Shortly after the events of 'A Runner Family Reunion

Rice Paddy sighed morosely as she found another bullet hole. That made 129. There was only the faintest smell of heavy industrial solvents left in the damaged condo, a small blessing. The summer breeze filtering in through the broken windows had taken care of the rest of it. Ghostly spots in the carpet betrayed points of interest where libations of bleach had been poured out to the gods of secrecy. She was no neophyte, but this wreckage was so far beyond her usual need to recreate the aftermath of a hastily cleaned party.

“(Stupid, stupid, stupid),” the repeated mantra came in Vietneighmese.

Her gut had warned her, it had, and she hadn’t listened. A few scraps of Augmented Reality crime tape still fluttered from the railings. Only the sound of approaching hooves made her look to see who now had come to gawk.

A severe-looking earth pony looked out from under the remarkably bland gray brim of his wide Fedora and cleared his throat.

“This is private property,” Paddy dryly noted.

“I'm here on business,” came the gruff reply.

“I already answered all the Knight questions and if you Horizon flunkie, then you go bother Knight Errant, find Rising Mist, and have her explain why someone want her dead.”

The Earth Pony withdrew a small object and softly chuckled.

“Rising Mist doesn’t exist, she ends in a morass of conflicting databases. The same holds true for her friends. Whoever put together their identities knows their craft but that is neither here nor there. My name is Ness, Special Investigator Untouchable Ness. I read the reports, but rookies these days, collecting data without hitting on the truth.

I have two questions for you, important ones. They won’t take long.”

The pony opened the small object to reveal a full badge. There was an AR ID tag, there always was, but there was not the usual simple Knight's head logo and laminate photo. A gold emblem with Crystal accents sparkled in the afternoon sunlight along with a neatly pressed special service ribbon.

“You an important pony for them to send after a drug dealing mare,” Paddy noted with a bit more reverence.

“Let’s keep it to just the facts Ma’am. You mentioned in the report that 'Mist' gave you a bad vibe. Tell me please, given your experiences, why you felt that way?”

“She uh,” Mist looked at the spot where the floor was charred from a small, drone sized fire, “she felt dangerous, like some ponies you see come from old country, you can tell when a pony has met death, see it in their eyes. She had look in her eyes, look like Death was old friend. Except she not like farmer fleeing fields. She had different look. Look like tiger, hungry.”

“Like a predator?” Ness interjected.

Paddy stopped and nodded. Ness took down a note on an old fashioned notepad he pulled from his trench coat.

“You…very old fashioned,” Paddy Questioned.

“So I am, though I can claim that my case notes have never been hacked, now I want you to think back. Mist's friends, did they act like her equals, or was her status higher?”

Paddy thought to the few times she had seen the tenants together.

“They deferred to her.”

“Oh,” Ness raised an eyebrow, “and was this because they feared her?”

Paddy stood silent for a moment.

“They didn’t fear her, more like they respected her.”

“Thank you, that was all I needed.”

“Who do you really work for? You don’t act like a Knight.”

“A higher class of criminal requires a higher class of detective. Good Day.”

Later, Elsewhere

The door chime rang, hoof steps clacked on the chipped tile.

“I’m here for shipment AX-938, my trailer wasn’t on the dock, what’s going on you two-bit wankers?”

A scruffy rigger scratched at the data jack at the back of his half-shaved head and tried to pull the wrinkles from his brown shirt. An AR timer flashed red.

A happy looking mare turned towards him, she smiled, the hologram flickering showed the drone underneath.

“I'm sorry shipment AX-938 is not available, the status has been closed on that order. Was there another order I can help you with?”

“Listen you useless machine, I have a special order from Pentacle Distribution to fill and you’re costing me time whish is nu-bits, where is it? A trailer full of magical supplies doesn’t just get up and walk off!”

“ERROR, Query shipment AX-938, status: Closed. Delivered 07:33 Today.”

“Frag me, what’s going on!?”

A Diamond Dog with graying hair, a shirt with faint sweat stains, and a simple black tie pushed through the doorway into the reception office, half a cup of soykaf still steaming in his #1 Dad paw print mug.

“What’s the problem?”

The growl came, the rigger glared back, unshaken.

“You tell me Gramps, your bot thinks we already picked up special order AX-938.”

The diamond dog scratched his head.

“But you did. I mean, not you but, we had a valid pick up this morning, another Rigger, Crumpled Box.”

The Diamond Dog browsed a listing of security footage. An AR holo loaded, showing a rigger very similar to the current confused one backing up to a trailer. The SIN and corporate-issued commlink ID was an exact match as was the hoofprint and retina scan.

“Dispatch, this is Irregular Freight, Crumpled Box, took my assigned shipment. What the drek is going on?... Hey, what’s so funny….No I haven’t heard drek…How?... But… Okay, let me get this straight. Crumpled Box is in the company detox cell, he was brought in naked and high as a kite? No, I don’t know what the drek the Strawberry Weasel refers too! So who the drek took the shipment?!”

The large Diamond Dog slurped his soykaf, the security rituals had been met, and this wasn’t his problem.

Elsewhere

“Amethyst!”

“What? I can’t hear you,” the mare on the Silver Screen Dreams operations committee looked at the stallion who was attempting to shout over the din of a jackhammer and excavator. She gave up and pulled him into a side room.

“IS ALL THIS REALLY NECESSARY?!”

Amethyst Shadow blinked and rubbed an ear at the inordinately loud question. Still, the sound of construction echoed from the hall.

“As I recall,” Amethyst noted with annoyance, “I heard you were one of the most vocal when the auto-set broke down last year, what with all manual hoof work. Of course, you were still advocating for the auto set module for the Saddle Arabian Nights series, and to add in a Turkish style section to the spa. All these things need space, machinery to run them, and more capacity for staff and supplies. So Maltese Falcon, which is it? You can’t have it both ways.”

“I wasn’t expecting you to start work on practically an entirely new sub-basement. Nor for you to furlough half the staff while this is going on.”

“Half the staff were asking about some summer vacay while it’s still warm. The main heating plant for the spa had ten years’ worth of non-critical deferred maintenance items built up. A bit of a slowdown was an inevitability at some point. Why not take the opportunity while we’re working on the heating plant to lay down the foundation for a great new run of business. In this case quite literally.”

“It still feels like the work ponies are digging a hole to China. How many loads of rock have they carted off?”

“Why Falcon, I had no idea you were a trained Geologist or Civil Engineer. Prithee do grant your wisdom to the trained professionals we've hired. I’m sure they’ll appreciate you telling them how to do their jobs.”

“You know what I meant!”

“What exactly? What alternate future are you advocating for? Other than being intentionally neurotic and actively obstructive?”

Falcon glared. There was a knock on the door. A yellow mare stuck her head through the crack in the door.

“Miss Shadow, there’s a call for you.”

“I'll return it in a bit Mellow.”

“Umm, it’s one of the special contractors.”

Amethyst turned, surprised, “I told them I was busy today.”

“Doesn’t seem to have stopped them.”

“Arghhh, Fine, Falcon we can resolve this later, but I’d wager it will all be done before we reach an understanding, rendering this all pointless.”

Amethyst Shadow turned and followed Mellow out the door. A moment later and they were in the service elevator. Amethyst punched a sequence into the modest number of buttons. The elevator descended, past the basement and new sub-basement then stopped.

“Make sure Falcon gets reassigned to the new 'Senior Performer' dressing room as soon as it’s finished. The accommodations should get him to shut up. My gut feeling is that he’s being nosey more out of the fact he feels like he should have been on the committee than anything else.”

A slight chime was the only indicator that the security scan was complete. A panel slid out of the way, to reveal a small unlabeled opening. Amethyst stuck a hoof through and felt the tingle of the unseen box with the detector ward. Her MK 2 version of the slug in a box was far more refined. Only one who was dual-natured with a Changeling aura would permit passage, aside from dismantling the shaft. Assuming the interloper wasn’t out cold from the hidden pneumatic needles with venom. The elevator shuddered and dropped further. Finally five stories past the new sub-basement it came to halt.

“Won’t keeping a selection of ponies on complicate things?”

“Yes, but so would getting rid of all of them all at once. They’ll also be useful for events. Far easier to send a Pony to a PR gig in Bellevue, let the high-end security wards and spells waste their time scanning an actual Pony.”

They stepped out into the roughhewn unloading room. On the other side, changelings in hard hats were loading crates with burned off tracking tags onto the cargo rails. Facet was holding a spirited conversation, pacing back and forth in a Carousel Boutique knock-off business suit.

“I don’t care whose fault it is?! We ordered a truck full of magical supplies. Number of trucks that have been delivered….zero. I'm not paying for goods that were never received.”

Amethyst raised an eyebrow in question. Facet smiled without breaking her complaint and gave an 'I got this' gesture. She did step out of the way as a large crate marked 'Pentacle Magical Goods Co.’ was carried past on the cargo rail.

“No, I don’t want a replacement shipment. Do you expect me to put on ANOTHER Summer Camp with vocational training for disadvantaged Griffin youth? There are limits to the tax write-off for stuff like that! Do you expect me to store it, absorbing the expense, because your security measures failed?

Yes I think a courtesy credit is the least you could do…After all the disadvantaged Griffin Youth who lost the opportunity to explore careers in enchanting are the real victims here…”

Amethyst followed Mellow down the hewn path dodging the odd construction worker, spa attendant, and changelings.

They passed the triple reverse double back ramp that Digs had argued endlessly for. Amethyst noted the mounting foundations for various machine guns, and concealed firing positions littering the walls. Funds were not infinite, even with free labor. In time though. Down past a final blind turn under a collapsible ceiling and a drawbridge spanned a sizable trench. A few workers were working on the machinery that would move the reinforced vault door that was slowly taking shape off to the side.

“It’s very impressive,” Mellow sighed, looking at the meter thick door within its scaffolding.

Amethyst took in the sight.

“It will buy minutes, maybe an hour, no fortress we build will withstand Radiant Pine if he sets the full force of his legions to besiege us,” Amethyst sighed, then smiled reassuringly, “but it may mean that should events come to pass that everyone can evacuate, without needing a rear guard to buy time.”

Mellow nodded.

A caretaker ran up and handed a commlink to Amethyst.

“Thank you, Moth-to-Flame.”

Amethyst reviewed the message log.

“Oh come on you two…I know you want to make good with A Stallion but you knew I couldn’t do anything today….,” she started mouthing the messages in sequence, “There’s a job. We’re going to ambush them, come and help….Screw it we can’t wait….Okay running them over in the truck didn’t work…” the link pinged, “…oh damn Split Klaw gonna die!”

“Really, I take one run off!” Amethyst summoned a Changeling Combat spirit, the armored Soldier materializing in front of her.

“You called?”

“I command this service, aid the one known to me as Split Klaw and the one known to me as Gwynn against all foes, you are to present yourself as a Buddhist Citipati spirit.”

“It shall be done….”

The spirit twisted and morphed to the form of a blazing skeleton, before fading out, using the metaplanes for its journey. It wouldn’t do to have strange spirits leaving a spa at all hours after all.

Amethyst went to send a message about the help to arrive shortly but another came in interruption via the Hive mind.

“My Queen, Falcon is trying to convince Local Production to back him in demanding that we make the full renovation contracts available. The microphones outside set four are picking them up.

Amethyst's eyes flashed with annoyance. She handed Darkly’s commlink back to Flame and began retracing her steps. She couldn’t allow the seeds of a revolt to flourish, not now.

“Some ponies need to learn their place,” she grumbled, forgetting her intent to notify her fellows. It was okay, Split Klaw would be fine. He always was.

Later

“What do mean it’s MY fault I didn’t tell you that I could summon spirits?! I'm sorry Split Klaw, there were…complications….You’re being very unfair here.”

The slender Caretaker Changeling in the white labcoat in the corner rolled her eyes as Tisiphone wrapped up the call in Glass Darkly’s voice. With a motion she was done the Queen turned to the resident occupant of this corner of the Hive space where a few cots and assorted medical supplies had been arranged into a crude approximation of an infirmary.

“Your mental strength to not lose your mind from frequent exposure to the silliness of ponies is admirable my Queen.”

Tisiphone gave the Changeling a look.

“I have little use for flattery, Gray Anatomist, how’s is Flitter’s replacement leg coming?”

“Adapting the stolen hardware has proven difficult, as it is designed for equine biology, not our own. Still my latest attempt is progressing nicely, though it will be quite some time before we can do much more than clone lost parts. On the flip side the fact we are all technically sister clones does simplify things.”

Tisiphone gave another look. Then handed over an x-ray that Gwynn had provided.

“Your opinion, how long for this pony to make a recovery?”

“You mean he still lives?! My Queen, what a specimen…for him to absorb such abuse and walk away! You should consider spawning some…larvae…with…”

The doctor trailed off…then meekly added in response to the look she was getting…

“I’m getting banished aren’t I…”

“You wish I was going to be that merciful…,” Tisiphone’s laden threat came in reply.

Later

“By this Oath are we so sworn, in service to the Queen, and Service to the Hive...”

Tisiphone looked over the five Nymph caste minions that sat at the circular table. Her seat was raised, higher, but it was an affectation she appreciated. These were her lieutenants, they had tasted her dream as part of the forging of their bond. The sisterhood of the Amethyst Shadow Society.

“Now, to order,” She began solemnly, “I trust that each has read the copy of the invitation to the other hives I penned. I would have your honest thoughts.”

Creeping Bloom pulled the map on the table closer to her…and spoke.

“I do not doubt that the two Scouts hoof picked by Flitterwing the Bold will make it to the Chicago environs, but I fear my Queen that the long time between has…done something…to us. I am in agreement with Shifting Facet and Intaglio. I fear they will see us as aberrant. Even if not, cooperation is not…not in our blood. Sending away two of our best on a long mission may be an indulgent use of time.”

Tisiphone rose from her chair, and moved to the wall. She reached out and touched it. After a moment she turned back and regarded the five Nymphs.

“I do not need to repeat the history. I fear you are right, but the attempt must be made, we must not fall back into the old ways. If they will not listen, then so be it, but I will not have it said that I did not try. One way or another we will break the cycle. Still we must focus on the fate that we ourselves make, do your best to push the completion of the temple site to completion. The history scrolls of the Yak Khan need to be eminently believable. A nexus of events approaches, let it not be said we were not ready.”

Murmurs of assent echoed in the council room.

August WK 1

The alarm rang. The Queen slapped the alarm clock, only a few of her white hairs were still faintly visible in Glass Darkly’s gray, she had started shifting last night. She debated taking another five minutes but soon a knock at the door ended that line of thought.

“Mornin!” Frizzle was paler than before, but the look of exultant joy on the Caretaker’s face as she wheeled in a cart with a bounty of food was infectious.

“Frizzle,” Tisiphone groaned grinning, “you know I can’t eat all this…they’ll have to roll me to the tournament.

“Oh I know…but I started thinking…gotta make the Queen’s favorite for the big day…but then I thought…NO she needs fuel for the long day that meant lots of oats, but then I started thinking no, it’s a martial arts tournament, Queenie needs PROTEIN!...SoImadeallthree.”

Frizzle rubbed a leg over another, then remembered something.

“OH AND THERES FRESH SQUEEZED SERENITY-ADE. Just harvested last night from the spa.”

“Oh Frizzle…thank you...let Prima know we’re still on for the smuggling transfer to get me out of the spa.”

“Will do boss.”

Tisiphone dug into breakfast, it was a martial arts tournament, easy peasy serenity-ade squeezy. How bad could it be?”

Later

“Oh that is it, I LOVE IT! HOLD THAT POSE! SUCH POWER!”

Glass Darkly as a Marketing Executive laid it on Master Dash thick, but even he doubted that the thick-headed pony was capable of noticing. Any last shreds of self-control were lost as the lummox made eyebrow pops at Vixie who was doing remarkably well in her role of wearing a ‘traditional’ skimpy saddle whose designer might have looked at actual buffalo regalia once or twice in the creation process.

“NOW, we just need to get a shot of you knocking back a bottle. I want your face to show me how much the proprietary mix of all-natural herbs is infusing you with UNSTOPPABLE POWER!”

“Excuse me,” Master Dash’s manager scowled, “what’s in this stuff exactly?”

“Are you asking me to reveal the secrets of a generations-old recipe curated by a clan of Buffalo shaman, given down hoof to hoof?”

“It’s apple-flavored vitamin water isn’t it?”

“I am greatly upset by your insinuation, now for your payment…”

“Hey, how about I get your number baby?” Master Dash looked lewdly at Vixie as Glass Darkly wrapped up the photo shoot with the stadium in the background. It was done…the Marketing Executive reviewed the publicity shots that would never be used. A different poison, but still the fateful sip had been offered and taken. His part was done. Strawberry Hooves and Split Klaw would be done soon. Glass Darkly looked up at the towering hotel across the complex and frowned as a slight flash occupied one of the upper floor suites.

A crackling in his ear told of doom.

From the ground in the plaza. Glass Darkly stood still as a statue as Split Klaw’s ego finally caught up with him.

A window exploded.

“No,” Glass Darkly whispered, “they wouldn’t.”

Two ponies flung themselves out of the window as the interior of the hotel flashed with security alarms. Time felt like it stretched out. A mare turned. Another gasped. A scream.

“What what is it?!”

“Is that a bird?”

“No, might be a plane drone,” another pony squinted.

The second falling pony flashed in a crackle of orange magic and changed into a pegasus.

“It’s A CHANGELING!!!”

Glass Darky’s lips tightened, only barely showing the clenched teeth as a chorus of screams echoed around him. In the distance Strawberry Hooves flew away with Split Klaw.

All bedlam let loose, after a moment, Glass Darkly finally turned.

“Facet!”

“Yes…my Queen.”

“I hate being right. The orange fool just revealed itself in front of easily a hundred cameras and countless witnesses. This city is going to be swarming with Radiant Pine’s Firewatch by this time tomorrow. Everyone is going to be buying bio-scanners. Invest everything you can into riding the wave, but first, everyone needs to drop everything and hunt. Make it fast and clean. By nightfall we are in lockdown. No one outside of SSD and the Temple without express permission of myself or a Society Nymph. I…”

Tisiphone paused and wished she had savored the serenity-ade Frizzle had made longer.

“…everyone goes on rations…equal serenity rations until further notice. We can’t know how long the crackdown will last.”

“My queen…what has happened? Are you safe? What disaster has befallen you that the orange changeling would reveal itself?”

“She couldn’t think of a better escape plan than to fly out of the window.”

“….”

“Yes.”

“….”

“Yes.”

“….I see…pardon me...my Queen.”

Tisiphone caught the faintest edge of a psychic scream before she zoned out the connection. She couldn’t feel sorry for herself. She couldn’t worry…this job needed completion. If she faltered it might reveal a far wider truth to more worrisome eyes.

“Split Klaw is injured, Strawberry Hooves is on the run.”

Vixie gave an update.

“I understand,” Glass Darkly was already moving towards the Ramen bar.

Lead.

Take Charge.

Glass Darkly slunk in the rear entryway…he tuned out the distractions. Tisiphone sought the certainty that pervaded her being.

…and felt the hunger that howled inside. The hunger that was never truly sated. Glass Darkly stepped into a shadow by a pile of ramen boxes. A faint amethyst sparkle and a bubbly, well-proportioned mare stepped out, a lion among a world of lambs. With bare hesitation, she walked straight up to Steel Stud and smiled. She did not flinch when the buffalo leered. She did not flinch when he slapped her rump with his meaty hoof, and she did not flinch when half an hour later he screamed as he fought for consciousness.

Later

Suede boots crackled on bits of shattered glass.

“This way Agent Ness….”

A fedora was tucked under and arm as a head ducked under the crime tape.

“We’re sweeping for forensics, both trace and on Little Snow. We have a perimeter sweep searching and with detection spells.”

“How long did it take you to set that up?”

“Err…um…under 10 minutes.”

“Not fast enough….”

“It was unexpected…”

“The bugs always are…..is that where the martial artist died?”

“Yes…”

“That was either some lousy shooting or the window shattering was after then,” Ness noted the hologram showing a lifeless digitally frozen Little Snow.

“Is that important.”

Ness walked within a pace of the shattered window, the breeze swirling in his short mane. He looked down at the plaza.

“A changeling deliberately blew out a window and jumped out in full view of half the city. It’s so ludicrous that it’s either a psy op so intricate and cunning that even I can’t tell what the larger plan is...YET, or this changeling is so daft that I have to question why we haven’t been able to exterminate the lot of them…. I don’t know which I fear more.”

Later

“DO YOU HAVE YOU ANY IDEA WHAT YOU’VE DONE!!!”

Glass Darkly was apoplectic at the orange changeling that stood there in all of her glory. Gwynn and Vixie kept an eye on proceedings, Split Klaw occasionally coughed up some bloody phlegm from a corner.

“I did what I had to do.”

“THIS WAS THE BEST PLAN YOU COULD COME UP WITH?!”

“At the time yes!”

“Do you realize how many Firewatch officers there will be in this city tomorrow? How many people will be looking for us? As changeling sympathizers and suspected changelings?!”

“I’ll survive, at the worst I’ll direct Firewatch to some other Hive…”

“What other Hive do you think is going to absorb your idiocy,” Glass paced sneering, “What makes you think that you’ll avoid the blowback on this…Orange Queen.”

“I am not a queen, besides if must be I’ll simply sacrifice a portion of my hive and relocate. Still, it’s an inconvenience, and I expect to be recompensed, perhaps with one of the Foci you’ve been sitting on.”

Glass Darkly turned and glared at Strawberry Hooves.

“You are not a queen?” He asked low and with no small edge of anger.

“Give me a Focus and I will be…and I can better support the group.”

Strawberry Hooves glared in return.

“Those are not for you to claim,” Glass snarled.

For a moment Tisiphone looked out through Glass Darkly’s eyes, past and through Strawberry Hooves. To the dozens of nameless orange drones that had already been written off by the careless Nymph that led them. Already dead and not knowing it. How many Orange Frizzles, how many Facets, how many friends?

“I carried you to safety,” Strawberry Hooves coldly reminded Glass of her service.

“And in that you have my thanks, in that I might have begun to consider you a friend. But you have made your true colors so very plainly evident, and I will have no more of this idiocy.

You are not a Queen yet.”

Unsaid but evident was the undertone that never would that title be granted in Glass Darkly’s eyes.

Later

Suede boots paced before the cork boards, various pictures, notes, strings, pieced together the web.

A video clip played of several changelings attacking a poor defenseless pony. A bit of a tail stuck out of a seam in a suit. One changeling struggled to enunciate through its fangs. A changeling reared up to strike a killing blow, a black sticker meant to look like a hole peeled off a foreleg and fluttered to the ground.

“Oh for the love of..,” a voice grumbled from off screen, “what am I paying you vagrants for, I want savage, SAVAGE, and make sure you get a better zoom on the scanner this time. I could barely read the model plate.”

The clip ended. A pony at the table straightened his tie.

“Voice print and reference to the model leads to a manager in a third tier bio scanner maker. The manager is missing. The CEO swears up and down that they’re being framed, but the Knight Errant station in their precinct has a rap sheet a mile long on them. They’ve been eking by on stuff like this for years. So it may be a case of the lady doth protest too much.”

“What do you think Ness…?”

“This concerns me…”

“And…Why?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

The soft clomp of heavy armor approached and stopped before the door.

“Ness…”

“Yes?”

“We’ve got a positive ID on a Hive…looks like Orange, matches up with your bogey. We’re wheels up in ten.”

“I see…”

A few happy smiles were shared around the room.

“Ness, I’ve never seen you this kerfluffled at a successful prosecution.”

“Too easy,” the Inspector slowly put on his fedora. Then turned to the various boards.

Bits and pieces of video clips played. A gun flash that wounded what appeared to be Rabbit Slip. A strange pony at a grocery store in Bellevue. Rising Mist occupied several boards. Maps showing the fight at the edge of Pacific University. The gunfight on the highway, reports from the docks.

“The pony that beat our security at our subsidiary impersonating Rabbit Slip spent a minute fighting for his life before his backup arrived. He didn’t fly out the window.”

“So?”

“We’ve been chasing a ghost that’s been accumulating a file for over a year. Now we find an orange hive that’s been gift-wrapped, at the same time that some other pony is running a psyop to blunt the security response. Does that strike you like the same THING that would throw itself out a window for lack of a better plan?”

“You think that this is being orchestrated by more than one changeling?” The Captain softly questioned.

Untouchable Ness touched the brim of his Fedora and saluted the Captain.

“I deal in facts, not conjecture.”

Author's Note

Game Notes: This chapter covers two sessions. The first 'Grave Errors' was one that the author (playing Glass Darkly) was not able to make it too due to other commitments. Aside from checking in via text message with the GM. Upon learning that the team, who was tasked to steal a warehouse full of illicit weapons from a competitor who had arranged for the NPC 'A Stallion', our primary arms dealer, to be fed the incorrect intel as part of the heavy transport trap that we avoided (Mission 17, Look Before You Leap). This wasn't going very well, and the author (Glass Darkly POV) ordered a hefty combat spirit to go help, expecting this would push them over the line but was called away back to the other RL commitment without being able to follow up. Unfortunately, already hard pressed, and not realizing that the arriving spirit was allied. The player running Split Klaw decided the fight was lost, and simply blew the entire warehouse to bits.

In the next mission. The team was hired to sabotage a Martial Arts tournament to ensure a specific winner on behalf a gambling cartel. Short on time and with three targets to deal with, the first was engaged with a fake advertising campaign that left the target dosed with performance enhancing drugs getting him disqualified. The second target, Little Snow, a world class martial artist was too much of a temptation for Split Klaw, who challenged her to a duel instead of ambushing her and got his ass handed to him resulting in an intervention by Strawberry Hooves and a security alarm being triggered. The target was killed, but Strawberry Hooves couldn't come up with a better plan than litterally jumping out of a window and transforming while in free fall. Glass Darkly then had to wing the remainder of the mission, mostly alone, but succeeded.

This led to rather awkward moment, when Strawberry Hooves who was known to be a changeling was berated by Glass Darkly who no one knew was also a Changeling. A full security lockdown of the city followed, with both changeling players independently taking steps to mitigate the fallout. The Strawberry Hooves player (formerly Silky Sheets) sacrificing a part of the Orange Changeling Splinter Hive. Glass Darkly/Tisiphone going to ground while running a psyops campaign to make the threat seem overblown.