The Changelings of Manehattan

Ruby and Sapphire were pulled away from the memory dive when changelings began to rush into the room en masse. They started chattering in a maddened rush and whatever they were trying to say only managed to come across as random gibberish. The most anyone could understand throughout their incessant rambling was something about vines destroying the underground.

Enough! Sapphire shouted over the link for the first time in ages to exert her absolute authority. She almost never had to use the hive mind to get their attention and they weren't used to hearing her use it, so it came as no surprise when every single one of her changelings scattered about the city grew quiet and waited for her to speak.

Over the next several minutes, she basked in their shared consciousness and absorbed everything that had worked her children into such a panic. Once she had finished taking stock of the situation, she quickly directed them to start clearing the streets, helping the ponies that were displaced from their homes, and working with the city council to put things back in order. Only then did she address the cave-in that her children were already dealing with in the underground. Fortunately, no one had been seriously injured.

Her labors done and her children set to their tasks, Sapphire sat back down and breathed a deep sigh of relief. The hive mind was still buzzing in the back of her head and would continue to do so for a while yet. She was going to need a stiff drink to help chase off the headache that was already building.

"Are you going to be alright, dear?" Her mother, Ruby, looked at her with concern.

"I'll be fine," Sapphire said in return. "I'm just not used to hearing everypony at once."

"Well, you're still young," she chuckled at her daughter. "And when was the last time you used the hive mind?"

"The Manehattan blackout a couple years back," it took her a moment to remember the last time. It really had been a while since she last had to exert herself like this.

"That was ten years ago," Ruby shook her head in disapproval as she floated a glass of water over to her daughter. "You really should get more practice than that."

"I know," Sapphire said as she took the glass. She eagerly drank the cooling liquid. It helped a little bit, but she was still looking forward to something stronger later. "Do you think our ancestors had any trouble with this."

"I doubt it," her mother said thoughtfully. "From what we have recorded and if what we've been seeing through Spectrum's memories are anything to go by, they were using it continuously for everyday tasks. Remember how our ancestor's children acted when they were suddenly cut off from her?"

She nodded. "They went into a panicked frenzy. Like they were incomplete without it."

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of cracking stone filling the chamber. The same black vines that her children had been scrambling to deal with began to weave their way into the room, blocking the entrance and tearing up the furniture in the room.

Sapphire swallowed hard as she ignored her headache and reached out with her mind again. My children! She shouted over the link. The vines are here! Me and my mother are trapped in her lab!

She didn't get a chance to listen for a response, for at that moment, they were suddenly preoccupied with dodging the spikey rope started whipping through the room.

"Fascinating," remarked Ruby as she adjusted her glasses. "The way they move and the speed with which they seem to seek us out. You might almost think they're sentient."

"Mother!?" Sapphire panicked as she watched her mother slip back into scholar mode. "This isn't exactly the time for this!"

The vines continued to wrap themselves around the room until a tendril moved to the center of the room and began to coil in on itself. The pile continued to grow in size until you couldn't tell where it started or where it ended. A sprout pushed its way out from the center, where it began to bloom into a brilliantly blue flower. However it stopped seeming innocent when the petals unfolded to reveal its center. A serpentine face with long fangs, dripping with venom, pushed its way out and began to eye the two changeling queens while showing obvious signs of hunger.

It stretched out its neck until it completely towered over them. A rattling noise filled the room, seeming to come from everywhere at once. A forked, green tongue slithered out of its mouth and licked its lips before the whole creature began to coil in on itself, like a spring ready to release itself.

"Look out!" Shouted Ruby as she pushed her daughter out of the way of the lunging snake. Sapphire went tumbling across the cavern floor and whipped her head back, dreading what she was about to see.

However, the snake had frozen a mere foot away from the retired queen. The light left its eyes and its black skin began to turn even darker even further until it began to crumble away to ash. It wasn't just the snake, either. All around the room, a multitude of vines began to convulse as a number of them shriveled up. The vines blocking the door soon collapsed into a dusty heap and and revealed an out of breath alicorn as Clover stepped over the wreckage.

"Looks like I'm not too late," he winced as he folded his outstretched wings against his body, like someone who had just pulled something. "Blossomforth told me you were in trouble," he brushed against one of the few remaining vines, which began smoldering, just as the other ones had. "I'm getting too old for this," he complained. "Are both of you alright?"

"We're fine," said Sapphire when she realized how close a thing it had been. She cautiously moved forward to examine what remained of the snake before the last of it crumbled away. "What exactly did you do to it?"

Clover let out a tired breath. "Nothing," he said. "My very existence seems to be an anathema to whatever these things are. I think I have a pretty good idea why, though."

"Why's that?" Ruby was all the more curious now.

Clover finally had his breathing under control again as he straightened himself up. "Discord!" He shouted into the air. "I know you're there! What are you up to this time?!"

"Moi?" The answer came from a voice that drifted through the room like it had always been there.

"Yes, you," Clover shot back like talking to a disembodied voice was completely normal. "What sort of game are you playing this time?"

The reality-bending chimera known as Discord sudden appeared next to one of the walls, along with a fully stocked bar. The Lord of Chaos looked completely relaxed on one of the barstools as he busied himself with a thick book with way too many bookmarks sticking out of the pages. His double stood across from him as he used an antler to pop the cap off a bottle, before returning said antler to his own head. After tilting the bottle in one of his mismatched claws, the glass poured off it until it congealed into a bowl of cereal in the space below. He then passed what still remained in paw to the first one that spoke.

"What makes you think I had anything to do with this, my dear Clover?" Discord defended as he took a hold of the not-bottle and began chewing on the end. He placed it down on the counter before continuing to scribble away with a quill that Clover was sure hadn't been there a moment ago.

"This kind of thing has your name all over it," Clover narrowed his eyes at the God of Chaos. "But why, though? I heard you were playing nice with the ponies."

"Well, I am," he said, looking all hurt. "Ok, fine. You caught me," he resigned as he returned the quill to his eyebrow, where it belonged. "I see you're still failing to see the bigger picture, as always." He let out a sigh. "Even so, I guess it was just a bit too easy to tell I had a claw in this, huh? What, with the way chaos seems to fall apart when you get too close. We just can't fit anymore in there, can we?" He let out a chuckle, accentuated with a hard tap on Clover's forehead. When Clover failed to give the reaction he was clearly fishing for, he turned his attention to the pile of ashes that had been a large snake only moments before. "Poor Jerry, gone before his time. Talk about Chekov's gun having a misfire." He sounded more annoyed than anything else.

"Well?..." Clover said as he impatiently tapped a hoof. "What made you decide to start causing trouble now?"

Discord seemed a bit taken aback. "Why, I'm a bit taken aback," he said while striking a dramatic pose. "Just because I planted some fun little seeds a couple centuries back before taking my little stone nap, doesn't necessarily mean I did anything recently. They just took a little longer to sprout than I expected. What, with that bothersome tree deep in the Everfree getting in the way."

"And how am I supposed to believe that?" Clover looked at him skeptically.

Discord looked quite aghast. "I can do my own narrative, thank you very much," he said to the open air before turning his attention back to Clover. "Why, I am quite aghast that you would so openly accuse me," he said. "I was just minding my own business and making a few memos in Twilight's little 'friendship journal' when this whole mess started." He mockingly gestured to the open book in front of him.

"A friendship journal?" Clover raised a curious eyebrow as he observed the thick tome. "And what's your interest in Miss Sparkle's personal memoirs?"

"Memoirs?" Said Discord. "I suppose that's one way to put it. Well, she hasn't actually started writing it just yet," he said as he slammed the book shut, at which point it disappeared in a puff of smoke. "I was just feeling a bit bored and decided to go ahead and get a head start on next year."

Clover reached up and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He wasn't sure why he expected anything less than a headache when dealing with the cryptic draconequus.

"Besides," Discord continued without being prompted. He pulled up a sleeve he hadn't been wearing a moment before to reveal a wristwatch. "We've only got until about... Oh, I don't know. Sometime around now before everything puts itself back together again."

They all sat there, waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, Discord tapped his watch a few times while looking concerned. "Is this thing broken?"

A few more claw taps later, a wave of blinding light washed over the room. Once it died down, not even ashes remained of the chaos-spawned plants. Discord for his part, looked so many different levels of excited. "I'm so many different levels of..." he started to say, before looking at the narrator in annoyance. "You know what. Fine. That joke was already getting old anyway." He snapped a claw and in a flash, the bar disappeared and it was only the four of them left in the room. "Looks like Twilight and her little friends just finished putting the Elements of Harmony back in the tree where they belong. Well... It's been fun catching up, but I have a plucky purple pony princess to positively pester." With one final snap of the claw, he completely disappeared from sight.

"Discord! Wait!" Clover called after him. When Discord failed to reappear, he just groaned to himself. "Two thousand years and I'm still no closer to understanding him."

The two queens had been caught so off-guard by the appearance of the self proclaimed God of Chaos, that they had remained silent during the whole exchange. When they finally broke their silence, it was Sapphire who spoke first. "So that was Discord, then?" She had, of course, heard about him, everyone had. It was hard not to after the chocolate monsoon that washed through the whole city a while back.

"Yeah, it was. I wouldn't worry about him too much, though," he reassured her. "Whatever he's up to doesn't seem to involve either you or the city. It looks like Manehattan was a temporary distraction... this time anyway," he added at the end. "Still, I wonder what's got him so excited..."