Dante fitfully snored, sprawled out across her budget couch, a new soykaf maker on the counter showed another hour and a half on its holo display in the darkened kitchen until the scheduled program was to run. By bits and pieces, Dante's décor and household were improving, mostly as a result of the pangs of inadequacy she felt every time Silver Stream talked about visiting.

Occasionally, her all but full-grown wings, fluttered in her sleep, stirring her blue mane. Dante's difficulties in figuring out how to sleep with the new additions were part of the reason she was on the couch instead of in bed. Other oddities imported from her odd life now included the lockdown bar system on the inside of the door and the one-way privacy screen add-ons on the windows. And of course, her repurposed Smokecloud camera detecting drone kept it’s silent, ceaseless watch from the counter.

Outside the windows, the very first hints of the coming dawn might have been visible in the east if one looked very hard, and if one didn’t have the red glow of the volcano on the horizon, or the eternal twilight glow of the city. A dozen project folders were noted at the base of her AR display as it waited in low power mode for Dante to wake up. Its place of pride on the central table surrounded by empty noodle and soykaf cups. The collected research into how AOE Holdings and its courier, Spring Bloom, might be related to the Heavenly Ocean Star. Bits of mostly tin foil hat grade conspiracy theories concerning the Age of Heroes, and a smattering of publically available records concerning Silver Screen Dreams and its owners.

Dante smelled a figurative rat concerning their most recent foray, AOE holdings was almost certainly a front. The skill and expertise to extract a data set that had filled an entire hoof-full of high capacity storage chips marked them as someone worthy of scrutiny. Yet there was little to be found, at least publically. Still, mares did not carry around priceless data (she suspected a data set extracted from the Ocean Star) like this on a whim. The set up struck Dante with the feeling that Spring Bloom was a data courier, carrying in her cyberware information that could not be trusted to Matrix delivery, but to whom?

Radiant Industries commanded Knight Errant, if the data was being sold back to Radiant Pine then there was no reason to hire the team to steal it from Spring Bloom from a Radiant Industries controlled hospital with Knight Errant guards. Silky Sheets had commented that he had gotten the impression from the Couch Mare Club that they wished Spring Bloom dead, as opposed to acquired. So that theoretically ruled the CMC out. Was there another player Dante hadn't learned about yet? It was vexing, almost as vexing as the unreadable data set Dante had copied. Was it possible that the Emerald and Amethyst might also contain similar strange sets of data? Alas neither the Circlet nor Meridian had a Matrix adapter.

Dante earlier had wished for the chance to probe Spring Bloom's mind but Dante had been preoccupied with commenting on how nice Spring Bloom’s fetlocks were and praising her hindquarters in order to keep the KE guard feeling awkward and thus uncurious while Dante filled chip after chip. Dante had not pressed her luck in her assumed guise as a nurse.

The fact that none among his comrades had commented on how easily the usually gruff Glass Darkly had been able to mimic the flirtatious and very much a mare, Shy Morning, was by far the most miraculous thing that had happened in their last job, well at least next to Gwynn utterly convincing the best friend of the impersonated Gorelda that the slightly off-color of her plumage was down to an unwise switch in feather care products.

A bit of Dante's improvised Nurse's uniform still poked out of her bag, next to a non-descript box delivering yet more nano-paste. Dante had already debated whether it was wise to promote the idea that a nano-paste disguise was capable of such drastic impersonations. There was a distinct risk in pushing that line too far. A moment when someone realized that absent illusion magic there should be no way a thin layer of nano-paste should have been able to make Glass Darkly so radically different as to be mistaken for Shy Morning by the mare's own romantic rival. Dante had to remember that being too perfect was just as much a problem, albeit of a different sort of being imperfect in her impersonations.

A final set of notes waited for a response from the talismonger Overhead Slim. Securing the necessary introductions had been drawn out, mostly as a result of Silky's apathy in setting them up.

Dante was on the verge of needing a day to decompress, but thankfully the latest trideo job 'Thunderpants' was finished shooting, edIT was quiet, the upcoming day promised a chance to get caught up.

In the darkness…a commlink began chiming, the low double chime of Darkly’s account.

Dante snorted and looked, blearily eyed into the darkness.

“Who, when?” She grumbled before bringing up the ID.

“Oh what now?” She had to remind herself to double-check that video was off as she picked up the call.

“Morning, (cough), so, Limelight, what can I do for you, at this hour,” Dante pointedly added the jab at the end after getting the pitch of her voice down to Dante’s baritone.

“Well the previously scheduled Junior Illusionist for the latest installment of Rainbow Force: Call of Duty, has been laid low by his appendix. Speculum decided you could sub in, but if this annoys you, I’m sure I can find a cereal commercial you could work instead.”

Dante's mind immediately raced, was this an indication that Speculum was finally getting tired of lording things over her….maybe or. The ice in Limelight's voice was sharp as ever. The aging mare's tongue was razor-sharp, honed by a brief stint as a minor actress that petered out leaving her an over-glorified, and thus intractably bitter, secretary.

“Who’s Speculum trading favors with on this?”

Dante probed. An artic reply came.

“Need to know basis and you don’t need to know. You'll be on set today and then for days four and five on the production schedule, I’m sending the script and the schedule now. The production meeting is at 8 sharp Mr. Haze. Unless you had your heart set on the cereal commercial, I do hear you enjoy doing Breezy illusions.”

Dante struggled to keep her face neutral, Limelight had an uncanny ability to seemingly hear frowns.

“This will be fine, thank you Limelight.”

The pale yellow mare disconnected without answering. Dante rubbed her eyes and checked the time, if she rushed she could make it.

“Soykaf, suspend schedule, immediate brew. Soykaf, black, double, no, triple strength.”

Dante wobbly got to her hooves, and headed for the shower as soykaf began to percolate.

An hour later

Dante swore at the endless river of tailights in front of her Jackrabbit. Part of her wanted to just crank the sound cancelling up to maximum and take a nap, but it wouldn’t do to stagger in half asleep. The script was surprisingly decent as she read through the opening.

‘Lieutenant Cirrus Steel (Buster Goodmane) concludes a training exercise and heads home, surprising his fiance Cinnamon Swirl (Winning Smile) with flowers.’

A knot formed in Dante's stomach. The last time she had seen Buster he was unconscious on the floor of a seedy strip club tangled up with his favorite exotic dancer, both relieved of what small measure of serenity each possessed.

‘Cirrus Steel is sent with his elite unit on a covert mission deep into the Badlands to bring the notorious Griffon cartel leader El Grande (Sir Guillermo) to justice.’

Dante blinked, Buster he knew, Winning Smile was considered to be an up and coming young actress and the supporting cast was quite solid. Besides Sir Guillermo, he saw other veterans of the Trottingham East End theater scene.

'Senator Mendoza (Beady Eyes) pressures the President (Lady Stern Countenance) to cancel the operation for fear of the fallout. Cirrus Steel closes in on El Grande but at the last minute his team is ambushed by El Grande's Griffin mercenaries. It is revealed that Senator Mendoza has betrayed the operation to El Grande in order to bring down the President with the scandal.’

Dante nodded, it was simple enough. An enjoyable enough popcorn muncher of a film.

'Cirrus Steel, feared dead returns and begins investigating, there are hints that someone is pulling Mendoza’s strings.’

“Oh…?” Dante scrolled through the scenes.

'Cirrus Steel discovers that Mendoza has been magically manipulated by the mysterious Lady Mist, an aloof Alicorn.’

Dante gulped, she had a suspicion where this was going. She scrolled onwards.

'Cirrus Steel is attacked by Cinnamon Swirl at the safe house. He fights her off but can’t bring himself to hurt her. He’s despondent, thinking she’s in on the vast conspiracy he’s uncovering, until he realizes that all the bug spray in the house is missing, and his recent despair is unlike him.’

Dante sighed, she did not need this….another page in the script turned confirmed her fears.

'Cirrus Steel single-handedly infiltrates Lady Mist’s compound, he discovers that she is a Changeling Queen who is arranging political scandals as a means to discredit Equestrian leadership so her alter ego can campaign her way into power. She likewise has kidnapped Cinnamon Swirl because Cirrus Steel is too close to the truth.’

Dante rubbed her muzzle, “you will never be one of them,” she whispered to herself, recalling the words of a Changeling from a millennia ago.

'Cirrus Steel exposes the plot and rescues Cinnamon Swirl. Resisting the Queen’s foul magic, he slays her as her evil plot is brought to ruin by the Equestrian Guards.'

“Well let’s hope the director isn’t a fan of method acting…FML.”

Dante considered the slow grind forward of traffic as well as the time.

“He should be through his first cup of Soykaf…COMMAND, CALL Glitter Glam.”

“Oh, hey Dante, what’s up.”

“Good morning, need a little clarity if you can help. What is Speculum's line with the Rainbow Force production? He's subbing me in rather than an illusionist right out of trade school, so he clearly cares. Granted, the script is decent, though I haven’t heard of the writer or the director. The lead is one of Speculum’s sycophants, but the supporting cast is full of Trottingham theater types.”

“Yeah, I didn’t tell you this capiche? The director Take Two and his favorite writer Sunset Dreams have a pricey Indy film they want to make. Breathing some life back into the Rainbow Force property was the price the Horizon suits set in exchange. Both are working on the project under trade names. Speculum lobbied for his boy to get the lead plus some other stuff, he wants a promotion to the Guild Offices in Hollywood after all a regional position only carries so much weight. Dante, please tell me you’re not thinking about doing anything rash…”

Dante admitted that it was tempting, “No, I wanted to know why Speculum was willing to let me within a mile of the production.”

“Because he’s overstretched the guild resources, farming out talent at cut-rate prices to build up the number of ponies that owe him and now doesn’t have a pony he trusts to do it right left? And because he probably figures that you’ll either grit your teeth or do it for the chance of getting him into a position a thousand miles away, or to slap the job on a resume and go look for work elsewhere.”

“Hmm” Dante pondered, “thank you, Glitter.”

“I’m serious, don’t do anything rash. If this trid flick fails, then Take Two probably doesn’t get his pet project funded. You’ll be blacklisted to the moon.”

“I’m not going to do anything, besides Glitter, I’ve survived worse.”

It was still annoyingly close to time when Dante finally arrived. She barely had time to double-check her leggings and the jacket that mimicked a stallion’s bulk.

“Well, well, well, I see Speculum is in a generous mood. I sure hope you don’t screw this up…”

Dante turned and met the smirking gaze of Buster Goodmane. She said nothing but slowly stopped slouching and a cold look met the grin in return. Buster shrank back half a step and collided with a Production Assistant. Dante seemed to grow equally as tall as Buster and whatever deep subconscious memory haunted the pegasus quickly sapped his confidence. Dante, happy with the minor victory turned and left without uttering a word.

“No, I’m the Senior Illusionist on the shoot, I’ll take Cirrus Steel, and you can do Lady Mist.”

Dante waved a hoof dismissively, she wasn’t going to argue with the brash stallion several years and several lifetimes of experience her junior.

“Fine, whatever.”

“You’re sure you’ll be able to handle this sequence?” The probing question came from a small pale orange mare at the end of the table.

Part of Dante knew the question was valid, she hadn’t worked with Sunset Dreams before, but as Sunset Dreams looked at her from under her slightly ridiculous sun hat and sunglasses a part of Dante was insulted.

'I've killed ponies for money, I’ve fooled Knight Errant, and I’m fooling you right now.' Dante’s thoughts began until she squashed the urge.

“I have no worries, now for Lady Mist, I feel the color tests are a bit…pedestrian. What if we shifted the stock blue green to a more saturated green. Maybe an emerald color that could be a signature theme. Add in some of the same color notes when Senator Mendoza is first introduced, and then when Lady Mist comes in. When ponies think Changelings they think black and green. Audiences love callbacks, especially when the viewer makes the connection just before the reveal.”

Sunset Dreams pondered, “It seems overly blunt and obvious, but I agree. I have to remember the audience this is for… I’ll have a discussion with the director, even beyond the color, Lady Emerald Mist has a certain menace to it.”

A slight smile crossed Dante's face.

“Now besides the color choices, did you have any thoughts on the final showdown sequence? The studio was quite emphatic about the ending, having Queen Emerald Mist crushed under her own statue was requested by the Studio PR head.”

Dante's face fell.

“I think it’s a bit much, I think it cheapens your villain and hero to have him so coldly kill his opponent. An arrest would fit better.”

The 'senior' illusionist laughed, “as if there should be a trial? Who would grant a Changeling rights? The audience buys tickets to see the Big Bad go down. Changelings are about the only thing you can outright kill and not have to deal with someone getting offended. Why waste that? I say blow her up, then crush her. The gorier the better, they’re not ponies, treating the overgrown bugs otherwise is just silly. Or are you one of those 'changelings are just misunderstood' adherents?”

Dante gritted her teeth, but forced herself to keep her face neutral.

“I think it detracts from the overall heroic theme and goes to a darker place than is warranted but if I’m in the minority here then so be it.”

A low murmur went around the table as the rest took non-committal positions. Dante consoled herself that at least she would get a small modicum of justice in the form of Emerald Mist who gradually morphed with Dante’s input over the days’ worth of production meetings into a fair approximation of an Emerald Queen.

“So, with us primarily doing the close ins and the Canterlot scenes for the next three days it looks like we won’t need you on set until we shoot the Badlands sequences four days from now and then moving onto the final battle, though of course, the senior Illusionist could become ill,” the production assistant dithered over her notes, expecting Dante to argue that he should be present if only to collect per diem pay.

Dante nodded her understanding and said little else to the assistant's surprise. Other thoughts occupied her mind, and she was beyond needing petty cash, the bloodied swathe she had carved through the rougher areas of Seattle had seen to that.

--

Dante shut the door to her car and laid back, it was her, or rather Dante's face she wore but rarely had it felt so alien as now. A flick started the car, a list of common destinations scrolled past, reflected in her eyes, amethyst color slowly began to creep in from the edges of her irises until she blinked and made up her mind.

“Pacific Promenade Park,” Dante dryly noted, there were uncomfortable memories waiting at home. Better to ponder elsewhere.

Thoughts came and went unnoticed as the crownless Queen made her way to the Oceanside Park. Few disturbed her, cold as it was. Ships plied back and forth across the silver waters of the Sound and the wind came swirling, cold and uncaring.

What was she going to do? Hide forever? She might deal with Speculum or he might get promoted and called to a more prestigious post. It didn’t change the leaden truth that worried Dante.

“You’ll never be one of them.” The dying insult of an ancient Changeling stung. Almost as much as the biting breeze…. But less than the memory of looking around the table searching for any hint that one of the ponies present was willing to consider a Changeling as anything other than as a bug monster to be crushed and finding only apathy.

The wind carried fragments of words as Dante trudged along, a part of her objected to the mare sized hoof prints she was obviously leaving in the thin snow which didn't match the guise she wore. The other part was weary.

“…and lo did the ponies turn their flanks on the Princesses who had long protected them. In their ignorance they believed themselves Masters of all they surveyed. We have forgotten!”

A street preacher who reminded Dante of Split Klaw looked out with bloodshot eyes over a small group of ponies most in rougher dress, the edge of lunacy wavered in his voice, a tattered coat fluttered in the breeze. A crude sign drawn on cardboard vaguely depicted the cutie marks of the Alicorn Princesses.

The Royalist preacher continued, “Forgotten that all the nubits in the Apple Family vault cannot buy wisdom! Forgotten that all the technology invented by Radiant Pine cannot peer into a pony's soul! Forgotten that dangers still exist, long forgotten! We cast out our benefactors at our peril, beware for the rot that besets us needs the magic of our ancestors. Friendship must return! Or we are all doomed!”

A single mare clapped her hooves, a few mumbled incoherently.

“I don’t know preacher,” a brash young stallion answered from the far side of the plaza, his gray coat mostly covered in the coat of a Radiant Industries Cadet, his lightning blue mane cropped close in a military style. “I haven’t seen much that a Radiant Industries made laser rifle can’t kill. We don’t have a nigh useless Royal Guard that only knows how to look good on parade as our defense any more. Hokey religions are no match for a disciplined squad of Equestria's elite who actually know how to fight.”

The stallion’s filly friend leaned up against him and fluttered her eyes, soaking up the attention. Dante's frown grew taught. Likely another mare raised from foal hood on the tales of the glories of Radiant Industries.

“Fool!” the preacher cried, “The enemies that beset, that walk amongst us, that wear the smiles of friends will not so kindly line up openly in front of your guns!”

“We’ve crushed them before,” the stallion postured, “we’ll beat them again. We live in a world of bio-scanners, wards, and drone eyes that never sleep. It’s not so easy, and should it be needed we have entire research divisions ready to invent whatever we lack. Let them come, let them try to hide. They’ll be found out, and I and my comrades will be ready to greet them.”

Dante had shrunk back a touch as the Preacher looked over the crowd. But the look was not for her. The speeches had not been for her. She hurried away chased by the scene and the truth, spoken as it was to impress a mare, ringing in her ears. It was a matter of time.

Dante pulled up a Radiant Industries brochure from the matrix as her car inched through evening traffic. She flipped through the R&D section and frowned. Radiant Pines Industries secrets would not be shown here but there was an inescapable trend.

“Given enough time a thousand diamond dogs pounding on a thousand keypads will randomly write 'Hamlet.’”

Dante sighed as the quote died in her throat, Radiant Pine was not that random by far. It had to be assumed that at some point he would recreate the Changeling detection spell, assuming he hadn’t already. This could not be a permanent solution, at some point something would disturb the delicate equilibrium.

…

“Hello, darkness my old friend.”

Dante mumbled to herself as she passed through the door to her place. The rituals of cleansing we’re performed before she moved to stand before the mirror and brushed aside the floofy mane to reveal the inflamed dome that dominated her forehead. A decision waited.

“I’ve come to talk to you again.”

Dante sat down to her ritual circle and began to seek the Metaplanes.

--

Beyond the boundaries of reality, Dante passed through what felt like an endless tunnel, in the shadows always just out of eyesight things moved, merging into deeper shadows. She suspected that they warned of the path she had trod to reach this place, a last flickering cry from the reality she had abandoned as little more than pantomime.

A shadow rose before her.

“She has come again, why should we grant this one passage again?”

“Because I play your game so well. The defeated fall, and I grow stronger, on their ashes I build my dream. I live, I breathe, I feed, I burn, and I lie to find a way to break the cycle. I will go onwards because behind me lies only stagnation and the death that will inevitably come should I fall into that trap. I will not surrender and so I will gain passage….it is only a matter of when.”

The shadow melted away and Dante walked forward into emptiness. Stopping as she felt countless witnesses she addressed the gathered denizens of that claustrophobic enormity that lurked just out of perception.

“I come to know the beginning and the ending. What came before, comes again, a great cycle of destiny that carries all in its passing.”

She produced the six as she knew them, the two she held, the three she did not, and the one trapped in limbo.

“I would have a new beginning, the champions of the ponies proved stronger the last time the cycle turned. Yet they have squandered the gift. Radiant Pine and others would call upon the gifts of a past age to secure a victory in the current age that has not been earned by those of the present. I ask the assembled watchers for the knowledge of where the knowledge to harness the power of these artifacts, these blessings of the ancients, lies. Beyond Radiant Pine’s capacity to hoard such a gift.

“That is not ours to give, seek it thyself.”

The spirits intoned, leaving Dante unnerved.

“I…”

Dante paused, a momentary fear threatening to overcome her…

“I would also have an ending, the ending of the Amethyst Hive when the cycle turned before.”

Dante’s perception swam as the floor seemed to fall away under her. She blinked, walls seemed to resolve from the haze, dark, smooth…organic.

“A hive...,” Dante swallowed.

A rumbling shudder passed through the space and bits of the ceiling fell raining on the benches filled with bits of arcana, scrolls, books, and a small crib. And then another rumble, and another.

A group of changelings burst through the doors led by a Queen in battered armor, her dark carapace scuffed, but regal. Her mane shifting between blue and amethyst, singed in a half dozen places.”

“Queen Alecto!” A soldier chittered, “We cannot hold the northern tunnel for much longer, the ponies have brought up one of those big rainbow guns.”

“Pull the soldiers back beyond the deadfall trap on the switchback and fight a delaying action, I would say set an ambush but I doubt it would do any good, we don’t have the numbers after our earlier pyrrhic victory. Curse these ponies and their blasted power armor and rainbow guns. The power of a mage combined with the durability of a paladin, and the best the other Queens could come up with to combat them was turning their troops into suicide bombs.

We cannot hold off an indefinite siege, we will attempt to break out through the Southwestern escape tunnel. The Great Hive willing the ponies will be moving in slowly, we bloodied them a little during the battle, they’ll be cautious. If they don’t know about the tunnel then there’s a chance. There’s nothing left for us here in Equestria, the ponies know how to detect us, our advantages are gone, our initiative squandered in Chitina’s petty acts of destruction. It will be no easy thing to reach the Badlands, but it is our only hope. Does everyone understand the plan?”

The Queen handed out maps and instructions to several soldier drones larger than the others. Dismissing them in turn. In the distant the rumbles continued alongside the occasionally angry buzz or the sound of something breaking as it fell to the floor. Soon there was only one squad left. Eight changelings out of a hive of likely dozens or hundreds.

“Forgive my delay, there is another task to which I must charge you with,” the Queen frowned before handing out prepared bags of supplies, the largest to the apparent Captain. “I must help with the breakout attempt, the Hive will not succeed without my magic, but I cannot allow us to end should we fail.”

Dante shuddered as Alecto moved to the crib, she knew what was coming, but to see it…

“You will take Princess Tisiphone and use the Royal Passage as I and the rest of the Hive attempt to break out through the Southern tunnels. Should fortune favor us we will see each other again at the rendezvous. If not, then it will be upon you and my daughter to continue the Hive and avenge what has come to pass here today.”

The Queen took a bundle from the crib, and Dante could see her earlier incarnation. Squirming looking up into the bright amethyst eyes of her mother.

“You must succeed, you must live, the memories of what we are must survive through you should fate be unkind. We will strong again one day, stronger than this. You must find a future for the Hive.”

It was unclear whether Alecto was talking to the changelings or to Tisiphone. Queen Alecto leaned down and kissed the infant changeling queen before gently nicking the squirming Princess with a fang. The bundle grew still and the Princess slept. The Queen secured the bundle tightly and moved to hand it to the Caretaker drone in the front row.

“She is one of the few memories of my consort that remain, she has his colors, take good care of her.”

The Queen spoke in low tones to the Caretaker before turning to the Captain. She pulled another small pouch from beneath her armor and handed it to the Captain.

“Should all else fail,” the Queen gave the Captain a knowing look, “You know what to do…Just as we discussed.”

“At your command my Queen,” the Captain drone buzzed.

Alecto held up a chitinous hoof and touched the bundle.

“Goodbye my daughter, I know you will survive and thrive whatever comes this day. Through all of it remember what happened, remember the mistakes, and I know that one day you lead this Hive to the greatness it deserves.”

Queen Alecto turned and needed a moment to steel herself, before finally creating a spell with a hoof…a secret panel at the back of the room slid open.

“Go,” she commanded to the party.

“My Queen, it is not too late, come with us,” one changeling implored.

“A Queen does not abandon her Hive, it is why she exists…your brethren need my help. I cannot flee. Go.”

One by one, they moved to the small opening and with a flash of amethyst magic took the forms of ponies. The Guard Captain and the Caretaker were replaced with the ponies Dante knew as her ancestral many times Great Grandfather and Grandmother. This was where the journey she had seen before had begun.

“Now let us show these ponies that arcaneo-tech weaponry is not the sole arbiter of victory,” Queen Alecto’s eyes blazed amethyst and she passed through the doors of her personal quarters out into the hive proper.

Dante felt her awareness shift. She was in the schoolhouse…

This again….

“Monster!!!!” the school foals began to shriek. The door to flee was open…

“MONSTER!!!!”

“Yes…,” Dante chuckled and then began to laugh..., “HA, Hah, Haha, Yes. Yes, I suppose to you I am.”

The assembled ponies moved back in fright as the bump on Dante’s head began to yield. No elegant spiraling horn like she had once expected. Instead a lightning bolt zig zag, twisted yet beautiful in its own way with bands of aquamarine. A few beads of ichor ran down her face, others matted the front of her mane. She spread her glittering wings and her amethyst eyes flared in time with the magic that arced in a corona from her horn.

“I prefer the term Changeling, and you in my view…..are food.”

A flash of Amethyst illuminated the school windows…a moment later heavy booted security ponies burst through the door and found a room full of ponies drained of color, insensate save for the trembling.

“What the Tartarus happened here?”

“Uh where’s Ten?”

“I thought he was right behind you?”

Mist slowly filled in, removing the edges from objects.

A security pony suddenly disappeared. Another moved over and found his fellow, but as soon as he did the security pony clocked him over the head and in a flash of amethyst fire was revealed as a changeling. Over and over…

“What the Tartarus is going on…”

Queen Tisiphone emerged from the mist and looked over the Security Captain who quickly raised his weapon.

“Get down on the ground, you are under arrest under the authority of Knight Errant!!”

“Am I now?” Tisiphone smirked, “I think you would do well to surrender.”

“Yeah, you and what army, Monster!,” The Captain quipped.

The mists cleared to reveal dozens of snarling changelings…

“Oh, Sweet Celestia…,”

Bursts of weapons fire intermixed with bolts of amethyst magic.

“FALL BACK,” the ponies screamed and fought their way into the maze.

Invisible assailants chased and picked them off one by one. Eventually only two made it to the central area.

“I think we’re safe here,” the pony scanned the entrance with his weapon.

The pony behind him shifted in a blaze of amethyst fire revealing Tisiphone who promptly bit the pony from behind.

“I’ve always been safe here,” she chuckled and kicked the pony’s gun away, “after all the paths always lead back here. It’s where I live.”

The vines surrounding the central statue fell away and a flower bloomed to reveal not Dante but instead a Changeling Queen in all her terrible glory.

“I think it really captures my good side.”

“This won’t end here, we’ll destroy you, the same way we’ve destroyed every other Queen.” the pony struggled to talk through the paralyzing poison.

“Of course it doesn’t end here, this is only the beginning, so much to do. Speculum, a base for the Hive, the power cores and in the end, I will make certain that all you ponies pay what you did to my mother, my Hive, and me.

“You’re just a Tartarus damned bug pony.”

“My name is Tisiphone…Queen Tisiphone, and I’ll make sure no pony forgets it by the time I’m done.”

With a flash, she began to feed, though her perception shifted back to the emptiness of the metaplanes…She listened and her ears twitched.

Holding up a hoof, the shadows shifted, the shapes behind the shadows, and the mists were dark, smooth…organic. The Hive. Tisiphone collected herself and paused for a moment before stepping forward to stand tall before the great chamber.

“I call you restless spirits of the Amethyst Hive. Queen Alecto, my mother, is dead. Slain by the ponies. I call you now to the old allegiance. Harken unto me, and wake!”

Tisiphone stamped her hoof, and a wave of power radiated out into the hive like a ripple.

One by one, pairs of amethyst eyes began to appear in the shadows. One, two, five, ten, twenty, a hundred, thousands of hungry eyes watched from the darkness.

“I am the heart of the Amethyst Hive, and after an age in hiding, all but forgotten, the time has come. Be ready for soon I will call you. The Amethyst Hive returns, and we shall live, we will feed, we will burn away their rot, we will lie, and in doing so, shatter the cycle of fate that the ponies expect to turn ever in their favor.”

A moment of silence was broken as slowly a chorus of buzzing and chitters began to fill the space. It rose until it would seem to shatter her, and then Tisiphone's awareness was thrown back to reality.

It was jarring and as she staggered to her hooves she looked out and saw that the night had passed. The sun was beginning to rise behind the volcano. She looked out at it…

“Fitting….”

She walked to the mirror and resurrected the old AR question from the display memory…

“Who is Tisiphone?”

She smiled a fanged smile, and added a note.

“I AM TISIPHONE, LONG LIVE THE QUEEN.”

--

Later.

Tisphone watched as yet another stuntman threw himself off a railing onto a fall mat. She was wearing Dante’s face, the stuntman was wearing one of her illusions. She was at least happy that she had been able to discard the majority of her bindings, and leggings. She was in control now. Her form was whatever she wished it to be, though her changes were annoyingly slow. Practice and more magical power was clearly needed. She was Dante as he had been before he had started changing.

Glitter Glam had commented that he was glad to see Dante getting over whatever sickness had plagued him. Silver Stream too had benefitted, though it had required a low force spell to finally satisfy her.

The shoots were going well, Tisiphone’s mind was elsewhere though. She had made inquiries and some cash had opened up a door to the Link Man, a dealer in secrets and lies. A few new IDs were on order, including one for a rather fetching white and blonde mare. Dandelion Blossom was shortly going to be very interested in Speculum. Tisiphone owed that bastard far too much grief to allow him to walk away, and now she could do so from under his very muzzle.

She moved to the next prepared scene. The stand-in actress nodded and Dante set the illusion. Lady Emerald Mist emerged to challenge Lt. Cirrus Steel. Buster was relishing his turn as the nouveau action star.

“Don’t you realize, I’ve already won,” Lady Emerald Mist moved forward, eyes blazing green from within dark chitin, menace all but dripping from her fangs.

“You’ll never win, not while there are ponies who know the truth…”

Tisiphone watched on with a slight modicum of boredom. The final fight in her eyes was silly, the Queen wasn’t scripted to use any magic that attacked the hero where he would have been weak, were this real.

As proscribed, Lt. Cirrrus Steel won, yet in doing so, Buster slightly missed his blocking, and as a result the stunt mare wearing Emerald Mist, slightly missed the fall mat.

She was professional enough to wait for the ‘CUT’ before she let out a shriek of pain and rolled over clutching her ankle.

“Oh that’s not good,” Sunset Dreams quipped.

Tisiphone scowled, this was going to cause a delay, which meant a delay in her working to ruin Speculum.

“Do we have another stunt pony?” The Director checked with Production.

“Not right now,” a stallion shrugged.

“I’ll do it, I took a course back in film school,” Tisiphone piped up.

All the assorted ponies looked at her, then to the Director.

“Time is nu-bits,” a production assistant griffin chirped.

“Okay, worst comes to worst, we can dub the lines and edit the footage, there’s only the statue scene to shoot for Emerald Mist regardless.”

Tisiphone played her part, three different takes she played Emerald Mist getting crushed by her own megalomaniac statue. Into her role, Tisiphone wondered if it was wise to put so much of herself, but increasingly she became caught up in it.

After three takes the Director was happy, they were ahead of schedule. Tisiphone signaled.

“Do you mind if we do it one more time, I want, I want to try a slightly different take.”

“Oh so you’re an actor eh tech mage,” Buster chided.

“Your face is going to be on a million trideo posters in a month, don’t you have better things to do with your time planning that, than caring about me getting a minor acting credit?”

“Speculum ain’t going to be happy.”

“I’m saving the production a half-day of reshoots, I expect him to be thrilled.”

“Whatever…”

Again they played through the part…again Tisiphone allowed herself to be thrown, for the statue to come down…at least in illusory form.

“So it ends, all your lies undone by your own vanity,” Cirrus Steel, “Thus always to Tyrants.”

Instead of gurgling and pawing ineffectually, Tisiphone this time spat up an impressive glob of illusory ichor.

“You think you’ve won,” she rasped, putting a year's worth of frustration and anger into the biting tone.

“I am the swarm, this defeat is only delay, no matter how mangled and broken I am, the Guard shall be shattered, Canterlot shall burn. On Equestria…I shall have my vengeance.”

Lady Emerald Mist coughed up more blood and cast a spell. An arcing orb of green energy cracked from under the statue… and an eerie emerald mist filled the stage.

Cinnamon Swirl picked up the improv as she ran up to Lt. Cirrus Steel.

“Is she gone, you wounded her so badly.”

Tisiphone held her breath…and was rewarded. Whether Buster suddenly saw the option for a sequel and the payday that might come with it, or if he actually decided to play along and be nice she couldn’t have said.

“She’s gone for now maybe, we won’t see her anytime soon, whether in spirit or in the flesh, but whatever guise she comes in, I’ll be ready and I’ll ruin her plans every time until the day comes when she’s gone for good because I can be sure of one thing, that there will always be brave ponies to defend Equestria.”

The director rubbed his chin with his hoof. Sunset Dreams’ face made it clear how she was not relishing the prospect of a sequel, though the Horizon production rep was clearly contemplating the opposite concept.

As for Tisiphone she moved backstage and watched the proceedings with a faint smile, “the wheel turns and turns again…we shall see.”

Author's Note

Game Notes: The team is hired to recover a data set from a courier pony, Spring Blossom. Spring Blossom had been hit by a car, and was comatose within a Radiant Industries affiliated hospital under armed guard.

An elaborate ruse was setup, where Glass Darkly (PC) impersonated a nurse, Shy Morning. Silky Sheets (PC) impersonated a Doctor, and Gwynn (PC) impersonated a systems tech for the hospital. Working in tandem, the three gained access to Spring Blossom under the guise of providing routine medical care as hospital staff. Glass Darkly was able to successfully download and erase the original data set from Spring Blossom's cyberware.

After checking the data while waiting for an opening to leave. Glass Darkly noticed that there were a number of references which suggested that the data set had been taken from a Core. Glass Darkly then copied the data set without alerting anyone else that he had done so.