Kobolds From Space 2: Kobold of Shadows

My rig didn’t fit Tempest at all, but they found a pony with a small enough snout and used her as an intermediary. I instantly contacted Fire using my internal rig as soon as the clip was out of range – the repeaters we’d seeded through the woods had never been found, so I had a strong signal.

“I tricked them into getting their jammer away from my head,” I told Fire. “How are things on your end? It looks like we got most of the Shadow Dogs but a few managed to flee.”

“We took care of them,” Fire said. “The underground is shadow-free. How did they kill so many?”

“Dragonfire and some sort of wide-range time-stop spell to let the dragons hit them,” I said. “It knocked out the unicorn that cast it, which is why some got away. Here, I’ll send you the log. Watch out for the dragon mind-control stick.”

“It might be time for you to exfiltrate,” Fire said. “What are you doing now?”

“Watching a magic show by one of their VIP unicorns. It’s pretty impressive! She’s taking on challenges from the audience – she just redirected Pancakes’ dragon fire and turned it into fireworks.”

“Are the dragons okay?”

“So far. I tried to convince them to let them go, but no luck,” I said, sending a frowny face emoji. “I don’t actually know where a good entrance is other than the one I came in, which is by the military base where they don’t let me go. I don’t have enough Speed of Darkness to get there myself, let alone with the dragons in tow.”

“Okay. You can stay until you figure out how to – why are you calling me a second time?”

“That’s the pony commander. I tricked her into taking the clip away by saying she could use my rig to contact you and negotiate. So negotiate! Good luck! ”

After the magic show, Ember took all the dragons to the surface-level lava baths to relax, while Fire and Tempest negotiated late into the night.

Eventually we agreed to a small pony research facility as a permanent outpost – no military, but protected by the fact that lots of military could be brought in at any time. In addition to watching us and making sure we didn’t try anything, they got to study our technology for which we gifted them a basic fabricator and no one to train them in using it , although eventually Fairy took pity on them and pointed them to the tutorials, after which they could start building out into a full array of machines.

They also had to get Ember to sign off on it since the surface was technically dragon territory. She didn’t want to at first but they wore her down somehow. I wasn’t involved.

We also let Starlight scan our city for any lingering darkness – under heavy guard despite our pledge of safe passage. To our dismay, she found a lot of it. Most of it was just seeds planted in people who hadn’t consented to conversion – those were easily removed. One of the victims was too far along and had to be incinerated. I was glad I didn’t have to watch – if Pancakes had done that to me at the start, this story would have been a lot shorter and like a hundred ponies and diamond dogs would still be alive. But *I’d* be dead, and I didn’t know any of the ones who’d died, so it was hard to feel appropriately guilty. I at least felt guilty about not feeling guilty. That counts, right?

Then the VIPs left, and things went mostly back to normal, except that Fire was still in charge and unable to get any of his reforms past the council of Elders. I guess that was what passed for normal for our generation.

As for Harmony…

Apparently, putting Tempest and Fire in contact with each other earned me a cutie mark. It’s hidden under my hip armor and it’s a raven at least, although not the same design as my sigil. It’s holding a hook in its beak and using it to get a leafy branch of some sort out of a bottle.

I don’t feel any different, but that’s how it gets you after all. It’s dormant underground – which is damned lucky since otherwise I’d stand out on the map like a beacon, which is death for a spy – but I can use it to aspect my diamond dog magic. To make rainbows. Yay. Totally worth being infested. Again.

But on the other hand, the last thing I ever wanted was to be normal.