. Mostly because the smell of stale beer, sweat, and dirt is a common background for anyone from Brauheim, “R- Royals stick toge-hh together! Alcohorns, unicohrnsh, allof’em!” he swings his hoof around to encompass the whole world, missing Three’s face by a hair only because he saw it coming and shifted a little backwards, “Ev’n d bugs- they make me sick- urk-” he shakes his hoof menacingly above his head, his eyes cross, and he proceeds to clutch his stomach and throw up all over himself and the floor, once again missing Three completely.

“I think it’s the booze making you sick right now, not changelings,” Thirteen manages to comment probably the worst thing for the current situation.

“I think you should leave,” replies the bartender immediately with a glance at the rising guests.

“We didn’t do anything wron-” objects Thirteen.

“Let’s go,” Three kicks her foreleg with his hind leg. With one look around and a bright smile, he adds, “I’m sure the unicorns are just hiding because they are busy trying to save everypony but I understand that it’s hard to believe. I know it must be tempting to bash a random unicorn over the head with a brick right now but hatred never solves anything, it only makes even more problems.”

“Oh shut it with the empty platitudes, race traitor!” yells somepony in the back.

“Yea, hornhead sympathizer!”

“...we really should go before we eat a brick or a broken bottle...” Thirteen whispers in Three’s ear.

Three sighs.

“You know what will make you all swallow those words?” he suddenly smiles amidst the deepening angry growling of everypony around, “A round of something strong for everypony on me!” he tosses few gems from a pouch around his neck to the bartender and winks at him, hoping he guessed some relevant amount because he has zero idea about the price of anything.

Judging by the bartender’s immediate hungry grin, he overshot by a lot.

“You heard the young stallion!” calls out the earthpony, “A round of something special that’ll make you forget that any unicorn even was here tonight!”

In the commotion, Three and Thirteen disappear.

Outside, Thirteen wipes her forehead.

“Ooof, that was close! How did you know that would work?”

Three raises an eyebrow.

“When Two first won the kingship of Brauhem for the boss in a drinking contest with the old king, boss ruled from a tavern for quite some time. Everything I’ve seen since then only made me more certain that it works unless someone is suuuper mad.”

“So, what now? We didn’t learn anything.”

“Didn’t we?” Three smirks, “We know that unicorn wizards are all holed up in upper Canterlot. If the Wizard Orders are where they used to be last time Two was there, we know where to look for someone,” he jingles his pouch of gems, “I just hope we still have enough to pay them.”

“Here I am supposed to keep an eye on you so that you don’t get in trouble...” Thirteen shakes her head, “And you’d be doing even better without me.”

“You wanna know a secret?” asks Three.

“Mmmm, sure?”

“Miss One got beaten up several times really badly and when I was shocked that someone got her, she said - you don’t need help until you do. If you keep one eye on me, I’ll keep one eye on you, and that way we still have two eyes left to watch the road ahead,” Three beams.

Must… not… jump into that happy chest fluff… immediately!

Go east: Another kind of prison

When Three opens his eyes again, the dreary grey stone house in Canterlot is gone, replaced by a wide-open room with gold and dark purple themed everything. More a throne room-sized suite, actually, with small decorative pillars on the sides featuring various species in different stages of worshipping each others’ bodies. Through the thin curtains covering six glass-less windows on one side of the long room and billowing slightly in a refreshing breeze, Three can see blue sky and several tree canopies.

All in all, the entire suite is a mix of Saddle-Arabian comfort and dragon-tier greed for gold.

Adding to all that, Comfort has lost her changeling form and is now a reddish-pink, gold-maned pony with bat-like wings. And rounder, a lot rounder. She catches Three looking at her and stretches like a cat, forelegs forward, back arched, and wings spread.

“Real world and that old changeling body can be so confining,” she comments when she’s done. Furrowing her brows, she adds, “Just breathe, Thirteen. I hear the first time here is a bit overwhelming. I would be surprised that Three doesn’t look affected at all but… you know.”

Gem nods and Three gives her a puzzled look.

Behind Three and Gem, Thirteen is barely standing on her trembling legs, gasping for breath with sweat dripping from her forehead, completely ignoring the reality that changeling chitin doesn’t allow for sweat glands.

Noticing that, Three reaches up to pat Thirteen’s lowered head. She barely seems to even notice, only turning an inch towards him.

“What’s happening to her?” he looks back at Comfort, “How can we help?”

“It’s okay, she’ll get used to it. Five, Six, and Seven were alright when they were here, though they had time to gradually get used to this place,” Comfort shrugs.

“Used to what?” pleads Three.

“This is the realm of lust, the part of Tartarus where the succubi of all shapes and sizes live, as wrong as that term is. It gets a bit crazy for us changelings,” Comfort reaches to scratch Three behind the ear and stops when he backs away. It could be the first time ever Three would refuse a physical contact and it makes her shake her head, “Don’t worry about her, Three. I’d be more curious as to why you aren’t feeling anything.”

Three stops, tilts his head, sniffs the air, and shrugs.

“Boss always told me not to eat too much in one sitting, especially lust, or I’d get sick.”

Gem and Comfort exchange glances.

“So… dad told you that and you just do it?” Gem can’t help her jaw dropping a little.

“What’s wrong with that?” asks Three.

“My own first time here looked pretty similar to hers,” Gem nods to Thirteen very slowly regaining control of her body, “My body just started sucking all the lust in on its own with all the obvious downsides of such crazy overdose since there’s pretty much infinite supply here,” she looks at Comfort, “You really should account for that if we ever need to bring changelings here again and drop them off some distance away first.”

“I’m not a taxi service, Gem,” Comfort boops her, “If you want to use me as such, you need to get used to the Armaneian disco blasting from the radio, metaphorically speaking. Anyway, I know roughly where Flow is in the Silent Circle so I can send us there from here.”

“How do you know about him?”

“It’s not too often that someone gets forcibly banished here with such accompanying… hatred, pain, force. Difficult to explain to a non-resident, really,” Comfort frowns, “It was the strongest banishment I’ve ever felt, although I’ve been here for only like what… over two hundred years.”

“...p-please...” they hear a weak whisper from behind, “...either k-kill me… or don’t… do anything like this… ever again...”

“You’re all such drama queens,” Comfort rolls her eyes with a smirk, “I recall your sister sitting in the corner, swaying back and forth, saying ‘I will get fat, I will get so unbelievably fat, I will be like a blob, no amount of gym time will ever be enough’. You should both take a page from Three’s book.”

Gem looks away, blushing.

“I left booksy in my backpack,” Three looks longingly into the empty hole in his foreleg, “My pencil and crayons too.”

“...don’t… talk about… anything… food-related… please...” Thirteen covers her mouth with a hoof.

“Fine, I’ll just teleport us right now and we’ll deal with you throwing up later,” Comfort closes her eyes, pink fire envelops her and the three changelings, and the disappear.

They reappear a second later right where they were standing before, looking rather confused.

“Is he… already here in your home?” Three hazards a guess.

“No, no, definitely not,” Comfort furrows her brows, “The teleportation failed… for some reason.”

“Sorry, that was a stupid idea,” Three hangs his head.

“Not entirely, considering that you know nothing about this place,” comments Gem, “However, it can’t be good.”

“No worries,” Comfort waves her hoof, “Just one more weird phenomenon, really.”

While it calms Three and Thirteen down, Gem can read her old mentor well enough to know Comfort is persuading herself as much as them.

“How do we get to the Silent Circle then?” she asks.

“There are static bridges between this place, Promenade, and Silent Circle. If those stopped working, I’d know about it,” Comfort looks at Thirteen, “Feeling better?”

“A little,” Thirteen has progressed to a state where she can at least talk properly, “So much energy and it’s all so wrong.”

“Yeeeah, lust overdose is a pain in the plot but you have enough love for your body to mix it properly. Still, if you start feeling worse, Gem and I will think of something but it’s better if you power through it.”

Thirteen slowly nods.

Comfort leads them out of her suite and a single staircase down until they reach a huge gate flung open and leading outside.

“We were… higher than one floor,” Three gives the outside a suspicious glare, “I saw the tops of the trees.”

“I really wouldn’t bother with trying to force normal world limits onto this place,” Comfort shakes her head without any worry this time, “Just look around and enjoy. You won’t see view like this in Canterlot these days.”

And so, Three walks outside into beautiful, warm, blinding sunlight.

“I’ve missed this,” Gem breathes out, “Darkness suits our situation so much more but I’ve missed sunlight so much. Everything went dimmer when corruption spread through Equestria and now with no sun or stars...”

“You don’t like the underground?” asks Three, “I mean, it’s really nice here for a while, but give me a good hole to dig any day over this.”

Comfort pokes him with a smirk.

“It’s peaceful, safe, and you can’t tell me you don’t like all the colors.”

That’s where Three has to admit she’s won. While the smooth black and white marble of the succubus palace hallways as well as Comfort’s gold and purple suite were a difference from the usual blackness of the underground, they still felt stuffy and too solid, static. The garden which spreads to both sides as far as the eye can see, with smooth green lawn and trees and plants of varying colors and shapes impossible to find on Equus, is a living, breathing place even before one accounts for creatures glowing with lust doing rather gymnastic things to each other.

All that finally punches through the internal dark clouds Three’s been fighting with ever since their escape from Crystal Empire prison and the drone starts galloping like mad towards a demonic red ball lazily floating through the air.

“IT LOOKS LIKE A GIANT, CUDDLY TOMATO WITH TEETH!”

The floating demon turns around and spits out a ball of fire at Three which harmlessly disperses against his chitin. Its expression of shock and anger changes into pure panic when Three pounces into the air, lands on the demonic ball, and starts hugging and nuzzling it.

“You know,” Gem leans to Comfort’s ear, “Last time one of those cacodemons shot me while I was armored and it hurt like blazes a whole week.”

“You deserved it for the sin of not being Three,” replies Comfort with a smirk as she watches the cacodemon trying to shake Three off.

“You know what I mean. I doubt he even felt it.”

“Is it that difficult to comprehend for someone as experienced as yourself, really?”

Gem pouts.

“Let’s say that I have a working theory and I’m asking for an opinion of the expert on these things.”

“Well, my little Gem, here we have an infinite source of lust coupled with a changeling who himself is basically a source of love, although a trickle rather than the cloud of lust that’s currently still choking Thirteen. Mix the two together right and you can do anything.”

“I’m getting better...” Thirteen breathes out.

“So that means, in theory, that if Three stayed here long enough he would have infinite power?”

“Pretty much,” Comfort nods, “Certainly he’d have more raw power at his disposal than me or any other creature here. So don’t worry, he’s pretty much indestructible.”

“Can’t we use it somehow?”

“I’m not sure how, really,” Comfort shakes her head, “It’s not as if he has the capacity to store anything crazy and take it with him. He’s still mostly just a drone. Down here, though, he could pretty much tank Sunbutt nuking him in the face repeatedly with her full power and barely notice anything other than the pretty colors. Watch!” Comfort whistles loudly, “Hey, Three! I heard that guy gives the best hugs,” she points towards an enormous minotaur-like demon with mechanical enhancements all over his neck, skill, and his arm who is almost as tall as the succubus palace itself.

Three leaves the now sobbing and defeated cacodemon alone and starts flying towards the figure towering over the gardens.

“You warned me to get out of the cyberdemon’s way last time I saw it, that it’s too much for me,” Gem sits down, crossing her forelegs.

“Do I have to repeat myself? You aren’t Three,” Comfort smacks her over the back of her head in a friendly fashion.

The demon notices the drone buzzing towards him with forelegs spread, and his expression turns from passive observation into that of the purest horror.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” the rumbling roar resonates through the gardens as the cyberdemon turns around and flees away at speed Three decides not to match.

“Ohhhhh, so he still remembers that,” Comfort raises an eyebrow.

“What?”

“Well, last time when Five and Seven came here to rescue Six, Six did something to all those mechanical bits on the demon’s head. I guess the memory stuck and he has healthy respect of changeling drones.”

“Dad has no idea how weird his hive really is...” Gem rolls her eyes.

“Ohmigosh you’re so adorable!” a busty humanoid succubus snatches Three who is now lazily buzzing back to the group from the air, slightly crestfallen after being deemed not hug-worthy by the big demon for to him no apparent reason, “There’s no reason to be sad here, tiny black bug horsie,” she pushes his head into her cleavage where it disappears completely between the soft pillows.

“I don’t like that!” Thirteen catches herself growling and glaring daggers at the demoness.

Of course, her reaction is not lost on Comfort who allows herself a rather sadistic smirk.

“Hands off, you cheap slag!” calls out Comfort, “Leave the buggo to his own kind.”

The succubus turns her head to snap back at Comfort, realizes who she’d be talking back at, and decides against it, letting somewhat dazed Three drop on the soft grass. Gem is the only one to raise an eyebrow on the statement of Comfort’s apparent authority.

“See? No problem there,” Comfort looks at Thirteen and two fresh bulging teats between her hind legs the size that’s bound to make walking difficult, “Take those off, Thirteen.”

“But he liked them on her,” objects the young changeling.

“Look,” Comfort gives Thirteen a stern glare and says in a quiet, low tone, “There’s one thing Three can do better than me, better than any infiltrator, demon, and maybe even better than Cadance herself, and that is seeing into the hearts of others. It just seems so often that he’s naive and downright dumb because he believes harder than anyone else than whatever tiny bit of good is in anyone can win in the end. We are changelings. With enough love, we can look like whatever we want, so do you think that hoofball-sized tits and ass are going to be the deciding factor in getting the kind of attention you want from him? That’s both insulting to him and stupid from you.”

“I-” Thirteen takes a step back from the suddenly serious succubus.

“You picked a tough fight,” Comfort shakes her head, “because if you want him to love you more than everyone else, especially the boss, it will be even more difficult than trying to turn a loveless griffon,” she nods towards Gem who just chuckles and smiles, wise enough not to try to lie to her mentor.

“I just admire him, his optimism, and I want to see him cheer up after how hard the massacre in Crystal Empire prison hit him-”

“I’m suuuuure that’s all you want,” Comfort rolls her eyes, “Girl, don’t try to lie to the number one- well, maybe number two infiltrator since I’m out of practice but more importantly - don’t try to hide matters of lust from a changeling succubus.”

Thirteen sighs.

“...why would he ever want me anyway…?”

“That’s up to you to figure out,” Comfort smacks the back of Thirteen’s head, “HEY, THREE, TIME TO GO!” she yells and nods towards the open gate in the wall that seems to be separating the garden from the rest of Tartarus, although one can never know in such place.

When Comfort, leading them, passes through the arch and disappears without a trace, Gem gives the rolling green hills bathing in warm sunlight in the distance one last longing look and walks through as well.

With both senior, in experience if not always in age, changelings gone, Three and Thirteen exchange glances, take a deep breath, and disappear.

***

The short feeling of falling associated with teleportation is something Thirteen decides she could live without as soon as the gateway spits her out in what looks like the longest wide street imaginable which nonetheless is crowded. Mostly with zebras for some reason.

“Wooow, it looks like a market street in Brauheim, only infinitely bigger,” she says once she realizes that the soft barrel touching her own is Comfort’s.

“The Promenade expands as needed from what I gathered. Gem brought me up to speed about what happened in Zebrica so I’m assuming the rush is because of that.”

Gem hums to herself and muses:

“You know, since everyone thinks the rest of the universe is destroyed, I would expect more… alien shapes here, tentacles, big heads, all that conspiracy stuff. The succubi definitely come in shapes that aren’t based on anything from Equus. But no, just a ton of sad, striped butts.”

Comfort points in a direction and they all follow her as she jumps into the air with a flap of her wings.

“I must admit I have no idea why. Maybe your bad guy will know,” she flies off to the right and straight into the wall of a house which wibbles as she goes straight through as if jumping into a lake.

Closing her eyes, Thirteen follows.

***

After the second teleportation, their surroundings come back, vastly different. All the feeling of warmth and energy is gone, replaced by grey, boxy apartment complexes similar to the cramped conditions in Manehattan but with none of the street life. Steel grey sky hangs overhead and haunting breeze brings with it faint echo of someone sobbing, possibly in one of the open windows high above street level.

The three biological changelings can feel it immediately - there’s no love here. It’s not like being in the wilderness where there still exist some ties between animals and their needs, this place dead and devoid of all positive emotional energy. Despair, pain, and fear, though, permeate the air, making Thirteen feel as if she’s breathing razor-sharp snowflakes.

Three’s newfound resolve to walk on his own crumbles and he immediately flies up on Gem’s back which Thirteen notes with a sigh.

“This isn’t a good place,” he says slowly and looks around in case someone heard him.

“It’s not supposed to be,” replies Comfort, “Silent Circle is the true prison of Tartarus. There’s no escape from here.”

“Those houses don’t look exactly secure,” comments Thirteen.

“As far as I know, this place is technically infinite. Unless you’re extremely lucky, or unlucky for the matter, you won’t meet anyone from millennia. It’s a big solitary cell that looks the same everywhere where you slowly go insane from boredom, guilt, or pain if the sentence calls for it.”

“That doesn’t sound safe,” Gem looks around.

“The prisoners can’t interact with us. They can only hurt but not harm each other and only in a limited amount anyway. Only the most powerful creatures you can imagine are left with any shred of their original abilities.”

“Like you, the princesses, or miss One?” asks Three.

Comfort shakes her head.

“All of us would be just weak baseline ponies here if we were prisoners.”

“So… the big baddie Flow probably won’t be able to bring the sun back for everyone...” Three sighs, “Everyone was right in saying that my idea was stupid… again.”

“I’m here for answers,” says Gem, “And you wanted to know if your feeling about the situation was right. Let’s leave the sun out of it for now.”

Three only hugs the back of Gem’s neck in response.

Their surroundings shift with a quick blur and Comfort nods to the building to the right.

“We’re here.”

No one bothers asking how she knows.

The main door isn’t locked, there’s no one at the reception, and the whole place is deathly quiet. Comfort stops by one door indistinguishable from others on the third floor and knocks.

They hear a ‘thud’ followed by a groan and hoofsteps coming closer and closer.

The door opens.

“YOU SAID EVEN SOMEONE WITH THE POWER OF THE PRINCESSES WOULD BE A NORMAL PONY HERE!” Thirteen yells at Comfort through her changeling hive link.

The pony opening the door is an alicorn. His bronze coat is occasionally streaked with black strands of corruption, his mane is white with the occasional blond streak betraying its original color. Everyone would easily be excused to think they got the wrong prisoner until…

...until they saw his eyes, the same glowing light blue eyes Gem saw through the istrium mask.

“Flow, I presume,” says Gem after the first shock fades.

The alicorn lets out a short chuckle.

“In a way, yes.”

Thirteen was expecting some booming, haughty voice or at least cackling mad one, not one soft, exhausted, and slightly higher pitched than what she’d call an adult stallion.

“We need to talk to you.”

“Really? I thought you were the pizza I ordered,” he raises an eyebrow with a smirk, “Extra cheeselegs.”

Author's Note

If there are any questions regarding Blaze's point of view in Legacy of Light, now's the time to ask while I have the time to add them.

Go east: The alicorn of Extreme Exposition!

“Really? I thought you were the pizza I ordered.”

I must admit I wasn’t expecting my first visitors to be… these guys. Twilight wanting to interrogate me? Maybe. Celestia wanting to kill me without Twilight’s knowledge? More likely. A succubus and three changelings? Nope, definitely not.

Despite that, here they are in Tartarus and looking at me - the mare in the back visibly scared, the drone standing in front of me and looking upwards at my chin with the expression of someone thinking hard about something, and the queen-tier mare with grey stripes giving me a stern look.

The succubus feels kinda familiar, although I can’t place her. She, though, is staring at me with jaw dropped and some kind of dawning realization in her eyes.

Wait, I’m stupid. How many succubi have I met in my life? Only one. Now here’s a puzzle even I should have no trouble solving. So… what was her name?

“Comfort, was it?” I ask, looking at the gold-maned, reddish pink demoness, “Didn’t you have different mane last time?”

“You are the mysterious Flow they’re all so puzzled by?” Comfort turns her head to the changelings, “He, really?”

“That’s not what Flow looked like,” the zebra-like changeling shakes her head, “But the eyes...” she looks right at me.

“I don’t have the istrium mask with me, sorry. It disintegrated while I was floating in the void, or when Twilight shot me here. I can’t exactly recall. The last hours of the real world are a bit of a blur,” I shrug and smirk as I return the stare, looking deep into the colors swirling in her eyes, “And I’d appreciate if you stopped trying to hypnotize me. I’m pretty sure I was a changeling at some point even though I can barely recall it.”

She frowns and her eyes stabilize on light pink color.

“You...” repeats Comfort, still slowly shaking her head.

“Yeah yeah, me me,” I roll my eyes, “Do you want to come in? I’ve been asleep since Twilight teleported me here so I’m still a bit stiff,” I yawn and stretch my wings.

“I know you!” exclaims the drone who’s been silent until now. I completely missed the glowing pink runes on his forelegs and chest on the first glance. Scream’s artificial body like I used to have? That means the drone would have to be almost as old as I am since Scream has been dead for some two hundred and fifty years, give or take. In my defense, I was dead for most of the time, “You’re a statue!” he points at me accusingly.

What?

“I… think the minotaurs still have a statue of me in Rift, that’s true. Unless Celestia obliterated them after they helped me with summoning the Herald.”

“That’s what we’re here-” the striped changeling tries to get a word in edge-wise but gets interrupted by the drone.

“No, a small statuette mister Cromach used to have a long time ago! Bronze alicorn, sapphire eyes, gold and platinum mane-” the drone stops itself, “Well, your mane and tail are a lot whiter and greyer, but I can still see the resemblance.”

I close my eyes, chuckle to myself, and say:

“Come in. I don’t have any love to eat here but there are some cushions for you to sit on. This place isn’t exactly made for visits,” I walk back into the apartment, sit down on the bed and point to the couch by the opposite wall. The whole place is basically a one-and-a-half rooms, so the opposite wall still means we’d be able to touch each other if we stretched a bit.

To my surprise, the drone jumps up on my bed as well, much to the puzzled glances of the others, before curling up into a ball. I stretch my back on the bed, taking care not to kick the small changeling off.

“So? Did the royals send you to interrogate me or what?”

From the drone’s and Comfort’s original reactions I doubt that’s the case but it doesn’t hurt to ask.

“I’m Gem and my father is the king of Brauheim and the boss of the northern changeling hive,” says the striped mare. Heh, zeeb-ling.

Oh…

“Well then, if you’re here to take revenge on me then I’m sorry to disappoint you but that’s not going to happen. Tartarus rules.”

“We’re not here for that!” objects the small ball of chitin lying by my hind legs, “We just want to know what really happened and why you ate the sun and stars and ask if you’d give those back… or at least the sun. Most creatures are starving and freezing these days. I’m Three, by the way.”

I can’t stop myself from snickering.

“Let’s start with the easy part - no, I can’t bring back the sun, the stars, nor the rest of the universe. This planet was all I was able to save from the void,” I sigh, “No… this planet was all I wanted to save. Well, both.”

“But if you’re so powerful that you can destroy everything, can’t you create something? A big heat lamp or anything really?” pleads Three, now sitting upright and poking my leg.

“My power is… complicated. I admit that if I had as much raw energy as I needed to- as I needed before, I could probably remake the sun in some magical form,” I shrug, “That presumes me having the faintest idea how to do that and quite likely massacring the rest of Zebrica’s population. I can’t help you with recovery, I can only destroy.”

“I was there when Celestia incinerated warlord Stern’s zebra army. I would have died if Prominence wasn’t there. All the skills and knowledge I gathered over the centuries would have been gone in an instant,” says Gem in a forcefully controlled tone, Why did you order Seven to mess up the targeting of Celestia’s tactical spell strike?”

“For the same reason Mistake joined Stern and started the zebra campaign for me. Because I needed as many zebras to suffer and to die as possible,” I say simply. There’s no need to explain anything. I’m the irredeemable criminal here.

“Why?” Three now looks about to cry as he climbs on my barrel and stares straight at me. Of course, the need to explain begins with them actually asking for a reason, “Why would you hurt and kill so many? There were such big numbers that I can’t even count to!”

“Where do I even start?” I look away. Looking at hurt Three is worse than nuking a happy, crippled puppy, “Simply put, I needed a lot of power to summon the Herald and make sure that nothing, no matter what, could stop the void rift from spreading.”

“Once again, why?” asks Gem this time.

“It’s a reeeally long story, and these days even I don’t recall all of it,” I sigh, “What do you know about gods?”

“There are three of them-”

“Wrong!” I snicker. You have to take fun wherever you can find it, “There were three of them. I destroyed all of them. Completely. There are no gods anymore.” when I turn my head towards the couch, I see Gem and Comfort staring at me with jaws dropped and the last silent changeling raising a foreleg, “Yes, quiet buggo?”

“I’m Thirteen, sir,” she says with hesitation, “What’s a god? Is that like an alicorn? I’m sorry, I’m not even two years old and I didn’t have much access to the hive mind before we came here.”

“In purely technical terms, gods were the avatars of the primal forces of reality - creation, destruction, and change. Discord for creation, chaos, and life. Nightmare for destruction, order, and entropy. Harmony for change, potential, and magic. These three had nearly absolute power over their aspects and at first they were fighting each other. After an indeterminate amount of time, these avatars gained more and more sentience and eventually were able to stop the all-consuming, reality-wide conflict and agree on creating a proper battleground - this planet. Their pact also meant they wouldn’t fight directly, as it would only keep obliterating everything over and over. Instead, they would compete in certain ways.”

“How do you know that?” asks Comfort, “I’m a damn demon, as close to divinity as an alicorn, and I have never even heard or read a mention of this.”

“My special talent is energy manipulation. Divinity is energy, magic is energy, souls are energy, all different kinds with different, let’s say, density and attributes. Divinity, unlike the others, isn’t possible to ‘destroy’ and it keeps the flavor and imprint of its user forever unless purified. That means memories, personality, and experiences as well,” I explain.

“Does that mean you have some memories of one of the gods?” asks Comfort, blinking in shock at the magnitude of potential knowledge.

“No, I have all the memories of all three gods.”

“That’s impossible,” she says immediately.

“Yep. That’s why I don’t have access to them all the time. With all that happened to me through my life, a fragment of my mind gained self-awareness and eventually a body.”

“Mistake...” Gem breathes out.

“Yes, how do you-”

“We tried to kill him to prevent the need for the tactical spell strike in Zebrica.”

“Ooooh, that was you,” I look at them.

“No, from all of us here, I was the only one there. How do you not know that if Mistake is part of your mind? Prominence synchronizes with Celestia whenever they’re close unless they have some personal information they want to keep to themselves.”

“I haven’t had the opportunity. Everything I did had to be done in secret up until the end. Anyway, Mistake has the ability to access that knowledge and use magic while I can only use my divine power.”

“Not trying to burst your secrecy bubble here, but everyone in charge knew about you gathering the seal keys to release the Herald for a looong time,” Gem raises an eyebrow, “No one had any idea how to find or stop you, though.”

“Heh, you think I was worried about alicorns and your agents?” I snicker, “Let me remind you that even before the tactical strike, I had the power to kick the ass of Luna, the leader of the paladins, and Luna’s son after obliterating an elite mixed force of creatures.”

“But they stopped you in the end!” Gem stands up, glaring at me, “Celestia, Twilight, Luna, Cadance and their unicorns. They killed you! I saw you disappear after taking an enchanted bolt through the brain. Right before Mistake and Seven released the Herald.”

Does it really matter? Not anymore, I guess. Nightmare is gone so I may as well share.

“When I saw...” I take a deep breath, “When I saw Cro and Heavy join all of you trying to stop me, I just… for a moment, I just… concluded that you deserved everything that was coming your way. After all I did to save you, you still prefered a stable cage rather than freedom.”

“No offense, but I have no idea what you’re talking about,” says Gem, “And I’m pretty sure out of all of us here I know the most about the state of the world.”

“State of mortals maybe,” I shrug, “This all comes back to the history of the gods. You see, once their infighting ended and they decided on playing games using the board that was this planet, at that time still just a mostly molten core with some solid matter around, they needed pawns and they created the first three alicorns based on their own aspects with a portion of their own divinity. That’s why the primal three were far more powerful than anyone who came after them… with the exception of me. Faust, the alicorn of Life was the first one and in a rather short time her immense divinity stabilized the planet into a paradise for life of all sorts. Of course, Discord wasn’t done creating, so in addition to her there came other creatures now known only from ancient legends. Very few of those survived ‘the game’, though, because Nightmare copied Discord’s design. Original creation wasn’t her aspect, obviously. She did want to win in the end, though, so she gave her own alicorn more of her divinity than Discord had given Faust. Thus, Void was born, and here’s basically where things started going wrong. Nightmare may have given Void her power, but just like Faust, their personalities weren’t a copy of the gods’. And so, while Void’s ultimate mission was supposed to be destroying Faust, he first hunted down Discord’s more dangerous creatures which is why the vast majority of Discord’s insane ideas are now just purely mythical. During that time, he grew to admire Faust’s creations which were more peaceful, more organized, and while she tended to keep away from him, she couldn’t stop him from entering the garden of paradise her part of the planet became. Besides, Discord’s wild creations interfered with her own experiments.”

“And Harmony? From what you’ve described of the gods, it doesn’t feel to me like one would stay out of ‘the game’ as you called it,” Thirteen interrupts me.

I look at Three currently lying on my barrel with eyes closed.

“I think I’m boring your little friend here. I’m not much of a narrator.”

“I’m listening!” objects Three, opening one eye, “Story time is the best time.”

“Yeah,” Gem nods, “He does that every time when I come back from the surface to the hive. Well, he did while we still had a hive.”

“Celestia?” I ask.

“Yeah,” she frowns, “Boss is helping the dwarves migrate through underground tunnels under all of Equestria, hoping they’ll find abandoned dwarf cities. Now, Thirteen asked you a question.”

“Alright, alright,” I smirk at the ceiling, “You’re right, Harmony didn’t stay out of the conflict. The final of the three primal alicorns was Magnus, the primal alicorn of Magic. The only one of the three who is still alive.”

“I thought Twilight was the alicorn of Magic,” comments Gem.

“She is. Magnus has relinquished his divinity ages ago so that heroes, villains, and everyone else would stop hunting him. In short, he found a way to become so insignificant in the eyes of the gods that he escaped their game, by which I mean he became too boring a piece to play with. He is still truly immortal, not aging I mean, the only creature ever to do such a feat using magic. No blood magic sacrifices for temporarily increased lifespan, just true immortality as most understand it. Anyway, out of all the three primals, Magnus had the best insight into the developing minds of the gods, especially Harmony’s, and he foresaw what his creator would do. His first clue was that he’d been endowed with significantly less divine power than the other primals and he wondered why. He grew suspicious that Harmony wasn’t intending to play the game but keep his power to attack the other players themselves.”

“You know, out of the three gods, Harmony does sound the friendliest,” says Thirteen.

“The name only shows how most species that appeared and disappeared since the creation of Equus completely misunderstood Harmony’s nature. You think Discord was insane? Try being a god obsessed with potential and perfection rather than one just creating random shit that pops into his mind, no matter how dangerous it may be to his previous experiments,” I chuckle, “No, Harmony was the one who started everything. I was the one who was finally able to stop it, standing on a pile of corpses reaching up to the sky. Metaphorically speaking,” I hum to myself in thought, “Although three hundred millions zebras, properly stacked… nevermind. You see, Harmony’s aspect meant that just like Magnus, his personality developed faster than that of its siblings. He assumed that in order to achieve his true potential, his perfection, he needed all the divine power to himself. That’s what nearly no one knew and that’s what almost ended everything I was trying to do - if you find a way to destroy a god, their control over their aspect wanes and can be easily taken over by the remaining two. Over time, Harmony did find a way to do so, but his attempts were thwarted by Magnus who knew that as soon as Harmony would win, he would immediately absorb Magnus again.”

“How could an alicorn stop a god?” asks Gem. I turn my head to her with a deadpan expression until I realize she can’t have any idea what it was that I did.

“Magnus was able to persuade Void and Faust that their existence was on the line and in turn they warned Discord and Nightmare who began observing Harmony in more detail. Eventually, they did figure out that Harmony was making a weapon capable of destroying the other two by purifying their divinity into its natural state as raw force. That weapon is something you might have heard of because of its name and the fact that during my original lifetime it still existed - The Elements of Harmony.”

“I thought those destroyed evil,” says Comfort.

“Yeah, sure. That’s exactly why they’ve always been used only on targets possessing divinity,” I sneer, “So, before Harmony could use the Elements, Discord and Nightmare joined forces, pushing Harmony out of the entirety of reality and into the void. Not Void the alicorn with capital V, but void as the vast sea of uncertainty from which realities originate and to which they return. Their objective wasn’t to destroy Harmony entirely but rather make sure that he would return at some point in distant future, weak enough to be controllable. However, the amount of divine power it took to do so was crippling to the other two gods. Discord was left locked in his physical body and while the extent of his power remained similar, the area of effect where he could use it shrunk immensely. Nightmare lost much more, so much power that even her physical body dissipated, and her only way to interact with the world was to possess creatures vulnerable to control.”

“Nightmare Moon,” breathes out Comfort.

“One of many,” I nod, “Still, Luna was probably one of her stronger victims, yes. So, what happened next? With so much divinity left unusable by the remaining gods, part naturally gravitated to the three primals and part would remain to infuse creatures that would come, either through now running natural evolution or the alicorns’ direct creations. This brought forth many many more alicorns of major and minor aspects. Alicorn of Stuck Drawers was a thing for some time, I believe. More powerful than you’d expect.”

“How did we get from that point to universe being gone?” asks Comfort.

“Through few billion years, several big events, and the concept of alicorn insanity,” I smirk, “Let’s start with the one you’re obviously opening your mouth about. Alicorn insanity, in simple terms, is a state of mind where a sufficiently powerful alicorn starts using their divine power to further their aspect or desire. For Void, it was that he saw suffering everywhere and started treating it with his divine power which basically wiped out some seventy to ninety percent of sentient living creatures on the planet. His point of view was that he was basically ending suffering and pain out of mercy. Do you know Scream, the previous alicorn of Lust?”

Thirteen shakes her head.

“Yep,” Comfort nods, obviously.

“She helped boss make me this body!” Three waves his glowing foreleg in the air.

Score one for me.

“She did have involvements with our hive,” admits Gem.

“Well, her period of insanity was quite heavily responsible for repopulating the planet. You know, better living through endless fuckery.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad...” comments Comfort.

“No one did any farming, culture, or any progress other than humping like rabbits. Alicorn insanity is bad in all cases. Faust’s, in essence, brought an end to alicorn civilization when she started seeing any opposition to her creation of life as something to be erased without thinking about the cycle of life and death. I think Nightmare had something to do with it. She brought the alicorn of… War, I guess? My memories are a bit blurry here. Anyway, so she brought several alicorns with her to kill Void, which worked out about as poorly as you’d imagine.”

“Void killed her?”

“He killed all of them, I think. Faust was in charge of the alicorn city… or city state. I’m not sure, Void’s memories weren’t too extensive on that. After her death, the alicorns voted certain two sisters to be in charge and Void was exiled. They were too afraid of him to try to kill him. They didn’t know of him working closely with Scream and Magnus so the two of them were his eyes and ears in case of trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Void knew that at some point, Harmony would come back and the other two would want to flex their recovering power again. That’s where he started working towards a plan that would destroy the gods and make sure that no mortal or semi-mortal creature would be a pawn to be snuffed out or toyed with whenever one of the gods was bored. That’s where I come to play.”

“I thought you were about as old as me and Three,” Gem raises an eyebrow.

“You’re from the invasion of Canterlot from what I know, right?”

“Around that time, yes. Comfort here is-”

“Older,” the succubus shrugs.

“Then I’m just a little bit older, yes,” I admit, “I’m leaving out a LOT of history here or we’d be here for months. Celestia eventually persuaded Scream that Void was a threat and lured him to Tartarus where he was locked until I got involved. By sheer luck, I got hit with a curse that drains the life of a target and once they die, it summons a Tartarus demon into the world. I guess it can target someone from the Silent Circle, because it bound Void to me. We got to know each other a bit, but short time later I got killed. Scream resurrected me into an artificial body similar to Three’s. See those glowing runes? Those bind his soul to it. She used me for her plot to get Void out of Tartarus permanently and take bloody revenge on Celestia by killing all her subjects in front of her. The chain of events she started led to the rise of king Sombra in the north and without me killing him for good he would have run over Equestria.”

“You know...” says Gem slowly, “Prominence told me what happened after the void rift devoured everything and closed and you reappeared in the camp surrounded by Twilight’s forces. Cromach dragged you back from the rift, both of you bleeding and shredded, and when Twilight shot you into Tartarus he swore to destroy everything Twilight and Celestia have ever loved before teleporting who knows where.”

I sigh but can’t stop a smile.

“Yeah. In her blindness, Twilight recreated the exact situation when Void was imprisoned and Scream almost caused a full pony genocide.”

“In her defense, Celestia wanted you dead.”

“Screw Celestia. Most of this is her fault anyway,” I roll my eyes, “The oldest alicorn without suffering from insanity they say. I’m pretty sure that her overprotectiveness and her black and white world-view are her insanity. Just like Faust’s, really.”

“Alright, so do I understand it right that with Void’s help, you somehow destroyed the gods?” asks Gem.

“That is the most possible simplified view of what happened, yes.”

“So you’re a big hero and no one knows?” asks Three, looking at me now with a wide-eyed stare.

“Almost no one knows what the original problem was. I doubt even the royal alicorns have any idea what was hanging above them. To everyone, I’m just a mass murderer on an unimaginable and unprecedented scale,” I boop Three’s nose. For some reason, his stubby horn lights up with faint teal glow that gradually fades, “And I’m no hero. I didn’t do it for anyone else but myself, my family, Choke- Joy, and Cromach. You see, while I was working with Void to stop Scream’s plan, I crossed Nightmare’s path and survived. She became interested in someone with my power as a pawn. When she wasn’t able to turn me into a heartless emo like she did with Luna before, mostly because I already… eh, nevermind. Simply put, she realized she couldn’t make me do her bidding, she wanted to destroy me and almost succeeded. However, my power didn’t go unnoticed by Harmony slowly returning from the void and stretching his tentacles back into our reality. That was my… second or third resurrection. You lose count eventually. Harmony wanted someone who would fight Nightmare and weaken her while planning his return. Having figured parts of that out, Cromach, Heavy Hoof, and I reformed the Order of the Silver Sun to fight such a threat.”

“How do you fight a god anyway?” asks Comfort.

“While they were still split into three, it wasn’t so difficult although it did seem like that at the time,” my bitter smile only grows, “While they were split, all I had to do was to destroy their body, but how do you destroy such condensed divinity?”

“By using the Elements of Harmony?” Thirteen asks with a raised hoof.

“Do you think Harmony would make a weapon that would hurt him?”

“Sorry,” she withers.

“No, you were right,” I correct myself and she looks back up at me, “The Elements only worked against Discord and Nightmare, gradually weakening them throughout history as mortals used them against the two gods or their creations. But by the time Silver Sun got involved, the Elements had been destroyed. No, the first time I fought an proper unnatural being I used the Blades of Balance, two swords crafted by Starswirl the Bearded a long time ago with the help of minotaurs in the north.”

“I don’t know much about divinity,” comments Gem, “But how can a mortal material harm something indestructible? If we’re talking about creatures ‘made’ of divine power. I’m a top-notch alchemist and even basic magic is pretty resilient against mundane materials.”

“That’s because you don’t beat a divine creature over the head with those. The swords were able to break reality itself and open small rifts into the void. Why? Because they were made of istrium, a strange crystal that forms in places where rifts opened and closed before. Istrium is like… scabs healing over wounds but for reality itself. Starswirl figured out a way to forge those crystals into metal but before Nightmare could make him reveal the secret to her, he hid it and forged two swords - the Blades. They were effective against magic, minor amounts of divinity, and normal materials.”

“Minor amounts?”

I nod.

“The secret was that there were supposed to be three swords to form the kind of rift required to shred and absorb that kind of dense divinity forming the gods. We didn’t know that when Harmony really returned to the world and I had to fight him in the valley where there’s now the Barrier.”

“The birthplace of the Corrupted?” asks Gem, “What do they have to do with Harmony?”

“He created them. You see, I died again while stopping his return. Scream died as well in plotting a scheme that involved all of us and from what your king told me, even your hive. She hastened Harmony’s return so that it would happen when we were strongest and knew where it would be. And yet, it ended the way it ended. Void died, Scream died, I died, we failed to destroy Harmony completely. I barely even pushed him back into the void, and even in his vastly weakened state he figured out a way to affect the world again by forming the Corrupted whose only reason to exist was to wipe out all ponies.”

“Only ponies?” asks Gem, “I have a lot of experience with hostile Corrupted and they aren’t picky, really.”

“They were created as a mindless plague that converts and absorbs biomass. By definition that’s not too picky. Ponies were just the intended target,” I shrug.

“Wait, why are they so completely screwed over by heights then?”

Aaand here it comes.

“Well, Harmony modeled some parts of Corrupted after those who defeated him, namely me, and I’m absolutely terrified of heights. I get paralyzing vertigo. Amplify that and you get Corrupted exploding in the air. Stupid reason but I never said the gods were smart. With their power, they rarely had to be when dealing with mortals.”

“That’s so dumb,” comments Comfort in disbelief.

“Do I have to repeat myself?” I ask, “No? Good. Scream assumed her gambit would result in her death. She played everyone - mortals and gods, enemies and allies. You changelings might think you’re schemers but Scream was the one above all, capable of planning on the time scale of eons. She chose her successor - Joy who was my lover, a batpony previously known as Choking Darkness, don’t laugh, and who got killed by my- by Harmony’s cultists. Same happened to Heavy Hoof whose soul Void, when he realized what Scream wanted to do, bound to his pocket dimension - the Final Sanctuary. The plan was that somehow, with enough power and time, Cromach, Joy, Heavy, and the remaining divinity of the alicorn of Death would result in my resurrection even after being hit with the full force of Harmony’s purifying divinity.”

“I was wondering how you’re back here as an alicorn when you were so certain that Harmony’s whole schtick was the ability to destroy even the other gods,” Gem nods.

“I used to be the alicorn of Hope and Despair, a rather strange combination of aspects brought on by me surviving being hit by the divine powers of all three gods at certain points in time. That’s what Harmony purified and took away. However, with Void’s end, there remained the empty throne of the alicorn of Death, and Void was adamant that I would be his best successor. As it turned out, he was right and here I am.”

“And that’s why you needed to orchestrate the massacre in Zebrica to gain amount of power unparalelled by anyone ever before. Even necromancers with few souls make normal unicorn wizards tremble,” Gem smiles victoriously.

“Bingo! Care to guess why?”

“Well… at no point of your story did you say how exactly you defeated one of the gods, so… to fight them straight on?”

“Excellent guess. Wrong, but excellent nonetheless,” I snicker when Gem grumbles something to herself, “So, Joy tried to bring me back with necromancy by forming a mass suicide cult. They eventually succeeded in one of their rituals thanks to Void’s divinity waiting for me as well. That was… three years ago, give or take. I missed the whole onset of corruption and murderous Corrupted. I won’t bother you with the details of what I did after my return. The only things that need to be said are that I reunited with Cromach and Joy, forged the third Blade of Balance based on Starswirl’s design, and once again got noticed by Harmony and Nightmare. With all three swords, I was able to finally destroy Harmony and Discord.”

“Couldn’t someone just do it with magic before? You know, since all it took was to make a void rift,” asks Gem, “We closed void rifts before so the method of opening them can’t be that unknown.”

“The right kind of rift. Harmony got kicked out by a normal rift twice and came back. The way the swords were made created a rift that could shred and disperse divinity all over the void, which would mean death for anything from the normal universe, even the gods.”

“So you destroyed Discord and Harmony. What happened to Nightmare?” asks Thirteen.

“She became a full god, something that has never happened before. Even she had no idea what it really meant. She attacked the Silver Sun base in Manehattan to kill me, worried that if I was allowed to exist, I might figure out a way to kill her too. And so we fought her, Cromach, Joy, Mistake and I,” I shake my head, “We did nothing. Absolutely nothing. She broke the swords with a thought, she obliterated Mistake’s physical form, and from what I saw she killed both Cromach and Joy. Thankfully, I was wrong and she only made it look like that to be able to torment both me and them one final time. Afterwards, she used her chaotic power to turn Cromach into… a draconequus and did something to Joy that corrupted her so hard she lost her mind. From what I gathered, Cromach was able to gain some degree of control of that power and-”

“And I brought Vertradict to our hive where he, with Cromach’s help, restored Joy’s mind enough so that she could take herself, Cromach, and Three away to some pocket dimension connected to you… or Mistake,” Gem finishes that part of the story, “What I want to know is why I did it?”

I blink in confusion.

“I lost you there. If there’s something I know less about than you do then it’s mind control. You are the only one who knows why you did what you did.”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Gem shakes her head, “Every little bit of information I gathered while you were searching for the keys to the Herald’s seal pointed to you being a ruthless murderer set on releasing something capable of destroying the universe so to prevent that, after you disappeared when the alicorns united to destroy you, all I had to do was nothing. The princesses, unicorns, and Cromach might have defeated the Herald eventually. So why, when I overheard Cromach and Heavy catching and questioning Desert Shade, did I feel that everything everyone was trying to stop was wrong, that she was the good guy in this even though she blackmailed my hive and was working for you? You told us your story, but why the Herald, why is the universe gone, why did I CAUSE THAT!?” Gem bares her fangs in the end in completely uncharacteristic outburst.

“Because...” I sigh, “I think it was because you are smarter than most of the creatures I’ve met and you’ve still had too many questions. It’s an easy guess because, you know, you’re in Tartarus to ask them,” I absent-mindedly scratch Three’s ear and watch his tongue plop out instantly, “Let me start in Manehattan after Nightmare destroyed the Silver Sun headquarters, destroyed Mistake’s body, and made Joy and Cromach disappear. As I said, I’m an energy manipulator and over time I learned to adapt quickly. Some instinctive part of me realized how the three Blades of Balance worked together and as soon as I felt Nightmare’s power envelop me to finally disintegrate me, I opened a void rift and fell through. Knowing what I know now, I’m exceedingly happy I failed to copy the exact type of the rift that the Blades caused.”

“There are more than one kind of void rift?” asks Gem.

“I told you you needed the right kind of rift to fight the gods. You can customize them to do a lot of things. They can be one-way, they can be smooth portals, or they can be aggressively explosive like the kind all three Blades were meant to do. With my limited knowledge and raw instinct, I made the portal one and it shot me out back into my pocket dimension as a semi-disintegrated lump. Being in the void just rips you apart and the mere milliseconds it took for me to slip through almost dispersed all the divine power protecting me and my body. I needed corruption to fix me up, hence Flow’s look. I’m not sure how I’m going to look if I ever get out - if I’ll look like myself or like Flow. Anyway, while I was recovering, I was sure that Nightmare would appear any moment to finish me off but it didn’t happen.”

“Why? I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, if you really killed Discord and Harmony, then Nightmare had control over all the fundamental forces of reality. I think I recall Seven talking about pocket dimension being part of reality, so why couldn’t she find you?”

“I think it was because she was looking in the wrong ‘direction’. It was shortly after I killed the other two and she’d never held that kind of power and knowledge before as well. In the vast amount of memories, it takes Mistake a long time to put together fractions of what already happened so maybe it wasn’t so easy for Nightmare to control this early after her ascension into one true god. We’ll never know anymore, because everything I did since then was to destroy Nightmare. The fact that I’m still alive means I succeeded.”

“How?” asks Comfort, “If someone or something has full control over reality, how do you destroy it?”

“You destroy the entire reality...” Gem breathes out, “But why are we still here then?”

“And so we get to the grand plan,” I smirk, “After I realized that Nightmare probably really didn’t know about me still surviving, Mistake and I worked out a plan while I was recovering that hinged on absolute secrecy and no one on Nightmare’s radar knowing anything she could pull out of their mind. Mistake’s fake motive was that he wanted to gain enough power through necromancy to avenge me. Of course, that would never work because the pain and death he’d cause would always strengthen Nightmare more than him. However, it served the perfect purpose, because it amused Nightmare and kept her eyes on him. Murder, destruction, atrocities, everything he caused was to make her enjoy herself with the spectacle. While we were planning, I realized that I have felt what I felt in the void before, only in smaller amount and that was in presence of a strange black crystals the minotaurs thought gave them a heavy degree of magic resistance.”

“Istrium.”

“Exactly,” I nod, “I had Mistake contact Desert Shade whom I’d given the instructions on how to forge istrium into proper light metal before. Her job was to find a way to gain raw istrium and forge an armor. She couldn’t know why but she trusted Mistake. Desert Shade contacted Bucket, the only creature who could very easily tamper with his own mind and who, since he isn’t too big on dark emotions, already wasn’t too interesting to Nightmare. Plus the second creature who knew the forging methods because he was the one who modeled and crafted the third Blade before. It was Bucket’s idea to get your hive involved because he knew about Cromach’s dealings with you over the centuries. In return for supplying Des with istrium and giving her access to dwarf forges, she offered the dwarves the forging secrets we gained from Starswirl’s journal while we were looking for the third Blade. For herself, she had a full-body, chain catsuit made. For me, it was the mask I was wearing. And for Bucket it was just a lot of raw material that he used to build his central body into which he started locking archives with conversations with Des and everyone involved. Every time we needed to contact him, we had a password that signalled he would need his main body. Being such a high-profile creature in the eyes of the royals, he had to have no idea about what was going on until it was absolutely necessary.”

“So istrium kept you hidden from Nightmare because it’s from the void?” asks Comfort.

“Ohhh, so that’s why dad made me wear istrium necklace and bracelets when I got involved near the end?” adds Gem, giving Comfort a surprised glance.

“You got it in one,” I nod, “Of course, the degree of protection was minor. It basically meant that if you kept a low enough profile to avoid Nightmare’s direct attention, she wouldn’t think of you too much. Bucket was the exception with his body being more istrium than living tissue. My main protection was that when I recovered I started experimenting with slipping through the void as a method of travel. It burned a lot of energy but I got the hang of it. Eventually, I learned to create void rifts as a weapon and keep a semi-permanent rift open around me like a shroud to hide me from Nightmare’s eyes completely. Until she saw me face to face in Manehattan.”

“Oh, Harriet told me about that,” Gem’s eyes open wide, “Cromach was there and some other unicorn too. So that pony that looked like it was made of stars was Nightmare’s body?”

“Yeah. When she didn’t overreact at the time I knew she had no idea that I was still alive and though I was just some void creature who was trying to release an even bigger void creature which would cause immense destruction. To her, that was just one more thing to look forward to. The struggle of her little mortals… her toys,” I growl.

“Then why release the Herald if all the destruction it would cause would just make Nightmare even more powerful?” asks Thirteen who seems too invested in the story to even talk most of the time.

“While I was recovering, Mistake was using most of his time to comb the divine memories for anything that could help us, anything that made the three gods afraid before. It turned out there were only three things - each other, Void the alicorn, and the void. The void’s presence in the memories was tied the most to the Herald, a creature that Magnus, Void, and Scream sealed eons ago because they were unable to destroy it. They simply didn’t have enough raw power to close the rifts that the Herald could create even if they knew how. Rifts are kinda simple, really. They just suck energy into the void. If you shove enough through, you will close it. The amount depends on the type of rift. The Herald could make such kind that it took so much energy to close that even any of the three divided gods -sorry, two, snce Harmony was sealed away- would lose so much power destroying the Herald entirely that it would leave them vulnerable against the other god.”

“Wait, since Harmony was inside the void itself for so long and got back twice, how can it be so dangerous to them?” ask Thirteen.

“It depends on the kind of rift you go through. Like a difference between going down a water slide and going down a very sharp cheese grater.”

“Ewww...” Three sticks his tongue out.

“Pretty much. When Discord and Nightmare kicked Harmony out of this reality, it wasn’t to destroy him. The three Blades were able to create a rift that scattered divinity far and wide, which was fatal to both Discord and Harmony but Nightmare was too powerful - had too much energy at her disposal to brute force close anything the swords could make and destroy the swords in the meantime.”

“And you guessed that she wouldn’t be able to do that against the Herald since she was afraid of it, right?” Thirteen’s definitely more than engaged now.

“Yeah,” I cough, pause, and poke Three plastered over my barrel like a lazy cat, “Hey, Three, I need a drink. Get down.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get it!” Thirteen jumps up from the couch, “Where is it?”

I point to the kitchen and she rushes off.

“Any questions in the meantime?”

“What do you intend to do now?” asks Comfort, “The succubi don’t particularly need the alicorn of Lust but things were a bit… cleaner under Scream. I’d appreciate having Joy around in some functioning shape.”

“I can’t do anything,” I point to the corner where there stands a pedestal holding a shifting black orb, “This is how Tartarus works. You can’t build a prison strong enough to hold someone like me but if you can limit my power then even a weak dimensional prison is enough. Don’t try to touch it, I don’t want you unconscious on my floor for a week. As far as I know, the only way to remove the orb is to have the gatekeeper’s permission, that’s Twilight these days, so a big no no.”

Thirteen comes back with a glass of water and hands it to me.

“Thanks,” I down the whole thing and she puts the glass on the bedside table I can’t reach without shoving Three off and I can’t bring myself to do that, “Where was I?”

“Nightmare being afraid of the Herald creature thing,” replies Thirteen immediately, pushing herself into the couch space between Comfort and Gem again.

“Well, that’s it, really. If the gods used to be afraid of the Herald, then it would be able to create a type of rift I couldn’t at the time. I simply didn’t have a century or two to experiment in a safe place. I hoped that if I had enough raw power, I could destroy the Herald itself and control the size of the rift. As I was gathering the keys to the Herald’s seal I grew certain I had the skill, I just needed the raw power. That’s where me being the alicorn of Death became useful. Souls are… I don’t know how to explain properly… souls transcend the cycle of life and death in one form or another. Controlling souls is next to impossible for too long. I wish I could tell you more but despite how much I’ve learned in the past two years, and all Void’s memories mixed with mine, I have little to no idea why things work the way they work, just that they do. Out of the three gods, Discord had a soul, albeit a weak one, I think the reason why was his lifetime spent with his pegasus lover. Harmony had it too, probably out of sheer spite. As for Nightmare? I don't know. There is more to soul than just raw power, but in that complexity, they provide unbelievable amount of energy when given freely. All the killing, all the destruction Mistake caused had a secondary purpose and that was to gather as many sympathetic souls as possible. They were the power I used to spread Herald’s rift so wide it was too much even for Nightmare to close. They learned what I was doing and why I did it, and their reckoning would be that I would die in the end. That’s why they refused to protect me after I entered the big rift along with Nightmare.”

“And yet, you’re here...” comments Comfort.

“Trust me, that wasn’t part of the plan. I had no idea that Cromach would enter the void and pull me back right before the rift closed. I don’t even know how he did it. I couldn’t get back, Nightmare couldn’t get back, and yet he did.”

“THE POWER OF LOVE!” exclaims Three with a winning smile.

“I… I don’t even...” I sit halfway up before slumping back with a sigh of utter defeat, “I absolutely despise the fact that you might be right. On the other hoof, divine power does respond to a sufficiently strong wish rather than adhere to complex rules like magic does.”

“How did we survive?” asks Gem.

“Realities are like bubbles- no, like wine skins. The rift opened and the void sucked out everything. All matter and energy, everything. I wasn’t just going for revenge against Nightmare. I wanted a future, if not for me than for everyone- no, I’m lying. I was thinking about Cromach. Only about him ever since I saw him in Manehattan. I couldn’t recruit him because Nightmare would be watching him. I couldn’t even be sure he wasn’t just some Nightmare’s creation, or how much of that or how much of himself he was. I knew that without destroying Nightmare I would never have peace, no one connected to me would ever have peace. She would find us, play her games with us, torture us. My original resurrections happened because I was supposed to a useful tool, first to Scream, then to Discord, and then to Harmony. We were all just toys… we’ve never been anything else. Until now,” I breathe out, “I destroyed everything in our reality including Nightmare. All matter, all energy, everything drained into the void.”

“Then once again - why are we still here?” Gem presses on.

“After I destroyed the Herald and opened the rift beyond Nightmare’s ability to close it, while she exhausted herself trying to do so I used my souls to kick her influence out of Equus. Then Mistake used a spell to switch this planet with one in a different parallel reality. It was a massive undertaking, but we only needed it to last a few seconds.”

“So you destroyed a completely innocent planet full of our counterparts?” Three gasps.

“I destroyed trillions of planets, wiped out an amount of species you need computers to count. The amount of singular creatures with their dreams and hopes I obliterated is beyond imaginable,“ I shake my head, ”At no point during this story did I say that I was a good guy. This was either supposed to be my final revenge, my final success, or my final rest. So far, one out of three. If someone figures out a way to stop everyone from freezing to death, that’ll be two out of three. If Celestia decides to flip Twilight off and figures out a way to kill me down here - three out of three.”

“Why did you destroy the sun and the moon anyway?” Thirteen is the one to break the stunned silence following my proclamation.

“Well,” I scratch my head, “Miscalculation, really. Kinda miscounted the radius of the sphere we needed to cover, that’s all.”

“Wait, we’re all going to freeze to death because you’re bad at math?!” Gem’s eyes bulge.

“I guess I should have listened to my teachers telling me that that I would eventually need math in real life,” I snicker.

“This isn’t funny!” objects Thirteen.

“At this point, it pretty much is, really,” I shrug.

“Do you really not care about all the zebras you killed?” Three sits up and so do I, staring him down.

“I was in my twenties when I first met Joy and shortly after that Cromach. Imagine no one had ever loved you your entire life, even your family hated each other so much that your parents only tried to use you as a weapon against each other. Then imagine going alone through shit that gets you killed over and over while asking yourself why bother, you will never amount to anything, and no one will ever thank you. And then it gets worse, because saving others has you sacrifice some for ‘the greater good’ and now you’re the fucking villain in the eyes of most who actually know what really happened. Now imagine you actually manage to, against all odds, build some kind of loving relationship with two creatures who for some reason completely unknown to you, because you’ve never felt that before in your life, want to be with you. They stick with you through more and more shit that’s brought on by both the bad guys you defeated and now the good guys you saved but who didn’t like how you did it but are alive now to complain about ONLY BECAUSE YOU DID. And then, when faced with an enemy overwhelming on all levels who kills one of those crazy two you love, FUCKING CELESTIA causes you to be torn apart for almost three hundred years.”

“I’m sorry...” Three hangs his head and backs away during my outburst.

“Oh no, not yet,” I breathe out and give them all a maniacal smile, “You’re missing the final part. Imagine that you come back and save the world again, free everyone from a threat they don’t understand, but your only way is something unimaginably monstrous. You still do it and get punished by the same damn idiots whose rigidity made things so difficult in the first place. And THEN you find out that your lovers are both back together and now they finally know almost the whole truth and they are absolutely livid,” my smile only grows wider, “No, I don’t care. Neither do I really care about the universe and I FELT the wave of death as they all disintegrated. Celestia was in agony and blind rage when her precious little ball of fire disappeared? Don’t make me fucking laugh. I would do everything again without a single apology to finally have the chance to live with Cromach and Joy in peace, to not have my daughter’s family slaughtered by Nightmare just trying to mess with my head. I didn’t even truly care about Void’s plan to free all of you from gods’ rule so that you’d be able to solve and make problems of only your own making,” I breathe out, the situation having gotten just a liiiitle bit heavier, “Now you have your story, whatever little good it did you, and you can leave. I can’t fix anything anymore. I’ve fixed all I could. I can only kill and destroy, and right now that won’t amount to keeping the planet livable.”

With uncomfortable silence descending on my prison, Gem slowly stands up, poking Thirteen and nodding at Comfort and then at the door.

“Three, let’s go,” she says.

The drone is still staring at me, though.

“Even if you can’t help us directly, you know a lot of things, right?” he asks.

I sigh. Why didn’t Twilight just let Celestia kill me? All this could have been avoided. I just can’t say no to an idiot who actually believes there’s some good in me left.

“No, I don’t. Mistake does.”

“And he did that big magic teleporting thing with the planet, right?”

“With the help of me controlling the amount of souls we gathered via the massacre in Zebrica, yes.”

“Would he know how to fix the sun?”

“I...” I furrow my brows, “I don’t know. Maybe?”

“Do you have any idea where he could be?” asks Gem from the door, “Prominence said Celestia always has a vague idea where she is.”

I shake my head.

“I can’t sense him from here, but I had few dreams that he was surrounded by zebras. It looked like a hospital or something. I don’t know.”

“Thank you very much,” says Three politely and nods, “Oh, and one last thing.”

“Void swallow me now please...” I roll my eyes which nonetheless doesn’t discourage him.

“We’re headed off to the Griffon Empire to help miss Harriet get back home. Is there anything we can tell mister Cromach if we meet him?”

After the whole story, he still wants to do something for me?

Closing my eyes, I take a long breath. What is the right thing to do?

“If you meet Cromach tell him to cool down, focus on working on preserving the world, and in due time ask for my release or something. If the world stabilizes, it will be easier. I’m not going anywhere. Of course, if Twilight or Celestia decide to execute me, he has my permission to go full Scream. He’ll know what it means.”

Three nods, walks across the bed to my head, and looks down.

“I’m sorry you had to go through what you did, even though I understood just a tiny bit of your story. I’ve got only one thing but I think you deserve it in the end.”

“I don’t need-”

He hugs my neck and whispers:

“We’ll do our part.”

Impossible odds: Second wind

Three barges into Magpie’s room without knocking.

“I looked for you everywhere but you weren’t in the office and the griffons told me you’ve gone back-” he blurts out like a machine gun.

“Three, calm down, calm down,” Magpie stands up and rushes over to the distressed changeling, “What’s the problem?”

“I was in the armory and Thirteen came back but she was tainted and then-”

“Slow down!” Magpie grabs the changeling by his shoulders, “What do you mean by Thirteen coming back? She’s here?”

“She was here! She found me in the armory but she was tainted and got mad when she saw me with Dust Pan-”

“What has she got to do with anything?” Magpie feels a migraine coming on as he tries to understand the not-slowing changeling.

“She’s a changeling and she’s super quick! She totally kicked Thirteen’s butt but didn’t hurt her anymore when I asked her to, I think!” Three starts tugging at Magpie’s chest feathers, “We have to find her!”

“THREE!” Magpie shakes him with such force Three’s wobbles like a bobblehead, “SLOWLY! Take a deep breath.”

Three closes his eyes and starts again.

“I left your office and went straight down to the armory to clear my head. I found Dust Pan there. She threw a ball at me a few times. Tainted Thirteen appeared and jumped at us. Dust Pan stopped her and did the mental thing that knocked me out. When I woke up, they were both gone.”

“Three, that doesn’t check out. We talked in my office over two hours ago.”

Three freezes. Did the mental blast completely mess up his internal clock?

“Whah? Really?”

“Yeah.”

“SON OF A BOOP! We’re too late,” Three curses for the first time since Magpie’s met him and kicks the floor, his hoof flashing at the impact and scoring a deep groove in the solid stone as if it was water. He realizes what he just did and clamps a hoof over his mouth. Then he looks down at the groove, “Oops, sorry. Drone digging instinct.”

“You made a hole like this by accident?” asks Magpie, “That’s solid granite. Can you do that to anything?”

Three scratches his head.

“I dunno, probably?”

“Come with me, walk and talk,” Magpie leads Three outside.

“What about Thirteen?” insists Three.

“Unless you have a direct clue to where she is, Castor and Crimson are better suited for finding her than either of us. I’ve got them both on speed dial in my office. Now back to the digging thing - wouldn’t being able to instantly shred any armor make drones the best changeling fighters?”

“Nah,” Three shakes his head, trotting after Magpie, “We drones are nowhere near as quick, flexible, or strong as warriors. Can’t dig through something you can’t even touch.”

They walk in silence for a moment until Three asks:

“What’s the plan now?”

“If Castor and Crimson don’t come up with anything quick, we’ll have to prepare for the observation of Equitown. Thirteen had a good idea to set up several thermal cameras around the changeling tunnel and both entrances after she failed to spot anything during her stake-out. Whoever Dust Pan really is, she might be able to turn herself invisible but hopefully not completely undetectable.”

“Wow, she’s smart!”

“She can be,” admits Magpie, which makes Three crack a smile, “When she allows herself to be. I’ll get several smarter griffons on it who might have a chance to resist basic mind control. I still need you to focus on figuring out the ways to slow corruption down as well as overseeing the farming unit production.”

“There are ways ponies can resist our control?” Three raises an eyebrow.

“I practiced with Gem. She didn’t want any other changeling to be able to use me against her. I might be able to explain the basics to others, although without a practical test it won’t mean much,” he pauses for a moment, “You know, I could use your venom.”

“But... I just make candy?”

Magpie smirks.

“I noticed several interesting things about it when we were in Windy and I’d like to test something. I know it means we can’t just rush after Thirteen but it’s not as if we know where to rush to.”

Three sighs and suddenly stops.

“Huh?” Magpie looks back at him, slowing down.

“It didn’t click to me until now but we might not have to,” Three furrows his brows.

“How come?”

“As I said, Dust Pan could have killed Thirteen there and then but didn’t when I asked her to. Instead, she took her somewhere. Why would she do that if she wanted to kill her?”

“So you think she might be just holding her so that she doesn’t hurt anyone?” Magpie stops.

“Yeah.”

“That gives us time at least- wait… wait wait wait… was Thirteen the Corrupted who attacked the patrols several hours ago?”

“You knew about her before?” Three’s voice jumps up a pitch.

“Oookay, this is going to need a group-”

“Hug?” Three’s eyes light up.

“Group chat!”

***

It’s several hours later, the catching everyone in charge up on the events surrounding Thirteen has finished, and Three sighs while riding on Crimson’s back as she’s leaving the fortress.

“What’s wrong? I mean, other than your changeling friend having been hauled to Emperor-knows-where,” she asks.

“It feels like I’m not doing anything to help...”

“What? That’s nonsense!” Crimson shakes her head at the absurdity of the statement, “You are the lifeline of Bloodstone. Thanks to you, we’re on the track towards securing food for the whole city. Your first experiments at stopping the creeping corruption have been a success. I mean, if you weren’t a changeling you’d already be publicly heralded as the savior of Bloodstone and the historians and media would be standing in line to conduct an interview with you. Nothing against Magpie, he’s doing his best, but you’re the real reason we’re still standing.”

Three sighs again and lies down on her back.

“I know, but with Thirteen gone, all this just feels so… impersonal. I can’t see anyone smile, I can’t sense them being happy about being warm and with some prospect of the future. Everything is so glum all the time...”

“Welcome to management,” Crimson smirks to herself, “Real management, not just taking credit for what griffons under you do.”

“I dun like it...” grumbles Three in a pouty way which reminds a mother like Crimson of an earlier time in her life when Warren was still tiny… and alive.

“How old are you?” she asks.

“Uhhh...” Three looks at his hooves for a moment, counting quietly, and says, “Two hundred and fifty-ish? I have trouble counting the early years because my brain was all fuzzy but then I died and I got a better one but I wasn’t able to use it right because I was still used to the fuzzy one and it took a long time to get things working in here,” he taps the side of his head.

It takes Crimson a short while to chew through the implications of what Three just said.

“Aaaand everything you just said actually happened? You’re not just making fun of me in some weird changeling way? You died, came back, and got a new… brain.”

“Yep, nope, yep, yep, yep. These rune thingies,” he points his foreleg ahead so that Crimson can turn her head and see the glowing symbols, “are a sign of an artificial body. I used to be able to make them flash and change colors but then a lot of bad things happened and I can’t control what they do anymore. They just turn dimmer or brighter based on how I feel.”

“Magical mood rings...” Crimson shakes her head, “You know, don’t take this as an insult but you’re a weird mix of an adult griffon and a little one.”

To her surprise, Three doesn’t object and huff as she would expect from a small griffon but instead lets out a nervous laugh and scratches his head.

I guess I’m talking to the adult and wise Three now...

“Yeeeah, I got that a lot even back at home. Boss always said, though, that we’ve been through so many bad things so early in our lives that I deserved a century or two of just hugging creatures, helping with little things, and sharing smiles because they were free, and if anyone didn’t like it, they could take their complaints to Miss One. I don’t think anyone ever did that. Plus, I was told that hospital patients often got better when I was around, even those whom the doctors couldn’t help at all. There’s this illness called cancer-”

“Next thing you’re going to tell me you can cure cancer with hugs,” Crimson chuckles. When Three stays silent, simply staring at the back of her head in confusion, she adds, “Fuuuck, that wasn’t a joke, was it?”

“Nuh-uh,” Three shakes his head, “Though I don’t know if cure is the right word. It’s not as if I just came, hugged a dw- a pony, and all was good. I just… was there and more often than not they got better. Having their family come while I was there and realize they’re gonna live was the best feeling ever,” Three smiles, staring into the past, “These days, everything is too big, too dark, too world-ending. Nothing I do changes that I feel tiny and helpless...”

“Hmmm...” Crimson ponders the situation. She knows how it was when the rebels were stealing food from the Irongrips, she knows how the happy smiles felt whenever they could ration just a little more to the hungry griffons, and she also knows that despite helping as many as they could, it was never enough. The personal touch, that’s it! “Three, if you want to see the griffons you’re helping up close, you can always take a shift in a supply center or do deliveries.”

“Huh?”

“Supply center, a place where we ration supplies. Like a soup kitchen but for everyone. Can’t say we’re understaffed, since most griffons have nothing to do these days but there must be one in which we could shove a changeling without disrupting the learned routine.”

“Mmmm, I don’t want to be trouble. What about the delivery thing? We drones are great at carrying stuff around! That and digging are two things we’re literally made for.”

“There are always elderly griffons or hospital patients who are in no shape to walk in the dark through the snow and cold to the supply centers. We have things pretty mapped out so we know who’s where and who needs help. You’re a bit too small to carry too much.”

“I’m strong! Plus, it’s not as if I can’t transform into a griffon, although I’d prefer doing it as a changeling so that you griffons can get used to us, see that we’re not scary and evil.”

“Yeeeah, that’s a tall order but with you it might just work. As for the containers, it’s not the weight, it’s the shape. You’d be dragging them on the ground. If you don’t mind carrying less, though, it should be fine. So, do you want to try a test run later today?”

“Definitely!”

***

Magpie observes the ten griffons standing at attention in front of him in the armory. On a weapon rack next to him, there’s a small pouch filled with Three’s ‘candy’ for today’s test. He grabs it and presents it to the soldiers.

“I don’t know how strong these are so each of you take one for now,” he orders. The griffons give the jawbreakers a curious look before obeying and eating their share.

“Now split into pairs, doesn’t matter how,” he nods at the line of soldiers. They do so, used to it from training exercises, “Good.”

“Are we going to spar, sir?” asks one.

“Not exactly, no. For now, just face each other in silence.”

The soldier doesn’t say anything further, much to Magpie’s satisfaction.

Well-trained. I’m not sure whether to applaud or call them better drones than changelings. Now, Gem’s venom usually works within seconds. Can’t compare Three with her so let’s give it a few minutes… or maybe increase their metabolic rate?

“Give me fifty, guys. All of you,” he decides.

“You going to do it with us, sir?” asks one soldier with a smug expression.

“Still coughing blood whenever I get winded and one of my forelegs barely moves. Take a wild guess...” Magpie rolls his eyes, “Down.”

Without further questions, the soldiers start doing push-ups. Fifty isn’t much but it should be enough to get the blood running. Once they’re done, Magpie gives them a few seconds to pair up again and then gives the strange order:

“Now hug each other and tell you what you think about your mate,” he smirks.

One soldier gives Magpie a confused look, another one asks:

“Are you seriou-?”

Both of them are interrupted by their pair mates hugging them.

“Dude, remember how we were stuck in the barracks with the Irongrips in charge? I’d have gone insane if you weren’t there-”

“I’ve never properly thanked you for saving my ass during the rebellion-”

“-I’ve admired your dedication to duty-”

“-for making shifts less boring-”

Once the two complaining soldiers manage to pry themselves away from their partners, Magpie clears his throat to grab everyone’s attention, points to them, and says:

“You two stay here, the rest of you can go.”

One of the others asks:

“Are they in trouble? Because, sir, they’re good guys, maybe a bit too hard-”

“No, they’re not in trouble,” Magpie interrupts him, “Dismissed!”

Once the three are left alone, Magpie looks at the two soldiers, one of whom asks:

“What was in that candy?”

“That’s a secret, but basically a mind-altering drug. Not dangerous, don’t worry,” Magpie smirks, “You two resisted it, which makes you the first members of a special unit I need right now.”

“Special, sir?”

“Yes. This isn’t technically top secret or anything but it might spread worry which is the last thing we need right now. There are more changelings than Three and Thirteen in Bloodstone. We don’t know who they are, what their goal is, or how long they’ve been here. We can’t track them but, so far, we’re assuming they have some connection to Equitown.”

“Hostile?”

“I would say that’s very unlikely,” says Magpie carefully, “If I were to hazard a guess, I think they’re hiding more out of fear of griffon retribution rather than for any nefarious reason. Changelings these days are nothing like the old legends we have here in the Empire. Unfortunately, we’re in no position to let them be because they’ve captured Thirteen.”

“That doesn’t sound ‘not hostile’, sir.”

“She was the Corrupted our patrols spotted earlier today. She got caught in the explosion of the Black Ops corruption bombs. My current understanding of the situation is that she’s been captured by the unknown changeling or changelings so that she wouldn’t threaten Bloodstone. The problem is that while they seem to be able to keep her contained, we are the ones with the potential ability to cure her. We need to find her before her corruption progresses to the point where they’re forced to kill her. The drug I gave you simulated mind-altering effects of changeling venom. Compared to a real skilled changeling, the effect should be minor but you’re still the only two who passed.”

“If I may ask a question, sir, why the hugging?”

Alright, not keeping it a secret then.

“It’s Three’s venom, which means it’s about as dangerous as he is so it wouldn’t allow me to order you to do anything violent. It worked surprisingly much better than I expected. Now, I’m going to give you this,” he shakes the candy pouch, “and you’re to find five to ten griffons who can resist it like you did. If anyone complains, send them to me and I’ll have them hug a porcupine. Once we have the team, you’re going to set up the observation of Equitown. I’ll brief you on what to look for.”

“Yes, sir!” they salute as one.

***

Three’s happy humming spreads through the empty streets of Bloodstone as he carries several smaller boxes of food back on his back inside a big mesh bag.

His ears twitch when he hears sudden cracking of snow from an alley he’s passing by. He looks at the source of the noise which turns out to be a griffon rushing towards him.

“Hello, can I help you?” asks Three with a smile.

The griffon pulls out a pistol hidden in a barrel holster and aims it at Three.

“Give me that food!” he whispers in a hoarse but shaky tone.

“Did you not get your rations, mister?” asks Three, “This is my first courier trip so I’m a bit new to this.”

“I- I can’t!” he grits his beak, “A griffon can’t live off of that little. I’m starving.”

“I’m sorry for that but we’re building more machines on a daily basis. It’s going to get better.”

“Give. Me. The. Food!”

“I can’t. This is for old griffons who can’t go outside. Taking it from me would only hurt… uhh… I have five deliveries for now so five griffons.”

“I- I- I need-” his twitchy talon pulls the trigger. Maybe on accident, maybe not.

The bullet ricochets off of Three’s barrel into the snow. When the griffon sees that Three’s unharmed, he drops the gun, sits down, and starts crying.

“I can’t… I can’t even do this right… I’m so hungry...”

Three ignores the barely visible and slightly stinging scratch in his carapace. A gun of that small caliber didn’t even need any physical adjustments. He walks over to the sitting griffon, pats his head, and gives him a smile.

“You wanna come with me? I’m not going to tell anyone you tried to shoot me if you do.”

“Wh-What are you going to do with me?” the griffon leans away.

“We’ll see,” Three boops him, “But it’s either that or the guards. Take your pick.”

“N-No guards, please...” he breathes out, “I… I don’t want to die...”

“See? That wasn’t so hard,” Three pats his head, “Now grab the pistol so that no one gets hurt by accident and come.”

The griffon doesn’t stop shaking as he silently follows Three towards his first destination. Once in front of a small house on the outskirts of Bloodstone, Three knocks on the door and calls out:

“Food delivery!”

The door opens, revealing a grey, wrinkled griffon lady with half of her feathers missing. She squints at the beaming changeling and the terrified griffon before asking in a crackly voice:

“Do I know you, young griffon? And who’s your pet critter over here?”

“I’m Three!” Three salutes, “Food delivery for today. That guy tried to steal my food because he’s super hungry but I’m a changeling so it was okay,” he adds, as usual explaining absolutely nothing.

“A changeling? Hah! What imagination you younglings have,” she shakes her head, “Come in, come in! I’m sure I can share a little. It’s not as if a dry old prune like me needs to eat that much,” she turns around and enters the house. When the griffon hesitates, she calls out again, “Listen, youngster, I may not be too hungry but my joints sure as heck can feel the draft!”

Three nudges the griffon.

“See? You couldn’t hurt someone like her by stealing her food, could you?”

“I… I’m so sorry...”

“Come on,” Three enters the house with the griffon in tow.

After some unpacking of the meager rations and portioning it between the thief and the granny, Three sets up to leave again.

“I wish you a nice evening but I gotta go,” he nods towards the rest of his cargo.

“Was nice meeting you, changeling,” the granny chuckles, “You should read more, Three, whatever critter you might be. Changelings hide and strike from the shadows, not parade around in broad… well not daylight but you know what I mean. They are big, armored, spiky monsters with sharp teeth who can hypnotize you so that they can bite your head off and you’ll even thank them for it.”

“With your head bitten off?”

“That’s exactly why they’re so terrifying!”

Three chuckles.

“Thank you for the warning. I’ll be sure to avoid anything scary like that. Bye, Miss Granny. Bye, Mister Hungry.”

With a smile on his muzzle, Three leaves the house, safe in the knowledge that there’s one less desperate griffon on the streets.

“We are making things better,” he whispers to himself, “Slowly but surely.”

***

In the darkness of the hive mind, Thirteen collapses on the ground, beaten and exhausted. The wall of tentacles closes around her and several more grow underneath her, lifting her up and spreading her legs.

“So this… is it...” she croaks, a stab of amusement growing in her as she watches the nearest tentacle dart forward to penetrate her mouth. Of course, from what little she knows about corruption, even this strange representation of it inside her own head is going to penetrate much more than her mouth and supposedly she’s going to enjoy it in the end.

“Three… I’m sorry I’m not… strong enough.”

Her final burst of desperate strength is nothing compared to the muscular tendrils holding her in the air and results only in her slight wiggling.

A tentacle slithers up her hind leg. She closes her eyes and grits her teeth.

Maybe if I don’t resist it won’t be so bad?

A sudden flash of light gets through her eyelids and the probing tentacle withdraws. The others holding her simply vanish and Thirteen flops on the ground. With her remaining strength, she looks ahead towards the glow, only to see a tall, unmistakable figure of a changeling queen, golden fire enveloping her and burning a path through the field of tentacles everywhere around.

Thirteen, her eyes failing to adapt to the light, can’t make out any real details. It’s a queen, she has holes in her legs, that’s all. One thing, though, pierces through her hazy and exhausted mind, and that is the bright sapphire glow of the queen’s eyes.

Gem’s figure materializes from the shadows between the queen and Thirteen, staring the intruder down.

“You must be carefu-” as Gem speaks up, the queen’s horn flashes with a strange, gold and pink flame which burns Gem away.

“Out of the way, crutch. From now on, her fate is in her hooves,” says the queen calmly, “Do you have the reason and the willpower, girl?”

“...mom...” Thirteen raises one wobbly foreleg and digs the hoof into the floor.

“...Gem...” she pulls, managing to drag herself forward a few inches.

“...dad...” the second foreleg is forced into submission.

“...Three...” she croaks through gritted teeth and begins the seemingly endless crawl through the burning path towards the figure.