Xenobiologist(s)

Chapters

1: Sweets, Sparkle, and Scribbles
12: This is bound to have some consequences
13-2: Greenhouse and chill
2: Changeling Emba(ra)ssy
3: Hive, sweet home (may include gribblers)
4: Warning! Contains trace amount of drones
5: EMERGENT MILITARY CONFLICT!
6: Too many hugs to give, too much work to do before that.
7: An imperfect ending to an almost perfect day
8: Hope in strange places
9: ACCESS DENIED!
10: Knowledge and horrors of the deep
11: The tiniest of hiccups
13-1: Greenhouse and chill
13-3: Greenhouse and chill
14-1: Strange, new faces.
14-2: Strange, new faces
14-3: Strange, new faces

1: Sweets, Sparkle, and Scribbles

It’s a beautiful late summer afternoon in Upper Canterlot. The sun is bathing the white streets in its light and reflecting from the gold decorations all over the spires and buildings of the city built into the side of the Canterlot mountain. With the upper city located so high, the wind is cool enough to soften the heat caused by the direct sunlight and turn today as close to perfect as it can be. Even one purple, extremely smart, and notoriously paranoid alicorn mare sitting at the window table of one rather peculiar establishment in the mountainside district can’t think of anything to make the day better. Said establishment takes up the bottom floor of a white, three-story building that looks shabby for Upper Canterlot but is well-kept even for the mountainside district where most common workers who don't want to live in the lower city and commute twice a day live. The aspect of the place that has been repeatedly bringing Twilight Sparkle here is that it’s full of changelings.

As the Princess of Friendship, or more exactly as the Equestrian head diplomat, Twilight has had the opportunity to visit places in and outside of Equestria and study lost tribes and civilizations not even most historians know about. However, two major species have, until recently, eluded her - the minotaurs and the changelings. With the isolationist minotaurs extremely rarely venturing out of their city of Rift inside Mount Everhoof north of the Crystal Empire, the changelings, who were allowed to live in Equestria in the open several years ago and took the opportunity quickly, have been the prime target of her curiosity ever since, with this establishment being the center of her exploration.

The place is a strange mix of what seems to be a general store and, from the information Twilight has gathered so far, a changeling version of a soup kitchen. Like in any standard store, there’s a counter in the back behind which a dark purple changeling going by the name Whispershade sells an eclectic assortment of items to customers, from trinkets and tools to baked goods. Twilight is one of the very few pony customers who pass through here, ‘pass’ at the moment meaning that she’s enjoying a bowl of cereal -don’t judge, they make a delicious brand here which she couldn’t find anywhere else, full of gummies, chocolate, and overall unhealthy amount of sugar- and milk at a table by an open window while watching roughly twenty currently present changelings. Her analytical mind is partially observing their behavior for any suspicious signs, but that part is almost entirely overridden by her curiosity regarding culture which she’s barely had any chance to interact with. The major takeaway from her today’s observation remains the same - this place is a cultural center for a minor community where they can sit down after work, share news, and possibly ask others with different connections for help, just like there is one for every other minority in every big city she’s ever visited. Obviously, there are differences from kirins, griffons, or zebras, due to the inherently alien nature of the changelings, one in particular being Twilight’s inability to become friends with them. Despite the princess having spent countless hours during the past three months here, the changelings have always been polite and open about any casual topic but detached and evasive regarding anything changeling-specific.

Twilight sighs and levitates another teeth-rotting spoonful into her mouth. A small journal flies out of the saddlebag fastened around her barrel and opens depressingly near the beginning, which is also the page of the last entry.

Anything, give me ANYTHING I can write down!

In order to give her mind a push, she silently re-reads her last entry written over a week ago:

When trading among themselves, changelings seem to use some kind of green crystals in place of Equestrian bits. However, they must be as much food as currency because I’ve seen a changeling take a small one from a ‘take what you need, leave what you can’ bowl on the counter to a table and make it disintegrate into nothing but a miniscule amount of liquid which evaporated shortly after. Some changelings bring these crystals and give them to Whispershade without getting anything in return. My working hypothesis is that they are some form of storing love, and successful changelings leave what they can spare here for the less fortunate ones. Like with any changeling-specific topic, I got stonewalled when I asked if I could take one with me (for research). Offering bits led nowhere either, as Whispershade said that changelings helping one another was the principle of things. I get solidarity but COME ON!

When Twilight’s brain draws blanks yet again, she flips to a previous entry:

Despite changelings presumably not needing to eat pony food, they do have a sense of taste and the ones around here seem to enjoy sweets in particular. Possibly some kind of evolutionary pressure? Is sugar the closest thing their bodies can use as fuel in place of emotional energy? Is it entirely a random taste thing and they can’t use the nutrients at all? Give me a week with a changeling in my underground laboratory and I won’t need to ask a question ever again!

A bell rings, heralding the cafe’s front door opening.Twilight shoots an equally frustrated and bored look sideways, just on the miniscule chance that there might be anything new she could observe, and immediately angry-dragons milk out of her nostrils.

A changeling whom she’s never seen before has just entered, and one that’s visually distinct from everyone else here. It’s a stocky female, but compared to both male and female changelings around the cafe she’s so small that the tip of her tiny horn reaches only to the barrel of the presumably adult females. It’s not just her size that’s unusual, though. There are also zebra-like, grey stripes lighter than the rest of her all over her carapace. While that accounts for the physical distinctions, the young one is also wearing a tablet hanging on her neck using a leather strap with adjustable clamps and carrying an array of four worn but quality saddlebags on the sides of her barrel using a harness as well as a bulging backpack on her back. In fact, the baggage is almost as big as she is.

A TINY female changeling! A filly? Do they have fillies? There are so many stories about changeling reproduction, mostly among Rarity’s trash novels, but no one has any scientific document on their lifecycle. What’s the tablet for? Is she unusually strong to carry all that? Why is she striped? Is changeling base form somehow hereditary? Calm down, Twilight! If you rush at her you’ll just scare her. This calls for subtlety.

Taking a deep breath to focus, Twilight casts a scrying spell on the bowl of her remaining cereal, the contents of which turn into a see-through window with a minor fish-eye effect. The changelings don’t notice, but a lens of bent air that’s the input for Twilight’s spell appears behind Whispershade’s neck and lets her carefully watch the small changeling approach the cafe owner. None of the other patrons seems surprised. In fact, several wave at the newcomer who waves back wildly with just the biggest smile and much more flailing enthusiasm. One small tweak of the spell later, Twilight gains the ability to hear via the lens as well.

When the small one pulls up a spare chair from the nearest table that’s quickly offered by two changelings sitting at it to the counter and climbs onto it, Whispershade slides the ‘take what you need, leave what you can’ bowl with the green crystals over to her.

“I’m happy to see you safe and sound, Smiley. How’s life treating you?” he asks.

Twilight blinks in surprise at hearing the changeling’s name.

It can’t be… this little critter is Smiley?

What eventually led Twilight to Whispershade’s cafe the previously mentioned three months ago was a silly little pamphlet someone left in the Sugarcube Corner in Ponyville some two months earlier. Pinkie Pie, of course, read it and, knowing about Twilight’s obsession with hunting for knowledge, brought it over. The pamphlet was called Smiley’s Scribbles. Normally, Twilight wouldn’t bother with anything outside the format of a book or an ancient scroll, but that time it was different. In addition to detailed descriptions of life in Northern San Palomino, of all places, the pamphlet contained what were supposed to be messages and questions from some members of the changeling hive the author called ‘drones’ and said that if any changeling was willing to answer those the author would compensate them. As curious as Twilight was, the questions were downright silly, ranging from “I heard there are shiny ponies. Is that true?” to “Are there swarming biters in pony land?”, and she dismissed the pamphlet as irrelevant. However, several days later Pinkie told Twilight that an actual changeling asked about it. On top of that, a new edition of Smiley’s Scribbles arrived during the following month, this time with author’s description of overnight camping in the forest, ‘thank you’ from the drones for the answers along with, most importantly, the author saying that that was the first month in history during which no drone got eaten, crushed, or killed in any manner. As celebration, the drones were let outside and 99856 -from the context Twilight assumed that the number referred to a changeling- made “shiny boomies” for everyone, and only 3 drones got scorched because they were so enthralled with the sparklers they forgot to throw them. Long story short, Twilight took the time to read every new edition delivered to Ponyville after that, and in time learned about the opening of Whispershade’s cafe which, to her delight, had every single edition of Smiley’s Scribbles for Twilight to read. The quality of writing went up dramatically with each edition, the font got better, and at some point after the cafe’s opening the writing turned to print. What remained a mystery, however, was the author. Until now.

Without a word, Smiley raises a foreleg and, with a shimmer of transforming green fire, reveals a single hole in it that’s holding a similar yet slightly different green crystal. This one is smooth, shaped like an egg, and tinted with rusty hue. It fails to fall out of the hole onto the tray, so Smiley smacks her foreleg with the other one a couple times until it does. Whispershade raises it to his muzzle and examines it.

“Ooh, one of 99856’s inventions you wrote about,” he says, “Can I keep it?”

Smiley shakes her head and points to the empty leg hole. A brief foreleg transformation later, she reveals three holes in each, all but one filled with the same, smooth crystals.

“It never occurred to me that the way to avoid the love dissipating over time would be to carry the crystals in this way. You don’t need to actively feed much, do you?” Whispershade smiles at her and puts the crystal down. Smiley shakes her head again before hesitating and slowly pointing to the glass case on the counter showcasing pieces of today’s baked goods on sale. Whispershade chuckles, “Not what I meant, but I understand,” while he serves a fresh piece of cake to Smiley, he asks, “What brings you here today, anyway? Just dropping off love? Not that I’m complaining.”

Twilight, muzzle almost plunged into her bowl of scrying cereal to not miss any detail, grins.

Crystals containing love, that’s what those are! So they ARE food and currency at the same time. After all, what use would bits be to a changeling who needs to buy love?

Her pencil scribbles into her open notebook as she watches Smiley let a string of green drool out of her mouth. The saliva immediately hardens into a thin needle which the changeling sticks into a slit in her hoof and starts writing on the tablet around her neck in the manner of a griffon, leaving behind neat, white, chalky letters:

[Greetings, Mister Whispershade! I’m bringing the new issue of Smiley’s Scribbles and some spare love.]

Whispershade reads the message and pats Smiley’s head.

“The time when you needed to be formal with me is long gone, little lady,” the changeling stallion’s horn lights up with a purple shimmer when he picks up Smiley’s crystal from the counter again. Twilight’s best guess, as the crystal loses its green gleam, is that he’s draining the love it’s holding. In contrast to Twilight’s previous observations, the crystal doesn’t melt.

Is the invention that Whispershade mentioned a lasting love storage crystal?

Smiley beams at him with a new message of:

[Gotta practice!]

“That’s commendable. Speaking of commendations, 65536 stopped by two weeks ago and asked me to tell you that he’s proud of you and to give you this,” Whispershade leans under the counter and pulls out a stack of envelopes. Smiley scrunches her nose as she glances the way of Twilight’s spying lens, but that’s all that happens before the stallion rises again, “Since you don’t have an address and 65536 is a pretty high profile changeling, some of these ended at the castle.”

Smiley gasps.

[I GET MALE?]

“Ahem,” Whispershade clears his throat and taps Smiley’s tablet, “You got a little too excited, didn’t you?”

Smiley reads her slate and briefly hides her face behind hooves before fixing her message:

[Did I get mail?]

“You did,” Whispershade smiles, “and not just that.”

He leans down again, but this time Twilight doesn’t react quickly enough to hide her spell because Smiley clearly notices her and starts waving and pointing at where the lens was, her mouth opening and closing and chittering like a startled cat. To hide her involvement, Twilight has to dispel her scrying magic entirely. Without her spell, Twilight hears only a hushed conversation. Moments later, Whispershade approaches her table with Smiley in tow, the slate on Smiley’s neck reading [floaty poni hed purple!!!], and opens with:

“Smiley, this is Her Highness Twilight Sparkle. She’s a very important pony. Your Highness, this is Smiley. I hope this doesn’t land me a visit from the Royal Guard, but I must stress that listening in on other ponies’ conversations isn’t particularly polite or friendly. What’s worse - you spooked the girl, and drones in general have a lot easier time thinking when they’re not scared or too excited. I mean, that works for everyone, but goes double for them.”

So much for secrecy.

“I’m sorry,” Twilight doesn’t bother lying to the changeling and looks from him to Smiley who’s examining her with her head tilted sideways, “I’ve never seen a changeling… drone, was it? You guys aren’t keen on sharing details about yourselves and I didn’t want to bother you in person, so I took a chance to observe somepony new. If it helps, I genuinely enjoy reading Smiley’s Scribbles and I’m happy to meet the… author?”

Smiley beams and offers a hoof which Twilight shakes. With Smiley’s spook clearly being a thing of the past and the small changeling happily pumping the purple alicorn’s hoof, Whispershade thaws as well.

“I suppose nothing bad happened, so it’s alright. A little spook here and there keeps one on their hooves,” he pats Smiley, “Let’s go, Smiley. There’s an unfinished piece of cake with your name on it- not literally, that means it’s for you,” he adds when Smiley quickly looks around, ears suddenly perked up.

“Say,” Twilight peeps, “Any chance I could read the new Scribbles? I promise to not teleport away with it. I-” Twilight’s horn flashes and a piece of paper appears on the table, “-can give you a cinema ticket for this Friday. It’s for a documentary on pre-Equestrian pegasus society. You could write one of your reviews into the next issue of Scribbles,” she offers. She knows the answer even before she’s finished speaking, because Smiley’s eyes go wide and she starts vibrating on the spot. The little changeling nods and pulls out a stack of papers which she lays on Twilight’s table.

“Take your time,” says Whispershade while Smiley stashes the ticket, “Smiley always leaves the manuscripts here. One of my friends picks those up and prints out the copies that go into circulation.”

“Thank you,” Twilight smiles apologetically, “And once again - sorry.”

As the two changelings return to the counter and Smiley resumes munching on the cake, Twilight breathes a sigh of relief and starts reading through the papers. The writing is simplistic, lacks any classical structure, but is grammatically correct, which Twilight appreciates. As is Scribbles’ standard by now, the first section, after Smiley wishing anyone reading a good day, are movie summaries.

“A documentary on pre-Equestrian methods of papyrus making, I saw that one,” Twilight hums in appreciation, “A changeling after my own heart.”

Smiley’s reviews are always a little confused, as if the author had little to no general context on the topic, but unlike usual movie critics, she never fails to find something interesting even in the worst movies. Over her months of reading Scribbles’ issues, however, Twilight noticed that technical topics and documentaries with primitive guides always earned the highest word count and attention. Same here. The history itself, which was the focus of the movie, is glossed over, but the details of making primitive paper could serve as a step-by-step guide for somepony sufficiently experimental or desperate. She flips to the next movie.

“Unsatisfied mares and over-endowed pool colts 3, oh dear…” Twilight blushes while reading the summary, “A socio-economic documentary on alternative payment methods and details of love transfer. The plot is a little confusing but I must admit I haven’t seen parts 1 and 2-”

How does ‘a changeling’ not understand clop? Do ponies understand the whole changeling concept wrong in the same way they misunderstand Cadance’s aspect of love?

“Underbelly tube that’s used to both pump and suck out love- that girl needs some biology lessons pronto,” Twilight shakes her head, scribbles ‘drone lacks basic bio. knw. Unique or general?’ and skips to the next movie, “Conna the Marebarian. As usual - plot recap, Smiley is interested in ponies without hair,” she keeps mumbling to herself until she gets to the end with a raised eyebrow, “A lot of bonking and slashing, but in the end the good guys won and got a huge shiny from a big tower.”

With a sip of her now non-magical cereal, Twilight flips to the next set of Smiley’s notes, her eyes twinkling with renewed interest. It’s the festival section.

“The Hayseed Cook-off. If I recall correctly, that happened over a month and a half ago, but if Scribbles is also for hive changelings who don’t often leave the hive it’s not a problem. A three-day festival where the Hayseed Swamp settlements’ cooks gather in the center of the swamp and prepare delicious specialties caught on the spot,” her eyes flick over the page, much faster than her mouth, “Hard disagreement there, they cook everything simmered in local moonshine or it wouldn’t be even remotely edible. It’s no surprise when one of the cook-off contestants ends in a massive explosion.”

The next set of notes falls under the header of “Noms” which, according to Twilight’s best guess, means food.

“Grilled leggy suck-grabber,” the alicorn ponders the following description, “Octopus, right! Tastes… tastes squishy and burny in a good way? Not even Smiley seems convinced. Next - treats made from buzzing zappy jabbers’ goop. What could that be- bee? Bee! Lightning bee honey. Super sweet and fizzy- agreed. Huh, Smiley liked those so much she visited a store that sells them in Maretime Bay. Name, location, opening hours, everything,” Twilight shrugs, “Free promotion is a free promotion, no matter how small.”

Twilight checks the papers from both sides before moving on to the final set of notes. There’s nothing more on the festival food which, in Twilight’s mind, is accurate, because swamp food is horrible, slimy slop not worth sparing a thought in general. Can’t beat a good hayburger.

“Hive news! Hell-oo research!” Twilight smirks. As she reads further, the smirk on her lips freezes before her mouth slowly opens into an O. She reads out loud again, unable to believe her stroke of luck, in a weak and shaky voice, “An exchange program… a group of three drones to visit the Crystal Empire… requires a place to stay. In return, a pony will be allowed to visit the hive… bring your own supplies… full access to the hive without oversight… potentially dangerous- hah, what worthwhile scientific endeavor isn’t? Anyone can apply at the Changeling Hive Embassy in Canterlot.”

With a pop of sucked-in air and a weak flash of light, Twilight vanishes and reappears by the counter. Smiley immediately jumps sideways seemingly from a solid sitting position, a chunk of cake still in her mouth, turns mind-air, and falls down on all fours while scrunching her face at Twilight. Everyone in the cafe looks at the Princess who, despite being self-admittedly not great at reading social cues, can see that she overstepped her boundaries by startling Smiley again.

“Your Highness!” Whispershade’s sharp tone only confirms her reading, “I told you to be careful around drones. Look what you did!” he points at Smiley’s slate covered by cake mess. With him pointing, Smiley looks down and notices the sweet mix on her forelegs now staining the floor. As if nothing happened, Smiley quickly licks the floor and her hooves clean, moves onto her tablet, and when even that’s done she writes: [Sorry, Mister Whispershade. I cleaned it after myself.]

“Smiley, I wasn’t mad at you,” he squints at Twilight.

“I’ll make it up to you,” with a second flash, she conjures up the Scribbles’ notes and leaves them sorted neatly on the counter, “I just have to ask - that exchange program thing, has anypony volunteered yet?”

Smiley shrugs.

[Probably not. I asked 99 yesterday.]

“Thank you!” Twilight lets out a breath of relief and vanishes with another flash and pop of displaced air.

“Seriously,” Whispershade shakes his head, “Princess or not, she-”

*Flash!* *Pop!*

Twilight reappears with a pouch of coins which she puts on the counter.

“Give Miss Smiley anything she wants,” she blurts out and vanishes again.

Smiley just points at where Twilight was a moment ago before giving Whispershade a pleading look.

“You’re not sure what just happened, are you?” Whispershade gives her a reassuring smile while patting her chair. Smiley nods and returns to her seat, “Impolite ponies aside, what do you know about teleportation magic?”

[Here -> there? Loud, shiny.]

“Huh,” the changeling waves his foreleg dismissively, “Close enough. You know what? The Princess left quite the sum of bits here, do you want to sample some of my new goods and add a note or two about them into the Scribbles?”

[Maximum yes!]

“Perfect.”

[If you need some advert space, just ask. I like this place and I’d like to meet more changelings to talk to here.]

Whispershade momentarily freezes at the ease with which Smiley saw through him, but he would be a poor changeling if he let it show. It’s a solid reminder that despite what ranked changelings generally think of drones, Smiley is much smarter than she seems at a casual glance.

I wonder if the ones in the hive are full of surprises as well.

“That’s okay, Smiley. I like the cozy atmosphere, and there’s always enough business to pay the rent. It’s not as if the point of this place is profit. Now, would you like to start off with the lava cake or the cheesecake?”

***

Shortly after, Twilight’s talking to Celestia inside the Canterlot castle’s Hall of Glory, the long corridor containing stained glass windows depicting heroic feats of heroes throughout history. Even the sun casting colorful rays through the stained glass can’t wash away the worry in Celestia’s expression.

“I’m against it. I’d rather anypony other than you go, but I can neither stop you nor help you with the changeling side of the deal. This is out of my jurisdiction, Twilight.”

“Technically, it isn’t. As the Princess of Friendship, I’m more a head diplomat, so I do have to ask you for a vacation. You know, my first one because, umm, I don’t really go outside much,” Twilight chuckles. In contrast to Celestia’s gloom, she’s buzzing with the energy of a thousand lists waiting to finally be crossed off, “And I already sent a letter to Cadance. The changeling trip to the Crystal Empire has all the green light it can get.”

“I see. Of course I won’t be stopping you, enjoy your vacation as much as you can, but I insist that you bring some adequate protection. While I might trust the general changeling public here in Canterlot, their Queen has a lot of ground to cover before she’s on my good side. The opinion of the few knowledgeable changelings I talk to on a regular basis doesn’t help her case either.”

“Wouldn’t sending some muscle-bound goon with me only make things worse?”

“I can’t see why. Chrysalis didn’t target your brother only because he was the Commander of the Royal Guard. All we need is to find a well-endowed Royal Guard with the right shade of mane and, if worst comes to worst, you leave him to Chrysalis and escape.”

“PRINCESS!” Twilight reels back in indignation, making Celestia snicker.

“Just kidding, of course. I have an idea for a company that won’t insult your hosts, but I’ll have to check up with Luna about that. Let me arrange your escort and you answer the changeling offer, okay?”

“Thank you, Princess.”

With a pop, Twilight vanishes.

Author's Note

Let's start off a new semi-standalone story.
Reading New Order (They're Everywhere -> They're on holiday -> They'Re home) first will give extra context.

12: This is bound to have some consequences

Today’s late morning in the hive’s throne room finds Chrysalis locked in a Scufflestick match against 156, both sitting under the throne. While there’s nothing aside from the miniatures on the floor between them, if someone could see through the eyes of both mares they would see a shimmering hive mind overlay depicting a simplified version of ruins remaining from some kind of a Manehattan-like city block. Currently, 156’s high-tech, magical Equestri units are successfully holding a firing line behind a barricade of overturned carts against Chrysalis’ hordes of Imperium of Ling units, but the expensive and powerful are balanced out by being low on numbers, and Chrysalis’ lings are circling around them more and more with each passing turn. Still, Scufflestick is only rarely played as a deathmatch game and, despite her forces taking heavy losses, 156 is successfully holding the main objective and gaining points while Chrysalis’ time to effectively capture it is running out.

A sudden burst of hive mind traffic breaks the Queen’s concentration, making her facehoof so hard that 156 shoot her a genuinely worried look.

“You still have two turns to-” the infiltrator can’t finish the sentence.

“156, how good of a stonemason are you?”

“What do you m- oh no…” 156’s brows furrow in puzzlement before she scans the mental commotion herself and gasps, “Your Majesty, we MUST fix it!”

The recent years flash behind Chrysalis’ eyes only briefly as she spares a single thought to “What has my life as a Queen come to? It’s a blasphemous piece of rock for the workers who should be worshipping me and me only.” before banishing such nonsense and letting out a heavy sigh.

“Obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t have asked. I’m just thinking if there’s a way to leverage this event a little further,” she glances at the Scufflestick battleground, “As we learned through failure, a victory is achieved by accumulating tiny advantages, not by going for a thoughtless all-in. Any suggestions on how to push this, head infiltrator?”

156 momentarily pushes Scufflestick out of her mind.

“I don’t think you could gain any meaningful political advantage from the destruction of a drone statue, no matter how meaningful it was to us- them. However, as far as a personal favor or repayment goes - do any issues that only a magic user could fix come to mind?”

“Several inconveniences. What we need is to figure out what’s an obstacle that we can’t spend our resources on but one we can throw a know-it-all alicorn at.”

***

It’s still a beautiful sunny day in the Crystal Empire.

A passenger train hailing from Equestria is chugging along the tracks and is scheduled to make its stop in only a couple minutes inside the train station at the city state’s edge. Trains existed as the best long-distance travel method even before the Empire’s disappearance and have remained one due to sheer efficiency. Of course, certain rich ponies today have their personal zeppelins or private carriages, and there are plenty of places where it would be inconvenient to build tracks, but in terms of simply moving as many ponies and material from point A to point B at as little cost as possible, trains have never been beaten and likely won’t be any time soon. Tier-list of transportation methods aside, the train itself isn’t really important right now compared to one completely black, chitinous yet equine head with teal eyes sticking out from the top, openable part of the passenger window of one of the carriages that’s staring in disbelief, amazement, and the purest joy at the distant cityscape sparkling in sunlight ahead.

The rest of the changeling is propped on its hind legs atop a windowside table inside the train car and a coupe that’s empty with the exception of two more, drone-sized, changelings. In contrast to changelings in general, these two are very easy to distinguish, because the carapace of one of them is covered in grey scars slightly brighter than the rest of its armor, and the other one has a thin, seemingly fully functional, clawed limb sprouting from its back that’s currently scratching its head. The ‘scarred’ drone is lying on its back, stretched all over the front bench with its forelegs under its head, and looking in the direction of a simple, three-point chandelier built into the ceiling without really watching it or focusing its eyes on anything. It’s clear that its mind is elsewhere. The second drone is, in contrast, sitting on the floor under the table and scrutinizing the screws, hinges, and two thick bolts that keep the table parallel to the floor.

“There are three round bulges with two crossed grooves each on the metal plates that, I think, are keeping the table stuck to the wall,” muses the curious drone, “The purpose of the thick metal triangles on each side is clear. You pull them away along the wall like this and the table flops down-” it pauses and looks at the hooves of the window drone who, now that the table is hanging along the wall, is standing on empty air, entirely unbothered, with only its hooves very slightly shimmering green, “Uhhh,” the extra arm extends and pokes the scarred drone who blinks and looks at the ‘situation’, “10k, have you seen this happen before?”

10k shakes its head and shrugs.

“99380 doing 99380 things?” is the best guess it can add, “You’re the one with five working limbs, 99111.”

“Are you feeling okay?” asks 99111. It’s not usual for the drone leader to sound this uninterested.

“Just thinking,” 10k smiles and sits up, “We’ve never been this far away from everyone. Even during shippy time we had three high ranks and the Queen around as well as a bunch of other drones. Now there are only the three of us and there’s so much I know that I don’t know because we can’t reach the general hive mind. I feel like I should be panicking but I’m… not? I know I should feel stupid just because there’s no hive mind knowledge to draw from aside from what the three of us know but I’m fine, somehow. I’m in a huge, incredibly loud and shaky, moving box. Before, I’m sure I’d say this is some kind of invisible magic barrier but I know it’s a glass window even though I’m not sure what glass is,” it knocks on the window, “I don’t know things, but I think I know concepts. It’s a strange feeling, different from the usual all or nothing.”

99380 withdraws its head back into the coupe.

“Did I hear knock-”

The train brakes. 99380’s body jerks forward but right before it slams into the baggage area above 10k’s bench it vanishes in a burst of green fire and reappears immediately on the floor, absolutely fine, with no remaining kinetic energy, and seemingly only slightly confused by the sudden new angle of looking at the world.

“-huh.”

“Don’t waste love on weird jumping around, 99380. Who knows when we’ll get the chance to feed?” says 10k with only a slight hint of disapproval.

“Sorry, I wasn’t really thinking about it. You know how my inside and outside aren’t always, uhh, together. But, uhh, there’s this weird thing…” 99380 rubs its chin, “I can feel love everywhere around and vanishing like that didn’t tire me out at all. Am I the only one?”

10k and 99111 exchange looks before nodding.

“You’re right,” admits 10k, “It feels like I’m breathing love.”

“Got an idea!” 99111’s extra arm waves enthusiastically, “You know how the Queen said that we’re getting the chance to go come to this crystal place in return for some smart pony visiting the hive to learn about drones, right? How about we do the same thing? We do smart stuff to learn about this new place!”

“Like when you, 99856, and 99450 figure out new inventions!” 99380 nods.

“I don’t think we’ll be allowed to blow up or melt anything, and the Queen specifically said ‘no digging’ unless we get in danger, but we could make a list of what to ask or try out,” says 10k, and the other two get a hive link notification about a new mental list they can access, “We’ll have to carefully test our limits but if there’s really love everywhere we could do some serious mental stuff at only the cost of a headache.”

“I already have so many questions! Like-” 99111 bounces up and down with excitement.

“On the list,” 10k cools it down, “I’m sure Smiley will be able to answer most of them once she picks us up.”

Over the next five minutes, as the train slows down and the ticket inspector peeks inside to tell the group they’ll be arriving at the destination, the drones restore the coupe to the state in which they were let inside back in Ponyville, which in their case means only closing the window and dutifully buffing out the creases in the seat leather where they sat or lay. They don’t have any luggage. The Queen didn’t let them take their Scufflestick sets, saying that if they wanted to play the silly game, they might as well stay home and that not bringing it with them would encourage exploration. All their possessions, from the gems they brought with them to the train tickets, are tucked inside their leg holes or under looser parts of their carapaces depending on shape.

As they get off the train and step into the light, they momentarily feel at home again. The train station, which used to be a single-track affair with a booth and a platform after the Empire’s return, has changed over the past decade into a eggshell-like structure shielding three platforms -incoming, outcoming, and heavy cargo- supported by a network of metal pillars and a frame above that’s holding an almost clear crystal roof currently giving a beautiful view of the blue sky. There are ponies milling around and chatting everywhere, from booths with ponies selling stuff to tourists, passengers leaving the train just like the drones, to worker crews busy loading the heavy train on the cargo track. Despite almost everything that’s happening being alien to the drones, their instinct is telling them they’re in a huge cavern full of non-gribblers who are busy with work or leisure. If it was dark, they could almost think they’re back in the High Score Cavern.

With curiosity fighting fear, the drones form a triangle with 10k taking the lead and heading towards a large opening with a sign ‘EXIT’ hanging above through which ponies are entering and leaving.

“Can we stay a bit? The train thingy has so many moving pieces!” 99111 looks backwards longingly.

“Not now,” 10k shakes its head, “Smiley should be waiting for us. If not, we need to be visible and this looks like the only exit out of this train cave.”

The firm refusal leaves 99111 with no option but to nod, at least until the trio walk onto the sunlit crystal street.

“GAAASP!” 99380’s eyes go wide, “I gotta- I- I need more-” the drone vanishes in a burst of green flames.

“Huh?” 10k can’t even react in time as the rays of rainbow light reflecting off of variously colored crystal buildings as well as the street itself blind it.

“I- the houses- more shiny than the sea-” 99111 stutters out, all thoughts of technology temporarily forgotten.

Despite its desire for shiny things, 10k forces itself to close its eyes and mentally connects to 99380 who is still within reach.

“Where are you?” it asks.

“I’m on top of the train place! Everything I can see is shiny!” comes a response pitched in the happiest of high octaves.

“What do you mean by everything?”

“EVERYTHING!”

For a brief moment, 10k taps into 99380’s mind to see through its eyes. Being a drone whose special talent is hive mind manipulation, 99380 notices immediately and lets 10k in. Everything from the rows and rows of houses

“Wow…” says the drone leader and disconnects, “You know what? Stay up there and keep your eyes and hive link open for Smiley, okay?”

“Will do!” up on the highest point of the rounded roof, 99380 salutes to no one and reaches out with its mind, yet the only changelings it can sense are 10k and 99380.

Down by the train station entrance, 99111 catches its own reflection in the crystal bannister of the stairs leading down from the station, genuinely gasps for real instead of just saying gasp, and yelps:

“Drone!”

10k immediately turns its head to look and catches its own reflection as well. It watches it for a moment, realizing it’s mirroring its movements, and an old memory surfaces.

“That’s not real, that’s just like… when we were on the ship. Maybe you can see yourself in more things than just in water?” it hazards a guess.

“Huuuh,” 99111 pauses. It’s one of the drones who survived shippy time and carries all the bad memories with it too, “Maybe?” it pokes the crystal.

“Wait here, I’m going to check back inside in case we missed Smiley on the way. I can’t sense her, but maybe her link is just closed. I doubt she uses it much as she travels all over the surface,” says 10k, trying to reassure itself.

“I’ll be on guard like a response team drone!” 99111 nods and its extra arm salutes.

10k returns into the train station and begins aimlessly wandering around. The others will report if Smiley shows up, and they have nowhere to go without her as a guide, so it’s in no rush. Granted, even with its limited experience it realizes there are a ton of innocent reasons why Smiley might have been delayed, but during each of the two times it’s been out of the hive before something horrible happened, so while the others might chalk her missing to coincidence, 10k’s worry surges with each passing minute.

Twenty minutes later, the drone leader is just walking along a track and looking downwards, trying to think of how to save the situation in case Smiley can’t make it, no matter the reason.

The main thing is that we have food. With so much love around, we might not even need a place to sleep. So, what we need is to figure out why Smiley isn’t here yet and secure a way back home-

A shiny thing different from everything else around catches 10k’s eye and derails its train of thought. Peeking from under the raised edge of the platform overhanging the track area is some kind of a crystal the likes of which the drone leader has never seen before. It’s blade-like, sharp, longer than a drone’s hoof, and curving upwards, fading from obsidian black to blood red and still reflecting light despite the dim colors. 10k looks around in case someone else seems to be looking for it and when it sees no one even remotely fitting that description, it hops down to grab it. Even compared to the refreshing breeze the drone felt outside, the crystal is emitting a seeping cold which reminds it of the snow back home. 10k sighs, sparing a moment of hope that 65536 will visit from Canterlot this winter as usual and take the drones to play outside. It has a whole bunch of strategies planned out for the capture-the-stick snowball fight.

Shaking its head to return to here and now, 10k stashes the strange crystal into a gap in its chest carapace.

“Any signs of Smiley?” it mentally calls out despite knowing that the guys would have called already if there were any, and receives only negative answers.

This place is as shiny as one can be, but I don’t like this.

***

2119, who is standing guard by the guest cave, bows when he sees the Queen and 156 approach.

“Leave us,” orders 156 through her hive link and pings the hive entrance on the mental map.

2119 gets the message and immediately strides off. 156 takes his place and Chrysalis enters the cave where Twilight Sparkle is busy with some kind of a tubular, unexploded device and several rocks on the bigger workbench. It’s easy for the Queen to see that the alicorn is still shaking and covering it by burying herself at work which, unlike reading ponies, means nothing to Chrysalis.

The alicorn notices Chrysalis only once she clears her throat and she jerks around with a sharp intake of breath.

“I’m hearing some news about monsters invading the drone home,” the Queen doesn’t approach further because a single look at Twilight’s face is enough to confirm that the alicorn, no matter how hard she’s trying to convey self-control, is mentally in pieces. The immediate relief in Twilight’s expression as she hears the question, however, surprises the Queen.

“Yes, I saw it too, tentacles and eyes everywhere, but I panicked and tried to teleport away and-”

“I meant you,” Chrysalis interrupts Twilight’s explanation.

That finally seems to snap Twilight out of her shock.

“What, me? Monster? That makes no sense.”

“A monster with a glowing ball instead of a head pretending to be connected to the Great Shiny -don’t ask, drone religion makes zero sense and they can only be happy I don’t throw anyone who gets too much into it into the nearest lava pool- to sabotage the statue of the original High Score.”

“Glowing ball- oh!” Twilight’s eyes widen, “Was my illumination spell too strong and blinded them? That makes sense, they work in next to no light,” she shoots Chrysalis a desperate look, “Your Majesty, can you tell them-?”

Even before she finishes the sentence, Chrysalis’ sudden sadistic smile answers.

“And ruin your authentic experience by interfering with the test subjects? I wouldn’t even dream of it, Princess,” the Queen slips into her usual demeanor now that the situation has been, well, not resolved but cleared up.

At that moment, Twilight realizes that while 2119 and 3012 might not be actively spying on her, they’ll have to tell CH everything if she asks.

“I understand, but having the first visitor to the hive end up as a semi-melted skeleton lost somewhere on the floor wouldn’t help either of us, would it?” she opts for the diplomatic approach.

“True,” Chrysalis nods, but Twilight’s victory is short-lived, “I’ll tell them to try to not to blow up or melt ‘the monster’ as long as it’s just observing, but that’s it. No extra access. Anything else - be it talking to you, doing things for you, or showing you their work is up to you to persuade them. As an example -just throwing stuff at a wall here- if you try to take something that’s not yours they’ll have full permission to defend their home. Even in that case, I’ll tell them to try and be non-lethal, but they aren’t used to things that aren’t trying to kill them first so they don’t have many suppressive options. Long story short, if I were you I’d use that friend making talent of yours before snooping around or you still might lose a limb or two.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty. That’s all I can hope for. I’ll head down again as soon as-”

“I don’t think you understood me completely, Princess,” Chrysalis’ smile only widens, “This is, in terms of a time-honored drone tradition, a trade. I give you a second chance to continue your ‘research’ and you do something for me in return.”

“I’m listening,” Twilight narrows her eyes, expecting Chrysalis to come up with some impossible political nonsense she’s bound to have to refuse. Instead, Chrysalis turns around, takes a deep breath, and starts spinning a story.

“There is a bad apple in dronekind who had the audacity to steal an egg from me, experiment on it, and who successfully created the ‘thing’ you probably saw. Now it’s hiding in its lair in the deep tunnels along with its minion. If you want me to order the drones to let you get closer, you’ll have to bring the villain as well as its monstrous minion to me unharmed, maybe only slightly dented. The last part is crucial, non-negotiable, and if accidentally broken I will be extremely pissed off on a personal level.”

“I don’t even know where to start looking or how to orient myself in the hive,” says Twilight.

“Well,” Chrysalis shrugs, “Your body research assistant seems to be doing just fine. You’re a smart pony, Twilight Sparkle. I’m sure you'll write down a list of things to go through in order to achieve your inevitable victory. So, do we have a deal?”

Twilight has to admit that Chrysalis’ demand isn’t crazy, although there’s clearly more to it if she can’t do it herself. On the other hoof, crafting contingency spells is already difficult in a laboratory setting, and she has no shot of stabilizing a new cloak of emergency protections here. Getting unknown weapons thrown at her again could easily be lethal.

Twilight takes a deep breath to steady her nerves.

What worthwhile scientific endeavor is ever easy?

“We do,” she replies, “I’ll find a way to bring your villain drone and its monster minion to you either unharmed or at worst slightly dazed with minimal real damage. In return, you’ll order the drones not to use deadly force against me as long as I stick to observation or to terms of any ‘trade’ I make with them.”

“I’m glad to hear that. Good luck,” Chrysalis turns away and leaves.

156 rejoins the Queen and signals 2119 to return to his guest cave post. Once she’s sure they’re out of earshot, 156 asks:

“What game are you playing, Your Majesty? You know that 99818 is one of the best performing drones, and that 99998 tried to bring you strange gems it found on multiple occasions. Holes, it even spent its free time trekking to the greenhouse to get flowers for you from 57999. Frankly, it irks me that you hate it so much, and that I had to send it away so many times,” 156 leaves out that she always encourages the weird drone to keep trying and gives it a little extra love.

“I don’t hate it, it just creeps me the holes out,” Chrysalis shudders, “What baffles me is that I have no idea what that little idiot 99818 did to mess with changeling genetics this badly while still creating a viable and thriving life form, and the worst part is that it, being a drone who just does random shit, has no clue itself! I myself have to either hatch an egg I personally carry or use the Reconstitution Chamber, but all 99818 recalls is that it just shat some random pieces of goop it traded with other drones into a cracked egg and it worked!”

“I understand that having drones being able to hatch with seemingly any instinctive ability at random is frustrating but it has already proved to be critically useful in multiple cases. With that in mind, you could have asked the Princess to help you figure out a way to clear out the gravel section that’s limiting our access to the Guide’s Cavern or widen the connecting cave system. Why involve 99818?”

“It shouldn’t have ruined the generator. It’s so boring here without the radio, and you said no when I suggested we start a drone fighting ring when I even found volunteers!” huffs Chrysalis.

“It would be too love-inefficient.”

“See? Fun killer 156. If we send purplesmart to the depths of the hive, though, we might get a laugh out of it whether she succeeds or not.”

“I see, and since 99818’s shifts are all around GC for the next week plus the fact that it works on the ‘evil lair’ in spare time, the Princess will have to figure out a way to fit through the cave system, in which situation you’re betting on her not just making herself smaller because her magic isn’t working properly, am I correct?”

“Exactly!” Chrysalis boops 156’s nose, “Who better to solve our access problem in a way that won’t cost us months or years of drone work hauling gravel? I don’t know modern mining procedures, but an actual know-it-all might.”

“Well played. Or more accurately - great use of a coincidence.”

“I do have moments of greatness, don’t I?” Chrysalis smugs smugly.

“And what will you do if the Princess actually succeeds and brings 99818 and 99998 to you unharmed? You know, when you’ll be forced to admit that you sent her down there mostly just to see what happens.”

“156, 156, 156. Tsk tsk tsk,” Chrysalis shakes her head, “Of course I have a plan for that - the moment we hear a report of her coming back, we change our names and start a new hive in the Crystal Empire.”

“So you intend to move back in with your daughter?”

Chrysalis’ agonized wheeze, the slow turn of her head, and the glare of the purest murder gets answered by 156’s smile, as the infiltrator knows that, for once, this verbal match is her complete and inarguable victory.

Author's Note

This one's freshly off the press, because only now I finally had some time to write. Last week, my grandmother died after I had to take care of her for the past 4(?) years, and the only thing I feel is relief because taking care of someone barely communicating and mostly immobile is taxing to say the least. Am I completely burned out on emotions or just a bad person? The latter, probably.

Anyway, I hope at least your Hard Swarming is full of peace and drones.

13-2: Greenhouse and chill

A couple of silent minutes later as 99200 relays everything to the other drones through the weak link provided by the wounded drone resting at the node point, Gloom finally walks up a set of stairs through a rectangle of bright light into the world of noise, and takes a deep breath of fresh, sweet, summer air.

“Hello, 838!” 99200 greets someone from her back after a brief hesitation before adding in a much friendlier and happier tone, “Hi guys!”

As it hops down from her back, the bat pony blinks away the day blindness after hours in the underground darkness and takes in her surroundings. She’d seen the greenhouse before while escorting 65536 during its winter visits to the hive, but that was always only as a dot of light in the distance. This is the first time she’s anywhere close, much less directly inside. The design is ingenious to the level that makes it distinctly not drone-made. The small building is a simple, segmented and metal frame with heavy hinges supporting squares of thick but clear glass set into it and screwed in, which includes even the triangular roof. This makes everything see-through and easy to spot any approaching danger plus, just like it’s now, every square of glass can be opened outward and secured with a heavy metal bolt. Gloom isn’t particularly versed in architecture or heavy blacksmithing, but even she can see that while this place looks fragile, it can become a fortress when locked down. One drone is currently busy standing on the roof, balancing itself with its wings, and meticulously layering its resin along the outer frame.

Well, it was busy doing it until Gloom and 99200 arrived. Now it has its face pressed against the glass while staring in amazement.

Did it not see me yesterday or was it one of those who didn’t have the courage to approach?

The inside is as simple and functional as the building itself. The floor is the usual hard, baked ground of the Badlands but it’s beset with stone planters full of wet soil and growing flowers. There are only a couple duplicates, and those are arranged in a C pattern around the trapdoor entrance along with two square tanks almost as tall as Gloom herself which are full of water. Due to having access to castle gardens, Gloom can recognize most of the incredible variety of plants here, but also due to having zero interest in botany, she can barely name one or two. What weirds her out immediately, though, is that there’s a drone on the floor next to one of the tanks which looks, for all intents and purposes, dead. However, she also knows that changelings eat their dead completely to reabsorb the love in their bodies and to hide their presence, so she doesn’t comment on it.

Maybe it’s just some kind of hibernation.

In the back, there’s a second drone sitting and carefully watering a planter with a watering can held in both forelegs that’s clearly made of a single piece of stone and is basically a cup with a small spout. Like everything drone-made, it’s primitive, simple, and functional. Despite Gloom’s arrival, the drone maintains its concentration on its work with only an occasional wide-eyed glance.

The final two changelings are recognizable. 57999 is easy thanks to its carapace full of unnatural dents, soft smile, and metal bracers held together with goop and a wish on its forelegs, and 838 thanks to 99200’s greeting as well as being an actual ranked changeling. Gloom’s best guess is that he’s a warrior, but a very athletic infiltrator could naturally look similar. The presumed warrior notices Gloom’s entrance immediately, although he finishes his report to 57999 first.

“-with my rounds and I didn’t see any tracks. There’s barely any movement at all. It’s shaping up to be a calm day. Do you need anything else?”

“No, thank you. We have enough water to last for today, so why don’t you take a break through sleepy time? We always bolt everything up anyway,” 57999 limps around the warrior who keeps his eyes on it as the drone fiddles with a planter of bright red flowers.

“My schedule is what it is. I can’t avoid my duty just because things look fine at the moment. I’ll do my best to not wake you up when I get back at night,” 838 shakes his head and, as he turns to leave, 57999 walks up to him with a cut off red flower, the bottom of its stalk covered with a dollop of goop. The surprised warrior only tilts his head when the drone unsteadily stands up on its hind legs, steadies itself on his chest to avoid falling over, and sticks the flower into the groove of 838’s carapace.

“There,” it withdraws back and stumbles, its breathing slightly strained but not losing its soft smile.

“What is it for?” asks 838.

“I think it just looks pretty,” is all 57999 says, “And it smells nice too,” it pauses, “Uhh, it’ll be more noticeable down in the tunnels.”

The warrior clearly doesn’t know what to say or do, so he defaults to his function, nods, and leaves with: “I’ll be back in eight to ten hours. Stay safe.”

Passing Gloom, he simply nods and descends the staircase down to the connecting tunnel.

“Meep!” the drone watering the flowers in the back yelps when it realizes it’s been staring at Gloom for too long because it’s now sitting in a pool of water soaking into the ground.

“Miss Gloom!” 57999 limps over too quickly, trips when one of its forelegs folds under itself, and promptly falls on its face. It sits up before Gloom can get close, raises the offending foreleg, and gives it a puzzled shake.

“Are you okay?” Gloom immediately sits down next to it and pulls it into a soft hug, “I’m not sure how to give you as much love as I can, and I’m afraid that if I hug you too hard you’ll pop out of your carapace.”

To her surprise, 57999 simply nuzzles her neck before relaxing in her embrace and pointing its small muzzle right up at her chin.

“I’m fine, Miss Gloom. I’m just a bit tired. What brings you here?”

“Huh? 99200 didn’t mind-beam the information to you while we were on the way?”

“I wanted to make it a surprise,” says the explorer, currently sitting in the open doorway and watching the outside world, namely the forest’s edge in the not-so-far distance.

“You did,” 57999 chuckles, “99774 and 99551 definitely weren’t ready for you,” it turns its head away from Gloom as much as the hug allows, and calls out, “No need to be afraid, guys. Miss Gloom is a pony, and she’s very huggy.”

Both the watering drone and the one re-gooping the outer frame carefully approach. One pokes her side and when Gloom smiles, showing her teeth, the drone eeps and darts backwards.

“Right, the teeth,” Gloom mutters.

“She won’t bite you,” says 99200 in what, for the first- no, second time today and possibly ever, seems to Gloom like a tone that’s disappointed in another drone.

99158 sounded like that when it talked about new drones being too used to the new, good times.

Then it hits her, and it hits her hard. After all, an underground explorer willingly going into the deadly depths in its off time and a basically a SWAT team drone would both have different views on courage than a normal worker, similar to a Nightguard who sees ponies daily at their worst. The normal, daily fears just fade into irrelevance. The cute little critters are learning the lessons that make them calloused. Thankfully, unlike with ponies, their first and primary goal still is cooperation instead of individualism, so it doesn’t matter as much.

What she also notices, however, is that none of that hint of disappointment is present in 57999 who simply keeps up its soft, encouraging smile when it adds-

“Her hair is soft and her squishy skin makes it so that she’s way warmer than we are. Try it.”

-and nuzzles her neck again. In response, Gloom begins stroking its head.

The old ones have had the time to go through horrors not even 99158 and 99200 can imagine, and emerge on the other side wanting nothing more than for others to have a better life. That’s why 9999’s statue was so important.

I need to ask about the other two when I have the chance.

The hard chitin of 57999’s muzzle nudges the bruise on her chest, reminding her why she’s here in the first place. It notices her pained hiss and looks up.

“Sorry?” it peeps.

“Not your fault,” she lets the drone go, “I sparred a little with 99158 and it landed a lucky hit on me,” she taps the bruised spot on her chest, “It told me about the greenhouse and your healing powers, so I decided to do something that’s both helpful and educational and visit this beautiful place. 99200 led me here and, in return, I’ll help it make a proper armor for -shoot, I forgot the number- the guy who blows stuff up including itself.”

“99856. What a fantastic idea!” 57999 nods, “I can make you some healing goop. Do you want the strong or the weak version?”

“What’s the difference?”

“The strong one is what I usually make for the drones who need to recover at node points. It helps them sleep when everything hurts,” explains 57999.

“The weak version then, please. It’s just a big bruise for me, and I have too much stuff to learn about you guys to waste time sleeping.”

“Hmm, then we gotta go visit the poppy patch,” 57999 looks outside, “I made a couple strong batches recently, so I gotta drink some water and-” it pats its belly, “-reset.”

As Gloom stands up, a smell she almost forgot after reentering the world of flowers and fresh air returns - herself.

“Say, you have fresh water,” she points to the two tanks by the tunnel entrance, “Is there a stream or a river nearby? I could use a quick bath.”

“Yup,” 57999 nods, “It’s a bit out of the way, but we can visit it on the way back. The healing goop will need some time to prepare anyway after I eat the poppies. We always spend most of the first few worky time hours refilling the tanks,” it heads to the door, “99200, can you take one of the buckets with you, please?”

“Mhm,” the explorer disappears behind the tanks and returns with a square, stone bucket securely gooped to its back shortly after.

Several instructions given to the two drones remaining in the greenhouse later, the trio leave towards the forest’s edge in the distance. What quickly becomes clear, though, is that limping 57999 is slowing the pace by a lot, so Gloom offers it a ride on her back. It falls asleep in only a few minutes, which makes Gloom whispers:

“99200, is 57999 really okay? If a pony acted like this, I’d rush them to a doctor for a check-up immediately. I don’t really know how your feeding on love works in practicality, but if there’s a way I can squeeze more out of myself, I’ll do it.”

The drone explorer shakes its head.

“57999 is all good on love. 10k, after its own experience with surgery that 65536 performed on it, did its best to examine 57999, but no one has any idea why it’s so tired. Even 65536 itself did a full-body, no-carapace check last freezy time and while there were tons of scars and weird seemingly permanent damage, it didn’t find any major reason why 57999 would be getting… worse. 10k even ordered a long rest, baths in healing goop, and gave 57999 two assistants, but it didn’t change anything.”

Gloom sighs, and a thought she had many times before, although in regard to 65536, returns:

The drones veterans would be around twelve years old, the changelings who escaped the hive before the invasion and live among ponies to this day are decades old without signs of aging, Chrysalis is supposedly centuries old, and 65536 is livelier than ever but, come to think of it, I’ve never even heard about a drone who didn’t die violently. So, how long do changelings actually live?

Scratch that. How long do drones live?

2: Changeling Emba(ra)ssy

Two days have passed since the discovery of the exchange offer, during which Twilight meticulously wrote down potential visitation dates, several versions of the deal based on if her yet unknown bodyguard would be allowed to come with or not, and Princess Cadance’s offers regarding places where the visiting changelings would stay and with what company. Writing down the offers and figuring out the possibilities itself didn’t take that long. What Twilight was really waiting for was seeing the official print of the new edition of Smiley’s Scribbles on the counter of Whispershade’s cafe. A quick purchase later, she finally had something to approach the changeling embassy with instead of “I heard about this Royal exchange program from a small, striped, mute changeling and- no, don’t call the security I’m not on drugs!”.

Finally, Twilight finds herself in front of a three-story office building on 124 Sunrise Avenue. Like most buildings in Upper Canterlot, it’s made from magically-lightened marble and covered in delicate gold foil wherever possible - railings, writing above the revolving front door. Hay, the entire front facade of the house is decorated to show the status of the place. Despite never being inside before, Twilight knows buildings like these. The upper city is full of them. Large Equestrian cities are more city-states and they often have some variant of an official place of business akin to an embassy. However, since space is the most limiting commodity in Upper Canterlot, and no city official with a sufficiently overblown ego would be caught conducting business from the lower city, only the biggest diplomatic players have their own building up here. While changelings with their recent rise would certainly fall under such a category, they either must have missed the memo or they are of Twilight’s level of practicality.

The alicorn makes her way up a short set of stairs connecting the sidewalk to the central revolving door and stops to examine the plaques of the occupying organizations.

Oof, the Municipality of Stalliongrad. I can’t imagine those guys being happy within the same city as changelings, much less in the same building.

As her eyes slide down, the final plaque is the presumed symbol of the Changeling Hive. It is made from standard brass embossed with black curves twisting around each other and forming a crown. At first, Twilight scoffs at the presumed symbol of Queen Chrysalis’ ego, but a small inconsistency catches her eye and she looks closer. There are tiny markings and highlights all over the crown, and upon a detailed examination Twilight gasps.

It’s not just a crown. The tiny highlights are parts of changeling silhouettes! The twisted lines all form a map similar to a mine. The tip of the crown, likely the throne room, is the top. The upper, filled layer are the living quarters or the main levels of the mine or the hive, and the bottom with the scarce lines and some trailing off are the small shafts that haven’t been reinforced yet.

I’m impressed!

Twilight tears herself off of the official logo and enters the lobby. There’s a booth with a front desk directly ahead, hallways leading to the left and the right, and a staircase next to the booth. Her hoofsteps echo on the stone floor and startle a unicorn receptionist sitting inside who immediately jumps up and bows when his brain realizes who just entered.

“Y-Your Highness! What brings- how can I help you?”

Not calling me ‘Your Highness’ would be a good start.

“I would like to visit the changeling embassy, please. Can you tell me where it is?” asks Twilight politely.

“Office 0-3, Your Highness,” the unicorn nods frantically, “Finally, someone is coming to show the bugs the boot.”

“Are they causing any trouble?” Twilight forcefully retains her expression of polite curiosity as she approaches.

“Well, uhm, no, not as such,” the receptionist lowers his voice and leans in, “But I mean, after what they did they should have no place in civilized society. Or anypony consorting with them, for that matter.”

“Do you mean ‘doing official business with them’?” Twilight raises an eyebrow.

“No, there’s a Royal Guard coming here regularly ‘for visits’,” the unicorn’s hoof air quotes are beyond sarcastic, “I’m pretty sure he’s selling state secrets to the bugs in return for… you know… indecent favors.”

“Do you know the name of the guard?” Twilight still tries to resolve this amicably instead of telling the unicorn off, now more as de-escalation practice than anything else.

“Spear-something, Your Highness.”

“You have no idea how little that narrows it down, have you?” Twilight sighs, “Look, unless you have some proof they’re doing something illegal or disturbing the peace around here then my hooves are tied. The attack on Canterlot was terrible, but still I believe that everypony deserves a second chance.”

“You can’t know how bad it was, you live in Ponyville,” the receptionist shakes his head and Twilight’s polite expression finally gives way to open irritation.

“Shining Armor is my brother, I was at the wedding, I got teleported by Queen Chrysalis into the depths of Canterlot mountain where I had to save Princess Cadance, me and my friends got swarmed by changelings when we tried to gather the Elements of Harmony, and I spent the next week washing changeling vomit -I hope to this day- out of my mane,” she states in a matter of fact tone of someone stating a list of facts before giving the unicorn her fakest smile, “Now, would you be so kind as to point me towards office 0-3?”

The unicorn shuts up in defeat, sits back down, and points. Twilight heads down the left corridor without a ‘thank you’, passes some kind of a technical room, a utility closet, and finds what she’s been looking for. Tense, she raises her hoof.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Make a good impression, Twilight. This is the first chance for ANYPONY of any scientific background to observe changelings in their natural habitat.

*Knock knock knock!*

Before the echo of her knocks dies down, she hears two quiet voices from the inside. Thank Celestia for the common use of cheap, paper-thin inside doors even in outwardly presenting ‘fancy’ buildings.

“Did you hear anything?”

“What was that noise? Do I go ask-?”

“Wait! I think it was the door.”

Something bumps into the door with a thud.

“Ow… forgot it opened the other way…”

“Is everything okay?” Twilight knocks again and raises her voice.

“I’m here!” replies the one of the two voices that’s right behind the door.

The door clicks open, revealing two of the small changelings- drones, even slightly smaller than Smiley was. The one opening the door straight up drops on his- her- their flank while looking straight up at Twilight in pure amazement.

“Holes, here pony!” the other one squeaks, standing atop a wardrobe by the right wall, utters some strange mix of clicking and buzzing, before ending with words again, “-have pony!” it steps off of the wardrobe, forgetting to fly and plunging to the ground like a rock.

Unbothered, the second drone stands up again, examining Twilight with amazement etched into its chitinous face yet also with much more self-control.

“You’re right, 99778, we have a pony. Now calm down and try saying it in full again,” it nods at the crashed drone before backing off and addressing Twilight officially, “Sorry to bother you, Miss. 99778 is new here and sometimes forgets how to speak like a pony.”

“No problem,” Twilight can’t help cracking a smile. The drones are clearly out of their depth but even she can see they’re trying their best.

Observation one - they jumble their words when excited, just like Smiley did in writing.

“Ahem,” 99778 picks itself up and tries again as if nothing happened, “Oh my holes, we have a pony!” it exclaims with exactly the same wild gesticulation as before, “99911, we have a pony!” it faces Twilight again and speaks out slowly and deliberately, “Sorry, Miss pony. I thought I said all that out loud but I didn’t. I’m learning.”

“As I said, it’s no problem,” Twilight shakes her head, “Well, maybe one problem-”

“Oh no!” 99778 covers its mouth with both hooves, “Me sorry. Better next time.”

“No no no, It’s not a problem with you. I mean, technically it is-”

“Oh no no, sorry sorry sorry. No send home. Want see more shiny-” 99778’s focus shatters immediately.

“I was just worried you got hurt by the fall!” Twilight raises her voice, interrupting 99778’s apology.

“Oh? Me? No, I’m fine,” the drone waves it off, clearly relieved. It pokes the carpet, “See? The floor is all soft.”

“We are fairly durable, Miss,” explains 99911 and rushes off behind a desk in the center of the room where it hops onto a chair sized for a pony, leaving it standing on its hind legs while propping itself up by the desk using its forelegs, “Now, what can we do for you? I think you might be the first pony that’s here for official business.”

“How do you know I’m here for business?”

“The other kind of ponies usually don’t bother knocking, they just yell,” 99911 sighs, “Some of their chants are pretty catchy, though. Right, 99778?”

“Yeah! Bug horse cum, can’t keep us down!” chants the second drone with a wide smile while pumping its hoof in the air, “Bug horse cum, can’t keep us down! Very positive. Say, Miss, what’s cum? I asked 99 but she said I must have heard wrong.”

“And we haven’t had a mob in -woah, has it been that long?- over a month,” 99911 rubs its chin, “So we couldn’t ask since then.”

Twilight takes a deep breath. As interested as she is in anything changeling related, including anti-changeling protesters, there are priorities here. After she gets the exchange deal, any topic is a free game.

“I believe, or at least sincerely hope, that you heard ‘scum’ which means filth, or dirt in certain lingos,” she says, hoping to quickly close the topic.

“Hmmm…” 99778 sniffs the air, “Should we shower again? 99 smacked me last time when I used up all the bubbly stuff. Speaking of which, can we go trading later, 99911?”

“Before you get distracted again, please, tell me who can process my official request around here?” Twilight interjects, refusing to let the conversation get off track again, even if she has to build the track herself rail by rail and sleeper after sleeper.

“Right!” 99911 nods, beams at her, and starts over, “What can we do for you, Miss?”

Twilight takes a deep breath, walks over to the desk, and puts the new issue of Smiley’s Scribbles on it, the last article facing 99911.

“I’m answering the cultural exchange offer,” Twilight’s horn lights up, conjuring a purple floating arrow that points to the article’s header, immediately prompting 99911 to poke it, “I’ve arranged the terms of the deal regarding the Crystal Empire and I’d like to be the one to visit the changeling hive, accompanied by a body- research assistant,” Twilight corrects herself. It doesn’t pay to start off by making the other side think she’s suspicious of them already.

“GASP!” 99911 pumps up and down, still standing on its hind legs, “That was so quick!”

“Did you just say ‘gasp’-?” mutters Twilight. 99911 ignores her and points at 99778 who points back just for fun.

“Bring the form CH-T-4, buddy.”

Twilight watches 99778 rush to a commode in the back of the room atop which there sits a one-level sectioned box with five openings, out of which only four are filled with sheets of paper.

“You don’t have many forms,” she nods to 99778 pulling out the right form with the terrified care of an intern on their first day.

“We’re just starting off. I imagine we’ll eventually have scribbles for all sorts of things,” says 99911 with pride, “We have one for changelings who don’t don’t live in the hive anymore but would like the Queen to know about them, one for general requests for those changelings who want to be a part of the hive even without living there, one for random stuff -that one has only a big fill-in box -you can even draw a picture into it- and the new exchange one.”

Twilight nods approvingly.

So, these drones are definitely not foals despite displaying similar characteristics. Let’s think of them as their own category. The main thing I can see is that nothing that’s happening here is their nature, and everything is only a metaphorical coat they’re wearing. The plant on the filing cabinet in the back is a) overwatered and b) plastic while the one on the left window is dry.

The comparison makes Twilight reconsider.

No, I’m wrong. They’re experimenting. Somepony who knew what it meant must have told them that they have to water the plants but didn’t explain further because they thought it was obvious. They know what to do, but they don’t know what it means nor do they have the context of why they’re doing it. Normally, that would fulfill the idea of a bee hive or an ant colony and the ‘drone’ classification, but these guys seem to be trying to figure things out on their own.

I wonder if their hive is like this.

99778 reverently puts the paper down on the desk where 99911 reads it, nods to itself, picks up a pen and sticks it into a slit in its right hoof seemingly grown specifically for it.

Twilight mentally categorizes this observation for later, her mind full of research notes to write down and questions to ask.

So they write with their fore-limbs like griffons or minotaurs. I did see other changelings write with their mouths too, though.

“Oookay, let’s do this,” 99911 hypes itself up, “Name, please?”

“Twilight Sparkle.”

“Oooh, like the bottle we got in the square room!” 99778, now sitting on the carpet despite there being several chairs and even an armchair by the wall, gives her a knowing nod.

“Square room, what?” Twilight raises an eyebrow.

“There’s a room in the back that’s full of white squares all over! There’s a tiny stream you can make flow whenever you want and a rain tube in there, too!”

99778 runs out through one of the two doors in the back before Twilight can say anything.

They did say shower earlier, but now it’s a rain tube. Maybe they know the activity is ‘to shower’ but no one told them that the rain machine is ‘the shower’?

“Umm, Miss Toilet-?” 99911 speaks out.

“Twilight, not toilet!” snaps the alicorn back sharply. It’s not the first time she’s been called that, and it’s a touchy subject.

99778, returning from the bathroom, drops a bottle of the same shade of color as the alicorn’s coat that was in its mouth and immediately tries to hide behind it, forelegs clamped over its head. 99911 is arched like a cat, ears splayed back.

“We sorry,” 99778 peeps in a hesitant tone of someone who thinks they did something bad but isn’t sure what.

“Yes, we are sorry for… whatever we did wrong,” 99911 says slowly, clearly thinking each word through, “If you tell us what it was we’ll try to not do it again.”

Twilight takes a deep breath and telekinetically levitates the purple bottle dropped by 99778 to herself.

“Toilet Sparkle. Who’s making that?” she turns it around and huffs, “Of course, FlimFlam industries. Industries, my plot. Useless scam artists…”

The drones don’t dare move even after she stops grumbling to herself, and Twilight realizes the next move is on her.

“I understand the words may sound similar, but calling a pony toilet, not twi-light is an insult,” she explains diplomatically. Even though she’s no expert on body language, her recent years as the Princess of Friendship forced enough experience on her that she’s almost certain the drones didn’t mean it as an insult and they’re not laughing internally right now.

“Oh!” 99778 rises up.

“I see. I’m sorry, Miss Twi-light,” 99911 rubs its head with an apologetic smile, “99778? I think I need a new form.”

“Can I keep that one to draw on?”

“Sure,” 99911 just tosses the form with ‘Toilet Sparkle’ name on the floor where 99778 picks it up once it delivers the new one and scuttles to put it away.

They sure do bounce back quickly. And like with the shower, I think they know the word toilet but not the context of its usage. That one makes sense for changelings.

“If you need any help with the words, don’t be afraid to ask,” offers Twilight to raise the drones’ mood even further, “I can see you don’t have that many CH-T-4 forms left.”

“Don’t worry, Miss Twi-light,” says 99778, putting its acquired form for drawing on a second desk in the back, “We still have the one you’re working with and another three left. Once there are only two, I gotta go visit a place where they can make more.”

“Why when there are two left and not only one?” asks Twilight while 99911 scribbles something on a sticky note next to the form and shows it to her, “It’s t-w-i, not t-u-a-i, you got the light right,” she whispers and the drone writes the name on the real form.

“99 said to go when there are two left because if I muck up on the way there’ll be one left for her to do it herself,” explains 99778, “And 99 is a high rank, so she won’t mess up.”

“Miss Twilight?” 99911 studies the form further, “What kind of a pony are you? We have a box here for an earth pony, a pegasus, and a unicorn, buuut… you’ve got all the extra bits,” it points to her head and to her wings respectively.

“I’m an alicorn, a unicorn originally. We have horns, wings, and we can be as strong as earth ponies or more, I just.. I haven’t been going to the gym as much as I should.”

“Hmmm,” 99911 rubs its chin, “I’ll cross all of them. 156 or Her Majesty will understand.”

“Say, Miss Twilight,” 99778 raises its foreleg as if it was in school, “You, ponies, have names that are made from words that mean stuff, right? What does your name mean? The not-Sparkle part, I think I know what that is.”

“Twilight means sunset, the time between day and night when the sun goes down.”

“OOOOH!” 99778 smacks its head, “That’s when The Great Shiny drops down underground to watch over us while we dig.”

That gives Twilight a pause.

What a peculiar belief. It’s, of course, wrong but I’m not about to start lecturing them on religion now that we’re finally getting somewhere.

“Miss Twilight, I’m done with our part, you gotta fill the rest,” 99911 pushes the form over to her along with the pen, “Do you want a chair? We got extras.”

“No need,” Twilight shakes her head, “I don’t think it’ll take long.”

She reads the full thing and rolls her eyes.

Twilight Sparkle and one body research assistant…

99911 doesn’t interpret her expression in any way, it just waits patiently while Twilight conjures up her own stack of notes with potential dates, Crystal Empire addresses, emergency contacts, and everything the clearly well thought-through form asks for. When she’s finally done, Twilight returns it to 99911 along with two more sheets of paper covered in more writing.

“These are my addendums - potential unresolved points and details that need clearing up before the exchange happens.”

“That’s fair,” 99911 nods with a shrug, “I know how it is to think of the same thing twice during different worky times and come up with completely different questions. 156 is super smart, she’ll figure things out. Now for the best part-”

99778 is already coming with a tripod camera of its own size and, so far, the biggest smile Twilight has seen a drone make.

“-the photograph.”

Twilight poses, but the drone walks around her and positions the tripod next to her flank, aimed at her cutie mark.

I guess that makes more sense than a mugshot. Cutie marks can’t be easily changed with magic, and a paint job would have to be beyond top-notch to survive this close of scrutiny.

“I get to use the picture box!” states 99778 proudly, “Now stand veeery still for a moment, please.”

This time, there’s no mishap or a distraction. Everything goes smoothly and 99911 puts the form as well as all the other attachments into an envelope which it gives to 99778 who salutes.

“I’ll be heading off right now,” it says chipperly, opens the commode in the back and starts putting on a backpack, “You’ll get your answer in one to eight weeks.”

“That’s quite the range,” comments Twilight.

“Oh, it takes four to five days to get to the hive and back if I go by train but, you know, if something eats me then it’ll take a week for 99911 to notice I’m not back, then 99 will have to go instead and that’s another week,” explains 99778 in a casual, entirely unbothered tone, “and if something happens to her then we have bigger problems than a missing letter.”

Something tells Twilight that that isn’t a joke, that the drone is entirely accounting for itself getting hurt or possibly killed on the way, and leaves her only able to say-

“Well, good luck. I hope nothing eats you.”

-like a bumbling buffoon.

“So do I,” 99778 replies with complete sincerity, “Miss Twilight, would you mind if I took Smiley’s new Scribbles to the hive? The guys are always excited to hear 10k read about new things. I can trade you some shinies for it.”

Twilight waves it off.

“That’s okay, keep it. I’ve already read it and the most important thing for me was the exchange offer.”

“Thank you, Miss Sparkle,” 99778 trots by and packs the pamphlet into its bag. Moments later, it trots out of the office with a cheerful: “Bye! I hope nothing eats you too!”

Alone, 99911 and Twilight look at each other. There are so many questions Twilight wants to ask, yet now that she has the chance she suddenly has no idea where to begin.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” asks 99911 helpfully, “I don’t think any of the other forms are for you unless you have some kind of a general question.”

“Yes! That’s exactly it!” Twilight nods, “General question, and we won’t even need the form.”

“Oookay?” 99911 hops down from the chair and sits down on the carpet. Now that official business is over, probably, there’s no need to use the official chair.

“Tell me, are you male or female?”

“I think 99778 just left with your mail?” 99911 hazards its best guess.

“I mean, are you a mare or a stallion?”

“Imma changeling!”

“No, no no no-” Twilight rephrases: “Ponies can be stallions or mares, got it?”

“Oh, I see!” 99911 nods and enunciates more clearly, “Then I’m a drone.”

“Hmm, still not there…” Twilight looks around and very briefly calculates the odds of there being somepony else listening and not involving themselves up until now. The results look worth the risk, “Say, the way you’re sitting, can you spread your hind legs and-”

*SLAM!*

“Holy Drone protective services, Batmare!” a grey, loud, and muscular pegasus mare with yellow eyes stomps through the door in the back that’s not the bathroom, “And here I was thinking that Molestia was just Sunplot’s dancer name and not instructions that come free with each order of royal horn and wings.”

“I- wha-” Twilight’s so broken by the sudden entrance of the whirlwind of personalitythat she can only blush.

“Hello! Did you have a good nap, Miss Bubbly?” 99911 waves at her.

“Not really,” the pegasus shakes her head, “Without regular protesters to let off some steam, I’m starting to think I’ll have to bring some gym equipment over here. Thankfully, Epstallion’s student here arrived just in time to be my workout partner.”

“Who are you?” Twilight just croaks quietly, still stunned at being caught.

“Bubbling Anger. I’m the… body research assistant around these parts,” the pegasus grins at her.

That’s too much. Twilight realizes that while the mare wasn’t here in person, she’s at least heard everything before stepping in at the perfectly worst moment.

“I’m sorry- I didn’t mean to- I’ll-”

“Be back in a week to check up on the state of your request and not at any point before that out of sheer curiosity about drone jeans and tails, ya?” Bubbling Anger finishes Twilight’s sentence while staring meaningfully at her.

The alicorn gulps, nods in complete silence, and simply vanishes in a burst of light.

“Nice lady,” comments 99911, “Very, uhh, purple. And smart.”

Bubbling Anger pats the drone’s head.

“How smart can she really be if she wants to go to the hive?”

99911 sighs.

“We’re all trying, you know? You could go with Miss Twilight to see for yourself.”

“Hah, no! I’m happy where I am, and you little guys are just the right amount of hive I can still stomach. Some other poor sucker can accompany Miss Purplesmart on her way to the Badlands,” says Bubbling Anger before turning on the radio which the drones shut off when Twilight knocked earlier, and sitting down into an armchair right next to it, “Come on, the radio play will be starting in a few minutes.”

“Yaay!” 99911 hops into the pegasus’ lap and curls up into a ball, “I hope the guys back home will be listening too.”

Author's Note

Heh, only while rereading this now I noticed how much BA's introduction reads as if she was some kind of ultra-Derpy. She's not, of course. (and early update becasue reasons, next one will really take forever)

3: Hive, sweet home (may include gribblers)

At this time of the year, late evening and early night in Canterlot still provide enough light for Night Hunter, the Commander of the Nightguard, which is Princess Luna’s branch of of the Guard mirroring Princess Celestia’s Royal Guard, to get a decent amount of daily paperwork done early without straining his eyes in the artificial light of the many sources available in the castle, from electric lights through firefly lamps to old-fashioned candles. While bat ponies possess excellent night vision, those unused to working during daytime usually find it easier to see even in dim natural light than with the use of a lamp. For a pony close to his forties, Night Hunter is in peak physical shape, which is visible despite his dark green hair shrouding his muscular build in the shadows and hiding his bulging muscles, clearly showing that the Nightguard is more at home in the gym or the streets than behind a desk. His black mane is cut into a short mohawk as is a general Guard standard to avoid getting grabbed in a struggle. Not that it’s a requirement for anypony past the rank of pavement pounder, Night Hunter just got used to it during early training and it stuck.

A single, meaningful, and recognizable knock on the door stops him from signing requisition forms, and he calls out:

“Come in, Your Highness!”

A midnight blue alicorn lets herself in, briefly pausing to look around the office before closing the door behind herself. Despite being the head of the Nightguard for over half a decade now, Night Hunter hasn’t changed the layout of the office since the last Commander and Luna’s close friend Sharp Biscuit, died. Why? It’s as simple as the difference between “a” Nightguard Commander and “the” Nightguard Commander. One day, Sharp will fade from the memory of those who served with him, but it won’t be soon, and keeping the office organized his way helps.

“Good evening, Night Hunter,” she greets him, “How is the paperwork treating you?”

“It’s shaping up to be a quiet night,” replies Hunter, raising an eyebrow at the Princess’ visit, “Unless you’re bringing me something interesting, that is.”

“I might be,” Luna shoots him a mischievous smirk, “How do you feel about griffons?”

“Decent with barbecue sauce,” Hunter shrugs, ”Is some new delegation from the Griffon Empire requesting nighttime bodyguards?”

“Something much more interesting,” Luna walks around the office as she speaks, stopping by every familiar piece of furniture, “My sister received a request for assistance from the Holy City. They suspect that their recent trouble is being caused by rogue changelings- not the exact words they used, but upon further questions the griffon ambassador had to begrudgingly admit that he failed to distinguish between the hive changelings and some rogue branch. Griffons are poorly equipped to hunt changeling criminals, so they reached out to us.”

“Did I miss some news about actually effective changeling-hunting spells?” Hunter relaxes in his chair, puts his forelegs behind his head, and looks up at the ceiling, “Especially ones that can be used without a horn.”

Luna snorts and shakes her head.

“You didn’t. Even our static changeling detection spells are far from perfect, and that’s me choosing my words carefully. Why do you think my sister is asking us?”

It clicks for Night Hunter.

“You want to send 65536 to the Empire and, on top of that, to the Holy City itself? I’m all in for tough love but this is overkill,” he formulates it as a joke but he knows that Luna loves the changeling drone now serving in the Nightguard as if it was her foal, and there is more than a hint of worry in his voice, “Besides, if there are changelings whom the griffons can’t catch in the most guarded place of the Empire, they’re bound to be skilled infiltrators or at least an organized group led by one. No offense to 65536, but that’s way out of a drone’s league.”

“Hunter, you wound me,” Luna puts a hoof on her chest, “While I do believe that 65536 is more capable than everypony thinks, Miss Gem will be coming in disguise as well. However, her aversion to violence, while admirable, isn’t something the griffons share, so I’m asking you to accompany them.”

“Gem?” Hunter sighs. While hasn’t had much contact with the mentioned young changeling mare living in Canterlot in relative obscurity, he’s heard a thing or two about skills vastly above her age. What exactly the extent of changeling-specific skills means is beyond Hunter, but maybe he’ll learn soon enough, “You’re pulling out the big guns. And if I’m guessing correctly, you want me to go so that you can say you’re sending your best because if you just wanted physical protection for Gem and 65536, there are better Nightguards. Bladehoof comes to mind.”

“I’m pulling out the biggest guns, mister I-live-at-the-castle-gym,” Luna sticks her tongue out at Hunter, “Unfortunately for Bladehoof, griffon culture is highly androcentric. You are the best pony for multiple reasons, with your build being only one of them.”

“Ah yes, I’ll be the strong but not so smart hunk. What do they call it in the spying business - honeypot, honeycock in case of a guy? Come to think of spying, why isn’t the Royal Guard or the Equestrian Intelligence Service involved? Why us?”

“Griffon Black Ops don’t like EIS operations on their turf, and the Royal Guard is considered to be common grunts by the Empire, which-”

“Which means that neither the involved griffon nobles nor anyone from the lower strata of society will cooperate with them. When are we leaving?” Hunter finishes Luna’s sentence, nodding.

“Glad to know you’re on board. The Black Ops will be sending an airship to pick you up in three days, during which you’ll pack and name your temporary replacement. The usual route using a Manehattan ferry and then weeks of train travel would take too long.”

“Got it. Is that all?”

“One more thing,” Luna’s horn flashes and the new issue of Smiley’s Scribbles materializes on Night Hunter’s desk, open on the final page. Hunter quickly skims through it, “Twilight Sparkle has already organized the exchange but my sister insists on sending a bodyguard with her. I’m thinking Gloom.”

“Yes,” replies Hunter without a second of thought, “You just need to spell it out to her that she’s not allowed to nab a drone… or all of them and bring them back here afterwards. That, or be ready to send a full squad to bring her back. You know how she gets around those little guys.”

“Then I’ll be sure to stress that she has to come back and do so without any extra cargo,” Luna snickers, “Although bringing 65536 a friend would-”

“No, bad Princess!” Hunter playfully throws today’s newspaper at her, “You get a second drone only when Queen Chrysalis sends one willingly.”

Luna shoots him the puppiest of puppy eyes.

“...sad Princess noises…”

“Don’t you dare wibble at me! I get enough of that from 65536. I’m wibble-proof.”

***

Far away to the southeast from Canterlot lies the Badlands region of Equestria, a desolate wasteland out of the purvey of even the bravest pegasus weather teams, where barely anything grows and all fauna has adapted to the lifestyle of eating anything it can chew, ensnare, melt, or afflict with other horrifying but natural fates. The location of the hill-sized, porous mound of strange black material marking the surface section of the changeling hive itself is known only to a minimal amount of outsiders, as Badlands exploration has never been considered worth the risk and effort past the edges of the area. Still, the mound is more a landmark for returning changelings than used living space, because with the exception of the throne room the real hive lies under the ground.

Nine levels below the ground lies a cavern unlike any other. Maybe it was natural at some point in the past, but that’s far gone. Now it rivals the throne room of Canterlot castle in sheer size. Just behind the double stone door marking the cavern’s entrance stand three stone statues forming a triangle, all depicting changeling drones with only a small plaque at the base of each reading “9999”, “The Guide”, and “High Score” respectively. At a first glance, anyone with passing knowledge of the changeling queen would consider this a blow to her ego because there is no statue of her anywhere in the hive. However, a critical second thought should follow that train of thought - if those statues are allowed to stand, how crucial to the hive they must have been? A comparison of grandeur, however, quickly fades with the statues because it’s clear that while the builders started with the idea of a cathedral-like interior they then added on anything their distracted minds thought of. Load-bearing, smooth pillars are scattered over the place seemingly at random, although they are doing their job well. The majority of the walls is covered in honeycomb-like alcoves often filled with various knick-knacks ranging from gems to normal rocks and sticks without any visible preference for either. Three levels of balconies line the rest of the cavern's walls, forming a U-shape accessible via a set of stairs on each end, seemingly for no reason other than to divide empty space. The only exception to this is a set of alcoves on the top floor at the center of the U, one being a wide vent leading upwards connected to a smaller one containing an old-fashioned, sturdy radio with a set of cables. The weirdest part of the cavern is there as well - a stone slide leading all the way down and slightly bending back up at its end in order to launch anything going down forward, likely into a pool full of green goo a short way ahead. The bottom floor is clearly the most used area of the “cathedral”, because there are currently about 70 changeling drones engaged in various peculiar activities which are for them to know and for Twilight to figure out.

Both wings of the entry door slide to the sides on stone rails with only a minimal amount of grinding, letting in a grey-maned changeling mare followed by the towering figure of Queen Chrysalis herself. Even before she says anything, every single drone looks at her, much to the Queen’s appreciative nod.

“Get over here and listen, derps!” she raises her voice so that even the group of drones contorted on a raised dais in the back can hear her, “The yoga class in the back stays in their position until I’m finished. Consider it a superset or whatever the foals are calling it these days. Is everyone here?”

A response comes immediately from one of the drones stretching in the back, although not via anyone’s mouth but rather through a mental connection open to everyone within reach:

“99200 is outside, 99111, 99450, 99818, and 99856 are in the back,” replies a drone whom its link identifies as 10k, “And the group that’s staying this worky time in the Guide’s Cavern can link up through 99380.”

“We can wait a second to give everyone time then,” Chrysalis nods. Four drones squeeze through a much heavier version of the main door but in the middle of the back wall moments later and rush over to the semi-circle of others gathered to listen to what the Queen has to say. Once they sit down, one of the trio nervously looks back again, which prompts Chrysalis to add: “You can listen through 99380 if you were experimenting with something that can collapse the whole cavern on us and needs your attention.”

99856 shakes its head and waves its hoof dismissively.

“I think the new sizzly goop will last a while unless something disturbs it.”

As if on cue, an unholy mix of screeching and roaring originating from the back rooms pierces the air, making the latecomers all look at one of them - 99818.

“And that was what?” asks Chrysalis, narrowing her eyes at the drone presumably responsible for… whatever just happened.

“Uh oh. It ‘maaay’ have escaped,” peeps 99818 as it turns around.

A massive explosion shakes the entire cavern, followed by the heavy back door falling from its guiding rails and a gradually fading horrifying screeching of pain and unmistakable death of… something not small.

“Aww holes,” says 99856 with a frown aimed at 99818, “That goop took me three breaky times to get right.”

“On the other hole, the problem solved itself,” 99818 looks back with an apologetic smile.

Chrysalis sighs. Why is every interaction with the drones so.. unique?

“I swear, 99818, if you get eaten - no love or digging for a week!” she points at the perpetrator.

“EEP?!” the drone sticks its chest out to sit at the best attention it can and freezes, barely daring to breathe.

Decidedly ignoring the thin plume of smoke now coming from the shot-out door, Chrysalis gets to her reason for visiting the drones personally.

“Deep-tunnel group, can you hear me?” she asks via the link provided by 99380. She could, of course, broadcast the message on her own, but why waste the energy when a perfectly good drone specialized for hive mind manipulation and communication exists.

“Loud and clear, Your Majesty!” comes the reply, “All of us down here.”

“Good. Our relationship with Equestria has been getting better for some time now, and I’ve finally found it reasonably safe to let you guys out for a little trip- yes?” she asks, seeing an immediately raised hoof.

“I sometimes trip over my hooves even down here,” reports the drone.

“Yes yes, try to do it less,” Chrysalis rolls her eyes, “Trip, in this case, means a mission. Nothing serious, just information gathering. You’ll go into the Crystal Empire, look around to find anything interesting, you won’t make ponies throw you out, and then you’ll come back and tell everyone what you saw.”

“Ohh, like the stories about shippy time!” one of the quicker-thinking drones refers to the time when the Queen took a group of drones on a cruise into a griffon holiday resort.

“Exactly!” Chrysalis nods, “This time, however, you won’t have an infiltrator or a warrior with you. Your guide, or a contact, will be Smiley and she will, technically, be in charge of the trip-”

*Raised hoof!*

“-Don’t get jealous now, 10k,” says Chrysalis, noticing whose hoof it is. While drones are visually almost indistinguishable from one another, 10k is one of the few exceptions due to grey surface scars all over its carapace looking like cracks. Thankfully, it’s just a visual reminder of past wounds.

“Oh no no no,” 10k shakes its head, “I’m just- that’s amazing! Our Smiley has grown so much and she knows the pony world. She’s the best for the job. I just wanted to ask if I’m allowed to go.”

Chrysalis briefly ponders it. Despite the hive’s limited population, she has infiltrators in every major city of Equestria, and a city state like the Crystal Empire obviously hasn’t eluded her attention. The crystal pony sentiment towards changelings is, by all measures, warmer than most of Equestria, yet there is always danger, especially to the drones. Losing 10k due to some unforeseen events would be problematic.

“Can I go too?” asks 99380 via a hive link, making Chrysalis wince on the inside.

That’s… worse. As important as 10k is, if something happened to 99380 it could cripple the general hive communication, or at least make it far more costly in terms of love. With how many potential and extremely specific special talents changeling genetics can produce, and with how little control over it even she has, a drone like 99380 might never appear again. From the Queen’s perspective, letting 99380 go is a bad idea with little to no benefits.

I keep saying how it was so much easier when I was evil, and I keep being right. I can just say no and they won’t even be mad, maybe a little disappointed but they’ll get over it quickly, they always do. They’ll be almost as happy hearing the stories about the trip afterwards as actually being there. I can just say no and make sure there’s no risk to the hive as a whole.

She sighs.

“Yes, anyone can go, even you two,” she says. Before the drones can say anything else, she raises her hoof and adds, “I don’t care how you decide who goes. In five days, I just want to know three numbers, hear no complaints, and there won’t be any hard feelings. Got it?”

Mass nodding ensues.

“Excellent. That’s all,” she turns around, “Yoga class can relax now,” she snickers as she hears several thumps of bodies falling on the ground and gasping for breath, “Mad scientists, go clean up after whatever exploded in the back immediately.”

Hoofsteps run off.

Smiling to herself, she leaves.

“SCUFFLESTICK TOURNEY FOR THE LAST SPOT!” someone calls out cheerfully, which is immediately answered by a chorus of ‘yeah!’ and ‘woo!’.

It’s good to know that 10k and 99380 have so much respect that no one even tried to dispute them having first pick, even if they just asked if they could go.

The grey-maned mare, who hasn’t said a word all this time and just silently accompanied her Queen, finally speaks out:

“Your Majesty, why haven’t you told them about the other side of the deal - about the visiting Princess and her-”

“Body research assistant?” Chrysalis snickers, “Come on, 156, where would be the fun in that? Let their first contact be… natural.”

***

While Queen Chrysalis’ briefing is going on, a single drone is inching along a ledge midway down a massive, upwards-narrowing crevasse reaching all the way from the surface where it is just a small crack in the ground to the unexplored depths below. It stops every few seconds, its hoofsteps perfectly silent thanks to a muffling transformation but its every movement still marked by very faint clinking caused by small scales layered atop a thick, spider-web cloak that’s covering the drone from its neck to its backside. It looks up when it hears a faint creak somewhere above, its teal, bioluminescent eyes the only visible part of its head otherwise covered by a hood and muzzle mask, both made from webbing as well, although without the scale layer. Not even a drone can see clearly much further than twenty or so pony lengths ahead in pitch blackness, but that’s the best it can get right now. Making glowgoop or any other source of light here would immediately alert a number of giant spiders perched on the sheets of thick webs criss-crossing the crevasse.

99200 draws its hood lower to better hide the glow of its eyes when it hears another creak and moves ahead. Thankfully, the ledge is more than wide enough for multiple drones, so it can entirely focus on listening for any signs of movement while it sneaks along the crevasse wall to where it ends in a sheer drop. The edge, however, is covered in grey, sticky webbing similar to 99200’s clothes, hinting at how those were made. The drone unlatches a simple wooden stick bent into a circle with corresponding notch on each end around its neck, and takes it off along with the cloak it’s holding so that it can spread its fly-like wings. It doesn’t move its wings immediately, instead spending a full five minutes slowly buzzing them in irregular intervals to let the spiders get used to the noise and wind pressure and grow to see those as a natural part of the environment. When no spiders come to check the new disturbance out, 99200 slowly flies a hoof length up, floats five pony lengths sideways into the open space, and grows a long, thin spike out of its foreleg with only a couple green sparks flashing along its carapace. After taking a moment to steady its breathing, muffled by the web mask, and listening for anything incoming with no result, the drone channels its digging ability into the spike which slices the sheet of webbing with zero resistance despite how tough the material in reality is.

The left part of the net drops much faster than 99200 expected along with a panicked screech and the flailing of something massive ripping the webs deeper into the crevasse as it falls. The drone winces, immediately flying back to the safety of the ledge.

Oops…

There’s no remorse to be found in 99200’s heart for any underground monsters that have eaten innumerable drones, though, and it quickly dons its protective cloak again before pulling up the part of the cut net that’s connected to the ledge’s edge. The sticky web immediately cocoons around the hooves of its forelegs, which is fine with the drone because it’s much easier to pull the heavy sheet all the way up without growing claws and worrying about grip strength. Once the whole cut part of the net is lying spread in front of 99200, it channels its digging into its forelegs just for a moment, disintegrating all the material around its hooves and freeing them.

Less webbing than I’d like, but good enough. The guys down in the Guide’s Cavern will be breathing a lot easier once we turn all this into muzzle masks. The deepest areas are full of weird fumes that make it hard to breathe, and High Score still hasn’t invented a nose transformation that makes being down there safe.

While folding the web into a single sticky bundle fit for transport, 99200‘s ears constantly twitch under its hood as the drone listens for any signs of trouble. The hood is making its hearing worse, but this isn’t 99200’s first expedition and it knows the spiders react much more aggressively to the light of its eyes so it’s a worthwhile trade-off. It helps that it doesn’t need to do any difficult loot preparation here - there are other drones who know how to process the web bundle into usable sheets.

When it’s almost finished, several small rocks bounce off of the ground by the wall to the right.

99200 looks up. Its hood slips and its eyes go wide.

Aggressive clicking accompanied by a quiet but high-pitched screech almost deafens the drone after so long in near-complete silence as more small rocks from the wall drop following a bulbous body many times 99200’s mass with eight legs, each longer than a drone stretched from its front hooves to its hind ones, lunging directly at it.

Faced with the final sight of thousands of drones before it, 99200 doesn’t freeze and jumps directly forward, following it with an immediate roll to the side and hiding its entire body under its strange cloak. It only has a moment to pull the edges of the cloak under itself, curl up, and harden its carapace.

Brick mode: on.

With its mobility limited due to the hardening, 99200 concentrates on slowing its breathing down. It can feel the mossy surface under its hooves as well as the grinding of the web on its back with each breath, yet the adrenaline makes its brain work overtime and focus on what’s important. In its experience, three things can happen now. One, the giant spider pokes 99200 a couple times, thinks it’s a rock, and leaves. Two, it tries to bite 99200 which the rumbler-scale cloak should help with, and leaves. Three, it tries to turn 99200 around to get to the presumed soft belly of its prey.

Sudden crushing weight from above makes the drone grunt as its carapace creaks and confirms option two. Thankfully, the spider’s mandibles fail to pierce the rumbler cloak and 99200 suffers only the pressure. The cloak grows heavier as the web gets sticky with the venom released by the spider.

You’ve been in this mess before, 99200. Keep your wits together and you’ll get out of here just with some bruises. The venom doesn’t melt the web so it won’t break the cloak and the webby spinner can’t bite through. It’ll just get a bit crushy.

The second that calming thought passes through the drone’s head, the spider’s massive leg shoves the poor bundled drone so hard it flips over on its side.

99200 gets a brief flash of the spider’s mass towering over it. It transforms out of brick mode so that it can move freely, and flips the cloak over itself again as the spider bites down again. Without the hardening, the carapace of its barrel cracks under the pressure, yet the mandibles still can’t pierce the rumbler scales.

99200 winces and grunts in pain shooting through its barrel with each of its sharp, shallow breaths.

This webby spinner is too persistent or too hungry to wait out.

The spider slides its leg along the cloak to get it out of the way. A hoof-sized, green ball rolls out from underneath it. 99200 rolls to the side so that the cloak is between the spider and itself. The spider bites the ball.

For the briefest moment, everything stops. Then the spider screeches, its noise quickly cut short by sudden fizzing accompanied by sharp, acrid smell.

*Thud!*

99200 rolls even further away, hitting the wall, and jumps to all fours with a hiss as pain shoots through it.

99856, you’re getting ALL THE HUGS for these experimental melties.

The spider is twitching on the spot as green foam devours its head and a good chunk of its main body before fizzing out into nothing. While that’s going on, 99200 just keeps looking around and listening with its hood drawn low again. It doesn’t know the right concepts to think “Giant spiders are highly territorial, even if their territory might be one net, and eat anything that’s not each other. That’s why nothing else should attack me right now and unless I see another spider I’m in the clear.”, it just knows it’s likely safe.

When nothing moves for a full minute, 99200 finds the web bundle that rolled away during the attack and moves it to the mouth of the tunnel it used to enter this crevasse. Next, it returns to the corpse of the spider and examines it from all sides.

Ooh, one of the bitey things survived. I wonder if someone can make something out of it.

Regrowing the hoof blade to channel digging through and make the sharpest scalpel possible, 99200 gets to dismantling the spider for parts. It really shouldn’t drag the whole body so far through the tunnels, and it knows it’ll be gone when it returns here again.

Legs - can’t go wrong with legs. Bitey thing - 99856 will want the venom. Carapace - 99000’s guys can always use extra armor. Chunks for… maybe someone will want those?

So many good parts and no way to carry them all.

I really should pick…

99200 sighs.

Several minutes later, the drone is dragging an incoherent mass of an entire butchered spider by two hairy legs glued to its backside using goop and making 99200 extremely uncomfortable with each shift and tickle. Yet it perseveres. Getting it all the way up to High Score Cavern alone is bound to take close to two hours, but the trading potential is immense.

I’m gonna get so many shinies!

“99200?” a message not connected to another drone but belonging to a hive mind entity known to the drones only as ‘Voice’ rings in the drone’s mind.

“Hi, Voice. What’s up?” replies 99200 internally while taking deep lungfuls of stale tunnel air as it drags the spider along.

“High Score wants to talk to you. It, 99380, and one drone currently being decided using a Scufflestick tournament will be going on a trip to the surface.”

“That’s okay, I don’t mind not going. There’s so much to explore down here.”

“High Score was expecting that, it wants you to be in charge of the drones while it’s away.”

Suddenly, the dead spider’s body and the legs tickling the drone are the least heavy weight on its barrel.

Author's Note

Was it worth the wait? no

4: Warning! Contains trace amount of drones

In the upper underground levels of the hive lies a very special cavern which hasn’t been visited by a changeling since the days preceding the infamous invasion of Canterlot. Due to the vast majority of the changeling species having been wiped out in its wake, the area in which this cavern is situated became impossible to defend against the creeping infestation or rock worms -train-sized, armored beasts capable of tunneling through solid rock as if it was sand- and was rendered inaccessible. Only over the past year and a half, originally thanks to a bold plan thought up by 10k consisting of 99856 devising a highly pressurized and extremely corrosive acid bomb, 99066 baiting a rock worm into eating it and fleeing in time, has the rock worm territory been slowly reclaimed, one dead worm at a time. Thankfully, drones didn’t have to do any of the work, with the exception of making more bombs, past the first attempt, as baiting and then exploding the heads of the rock worms quickly became a bonding exercise between the ranked changelings and their Queen. Normally, it’s 156’s job to relay Her Majesty’s orders regarding the hive’s operations, yet once the area was deemed secure, the drones were called again by Chrysalis herself to re-excavate this cavern with the explicit order for the few still alive pre-invasion drones to not tell anyone what this place was used for.

No reason to sow the seeds of fear and discontent, after all.

Chrysalis bends low when the tip of her horn grinds against the ceiling of the roughly hewn tunnel opening the cavern in question, and enters into the only marginally more spacious area where she can at least stand up straight. With a flick of her head, three green flares shoot out of her horn and light up the cavern, revealing what looks like an open bulb of a dried-up and dead flower. The spread “petals” are baked into the floor, their edges fading into fractal tendrils burrowed into the rock. The center is round and large enough for a pool into which several ponies could comfortably fit, if the see-through membrane forming the floor wasn’t revealing a dark green, muscular hole suspiciously resembling a throat.

“Hmph!” the Queen huffs in disappointment that’s clear to 156 who enters the small cavern the second Chrysalis’ backside stops corking up the tunnel mouth. Finally seeing clearly, 156 grits her teeth, frowning.

“The Reconstitution chamber? This is what you wanted to show me?” asks the infiltrator, “387 told me stories about the past, how you-”

“Experimented on changeling genetics in order to control what traits they’d hatch with? Yes, I did that a lot,” Chrysalis nods.

“Mostly about how you created the Silents,” says 156 coldly. While she’s loyal to the core, something can be understood but not so easily forgiven, “How did I not sense any hive mind traffic regarding this from the drones? Digging this damn place out is THE one thing that could shatter the drones’ trust in you. Did you order drones to excavate this area in secret and wipe their memories after?”

“387 is an incorrigible blabbermouth…” Chrysalis rolls her eyes, “No, 156, I did no such thing. 10k knows about this, and believes that I have no reason to use the Reconstitution chamber to punish drones like I used to when I was still ‘evil’. I just asked it not to tell anyone about this particular aspect of the past.”

“No, you don’t get to use the hoof quotes this time, Your Majesty,” 156 looks Chrysalis sternly in the eyes, “For holes’ sake, even I remember this place only as The Crusher, and that’s their expression. Throwing drones and any other unsuccessful changeling into that damn thing while it slowly dissolved them alive and all their friends were forced to watch and listen in both physical realm and the hive mind wasn’t quote-unquote evil it was capital letters MONSTROUS.”

“To-may-to, to-mah-to. It helped keep the inevitable uprisings less frequent,” Chrysalis shrugs and starts walking around the room, poking the rock-solid ‘petals’ with her hoof from all angles, “Besides, we’re not here to resume using it for punishment. That’s not what it’s for anyway.”

“You did also promise 387 to never again use it for genetic manipulation,” adds 156, growing curious as she walks over to the center and looks through the membrane into the ‘throat’, because to her it feels as if the thing has a mental signature. Weak, barely possible to sense in the hive mind, but it’s there. It must be noticeable now only due to being up close and with so little hive mind traffic compared to the pre-invasion times.

“I never did that! I’m not that stupid,” Chrysalis puts a hoof on her chest, pretending to be hurt by 156’s words, “I very specifically promised to never again make something like the Silents which, like the punishments, I absolutely don’t intend to repeat either. There’s no need for it anyway, times are way different now.”

Silents - changeling drones who, during the egg phase, had love directed away from their brains and into the growth of their bodies. They were tougher and stronger than normal drones, albeit still smaller and weaker than normal changelings, and they still could use their digging power. The trade-off was that they were near-mindless golems only able to follow simple orders.

They did such a great job breaking the magic shield as front-liners during the invasion.

“Though I don’t know why you’re complaining so much,” Chrysalis smirks, continuing, “Smiley turned out better than anyone could have ever hoped. We could use more like her.”

“Your Majesty!” 156 leans back as if struck.

“That was a joke, 156,” Chrysalis pats 156’s head as she passes her while finishing her circle around The Crusher, “For complete transparency, I do intend to grow a new Reconstitution chamber eventually. The only better way to control the attributes of changelings is for me to carry their eggs to term myself, and I don’t want to ruin my perfect figure. We might be extremely lucky, though, because this one is still alive and almost ready for one last hurrah.”

“Alive might be a massive overstatement…” 156 pokes the nearest fossilized leaf tendril which crumbles under her hoof.

“That’s exactly what we want,” Chrysalis allows herself a predatory smile while winking at 156.

“I don’t understand. Wouldn’t you want this thing in perfect shape, even for one last use… whatever that may be?” 156 holds the Queen’s gaze, her curiosity growing. Now that the opening shock is gone, curiosity is taking over.

Chrysalis isn’t a Queen stuck in the past and hasn’t shown any of her old desire to take over Equestria, so what’s her game?

“Obviously you don’t understand. You can’t,” she nods towards the tunnel mouth, “Walk and talk. We’re done here for now,” her voice strains as she shuffles with bent knees through a way too small tunnel again, “I’m going to tell you something and I hope you appreciate how much I trust you by sharing it.”

“I already feel honored,” the infiltrator follows her through the hole again.

“Don’t use the fact that I can’t turn around and reach you to snark at me, 156.”

“You’ve been talking around the issue so much that I just couldn’t help myself, Your Majesty. Do you need my help in pushing you forward? Your backside barely fitting into this hole is the most concrete proof that the hive is doing better than ever before.”

“Fine, smartass- not the best choice of words there, I admit,” Chrysalis lowers her voice just in case. She can’t sense anyone other than 156 nearby, but some risks are not worth taking, “From what I’ve pieced together, there is a special survival instinct built into every single changeling, no matter the class or power. If the changeling is alone -Not just on their own, but in a situation where their entire body and mind accept they might be the last changeling alive. Or possibly it’s area-based, this isn’t something you can just experiment with- this instinct will gradually turn them into a royal able to build a new hive. It’s the final failsafe against the extinction of our species.”

156 puts two and two together, confirming yet again that her second-in-command has always been the best one for the job.

“The Reconstitution chamber has a hive mind link and it was still here while everyone else was dying in Canterlot. Do you think it can… grow to be a Queen or something? No, wait! It exists to manipulate our genetic material - you think it can grow a new Queen or some super-changeling?”

“Close,” Chrysalis spits out some dust she swallowed while talking and creeping in the narrow tunnel, “Through my experiment with Silents we know it can make modified drones who still have their overpowered nonsense digging power. Since it exists to help me build new changelings from ground up, imagine how interesting things would become if it, in its final instinctive throes, distilled something that would allow me to create new changelings of all classes who could dig.”

“One - it would make protecting you from any potential uprising near-impossible. Two - making infiltrators spend their days disintegrating rocks and shoveling away residue would also make such an uprising inevitable. Frankly, if you made me do it for long enough, I’d try to assassinate you out of sheer boredom.”

“Hah!” Chrysalis lets out a single, sharp laugh, “I wouldn’t blame you. However, It is called the Reconstitution chamber because it can also modify an existing changeling. For example, just goopballing here, a changeling of sufficient power could gain the digging ability or some other skill we don’t know about because it was lost to time. Unfortunately, it’s also both incredibly dangerous to use in that way and one is exceedingly vulnerable during the process, because your body is basically sludge and your mind is only loosely stored inside the hive mind.”

“I could be the test subject,” offers 156 immediately.

“And they keep telling me to keep my ego in check…” Chrysalis shakes her head, “156, you may be the most powerful changeling of the current hive, barring myself or possibly 387. In the old hive, you could probably even break into the top fifty, but you are nowhere even remotely close to surviving a total reconstitution. Old 1 could do it on her own, maybe even most from the top ten if they got a little lucky, top twenty at best if they got help, but anyone else would end up like the drones I sacrificed in hopes to regain the key to their digging powers. The fear that kept everyone in line because I chose to do it in the most horrific way possible was just a useful side-effect.”

156 looks back towards the chamber with a wistful sigh.

“For a moment, I was hoping for a way to get stronger,” her voice grows warmer as she’s walking behind Chrysalis, taking the tone of someone walking to a trusted friend and a guide, “I feel like I’m stagnating and there’s no one within the hive to test me. Excluding you, of course. Not that I miss the constant paranoia and power struggles of the old days, but it was how the top ranks got so… larger than life.”

“156, you’re an infiltrator. You’re not making me safer with your muscles or combat skills, you’re making me safer with your head, and that’s an area where you can always improve. Self-control, discipline, efficiency, awareness - there’s nothing more that a changeling needs, and there are ways to improve those without having to fight for your life every day,” Chrysalis flicks her tail and pats 156’s head with it, “Tell the drones to bring love crystals to the Reconstitution chamber and lay those out in a manner I’ll show you. It’ll take some time to wake it up and, in the meantime, I’ll think of how we’re going to use its final charge.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” 156 nods, “Now that we’re talking about it, do you know why only drones can use the digging power?”

“The first few generations of changelings could freely learn to use magic just like unicorns. An ancient Queen used magic to genetically lock the disintegration-on-touch into drones,” replies Chrysalis after a moment of hesitation. In the end, however, what does it matter if 156 knows?

“A Queen more powerful than you?”

Chrysalis pauses, yet the same thought as before returns - what does it change if 156 knows?

“Yes, Haze was the most powerful changeling Queen to have lived and likely to ever live. On an unrelated subject - you are intent on testing me today, aren’t you?”

“It’s in the hive’s interest to test you now and then, just in case the evil thoughts return.”

They finally reach the end of the narrow tunnel and enter the new, smooth-walled, rebuilt corridors shaped like upwards-narrowing rectangles that can easily fit the Queen and 156 side by side. Chrysalis stops and stretches with a pleased moan.

“Ahhh, that felt great. Even if I was evil again, I wouldn’t be throwing drones into the crusher in hopes it would unlock their genetic code anymore. Well, maybe the ones wounded beyond help or some really annoying ones, but not whole mining sections if one failed to meet the quota. It’s just not worth being able to instantly destroy any material or energy field on touch when I can make drones arm a bunch of ranked changelings with acid bombs that, if we leave 99856 unsupervised for long enough, I’m certain will do almost the same thing. Possibly worse and at long range.”

“I wonder why just changing into a drone doesn’t do it.”

“I wondered about it myself, and I think it’s because the same instinct that allows you to change into a rock without being a geologist was removed by Haze. You could try to perfectly copy a drone, but that means you’d have to change your brain into a drone’s and that would make you unable to think properly, understand what you did and, quite likely, turn back. In short, you would become a drone.”

“Good point.”

Chrysalis turns her head and playfully sticks her tongue out at 156.

“Of course it is. I am the Queen, after all.”

156 rolls her eyes, but can’t help cracking a smile as well.

***

“Finally, some proper shade!” exclaims Twilight Sparkle in relief as the black, porous hill of the changeling hive comes into view enough for her to be sure it’s not a mirage, “Even my sweat is sweating,” she shakes her head to get the beads of liquid trickling down from her mane out of her eyes.

Her two companions - Gloom, a toned, brown-maned, dark coated bat pony mare with amber eyes, and 3012, a standard changeling warrior with no distinguishing features who picked the Canterlot duo at Dodge Junction train station, exchange looks.

“It’s not that bad,” comments Gloom, wearing nothing but a white hood and cloak, sunglasses, and carrying two standard saddlebags as well as a backpack, “And I don’t think it’s the heat that’s the problem, rather you carrying an entire workshop on your back, Your Highness,” she takes a jab at Twilight’s cargo harness containing five bulging backpacks, four hanging from her sides like saddlebags and an enormous one on Twilight's back, “On top of that, you’re not used to being outside, are you?”

When Twilight frowns at Gloom, the bat pony just smiles back innocently. While taking pot shots at the decade younger princess is easy, Gloom has to admit that Twilight, while looking somewhat out of shape, has been carrying a weight that would seriously inconvenience an earth pony stallion for the whole day’s trip from the Badlands’ edge in this summer heat. Nightguard training or not, there are physical limits a normal pony can’t overcome, and Gloom is fully aware that she wouldn’t be able to carry Twilight’s cargo in this weather for this long without rest.

“I’m not used to being in a desert-like environment without magic!” huffs Twilight, breathing heavily and blinking away sweat but pressing on like she’s being the entire day.

“How about you try casting your spell again, Princess Sparkle?” suggests 3012, seemingly entirely unbothered by the blistering heat.

“Hmmm…” Twilight looks around.

Nothing has changed since we got a little deeper into the Badlands, but they wouldn’t know. There’s something weird about ambient magic here, but I won’t figure out more until I set up my equipment.

“Why not, Your Highness?” Gloom joins in.

Twilight concentrates. Where her horn should become enveloped with a smooth, purple aura, it lets out a wild flash of purple glow. The Princess’ eye twitches as the feedback of magic shoots out spikes of migraine behind her eyes. For a moment, a purple dome materializes above the trio before-

*Boom!*

-it scatters into a horizontal shockwave and vanishes. Twilight shakes her head.

Still impossible to retain the control of the spell, although it's not as bad as when I tried casting it after we entered the Badlands. Perhaps whatever is causing the magic surges is weaker around the hive? Maybe it’s some kind of barrier of wild magic that’s strongest at the Badlands' edge?

“Are you okay, Princess Sparkle?” 3012 tries to be helpful for the hundredth time since they met, “I can help you with your bags.”

“No, I’m fine. I may not look anywhere close to my friend Applejack, but I’m stronger than Big Mac- you have no idea who I’m talking about, do you?” Twilight shakes her head, “Nevermind, and don’t call me Princess Sparkle, please. Just Twilight is fine, really. Finally, to expand on your observation, Miss Gloom - books aren’t usually stored outside, and sunlight damages most common variants of ink,” she adds, looking from 3012 to the bat pony, “And I get that a changeling isn’t bothered by the heat, but how are you so okay with all-” she waves her hoof around, encompassing the dry, cracked landscape of the Badlands, the air shimmering in the heat, and the overall similarity between this place and a desert, “-this?”

Gloom takes a deep breath.

She even talks as if reading from a list.

“Training and resource management, Your Highness. We, poor mortal Nightguards, can’t rely on a demigod physique, and have to prepare. We do desert survival drills at least twice a year with minimal equipment. White fabric deflects sunlight, and while you’ve drunk an entire bottle of water in three goes, I’ve been periodically sipping from mine. It’s all about pacing. Frankly, the worst part about all this is how bright the place is. I can’t wait to be inside.”

“Definitely can’t argue with that,” Twilight nods.

***

Despite Twilight sweating rivers, she still gives a courteous bow to the changeling on guard in front of what looks like the main entrance to the hive only because it’s the largest visible hole in the black hill and looks like it leads somewhere deeper.

“Her Highness, Twilight sparkle,” says 3012 in an official voice.

“Welcome to the hive, Your Highness,” the changeling guard bows, “I’m an infiltrator rank 2119. We didn’t know when exactly you were going to arrive, so we couldn’t time everything perfectly. Both Her Majesty and 156 are currently busy and I was instructed to show you around in case you arrived while they were gone. If it’s against a pony diplomatic protocol, we can wait in the throne room.”

Twilight’s curiosity immediately spikes.

The build of an infiltrator caste or class is sleeker and skinnier than that of a warrior like 3012. It’s a sample size of one, but I did notice these exact differences in physical build among Canterlot changelings as well.

“It’s no problem. The Queen and I have never been on the best of terms, although I hope her acquiescing to the exchange request is a step towards a warmer future, and I prefer my guide to a new culture being a normal pony- changeling anyway. It usually leads to a more authentic experience.”

“As you wish. Come with me,” 2119 nods. Without a word, 3012 takes the infiltrator’s palace as a gate guard surviving the harsh sun outside as the three enter the cool shade of the hive. The infiltrator looks at Gloom, asking: “Who is your companion, Your Highness?”

While it takes a moment for Twilight’s eyes to adjust after entering the dark atrium, her body feels the dramatic drop in temperature immediately, making her sigh in relief.

“Name’s Gloom,” the bat pony smiles at the infiltrator and shoots him a quick salute, “Bodyguard, research assistant, drone hugger extraordinaire.”

“You’ll like it here then. We have quite a few of those,” 2119 nods back, “As for business, we’re not exactly set up for guests, so we can accommodate you either in the throne room itself, or in one of the top-level caves nearby.”

“What about around here?” asks Twilight, pointing at one of the many changeling-sized holes threading the walls around and leading into darkness.

“This goes into a topic I’m not sure I’m allowed to talk about, but a non-changeling wouldn’t be able to navigate the surface level of the hive. You can ask Her Majesty if you want to, but whether you learn the reason or not, the end result will remain the same.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Yes. The surface level is a shifting place, so it’s highly likely you'd either get stuck somewhere without a way to call for help, or you’d have to break a wall to get out. Besides, there really isn’t much up here anyway, aside from the throne room. The real hive is underground.”

“We’ll take the cave then,” decides Twilight, “I need somewhere to set up my equipment and I wouldn’t want to clutter your throne room.”

“As you wish,” 2119 walks over to the right wall of the atrium, puts his hoof against it, and the wall splits into two and withdraws like a pair of curtains, revealing a wide tunnel leading underground, “This is how the surface level works. You’re not changelings, so you wouldn't be able to do this and you’d have to force your way through.”

“That’s amazing. How does it work?” asks Twilight immediately before catching herself, “Or is that the part you can’t talk about?”

“Correct,” says 2119, and leads the way down into complete darkness.

Gloom and Twilight exchange glances.

“Got a light spell bouncing somewhere inside that warehouse on your back, Your Highness?” suggests the bat pony.

The Princess frowns.

“Not even the best laid plans survive first contact. I was expecting many things, but not my magic going haywire. Let’s see,” she concentrates. It’s not about power. With the field of wild magic around, there’s more than enough usable energy to go around, which is the point. Keeping the spell stable is the real problem but, as far as magic is concerned, Twilight learns quickly, and within a few moments that feel much longer to the alicorn she conjures a flickering, barely stabilized glowing ball on top of her horn which makes 2119’s shadow jump and dance.

“I’m afraid I can’t help you in regard to visibility,” says the infiltrator, “Even without shapeshifting, our bioluminescent eyes give us enough light to see ahead, so we don’t use torches or anything. We can make glowing resin if we want to see further, but that costs us love so it’s mostly on a need-to-use basis.”

“I’m starting to think this would be a great new place for a Nightguard wilderness survival training,” comments Gloom and follows 2119 into the dim tunnel. Twilight’s light is giving off just enough visibility for the bat pony’s eyes to finally relax and stop burning after so long in direct sunlight.

***

After the full day of walking in the open, both Gloom and Twilight happily throw their bags off and start unpacking. The cave in which they’ll be staying is spacious and close enough to the main tunnel leading to the surface that they won’t get lost even on their own and without light. While Gloom simply throws her food and water supplies to the nearest wall, unrolls a bedroll and a sleeping bag, and immediately lies down, it’s clear that Twilight’s setup will take so much longer. Most of her massive backpacks are filled with what looks like machine parts, and only one remaining bag is survival supplies.

“I’m all for the comfort of home, but you didn’t have to bring an entire bed frame, Princess,” Gloom takes a jab at the alicorn who’s starting to build some kind of a metal construction as tall as she is.

“Har har, Miss bodyguard. How about you help me instead of lying over there?”

“I would, but with the only light being your horn that’s barely working as is, I’d either get blinded or get in the way.”

Twilight has to admit Gloom is right. If the cave was well-lit, they could work together but this way they just run the risk of losing screws or any other small bits and pieces. Thankfully, the cave isn’t particularly big, the walls and the floor are smooth, and there doesn’t seem to be any place where anything could roll away and get lost.

After a couple moments of thinking accompanied by the clanking of Twilight building stuff, Gloom gets up.

“Alright, time for the fun part,” she says, rummaging in her bags again, “Princess, I’m going to explore a bit and see if there are any drones around.”

“Miss Gloom, my plan is to do some environmental studies and observe the social life of the hive before interacting with the subjects at large-”

“Nnn-ope!” Gloom interrupts her, “Feel free to study rocks and dirt as much as you’d like, but I’m going to hug a drone and you’re not stopping me.”

“May I remind you that you’re here as a bodyguard and as a research assistant?”

“We both know the research assistant thing was so that you wouldn’t insult the changelings by suggesting you’d be in danger inside their home. Besides, from what I heard, the hive is massive, decentralized, and mostly empty, so you’re going to need somepony to scout ahead to find anything other than useless granite. Now that’s settled, my professional bodyguard's judgement is that I should be that somepony and if, by any chance, I happen to stumble upon a potential drone threat I must hug the bad ideas out of them immediately!” Gloom shuffles things between her saddlebags with a smile and finally settles on bringing only one with her.

Twilight sighs and her tone turns serious.

“I am the official guest here, Miss Gloom, so can also ask the changelings to limit your movement around the hive or have you sent back,” the alicorn catches the sudden metaphorical drop in temperature and Gloom’s death glare, “I don’t intend to do that, but I want us to come to an understanding. This is the first opportunity of anypony to research the changeling hive from the inside. Tainting the experiment results by interacting with the specimens-”

“NO!” hisses Gloom with a level of venom that makes even Twilight back off, “They aren’t specimens. They aren’t things to be studied. I’ve been 65536’s family since the explosion ending the Canterlot invasion shot it into Luna’s room, and the way the drones were treated by everyone from ponies to other changelings would make you throw up the protein bars you brought for the trip. You want to learn about them? Go talk to them. You want to kick me out? Go for it. I’ll find a new way to come here. When you’re begging Chrysalis for water two days from now because there are no streams or springs around here and you didn’t pack enough for the way back, we’ll see who has the last laugh.”

The Princess loses the staring contest against the suddenly downright rabid bat pony and looks away, masking it by searching through her bags again. She knew the trip here would be rough, but she didn’t think there wouldn’t be any water in the hive. What species can survive without water?

“Miss Gloom?” her voice softer, she levitates five small, elongated crystals from a bag as well as a rolled-up scroll which all float towards the bat pony, “I understand… a little, but our time here is limited, and I’m still going to need your help with my research.”

Gloom played her cards, bluffed, won, and is smart enough to not push her luck further, so she grabs the crystals and the scroll.

“What are these?” she asks in a controlled tone.

“Observation crystals. I won’t ask you to not interact with the hive’s inhabitants at large again, but if you find an area where they gather for social reasons, I need you to set those up so that the wider tip isn’t obstructed. I’ll have to gauge how or if my magic is going to work, but if it does I’ll be able to observe through them. The scroll is just an automatic map. I checked, it works. The wild magic prevents it from mapping details, working as a compass, or adding notes, but it still draws lines based on the direction you’re going. The main problem is that it can’t do levels. I’ll try to figure out how to change the mapping enchantment to work fully even under these conditions soon,” warming up her tone as she talks, Twilight ends with: “Do you need a light?”

Gloom shakes her head, packing the crystals and the map into the one saddle bag she chose for the first exploration.

“Got a lighter and some lasting matches for now. I’ll see if I can find something to make a torch out of. From what I heard, there’s more than just stone tunnels deeper in the hive, and the ones who know the most about it are the drones.”

As Gloom’s about to leave, Twilight calls out:

“Wait! We need a way to figure out if something went wrong.”

“I have a spare mechanical pocket watch with me in the side pocket of my backpack. It’s synced with the one I’m taking with me. If I’m not back in… five hours, give or take, contact a changeling.”

“That long?”

“Yes,” Gloom leaves the cave without a further explanation.

***

What am I doing? The Nightguard is my life. Luna wouldn’t want to kick me out but she owes Twilight a lot. It worked this time, but that’s the one screw-up I’m allowed. Now be a good mare, Gloom, make a good impression, and maybe you’ll score enough goodie points all around so that…

…so that Chrysalis lets you take a drone home.

Deeper into the tunnel a short distance away from their cave, Gloom allows herself a sigh of relief before trying to control her breath and stop herself from shaking. Mouthing off to an alicorn Princess like that could have just ended her guard career, but learning that Twilight sees the drones like some kind of objects to be studied reminded her too much of all she heard about Chrysalis treating them like resources to be used up, and she couldn’t control herself.

Once she’s finally calmed down, she finds the chill of cold, stone floor and walls seeping into her bottom and back. When did she even sit down?

Shaking her head to focus, Gloom spots something teal from the corner of her eye. When she looks deeper into the tunnel, however, there’s nothing.

Am I being watched by a changeling? It would make sense, if only for our safety.

She doesn’t want to call out and alert Twilight, so she finally gets to the exploration she’s supposed to be doing, and taps the horseshoes on her forelegs against each other. They spark into a buzzing, glow stick-like blue light which flickers just like Twilight’s spell but does neither fizzle out nor explode. It wouldn’t do anything for a normal pony other than faintly outline their hooves, but it’s enough for a bat pony to see a tiny bit ahead and, most importantly, not fall into a hole.

Hah! The light is weak as hay, but when she said the map spell still worked, I wondered if the enchanted horseshoes would too.

Emboldened, Gloom finally starts moving deeper into the tunnel until a bit of deeper darkness to the right reveals a branching path and the same pair of teal dots which quickly vanish when she looks.

“You’re a changeling and you just closed your eyes. I can see you,” she says calmly, “Hello there!”

“Miss Gloom,” a voice clearly disappointed in itself replies, “It’s me, 2119. I didn’t mean to unsettle you,” the changeling approaches her, “Her Majesty didn’t want us to limit your movement even on the first day, so I was just keeping an eye on you.”

“Glad to hear it. Can you tell me how I can get to the High Score Cavern?”

“How do you know about it?” 2119 raises an eyebrow.

“I’m a friend of 65536.”

“Riiight!” the infiltrator facehoofs, “I didn’t put two and two together. You’re the famous Nightguard lady.”

“Famous?” the corners of Gloom’s mouth curl up.

“65536 talks about you a lot during its visits. Little guy’s very fond of you.”

“And we all love 65536 too, that’s why I’d like to see more changelings like it.”

“You’re in luck then, we have lots, although 65536 is definitely the cream of the crop. However, most are working outside the HSC and the ones using the workshops in the back are better left alone during their shifts. Things can get explosive if they’re distracted.”

“I can wait or explore the place,” Gloom shrugs, “The Princess wants some soil and rock samples anyway.”

“I still need to keep an eye on you and Her Highness, and I can’t be in two places at once,” 2119 rubs his chin, “Ha! I might have an idea. Follow me.”

Wondering where this is going, Gloom lets the changeling lead the way and, after a moment, he explains things:

“I’m taking you to a ‘node point’, as we call them. They’re tiny, easily securable caves positioned between key points of the hive where we let drones sleep off physical exhaustion and wounds while they can still use their heads to make hive mind communication over long distances easier. I can be the node while looking out for Princess Twilight while the drone on hode duty can lead you down to the HSC.”

“That’s… really nice of you. Thank you,” says Gloom with a hint of surprise, “I wasn’t expecting this. Sorry to say it, but changelings in Canterlot aren’t exactly the welcoming sort.”

“I can only speak for myself, and since I’m the lower ranked infiltrator in the hive I’m usually just on gate guard with 3012 so I don’t get out much, but any friend of 65536 is a friend of mine.”

“You said you were keeping an eye on us. Is the hive that dangerous even up here?” asks Gloom while they’re walking.

“Not really,” 2119 shakes his head, “The only real danger is you and Her Highness getting lost. The lower you go the higher the chance of encountering dangerous creatures, though. We try to keep the main routes cleared out, but there are very few of us ranked changelings stationed in the hive, usually fifteen or fewer.”

“What? Fifteen?” Gloom raises her voice in genuine shock, “The entire hive is fifteen changelings and a hundred or so drones?”

“No, it’s not that bad. Most ranked changelings are on love-gathering missions to feed everyone here. Still, there aren’t many changelings at all, that’s true, but that’s the price of being stable and not starving.”

“There are more changelings in Canterlot according to the census than here…” mutters the Nightguard.

“It’s easier to get fresh love, I suppose,” 2119 shrugs as they reach a set of spiral stairs and descend sharply, “Careful, there are a lot of branching paths here.”

“In case I get lost, do you have any tips for me?”

“Sadly, not really. We orient ourselves using a hive mind map in our heads. My best tip is to try to find one of the new-style tunnels and stick to it whenever it leads upwards. If nothing, they mark the safer sections of the hive.”

“And those tunnels are…?”

“Any tunnel that looks like this one - smooth walls, anti-slipping ridges in the floor, high enough so that the Queen can walk through. Frankly, you really shouldn’t leave the new tunnels in the first place. Other than danger or depleted mineral shafts there’s nothing to find outside of those.”

“Thanks for the warning, it’s better than nothing.”

***

The entrance to the node point is just a hole roughly a quarter of Gloom’s height. In fact, it’s so small that not even a drone would get through without crawling. 2119 stops next to it, leans down, and says:

“Come out, 99732. There’s someone who wants to see you.”

Moments later, the small head of a drone peeks out of the hole.

“Hiii, little guy,” says Gloom softly and reaches out.

“Eee! A fluffer head!” the drone’s eyes open into a full, excited OO.

Gloom smiles from fuzzy bat ear to fuzzy bat ear immediately.

“Eep! A toothy fluffer head!” the drone’s muzzle immediately retracts back into the hole.

“Aww, I don’t bite.”

“Hey! I’m not one of the smart drones, but I know that’s what those big teeth are for,” the drone looks nervously at 2119.

“Miss Gloom will be staying in the hive for several days, 99732, and she’d like to have a look around. I’m taking over your shift, so you show her to the HSC,” explains the infiltrator, “If it worries you, as far as I know, bat pony teeth aren’t for biting changelings.”

“Plus, I wouldn’t dream of biting a cute drone like you, I mean,” Gloom kneels down by the hole to see eye to eye with 99732.

The drone measures her for a moment through eyes narrowed with suspicion from the safety of its hiding place before shrugging.

“Okay, I can’t run and I haven’t been crunched so the story checks out!” it finally crawls out of the hole where Gloom sits up, picks it up under forelegs, and raises it face to face.

“I am length…” muses the drone as if seeing itself stretched for the first time.

“So, little guy, how about you lead me to the High Score Cavern?”

“You’re a pony! How do you know about that anyway? Do ponies know about High Score too?”

“I’m a Nightguard like 65536,” Gloom pulls out the ace in her sleeve, “It told me a lot about your home.”

The drone points at her in an amazed realization as several pieces of information it’s heard over its short life click into place.

“I KNOW YOU! YOU’RE MISS GLOOM!” it exclaims as if it wasn’t just told the same thing a moment ago.

2119 clears his throat.

“HSC, 99732,” he repeats.

“Will do!” 99732, still completely fine with being held like a kitten, says, “Miss Gloom, we kinda have to walk slow or my squishy bits will start leaking out again.”

With chill suddenly running down Gloom’s spine, she puts the drone down with utmost care while simply saying:

“2119, I didn’t just make 99732’s wounds much worse, did I?”

“Not by letting it hang like that, no. You’ll see why down in the HSC. For context, 99732 got recently badly crushed by a cave-in. We don’t have medicine as such but we think it’s recovering. We never needed doctors, because-” the infiltrator stops himself, but Gloom knows the answer.

Because you either healed using love and shapeshifting or you ate any of your kind who were deemed too wounded to be worth the love spent saving them. And drones? Unable to work - recycled immediately.

“I know,” says the bat pony coldly after the infiltrator drifts off, “65536 told me everything about how life here used to be. Keywords - used to. I know things are slowly changing. I know you’re trying.”

“My squishy inside stuff was trying to escape from all my holes and cracks!” reports 99732 in a way too chipper tone considering the grim subject.

“I have a better idea then,” Gloom winks at it, “How about you ride on my back?”

“GASP! IMMA RIDE A FLUFFER PONY!”

5: EMERGENT MILITARY CONFLICT!

Step by careful step, Gloom descends through the dark tunnels of the changeling hive with 99732 lying on her back and occasionally playing with random tufts of bat pony hair it can reach. She doesn’t rush not only due to being barely able to see in the dim light of her glowing horseshoes, but also because she wants to avoid aggravating the drone’s internal wounds. Despite wanting to talk to the little guy more than anything, ever since she picked it up the only thing running on repeat through her head has been:

It’s so light. It’s so fragile and stick-thin that I can feel the ribs under its carapace. I completely forgot how 65536 used to be when we first met it.

“Miss Gloomy?” the drone stops sticking the hair of her grey coat through its leg hole for reasons only known to itself and speaks out, “How come you have shiny hoofsies?”

“It’s not my hooves, it’s my horseshoes. They’re magical,” Gloom stops to raise her hoof and circle it in the air, which is followed by 99732 craning its neck to see and track the motion.

“I thought only horny ponies could use magic,” the drone scrambles to stand up and carefully prod the top of Gloom’s head in search of a secret horn, “I mean, I’m new so I met 65536 only one freezy time, so I’m not sure I understood things right. Some of its stories took a couple breaky times to tell, and I played Scufflestick too, so I wasn’t always listening and-”

“That’s okay, you’re not wrong,” Gloom resumes walking and the drone lies down again, “Skilled and powerful unicorns can make magical items which non-magical ponies can use as well. Princess Luna made mine, and they can do much more than glow, although there’s something weird here in the Badlands that messes with magic so the best I can make the horseshoes do safely is shimmer like this. I’m a bit worried that if I try something more complex it’ll blow my leg off.”

“Gasp, you gotta meet 99856!” the drone grabs her neck, stretches out towards her ear, and whispers, “It blows itself pretty much every other worky time.”

“Up,” Gloom corrects it.

“Nope, that’s where the ceiling is. It’s mostly sideways along with the door. 99111 had to build a heavier and stronger one for the testing cave,” 99732 slides back and finds a comfortable position while propped by Gloom’s saddlebag before coming up with new instructions, “Now take the tunnel to the left and the next one that goes down.”

Magical light or not, even Gloom can’t see the pointed out fork in the corridor until she’s within three pony lengths. She checks Twilight’s magical map and realizes that while it’s done well with directions so far, it also resized automatically to fit the scroll at some point, and it didn’t map any tunnel mouths other than those into which Gloom accidentally walked while 99732 was distracted by talking. They have passed so many parallel branching paths of various sizes that while Glooms knows the direction she has no idea about distance and might easily walk into the wrong one if left on her own.

“Say, is there any way a pony like me could find my way around? In case I got lost without company,” she asks without any real hope. Luckily for her, 99732 says:

“Yep! 10k said that whenever we get the core tunnel main-te-nan-ts shift, we should add small arrows near the floor that lead either to the Guide’s Cavern, the High Score Cavern, or to the throne room. Digging around GC is pretty dangerous and a bunch of drones had something drop on their head and had to find their way back without the hive mind map. They’re on the wall because if they were on the floor we’d scratch them off in time,” it adds, clearly proud of itself, “I understood that part even before 10k explained it to me.”

“Smart guy as well. One more reason to like you,” Gloom chuckles when the drone’s tiny legs hug her back, and lowers her head down to see the arrows for herself. Only now that she’s focusing and with her glowing hoof almost by the wall can she see what the drone was talking about, and realizes that what she thought was the natural stucco-like pattern on the otherwise smooth, stone wall is… writing? Stopping to examine it up closer, she confirms that those are indeed letters of the common equestrian alphabet combined with numbers and pictograms she can’t decipher, “Twilight’s gonna have a field day with this,” she mutters.

“Hmm?” 99732 peeps.

“Nothing, just talking to myself.”

“Gotcha! I do that a lot. I mean, when I’m working somewhere safe. It’s a really bad idea to draw attention to oneself in the spooky places, so if I’m on a shift there I listen to the hive mind tunes. I like the one that goes dun dunn hmm na nanana naa-”

Gloom lets the drone’s train of thought derail onto a trip to an entirely different country and examines the more important thing - the arrows. They are pointing backwards the way they came, which should mean that’s the way to the throne room. She confirms the theory by peeking into the next tunnel they pass and seeing that the nearest arrow points towards her. There’s a clear design flaw in case of a situation where someone might need to flee from one of the safe spots, but it’s clear that the arrows are just the last resort and that no healthy changeling would really need them.

“-you like to trade your glowy hooves? I got some fire goop swirlies that 99111 used to make the super hard door left over,” 99732’s train of thought surprisingly pulls up to the station of here and now.

“My horseshoes? No, definitely not,” Gloom resumes walking according to the drone’s directions, “They’re attuned to me-”

“A tune? Did I say I liked tunes? Especially the one that goes-”

“That means-” Gloom raises her voice only slightly, “-that they wouldn’t work for you even if I showed you how to activate them.”

“Awww,” perked up 99732 slumps on her back again and hangs its head down to see Gloom’s moving hooves and follow every shiny motion, “They’re still very pretty.”

“They’re also about twice the size of your hooves, little guy,” she bends her neck to nuzzle the hanging drone, “What was the fire swirly thing you offered me? I never heard 65536 mention anything like that.”

Gloom’s swishing tail makes its way to 99732’s peripheral vision. Torn between a ‘curious moving thingy’ and a new topic of conversation, 99732 tries to do both at the same time by turning away from Gloom’s head, lying down, and trying to catch the tail with its hoof.

Quick moving whippy! I’ll get you now- wherediditgo?!

“99732?” Gloom pauses tempting the seemingly hypnotized drone with her tail just for a moment.

“Hm?” it twitches, returning into reality, “Right, fire goop swirlies! They’re these weird noodles, about as big as two hooves put together, that live down even below the Guide’s Cavern. They have a super hard, hollow rock that looks all swirly on their backs. I saw one flop into the hot-glowy and it just wobbled back up!”

“Hot-glowy?” asks Gloom. To her, the described ‘thingy’ only sounds like some kind of a snail.

“Yup! That’s this super hot, red and yellow goop that you can’t get close to because it makes it really hard to breathe, but the fire goop swirlies don’t care! And you know what’s even better?” it almost squeaks in excitement by the end.

“No idea, but I’m eager to hear it,” in the darkness, Gloom is smiling from ear to ear.

“I found one of their swirly rocks so I picked it up to trade later, but then the fire goop noodle crawled out of it and peeked out at me! It had two tiny wobblers at the front but it didn’t make any noise like flappy screechers, it didn’t try to crawl on me like swarming skitterers, it didn’t spit anything at me like a melty hisser, nothing. I was so confused that I didn’t even drop it and it just waited for me to put it down. It didn’t even try to eat me!” the drone finishes its explanation with an incredulous look on its face.

“You sound almost disappointed,” Gloom chuckles, flicks her tail again, and hears 99732’s hooves smack into one another as it tries to grab it, still in vain.

“Grumble grumble quick whippy- I- well- no- but… how?” the drone’s inability to believe that something isn’t trying to eat its kind would be funny if it wasn’t entirely warranted, “Even the smiles eat some small bits that fall off, and they’re friends!”

“The what?”

“What what?” the drone attempts to bite Gloom’s tail one final time while holding onto her backside for support, fails, and lays its head near her dock, enjoying the slow up and down motion. The Nightguard stops flicking it on purpose.

“The… smiles?” she repeats.

“Hee hee, you’ll see!”

***

The “core tunnels” -the ones rebuilt into corridors with walls covered in writing, non-slip floors, and marked with arrows- are spacious enough to comfortably accommodate Queen Chrysalis, and while Gloom has passed a good amount of normal holes which were leftovers from old mining shifts she didn’t need to go through a single one to finally arrive in front of an actual sliding double door made from green resin and held in place by rails in the floor and the ceiling.

“Here we are!” announces 99732, defeated by Gloom’s tail and resting face-forward again, “Just spin the dent in the middle with your hoof and then push sideways.”

Gloom furrows her brows as she presses against the plastic-feeling resin, twists, and the disk-shaped indentation in the door’s center smoothly responds to her motion. It’s a simple “lock” and it’s clear that it’s meant to stop only something mindless from getting in and anypony with more than two brain cells wouldn’t even be slowed down, but 65536 never said that drones had anything like this, and it always talked after every winter visit about even the smallest advancements and inventions the drones made on their own.

“Is this mechanism new?” asks Gloom, “You’re talking about a lot of things I haven’t heard from 65536.”

“You’re gonna have to ask someone older for details, but things are moving pretty quickly. There’s something new every couple worky times,” 99732 shrugs, “But the lock I know about - 99111 made a simple, bigger, and heavier one first for the Guide’s Cavern because weird gribblers sometimes kept creeping around, and then decided to play with different kinds here too.”

Turning the first suggestion in her mind, Gloom enters the High Score Cavern. From all she heard 65536 describe back in Canterlot, she was expecting a sight to behold but… with the exception of small, faintly glowing, green heaps outlined on the floor in the distance she just can’t see far enough in any clear detail. There are no sounds of busy drones, no lights beyond the mentioned green things scattered all over at random, nothing beyond the feeling of empty space and much fresher air for no apparent reason. Despite having heard so much about drone home and in overwhelming detail, the reality sharply clashes with the image she built based on 65536’s stories. She was expecting something homely… like a full family living room on a rainy weekend, only sized up and possibly with several hundred well-behaved foals. Not this cold, silent, dead cavern.

Even 99732 notices her sudden tension.

“Are you okay?” it asks carefully, “You can walk around, there’s nothing dangerous here unless you walk through the door in the back.”

“I… just…” Gloom doesn’t know what to say so she deflects with: “I knew you guys had good eyes, but I didn’t know they were so much better than mine. I can barely see.”

“Oh, is that it?” the drone shuffles on her back for a while before, “Ta daa!” its small hoof appears next to Gloom’s face, presenting a glowing green ball. Gloom grabs it with one hoof and examines it, settling on that it’s green, feels warm to touch, and smells faintly of mint, “If you need more, just ask. You’re giving off so much love that I think I could make a whole bunch.”

“Ohhhh, is this glowgoop?” now seeing much further around, Gloom decides to head forward, “65536 mentioned it in passing but there’s no need to spend love to use it in Canterlot. Are those some weak glowgoop piles so that you can see better?” she points at the random green blobs she can see.

“Hehe, nope!” the head peeking from behind her neck giggles as deviously as a drone can, which isn’t much. Still, if there’s one thing Gloom is sure about it’s that a drone won’t try to hurt her for a laugh, so she approaches the green blob.

She examines it.

It’s a green blob on the floor, roughly the size of a hoofball.

Someone drew a smiley face in some black dust on it.

She pokes it.

It jiggles slightly.

Experiment over.

“Let me guess - smiles?” she asks.

“Yup!” 99732 replies happily, “65536 called them slimes but they only eat useless chunks that fall off so we draw smiley faces on them so that any newbies around know they’re friends! You looked pretty spooked there for a moment, hehe, but they’re not dangerous! Go on, you can pick it up!”

Mentally recovering from a drone version of a prank, Gloom sits down and gently picks the slime up. It feels like a softer ball of glowgoop, more like a lava lamp inside a tough membrane, but there doesn’t seem anything particularly interesting about it other than confirming that the fresher air of the cavern is caused by these things with a careful sniff.

Maybe some kind of an antibacterial secretion, since it eats “useless chunks that fall off”? Whatever, Twilight can study them as much as she wants and consider them some specimen in jars.

This reminds her that there are still five observation crystals in her saddlebag she’s supposed to set up. To do that effectively, she needs to know how things work here. Putting the slime down again, she asks:

“Tell me, 99732, when do your shifts usually end? I’d like to see more of how life is here.”

“Some guys are in the workshops in the back. We could visit them but it’ll be better until they come out when they’re done too. Startling 99856 or 99450 could turn out really bad.”

“I suppose bothering others while they’re busy wouldn’t make the best first impression,” agrees Gloom, “Though I don’t really want to return back up already.”

“Gasp!” the drone on her back straightens up, “I’ve got an idea! Did 65536 tell you about Scufflestick?”

“We played a match or two-”

“Ooh ooh ooh oh!” 99732 starts pointing towards the right wall of the HSC covered in honeycomb-like alcoves. With nothing better to do, Gloom follows its direction to an alcove in the bottom row filled with miniature equine figurines made of basic changeling resin, “I play ponies! What do you want to play?”

Gloom lowers herself to the floor, which 99732 takes as a sign to crawl down from her, and starts gathering the figurines.

“I like the gribbler playstyle,” says Gloom, “Not that much strategy but it’s nice to sometimes just turn your brain off.”

“YOU CAN DO THAT?!” 99732 drops its figurines, “I wish I could do that too! Sometimes there’s so much new stuff that I can fall asleep and-”

“Not literally,” Gloom interrupts it, “I meant it as just doing something easy that doesn’t need much thinking.”

“I see, it’s like digging,” it nods wisely and resumes picking the miniatures up, “Digging’s the best.”

“I can’t see any gribbler models in your… uhh, hole,” comments Gloom, examining the various knick-knacks in the nearby alcoves. In general, they contain various rocks ranging from small pebbles to actual gems and a silver or gold nugget here and there. Nothing is under lock and key and everything is on open display, as if it all had equal value and no one was worried about things getting stolen. From what Gloom’s heard about drones as well as her own experience with living with one, both of those notions are correct.

“We can borrow some. 99266 plays them so much it has its own models. Three holes to the right, two up,” the drone points to an alcove without looking. Gloom counts it off, finds a stash of figurines, some of which are vaguely familiar, realizes that she has no idea about the model rules without a cheat sheet, which she admits to 99732, “Huh…” the drone pauses, “Right, no hivemind.”

“You know what? I recall what the monsters I had in my army did. We can build a list and you can tell me what attacks I need to roll. It’s not like we’re playing in a tournament or anything,” Gloom solves the situation, “I’m more worried that your friend will be mad at us for borrowing its stuff without asking. The detail of these is incredible,” she examines a random figurine up close.

“Mad that I’m playing Scufflestick against a real pony? 99266 will be so jealous! I can lend you my ponies if you want to play against it later,” 99732 beams from ear to ear as it counts off its miniatures.

At ease due to how unbothered the drone is, Gloom puts all 99266’s models on the floor and groups the heavily customized models up as well as she can. By the time she’s done, 99732’s army is set up and they can move onto helping Gloom make hers.

“So, I remember I had three five-model units of the spider things that can’t take damage from beam spells-”

If they play Scufflestick the way we did, the battle map will be one to three open caverns and a LOT of narrow tunnels between them.

“Darting swarmers!” 99732 starts picking out the figurines from Gloom’s lineup, each similar but also so different that it’s clear their maker put incredible amounts of time, heart, and care into the work.

“Next, five units of the extremely quick, flying swarms.”

Excellent for overwhelming reinforcements that are too fast or too slow.

“Flappy biters…” 99732 looks closer, “Goop! There are only two of those.”

“That’s fine, we'll have to make do,” Gloom waves it off, “Add one of the big venom spitter worms,” she points to what she thinks is the model, “Is it this one?”

Alright, more area denial instead of quick strikes then.

“Mhm, the wobbly puker,” 99732 shudders, “Nasty things. Both in the game and for real.”

This goes on for about ten more minutes until the two armies are in position, battlefield lines are drawn on the floor using a thumped-up stick of coal mimicking a pencil, and both Gloom and 99732 roll for who gets the opening turn.

“Yesss!” the winning drone punches the air and winces, “Ow ow ow ow, too much moving! My inside thingies are pulling all over.”

“If you need me to move a piece, just say so,” Gloom walks around the battlefield and pats 99732’s head.

“Thank you,” the drone smiles at her.

Once the two “generals” are in position, they exchange looks, Gloom smiles and shows her fangs, and 99732 does the same.

“Let the dice tell a story!”

Author's Note

The usual first contact.
Whoever gets more votes wins which totally changes the story in dramatic ways, I promise. (I may be lying)

6: Too many hugs to give, too much work to do before that.

“I ungribble your gribbler!” announces 99732 with a wide smile as it takes several of Gloom’s miniatures off of the Scufflestick battlefield.

Lying on her belly, observing the map, and counting any points she can still potentially gain, Gloom has to admit the hard truth:

“Even if I throw everything I have at the closest objective and somehow win every fight, I can’t get enough points in time. Well played, 99732,” she smiles back and offers her hoof to the drone who tilts its head and hesitantly offers:

“I can, umm, give you a chance to catch up…”

Gloom shakes her head, smiling. She could blame the dice which definitely weren’t favorable to her, but she knows enough about drones to be sure that 99732 didn’t cheat in any of the three games of the match. She could also blame the lack of models she needed to pull off the strategy she usually used against 65536, but why would she do that? There’s nothing on the line, the drone earned its win, and she’s bound to be able to play later if she wants to.

“You won fair and square, little guy, and you deserve to enjoy your victory,” she stretches over the battlefield and pats 99732’s head, “Frankly, my only experience is playing against 65536 and Smiley, and I think you’re better than either of them.”

99732 freezes before starting to vibrate on the spot and somehow buzzing with a smile so wide the upper half of its head threatens to fall off.

“AND I’M NOT EVEN THAT GOOD! EEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

As she stretches out and finds herself far more stiff than she should be, she realizes that the three hours she had before the end of drone shifts has already passed, and notices teal eyes open in the darkness by the walls and behind the many pillars supporting the ceiling.

I was so pressed during the game that I didn’t hear or see anypony. Makes sense that the guys would be extra sneaky if they really tried.

Her bones and joints crack as she unfurls herself as well as her bat wings into her full size and, now that she’s focusing on her surroundings again, she can her multiple hoofsteps shuffle away from behind her. With her night vision still limited by watching the game battlefield lit by glowgoop balls 99732 kept making, she can only see dozens of blinking teal eyes arranged into a semi-circle outlined against the pitch blackness.

“Hello?” she carefully speaks out and waves her hoof which the eyes follow, “I’m a friend,” she smiles.

“EEP! SPIKY TEETH!” squeaks a voice and the surroundings drones shuffle away again. Gloom, however, knows a thing or two about drone-related diplomacy.

“True, but I have fluffy ears and a soft coat too. Wanna touch them? I promise I won’t bite.”

“Her rank is Miss Gloom and she’s friend-shaped!” announces 99732 happily, sorting the Scufflestick miniatures for clean-up. This is enough for the numerous drones surrounding her to come into view from all sides. The nearest one leans back like a cat while stretching its foreleg out to touch Gloom.

*Poke!*

The responsible drone scuttles back immediately before sharing the result of its experiment:

“She’s way softer than green-fluffy!”

Gloom has no clue what ‘green-fluffy’ is but immediately finds herself poked and prodded from all angles by drones slowly coming to terms that something with sharp teeth isn’t trying to eat them immediately. One of the drones, however, pokes the saddlebag where Twilight’s observation crystal jingle, reminding Gloom that she still has work to do.

“She’s warm and squishy too!” announces a different drone.

“Hug pile?” asks someone.

“Hug pile!” decides the community.

“No hug pile!” Gloom raises her foreleg above her head, much to the disappointed sighs all around, “Sorry, guys. I promise to cuddle every single one of you later, but I still need to-” she translates her goal into dronish, “My worky time still isn’t over, and it would help me a lot if you just did what you normally do during -what was it?- breaky time as if I wasn’t here. Of course, you can look as much as you want.”

That solves everything immediately. Some more courageous drones voice everyone’s realization-

“Oh!”

“Okay!”

-and the crowd of drones who have been observing the strange and new creature in their midst gradually disperses. Drones like clear instructions.

Finally, Gloom returns to 99732 and helps it return the miniatures away to their proper place and, in the case of the borrowed army, to their rightful owner who still isn’t around.

I hope it didn’t get eaten during the shift. That would make for a really grim opening to my visit.

“Say, 99732, is… uhh… the drone we borrowed the monster army from okay?” she asks the drone who briefly furrows its brows in concentration before nodding.

“Its next worky time is down at the Guide’s Cavern, so it went straight there after its shift ended.”

“Oof,” Gloom lets out a sigh of relief, pats the incredibly well-crafted gribblers now displayed lined up in their owner’s alcove one last time, and turns around, only to be faced with three drones with genuinely serious expressions, heavily scarred and dented carapaces, and carrying short spears -pilum-sized, really- using not exactly claws or fingers but still some kind of a grabby variant of a hoof Gloom has never seen before. 65536 always uses normal claw transformation to use its spear or a truncheon. To their credit, the spears are aimed only slightly down in a professional way of someone ready to use them but not wanting to.

The real threat of drones comes from their strange digging ability, but even they’ve figured out that a spear has the advantage of everything bad happening pretty far away from them.

“A triangle formation and a good spear form,” Gloom commends the three drones, “I didn’t know that 65536 spent its yearly visits training guards.”

It only partially works this time, as the drone directly in front of her says:

“Thank you. We would still like to know who you are and why you’re here.”

Seeing a professional at work, even though tiny and adorable in her eyes, Gloom salutes.

“I’m Gloom, Equestrian Nightguard, rank Child of the Night. I’m here on an official mission, escorting Her Highness Twilight Sparkle on her scientific visit to the Changeling Hive. Her Highness has remained on the surface level and is presumably talking about the details of our stay with Her Majesty, Queen Chrysalis.”

Do the drones not know about the exchange program? Damn, I should have asked 99732, but I waved it off as just a single guy out of the loop due to wounds.

“And why are you here in the HSC exactly?” asks the drone. Gloom begins giving the drone a quick recap of her and Twilight’s visit. She doesn’t get far when a squeaky voice that could belong to any drone, really, interrupts her from the direction of the entrance.

“MISS GLOOM?!”

Two drones, unique in the fact that they’re both wearing what looks like clothes, are approaching her. Gloom has no clue who the one wearing a curious cloak and a hood covered in immaculately cut brownish-grey scales is, but it’s supporting a second drone wearing chewed and torn remains of a carpet tightened around its barrel with a twine, as well as a pair of dented and perforated metal bracers on its forelegs, who is limping towards her with a wide smile and is being stopped from falling over only by the help of the first drone.

“Greenhouse guy?” Gloom’s face brightens as she unthinkingly rushes past the drone guards who don’t try to stop her and meets the seemingly partially crippled drone halfway. Lowering herself to be face to face with the drone, she grabs its cheeks and squeezes them before pulling it into a hug.

For the first time in Gloom’s experience, a drone doesn’t return a hug, which makes her withdraw in confusion.

Did I do something inappropriate?

She feels the drone’s stiff forelegs by the sides of her barrel and, when she looks down, the drone gives her a sheepish, apologetic smile.

Oh no…

“Sorry, Miss Gloom. My leggos don’t work so well anymore. That’s why 99200 was helping me walk all the way from the greenhouse,” the drone nods sideways to the cloaked drone.

Gloom’s is in too much of a shock to concern itself with the other drone right now, grabs the drone’s leg, and carefully slides its bracer off.

“57999 got chewed up by a hungry sticky biter after freezy time,” explains 99200, following Gloom’s lead and taking the other bracer off.

Her heart skips a beat when she sees 57999’s unnaturally bent, dented, and cracked chitin underneath. Carefully, she starts bending the held leg at its knee to gauge 57999’s mobility. She stops when the leg twitches on its own and she notices 57999 wince in pain without saying anything.

“Does it hurt?” she asks, happy that all drones around them are patient and trusting enough to let her do her thing without interrupting.

“Yes, but it’s the weird, stretchy pain like I sometimes get while doing yoga with 10k, and that’s supposed to be good for you, so I was curious where this was going,” replies 57999.

“You really need to be more careful, 57999,” says Gloom, slowly pumping the drone’s leg back and forth, “Timberwolves are dangerous even to armed ponies and, with how close to the edge of the Everfree forest the greenhouse is, you’re bound to face more.”

“Heheh, it was just a little chewing,” 57999 tries to nervously scratch the top of its head, but its free other foreleg doesn’t bend much either, so it tilts its neck instead to rub its head against the stiff, raised leg, “I had to buy time for my helpers to hide until 838 arrived. What would High Score think of me if I just ran off?”

Two years ago, when Gloom met 57999 for the first time while escorting 65536 to the Badlands during a particularly bad winter, the carpet the drone is ‘wearing’ was still in one piece and the bracers didn’t have open holes in them, and that was after a timberwolf attack. The one that attacked 57999 this time must have been an adult and far deadlier one.

“I’m sure 10k would like to see you alive the most,” counters Gloom. 57999 doesn’t say anything but instead it glances at a nearby drone statue in perfect detail that’s facing the entrance and watching it with eyes made of sapphires so large they could buy a mansion each, which makes Gloom realize her mistake.

It’s not a 99- drone, it’s a pre-invasion one like 65536. It doesn’t mean High Score as 10k, it means the old 9999. The first statue the drones made after the twenty-or-so survivors returned to the hive in the wake of Canterlot invasion. The drone who saved them all - not just the title of High Score now belonging to 10k, but the legend of High Score.

“-and so would 9999,” she adds. 57999 looks up at her and wibbles so hard Gloom’s heart melts and she completely forgets Twilight’s crystals again, “Come on, let me help you take the rest of your clothes off and you can ride on my back wherever you need to. I still have some time before I have to leave.”

“Thank you, Miss,” peeps 57999. From the corner of her eye, Gloom sees 99200 wave its foreleg and, out of nowhere, the trio of drone guards surround her and 57999, take a bracer each, with the last one taking 57999’s carpet ‘armor’ off, and leave without a word, “Thank, guys,” adds 57999.

“So, where are we riding?” Gloom perks up in an attempt to cheer the drone up, and scratches it behind the ear, knowing it can’t reach there itself.

“I wonder,” 99200 rejoins the conversation, “Do you know anything about talky boxes?”

“The radio 65536 brought? Not much. Is there a problem with it?”

“Kinda. 10k, 99111, and 99380 who knew how to work with it are all gone and when we tried to use the buttons we must have done something wrong and we made it so angry it kept hissing at us and finally stopped talking entirely.”

“Huh, I thought that hive mind thing of yours meant that whatever one of you knows, all of you do,” comments Gloom while bending her knees and beckoning 57999 to climb on her back.

“Yes, but it’s a little more complicated than that,” 99200 shakes its head, pauses as if listening to something for a second, and adds, “If you want to talk about it later, there’s someone who would like to meet you. Not this breaky time, though.”

“Understood,” Gloom nods and spreads her wings to show them off to 57999 now sitting between them, “Where do you have the radio?”

“Follow me,” says 99200 and takes to the air.

“Give me some light, 99200!” Gloom tenses up like a spring.

“THAT’S A REALLY WEIRD KIND OF FLYING!” yelps 57999 when Gloom jumps into the air with a buffet of her wings and begins circling in the air to gain height, “Very bumpy!” its voice calms down a little.

The fly wings of changelings are excellent for agility and hovering in the air, so even if 57999 couldn’t hold on and fell, there’s enough of a drop for it to easily stop mid-air.

“Yeah! Ponies and griffons fly a bit differently,” replies Gloom, focusing on not hitting any of the pillars. Without air currents and good visibility, she can’t get the best drag, but it’s good enough, “I should ask the Queen to let me take you outside for some proper flying.”

“Over here, Miss Gloom!” 99200 waves a stick of glowgoop from the middle of the top floor of the balconies lining the HSC. It’s so close to the ceiling that Gloom has to glide when she gets up, grab onto the stone railing, and pull herself over it. Thankfully, the mix of ledge and a balcony is wide enough for a pony, or more likely a normal changeling, and she can sit down next to a radio which 99200 pulled out of an alcove.

Gloom pushes the a button on the top next to which there’s ‘POWER’ scratched into the chassis, the radio hisses for a moment, and goes entirely silent.

“Hmmm… give me the light, please.”

In the green glow, the cables in the back look okay to her. The radio looks like the one she helped 65536 test out back in Canterlot before it brought it here, but if there’s something wrong with the internal wiring she won’t be able to identify a problem, much less fix it. Despite that, she unscrews loose nuts from a plate in the side with her mouth, revealing a pair of lifeless and dull cylindrical power crystals. With the panel open, she presses the power button again, one of the crystals sparks to life, the radio hisses once, the crystal’s light fades, and everything goes silent again.

This shouldn’t have stopped them. 65536 brought a full box of rechargeable spares as well as a crank-operated generator.

“There’s your problem - the crystals are drained. Do you not have some spares?”

“Well,” 99200 giggles nervously, “We do, but 99818’s last villainous plan was to disassemble the spinny wheel and hide it inside its evil lair so we went to get it back. Buuut that was when 99998 hatched while we were carrying it out and we all got spooked and we kinda… dropped it and ran over it a bunch.”

Gloom runs the sentence over in her head several times and realizes she has absolutely zero idea what it meant. She also knows, however, that attempting to follow the quirks and tangential stories of every single one of the drones would lead to madness. The problem is simple - the radio doesn’t work, the battery crystals are drained, and they can’t be recharged. Solution?

The bat pony tolls her eyes and sighs.

“If you don’t know how to fix it, it’s okay. We’ll just wait until 99111 returns from its trip,” says 99200, noticing Gloom’s onset of annoyance.

“No, I can’t fix it, but I think I know who might,” she breathes out.

“REALLY?” 57999’s face brightens so much that its failed attempt to jump with mostly stiff forelegs which barely pushes it up only breaks Gloom’s heart further, “It takes a long time to come back from the greenhouse and take my armor off, so I almost always miss the beginning of the talky box story time, but since 10k left and 99200 was put in charge, it’s been helping me get back faster. I mean, the talky box doesn’t work anymore but 99200 is still coming and I get more time for Scufflestick and yoga.”

Gloom just pulls 57999 into a hug.

“I’ll make sure you get your radio time,” she lets the drone go, “I just need one thing from you.”

“I can trade some of my sticks and flowers-”

Gloom shakes her head.

“You don’t need to do anything but it would help me if you could make me a very bright glowgoop stick and not follow me nor ask me anything while I’m flying around the cavern for the next ten minutes.”

You win, Twilight, just this once.

The main thought occupying Gloom’s mind over the course of the next quarter of an hour, as she’s looking for the best spots to hide the five observation crystals using a strange glowgoop stick casting extremely bright, white light provided by 99200 and praying that whatever this unique light source is isn’t something experimental and explosive, is simple yet complicated:

How do I stop this before anyone in charge finds out and realizes that Twilight is basically spying on the main population of the hive? And how do I do it without Twilight figuring out I’m behind it?

Author's Note

This is supposed to be standalone, and I think I'm going too far.
Does it have the effect of feeling like taking a glimpse into a live world, or is it just confusing?
I wish I was a good writer after so many years and knew the answer without asking :D

7: An imperfect ending to an almost perfect day

Gloom’s breathing quickens when she opens Twilight’s map, illuminates it using her magical horseshoe, and realizes she has no idea how far along the drawn line she is. Leaning down, she checks the arrows by the floor which are still pointing backwards, so she must have cleared a much shorter distance than she thought. The trip here felt brief thanks to being accompanied by the constant talking of 99732, but now that she’s entirely alone, the weight of heavy, still air and the deafening silence are putting her on edge. She almost wants something to finally happen to relieve the compounding tension, yet she knows that here, in the hive, nothing happening is the best possible timeline.

Folding the map back into her saddlebag, she resumes walking, the unsteady and flickering glow of her horseshoes being her lifeline.

“Calm down, Gloom. You’re equipped for this. Twilight’s map works, you brought flares with you, and in case you get lost you know how to backtrack. You have some food and water as well. You’re OKAY,” she whispers to finally hear something and to retake control of her breathing.

This isn’t the first time she’s deep underground, the regular survival training sessions of the Nightguard occasionally did land her in a cave system, yet something feels different here and she can’t put a hoof on what. The darkness somehow feels worse. Maybe it’s because she always knew what to expect in a normal situation, even with much less equipment, and now that she’s experienced the magical anomaly that’s the Badlands she knows she can’t rely on her basic tools.

No, that’s not it. The longer she’s down here, the more a realization in the back of her mind grows, the realization that 65536’s soul-crushing stories about the dangers of the hive weren’t overblown for the purposes of sensational storytelling, rather that they were…

…toned down.

“They live their every day like this,” Gloom breathes out and can’t stop herself from sniffling and wiping her eyes, “And before the invasion it was worse. They barely knew one another because they spent the few days they had digging in some hole, starving and lonely.”

She’s never felt so alone in her life.

However, the more she recalls 65536’s stories, the more her worried and tense expression turns into an angry one and the faster she begins to openly storm ahead.

And it’s all the fault of other CHANGELINGS - the ruling monsters treating the defenseless drones as tools to be used up and publicly recycled in the most brutal and inequine way possible just to send a message to every other drone that any thoughts of a revolt won’t be tolerated.

Now that I think of it, the only time drones used to see each other in groups was when one or more were thrown screaming into that crusher thing in front of everyone.

Story after previously barely believable story floats to the top of Gloom’s mind, ones she thought she forgot or pushed out of her mind long ago, forming a string of sadness and hatred causing the bat pony to unthinkingly wipe her eyes and nose over and over as she’s stomping through the tunnel, completely unaware of the passage of time.

The downward sloping tunnel.

Once she realizes that something feels off, she stops and pulls the map out again which, this time, shows a newly drawn branch.

Stars damn it, Gloom, focus!

After taking a slow and deep breath to clear her head, she checks the navigation arrows which still point backwards.

Alright, let’s just head back-

The light of her horseshoes dims as if someone was sliding a switch until it fades two seconds later and leaves Gloom in complete darkness impenetrable even to her eyes.

Fuuuuuuuu- that’s fine, that’s FINE!

Gloom sits down, takes her saddlebag off, and prods the carefully sorted and packaged contents until she touches a set of three tubes next to each other wrapped in wax cloth. She pulls one of the smooth tubes out, finds the ribbed end, turns her head away from it, twists, and breaks it off. Bright, cold, blue-ish white light bathes the area.

Two more on me, two sets of five back in my backpack upstairs. Let’s hope I don’t need to use up any, but there’s still enough.

As she’s packing the rest back to her saddlebag, she notices something from the corner of her eye further down the corridor. It’s as if the light is reflecting off of something that isn’t there, something along the lines of a mirror that’s at the same time see-through as well as reflective. She’s never seen anything like that before.

Keeping it in view without looking directly, Gloom pulls out the second flare from the package and puts it into her mouth to keep at hoof just in case. Finally, she pulls out Twilight’s map, carefully checks it again to gauge the distance she needs to move back, puts her active flare on the floor, fakes fiddling with the second one-

-and kicks the first one directly at the anomaly.

It bounces.

Fuck! Fuckfuckfuckfuck!

Immediately cracking the seal on the second one to activate it, she glares ahead, ready to fight.

She blinks, feels the air move, and immediately opens her eyes wide again.

There’s nothing anymore. No strange reflection or sound.

Gloom isn’t stupid enough to turn around or go forward to retrieve her original flare. Instead, with eyes trailed directly ahead, she puts the second flare behind her ear to not blind herself, and starts backing off the way she came. In a situation like this, the heat is just an inconvenience.

She can’t see or hear anything, but after what just happened…

…that doesn’t mean anything.

This is going to be a long trip back.

***

After Gloom left Twilight, the princess got fully engrossed in setting up her laboratory. Now, over an hour later, Twilight’s gigantic backpacks are lying limp on the floor and two new mobile workbenches are set up by the wall of Twilight’s part of the cave along with two wardrobe-like frames, one containing a crystal cube sitting atop a box with wires sticking out, and the other a shelf covered in various tools.

“Heh, when did unicorns learn new shapes for scrying?” asks a buzzing, slightly distorted voice coming from the entrance without the faintest hint of anyone arriving that makes the hair on the back of Twilight’s neck stand up and chill run down her spine. The alicorn reflexively spins around, wings slightly ruffled, and almost knocks over a microscope on the workbench, making Chrysalis smirk, “No need for any of that. You’re not in danger, Princess.”

This isn’t the first time the two have met since the Canterlot invasion, yet this is the first time on Chrysalis’ home turf and some memories are more ingrained than others.

“Your Majesty!” says Twilight as she regains some composure, and bows, “I’m gracious for the opportunity and I want to thank you for allowing this exchange.”

Chrysalis shakes her head and sighs.

“I’m not elated by any of this, but times are changing and I deemed that the drones could benefit from a fresh way of looking at things. After all, 17070, 65536, 99999, and Smiley are all doing more than well among ponies, so why not allow the drones here to experience something new? However, as undiplomatic as it will inevitably sound, you being here is simply the price I’m paying for letting my drones outside with guaranteed protection and a place to stay. If I trusted ponies enough to send 10k, 99111, and 99380 so far away unaccompanied, I would have done so.”

“If nothing else, I appreciate the honesty, Your Majesty,” replies Twilight and begins fiddling with her crystal cube device, “My hope, however, is that if I bring some knowledge about changelings as a civilization, not the predators most ponies still know you as, it might serve to improve the circumstances of those living undisguised in Canterlot and other pony cities.”

“It’s taking every fiber of my being to not think of you being here as research into our vulnerabilities, but I’ll restrain that part of myself… for a better future,” Chrysalis strolls around the now cramped cave, her horn barely not scraping the ceiling, “We can expand this place if you want more space,” she offers.

“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Twilight shakes her head, “I would be okay with simple observation and non-intrusive research, but my assistant is dead set on interacting with the drones and tainting the results, so she’ll inevitably spend more time with them than here. I only wanted to gather soil samples for the next day, but she just had to run off…”

“2119 briefed me about your companion,” Chrysalis huffs and levitates up one of Gloom’s spare bags, “and trust me that bringing a fully kitted-out Nightguard pretending to be a ‘research assistant’ wasn’t very diplomatic and trust-building of you, Princess. If I wasn’t so ‘with the times’, as the foals say these days, I might get paranoid.”

“I’m sorry,” Twilight decides on complete honesty while screaming internally, “Princess Celestia insisted that I took a bodyguard with me no matter how much I explained that it could be interpreted as me not trusting your assurance of my safety. I can order her to not run off on her own anymore-”

Chrysalis smirks.

“Oh, please, don’t. You are lucky, Princess, because we have heard about Gloom, and so have the drones. In fact, I’d like you to give her an even higher degree of independence because it has the potential to be… amusing.”

“Amusing?” Twilight raises an eyebrow.

“Drones live a mix of extremely orderly and equally chaotic lives. I believe Gloom’s presence will enhance the latter and, frankly, so will yours no matter how little you want it to,” Chrysalis’s prophetic words are accompanied by an inward smile, “My hope is that the Crystal Empire expedition brings back an interesting story or two as well. Say, those crystals they use for building aren’t flammable, are they?”

“And my hope is that this exchange program wasn’t some plan to cause trouble in the Crystal Empire,” Twilight finishes plugging in all the wires into the bottom of the crystal cube and levitates up a screwdriver. Thankfully, whatever the weird magic anomaly of the Badlands is, it’s not affecting her telekinesis.

“Of course not, we’re far past that,” Chrysalis looks over her shoulder. Despite Twilight being an alicorn now, Chrysalis is still over a head taller than she is, “But I know my subjects. A certain level of trouble always tends to find them.”

With all the wires fastened and the device seemingly ready, Twilight pushes a button.

“I must admit I know the feeli- huh?!”

The air buzzes, filling with static charge, and the black box under the crystal cube explodes, albeit at a glacial pace. The expanding shockwave is visible with the naked eye, and both Twilight and Chrysalis jump backwards in time as the almost solid bubble of magic bursts, bending, twisting, melting, or downright disintegrating the metal frame of the shelf holding it. The cube slides off of the expanding ball, and Twilight telekinetically catches it before it hits the floor and moves it on the workbench. As much as Chrysalis wants to make an assassination joke to make fun of Twilight, she can’t, because unlike the alicorn herself, she’s being protected by a bubble of shimmering purple magic. Flickering and static-y bubble, but the thought counts. The protection spell fades the second Twilight looks around and sees that nothing is about to explode anymore.

“Celestia damn it! How do I fix this?” whispers Twilight under her breath before returning to reality and hastily turns towards Chrysalis, flushed and coming to the same potential assassination angle as Chrysalis did, “I apologize so much, Your Highness! There’s something here in the Badlands that’s interfering with my magic -well, the magic field in general, it seems- and it’s causing strange effects when spells are invoked. Do you know anything about it?”

Twilight has never been the best at reading others, but she trusts her years experience as the Princess of Friendship and numerous diplomatic assignments when Chrysalis tells her “No, we don’t use magic and there’s nothing limiting us, changelings”. With a sigh, she begins examining the damage.

The magical explosion didn’t damage the wires beyond the connectors, and the scrying cube is okay, which means that normal energy insulation was enough to stop the magical charge. I think I’m getting the grasp of things. The magic either gets amplified and causes a random outburst, or it’s dampened to the point of barely working. If I can figure out the conditions for either, I’ll be able to work around the phenomenon or possibly even use it to my advantage. First things first, though…

“Your Majesty, can I ask for a favor?”

“I’m listening.”

“I’m going to need some help or at least resources to fix-” she waves her hoof towards the ruined shelf, “-this. I know the Badlands exports rare metals and used to supply common raw resources like iron. Can I get some from your stores or can you arrange a mining operation?”

“No,” says Chrysalis simply, and smiles a smile of a spider seeing a fly blindly charging towards its web.

“I can pay! Either with what little I have brought with me or once I return to Canterlot. The price is no problem-”

“I said no,” the Queen keeps smiling, “You wanted a real experience of life in the hive, and if I bent the time of my subjects to serve you, that would ruin the authenticity. However, I also try not to interfere with the lives of my subjects outside of work unless it’s necessary, and trading is one of the favorite pastimes of both drones and, as of recently, the ‘high ranks’,” she savors the final two words, “Maybe you could try your luck with them.”

“Your Majesty-”

“Take the hint, Twilight Sparkle,” says Chrysalis flatly before smiling widely again and heading towards the cave’s exit, “However, in case you’re really forced to admit your complete and utter failure at some point, my door is always open.”

The Queen’s day only gets better when, a short while after leaving, she hears a muffled moan of pure frustration echo through the tunnels.

***

Sweating and shaking as if she just ran a marathon, Gloom checks her automatic map one final time in the light of her last dying flare, takes a deep breath, and, for the first time since the encounter, turns around and bolts. Several minutes of pure gallop later, she sees the familiar entrance to a familiar cave bathing the tunnel in the light coming from the inside, and rushes towards it, ignoring the burning of sweat in her eyes.

Twilight looks up at the visibly exhausted Nightguard from one of the two workbenches and drops whatever she was doing. Her horn flares up with magical light, and she immediately asks:

“What’s wrong?”

Gloom walks over to her bags and collapses.

“There’s something down in the tunnels,” she whispers between gasps for air, “Invisible and incredibly fast.”

Nothing seems to be following Gloom, so Twilight eases up a little after staring at the entrance for a short while.

“From what I read, there are many things inside the tunnels.”

“Not this close to the surface,” Gloom shakes her head, “The tunnels on the levels between the HSC and the throne room are supposed to be empty.”

Knowing that Gloom has more hooves-on experience with stories about the hive, Twilight doesn’t argue with the fact that Gloom saw something that terrified her. Instead, her voice prods like a scalpel attempting to get to the core of the issue:

“Is it possible that it was a changeling keeping an eye on you? I wouldn’t put it past Chrysalis.”

Gloom shakes her head.

“I know a changeling who can turn invisible and it looked different. Supposedly, it’s quite difficult and extremely taxing if you’re not used to it. There’s no one in the hive roster who could do it other than Chrysalis herself. I mean…” the bat pony pauses, “It could have been her.”

“When did it happen?” asks Twilight matter-of-factly.

“I… I don’t know, I’m sorry,” Gloom shakes her head, “I didn’t look at the watch after I left the HSC,” she pulls Twilight’s mechanical watch out to check it, “At some point during the past hour.”

“Then it’s unlikely,” Twilight frowns, “Chrysalis returned about an hour after you left, and that corridor is the main way down from the surface level. I put up a spell to alert me to anyone passing by after we exchanged pleasantries. It worked with you just now, so it’s still working and I think it would have sensed a movement. Do we tell her?”

Gloom shoots Twilight a look of surprise that the Princess is actually asking for her opinion but, after finally thinking about what happened in peace, she shakes her head.

“Maybe it really was a changeling keeping an eye on me, and the skills of the hive’s top ranks aren’t something we get updates on,” Gloom sighs, “I think I should ask the drones if they haven’t encountered something like that themselves. They spend way more time roaming around the tunnels than ranked changelings do.”

“Alright,” Twilight nods and returns to the workbench where she’s doing something Gloom can’t see from her angle, “Back to work then. I take it that you’ve tampered with the specimens then?”

Gloom sighs and rolls her eyes.

“We’ve been over this. They’re not some specimens in a jar, Your Highness, they’re a young but evolving civilization.”

“By definition, they’re specimens. I mean no negative connotation with that word, you’re the one assuming it,” retorts the alicorn, “So?”

“Yes, I ‘made contact and tampered with the drones’,” says Gloom in a mocking tone while making air quotes with her hooves, “Wait, did something happen here too?” she asks, finally noticing the visibly ruined shelf, “Or did that break on the way here?”

“Another magical accident,” comments Twilight matter-of-factly, “Did you manage to set up the observation crystals unnoticed?”

“You mean the spying crystals?”

“Don’t be silly, it’s just some harmless scientific observation,” Twilight waves it off dismissively, “If Queen Chrysalis notices and objects to it, I’ll explain it and then we’ll remove the crystals. There’s little difference between us setting up an observation camp at the drones’ place and using this method.”

Sighing again at Twilight’s naivete, Gloom reports:

“Yes, I set up the crystals, but I can’t say if I was unnoticed because I had to fly around a cavern full of creatures able to see as if it was a clear day with a stadium floodlight strapped to my head.”

To her surprise, Twilight just shrugs.

“If science was easy, somepony else would have done this already. We’re bound to encounter setbacks.”

“Speaking of science,” Gloom pulls out the crystal batteries for the radio, “Can you recharge these?”

Twilight takes a quick break from fixing pieces of the ruined shelf’s metal frame to see what Gloom brought. Her interest fades immediately when she recognizes a common brand of crystal batteries instead of some homemade changeling invention.

“Sure,” she replies, but an idea comes to mind. When in the hive, do as the changelings do, “Buuut, I heard something about trading being kind of a drone custom.”

“I set up your stupid spy crystals,” Gloom fires back.

“That’s just part of the research and the reason why you were sent here with me, that doesn’t count.”

Huffing, Gloom pulls out the automatic map and waves it in the air.

“The path to the High Score Cavern. Take it or leave it.”

Twilight smiles and attempts to telekinetically grab the map which Gloom refuses to let go until she feels the invisible pull envelop the batteries as well. Only then she lets the Princess levitate the offered map towards herself.

“Now we’re talking,” comments Twilight, putting the map and the crystals away on the secondary workbench while resuming her work, “I’ll have it done by tomorrow,” she adds when Gloom keeps staring, “If I try to do it quickly it’s likely they’ll blow up like-” she waves her hoof towards the mess next to the workbench.

“Got it,” Gloom finally nods and starts sorting through her bags.

The burnt-out flares can still be traded off to the drones and so does the wax cloth. Just gotta resupply for tomorrow.

Pulling out a military MRE, a bottle of water, a bedroll, and a sleeping bag, she prepares her sleeping spot before relaxing and slowly downing her dinner.

Note for tomorrow - figure out a way to anonymously ruin the whole ‘observation crystals’ plan, pawn or give the trash to the drones, and do whatever science nonsense Twilight is bound to want.

And hug 57999 some more. The poor guy looks like a squeezed soda can.

***

As Twilight hears Gloom’s breathing slow down, she decides to stop her own project. The scrying machine needs new internal wiring, and for that she needs purified silver or gold, some treated rubber for insulation, and a basic magical energy transformer to stabilize the flow. All of that can be built on the spot with her tools, she just needs the raw materials. To get those, she needs to trade with the drones, and for that she needs something to trade. Of course, she can beg Chrysalis to order the drones to help for no reward.

Correction - she can’t beg Chrysalis for help.

Sitting down into a meditation position, Twilight levitates up both the batteries and her journal coupled with a pen, closes her eyes, and begins channeling the unstable energy for recharging and writing simultaneously.

Day 1:

The ambient magic field of the Badlands is stronger and more chaotic than anywhere else in Equestria. I wonder what caused it?

So far, the few hive changelings I met were in general much less wary of us than the community in Canterlot. Possibly due to fewer bad experiences in trying to fit in?

Maybe, just like with recharging the batteries, there are uniquely unicorn services I can offer to trade for the materials I need.

I should have brought more food and water. Definitely more water.

Author's Note

I'm not back and fuctional yet, so don't get too excited about resuming the regular updates. I just managed to squeeze some creativity out of myself and move the plot along a tiny bit.

8: Hope in strange places

With a sharp intake of air through a muzzle being the only visible part of Gloom otherwise entirely wrapped in thick cloth, the bat pony mare wakes up, feeling beads of sweat trickling all over her coat from her forehead to her hooves.

Ew! Was bringing a heavy winter sleeping bag a bad idea?

She untangles herself from her sticky cocoon and crawls out. The comparatively cold, underground air immediately makes her shiver and her nostrils clog as her wet coat rapidly cools down. Stretching to get her blood flowing a little, she looks around in the dim light of a see-through orange ball floating atop a candelabra in the center of the room that’s flickering like a weak flame. Better yet, the battery crystals she asked Twilight to recharge are neatly laid down in front of her bags in plain sight.

Did Twilight manage to stabilize some kind of a weak light spell as well as recharge the batteries overnight? It makes sense that a magic anomaly wouldn’t stop a unicorn like her for long. Give it a day or two and she’ll figure out how to make this place a second home… or a lab. It was stupid to underestimate somepony who made the rank of an archmage in third of the time it takes most others. I should assume it’s only a matter of time until she’s able to use the spy crystals despite the interference. What to do to avoid a potential diplomatic disaster? What to do?

The guest cavern being lit makes it easy for Gloom to grab some food and a small amount of water for breakfast. Before she starts eating, though, she gets an idea that might solve all her current humidity problems, and checks the mechanical watch that Twilight lent her.

Close to ten o’clock. I must have been so worn out that flipping my sleeping schedule on its head didn’t even matter. On the other hoof, the sun is bound to be out.

Hoping to dry herself and her sleeping bag out, she loads the soggy wrap onto her back along with the meal she rationed for herself, and quietly heads out of the cave, giving only one look to the purple alicorn sleeping spread-eagle on a second bedroll with only her wings and a thin blanket crumpled around her head covering her and muffling her quiet snoring.

I’m deciding to assume she got lucky that it’s not freezing down here and not that she planned for both her magic potentially failing and us getting accommodated in a fairly warm place, because that would leave me feeling both wet and stupid.

As she leaves the cave and enters the dark core tunnel of the hive, Gloom’s blood briefly turns to ice along with the rest of her already chilly body when she spots a changeling motionlessly and silently standing guard by the entrance hole.

“Good morning-” Gloom whispers and stops herself when she realizes the changeling looks bulkier and more muscular overall than 2119 who was keeping an eye on Twilight yesterday, “-you’re not 2119, are you?”

The changeling nods his head courteously and whispers back:

“It’s me, 3012. I accompanied you through the Badlands. 2119 is on gate duty today.”

“Oh, right. Sorry,” Gloom smiles apologetically, “I’m not good at telling changelings apart yet, and it’s almost pitch black aside from your eyes and Twilight’s light spell back inside,” she points back through the cave entrance.

“It’s no problem,” says 3012, “Can I help you in any way?”

“You could accompany me outside, but I’m assuming you’re under orders to keep an eye on the Princess, am I right?”

3012 nods and points to the left which leads upwards.

“That way, you can’t get lost. Her Majesty’s orders are to let you move around freely but I can call 2119 if you want.”

“That’s fine,” Gloom shakes her head, “The sooner I get the hang of basic layout, the better.”

3012 nods again and Gloom leaves.

In only a couple minutes, the darkness gives way to the faintest of daylights which graduates into full visibility as Gloom reaches the big lobby with the hole leading out of the hive and a smaller one supposedly leading to the throne room. The air coming in through the holes in the ceiling is warm, and Gloom is happy that her cold sweat is slowly drying out. She blinks and shields her eyes when she steps out of the gate hole and is blasted by the summer sunlight. However, a deep breath of warm, morning air clears her nose in the matter of seconds.

“Feels good…” she moans, stretching.

“Glad to hear it,” says 2119, making Gloom’s eyes snap towards him, “Sorry, did I startle you?”

The bat pony takes a deep breath.

“Yes, but that’s my fault, 3012 told me you’d be here. I just forgot in the heat of the moment,” she nods upwards towards the risen sun. The pun goes entirely over 2119’s head but he doesn’t look displeased or anything, so Gloom moves on, “Mind if I sit down and have breakfast?”

“My orders are to let you do as you please as long as it’s not clearly dangerous,” says 2119 and looks into the distance across the dry plains of the Badlands stretching into the distance, “It doesn’t look like we’re under any threat. Very few wild animals stray near the hive these days.”

For an infiltrator, he’s a bit wooden at smalltalk. Maybe that’s why he’s a gate guard with 3012?

Permission given, Gloom unzips her sleeping bag and tries to spread it over the floor, but even a small breeze always seems to blow dirt over the fluffy insides. After a couple unsatisfactory attempts, 2119 clears his throat and asks:

“What are you trying to do?”

“I just need to dry this out,” Gloom shakes the open sleeping bag, “It’s a lot warmer here than I expected, but the ground here isn’t exactly clean and if it gets too dirty I won’t have anywhere to wash it. From what I heard, there’s no water around here, right?”

“Nothing readily available, no,” 2119 shakes his head, presses his hoof against the hive’s outer wall, his horn flashes green, and the wall grows several dull hooks in a line, much to Gloom’s wide-eyed surprise, “We don’t exactly need it, and the Queen only takes hot baths in winter when the drones melt the snow. I think the drones stumble upon some while mining on occasion, at least we lose a couple to drowning from time to time, but that’s all I’ve ever heard.”

“Wow!” Gloom uses the hooks to spread the sleeping bag and let it dry, “Thank you very much.”

So the drones might know about water, and even some underground slop can be drinkable if filtered and boiled. What would they call it? Wet-chokey?

With the warmth of the sun finally seeping deep into her bones and her worries about her sleeping bag turning unusable banished, Gloom sits down and unravels the wax cloth wrapped around the pressed hay biscuits with dried fruit she brought for breakfast. 2119 gives it a curious glance but shakes his head when she offers him a bite.

“No, thank you. Unless you’re certain that your supplies will last for your entire trip. I wasn’t informed about how long you’re going to stay.”

Gloom admits he’s right and savors the food along with the morning ration of water she allows herself.

“I’m not entirely sure either, the Princess wasn’t particularly clear on the subject,” she asks while chewing and propped against the hive’s wall with her back, “Say, if I’m allowed to do as I please, what happens in case I get into trouble I can’t deal with? Drones talk a lot about monsters in the depths.”

2119 rubs his chin.

“Honestly, the best advice I can give you is to never walk around alone and definitely not leave the core tunnels. Perhaps you could ask the Queen to let a drone always be with you. That way you’ll at least have a guide with access to the hive map. With how few ranked changelings there are around, I’m afraid only the Princess would get a guide if she asked.”

“That drone thing is a good idea,” Gloom nods.

Even a low-ranked infiltrator would be a good liar, but I’m not about to keep probing on and on from all angles if he knows anything about who or what I met yesterday.

As she finishes her meal, a call of nature makes her look around again and re-evaluate the problems with her situation.

Oookay, no water and no leaves. This isn’t great, but the occasional patch of dry grass will do. Thankfully, everything I packed is low-residue food and water will be more of a problem coming in than out.

“2119, is 99732 where it was yesterday?” she asks. The infiltrator concentrates for a second and nods, “Thanks. Now, is there someplace out here where I can get a moment of privacy?”

***

“Heyoo, 99732!” a familiar female voice makes the ears of a curled-up drone inside a node point cubby hole twitch. 99732 may not be the smartest drone, but it’s careful when it counts, so it only moves the thin stone boarding access to its hole a little before calling out still in a whisper:

“Miss Gloom?”

“The one and only!” a yellow-eyed face lowers itself into the drone’s view, “Are you feeling better?”

“Yup, my insides only tugged on themselves when I stretched by accident earlier! I even walked over here on my own today,” announces the drone proudly as it dissolves the goop holding the stone board in place, pushes it aside, and peeks out from its hole. It still twitches when Gloom scratches it behind the ears, but that’s just the drone flight and flight reflex.

“You’re a resilient little guy. I like that.”

“Thank youuu-?” 99732’s voice slows down briefly as it checks the hive mind for the meaning of the word, ”Yes, uhh, that’s a good word. Thank you!”

“Wanna come out and walk around for a bit?”

“I’m not sure I should,” the drone hesitates, “I’m supposed to be resting.”

“I’ve healed through a lot of injuries and I can tell you from experience that once you can move without falling over, you should do so in as small an amount as you can. Even a few steps can help a lot,” Gloom sits down by the hole as 99732 slowly crawls out. As much as she wants to help it, pulling it out isn’t a good idea. When the drone stands back up and turns around a couple times to test its body.

“Hmmm, just a little achy all over, but it’s better than yesterday,” carefully, 99732 starts walking through the tunnel, “Why are you here today, Miss Gloom?”

The bat pony shrugs.

“I just felt like giving you a hug.”

“GASP! YOU’RE THE BEST PONY- OW OW OW OW ow!” 99732 cheers by throwing its forelegs into the air and immediately regretting it.

“How many ponies do you know?” asks Gloom and beckons the drone to come over.

“Only you, and you’re the best,” 99732 beams, “Meep?!” its eyes bulge as Gloom scoops it into a hug. The drone struggles only a little until it feels love flow from Gloom to itself, upon which it simply presses against her and relaxes its chin on her forelegs holding it like a teddy bear. There’s very little a drone wouldn’t let itself be subjected to in return for real, fresh love. The warmth coming off of Gloom is just a nice and comfy bonus.

As the bat pony just sits there, casually stroking the drone, the memory of yesterday’s strange encounter rears its ugly head. How to approach the situation without freaking the drone out, though?

“I wonder, 99732, do you know if drones ever met something invisible in the tunnels? When I was returning from the HSC yesterday I thought I saw something without a visible shape that was reflecting the light of my horseshoes in a strange way but I couldn’t be sure if my eyes weren’t just playing tricks on me after a long day,” asks Gloom, absolutely sure about what she saw. To her surprise, 99732 just looks upwards and purses its mouth in a moment of thought.

“There’s a whole bunch of gribblers you can’t see until they jump you, especially in the deeper tunnels. The high ranks and the response team try to keep the core tunnels clear but the hive is huuuuge and sometimes things wander up. That’s why even the little node hole up here can be closed. Usually you can just call for help and run, or hide somewhere out of the way and wait.”

“Huh…” Gloom scours her memory. Did I avoid some kind of an ambush predator? When not sure of something dangerous, it always pays to ask the locals, “How do you guys avoid things like that if you can’t see them?”

“Pfff!” 99732 waves only its fetlock dismissively because the rest of it is restrained by the hug, “If we waited to run until we saw things we’d be getting eaten left and right. You can listen for sounds that don’t belong if you survive long enough -not my case, but 99200 can help you with that- but mostly you can feel the gribblers coming before you can see them. They try to be sneaky but the most dangerous ones are also big and every step or squirm or shuffle makes the ground shake.”

“Did you hear me coming?” wonders Gloom. She wasn’t trying to sneak as such, but moving silently comes naturally to a creature of the night like herself.

“Oooh yes,” 99732 nods, bursting Gloom’s bubble immediately, “You’re super stompy, you’re breathing really loud, and your glowy horseshoes kinda… buzz? You feel like a slow gribbler when you’re approaching - hehe, huggy grabber!”

“And you’ve fallen right into my trap!” Gloom grins and hugs the drone tighter, still careful not to squeeze too much, while softly biting its ear, “Munchmunchmunchmunch!”

“Halp, I’m being nommed!” 99732 shifts in her embrace with only a little real resistance which fades as soon as she lets its ear go.

A small stab of regret gets through Gloom’s joy as she realizes that while the drone is happy with her, there was a brief moment just now when it wasn’t entirely sure if all this really wasn’t a trap.

This isn’t 65536 who’s been growing up with me for over a decade. I’m still a visitor, an unknown variable. Something which must be solved by MORE HUGS OVER A LONGER TIME PERIOD!

Unfortunately, as Gloom’s mind is drawn to the subject of her and Twilight’s stay, she reminds herself that she can’t spend the whole day cuddling 99732.

“I wonder, can you come with me to the HSC today again?” she asks.

“Nu uh,” the drone shakes its head, “Last shift was special. Everyone else is doing their best to make the hive work, so I can’t just not do my part, as small as it is right now. Even more, the longer I rest the sooner I can get back to digging.”

“This must be better than risking getting eaten every day,” Gloom slowly lets 99732 go, and the drone takes a couple more steps just to move around a little.

“Yeeeeah,” it replies hesitantly, “but digging…” it lets the word hang in the air, answering every concern about the safety of its work in one fell swoop.

“Heh, I wish the guards had the same work ethic as you drones do,” Gloom’s knees crack when she stands up after sitting so long in the cold tunnel, and the recharged battery crystals in her backpack clink, reminding her of her mission. Unlike ponies, drones don’t emit much heat which also explains their love for hug piles, “Tell me, one of you talked about your broken generator being caused by a drone ‘villain’. That’s a little unusual, isn’t it? You’re all doing your best to be cute little good guys, right, or do I have to employ some tough love?”

“Love crystals are not for chewing! I learned that the hard way,” 99732 shakes its head with vigor, “Ouch- tugging neck!”

“Not what I meant,” Gloom chuckles and takes a different approach, “Is there an actually evil drone and you are all too nice and don’t know how to deal with it?”

“Who, 99818? Nah, it’s a villain, not a bad guy.”

“Uhh… I don’t get it,” Gloom shakes her head as 99732’s voice gets muffled when it shoves its head back into the node hole and starts crawling in.

“You really gotta talk to it yourself, I think I’d muck explaining it up. It really makes sense when it says what villaining is all about- thank you!” 99732 adds when Gloom helps by pushing it through. A moment and some grinding of carapace on rock later later, only the smiling head peeks out again.

“I think I just might,” a plan starts forming in Gloom’s mind. A slightly villainous one too, “Where can I find this 99818?”

“It volunteers for shifts around Guide’s Cavern because it’s building an evil lair down there during breaky times and a good evil lair must have some hot-glowy flowing through it.”

“Taking the most dangerous jobs willingly,” Gloom shakes her head, “Must be a real worker even for a drone.”

“Villainin’ is hard work like anything else if you want to do it right! - that’s what 99818 says. It even has two minions now, so there must be something to it.”

“Wooow,” the bat mare can’t help smirking, “I suppose the sooner I meet the guy the better then. Stay safe, 99732.”

“You too, Miss Gloomy!”

***

Did I overreact with the spy crystals? Twilight was right about them being easy to explain, and Chrysalis knows that 65536 shares everything new about the hive whenever it returns from its winter visits. It’s likely she would be entirely okay with the explanation or, if not, she would just use it as diplomatic leverage during the next meeting of Equestrian royalty.

On the other hoof, she’s hardly known as the paragon of calm and reason…

Now that she knows the way to the High Score Cavern, even without a guide the trip takes Gloom less than half an hour, and most of that is only because she’s glaring into the darkness and listening for anything that might not be coming from her. She sees and hears nothing, but in the dim light of her horseshoes serving only to know how far the floor is and now knowing how noticeable she is even to the presumed weakest underground denizens it doesn’t mean much. The thing vanished and the only thing Gloom heard was rushing air. It could be two pony lengths behind her and she likely wouldn’t know.

Being this much on edge without anything to prompt the release of tension, however, takes a toll and Gloom’s mind wanders to her plan.

If I get rid of the crystals, Twilight’s bound to find out. Some drone will tell her or a high rank and I’ll be in trouble. However, if a certain villain just managed to find a couple of peculiar new shinies on its own… possibly with only a slight hint that there’s something to be found in the HSC, the chance that Twilight would suspect my intervention instead of thinking that drones are just doing drone things would be miniscule.

The best result would be if a drone would break the crystals, but that’s unlikely. On the other hoof, Twilight said they needed to be positioned properly, so them just sitting in a stash by the wall could be good enough.

No point in going over it on repeat until I meet this villain, though. Let’s see if there’s someone I can ask to escort me to the Guide’s Cavern.

She enters the High Score Cavern, only to see something peculiar - a flash of green light briefly illuminating a drone before fading. A moment later, it happens again, playing tricks with Gloom’s night vision. The drone seems to throw something, the flash happens, and she hears no impact.

Well, it wouldn’t be the hive if I didn’t find a cute drone doing something weird.

Author's Note

You can try guessing what the villain's rank refers to. Hint: It's related to one of the most known pieces of horror literature.

9: ACCESS DENIED!

In the High Score Cavern, 99158 throws a spear grown from its chitin, concentrates on it immediately, and rips the love out of it while it’s flying before it even clears three pony lengths, making it disintegrate in a burst of green light. It’s difficult, it makes the response team drone’s head hurt after even a couple attempts, and maybe it’s not that useful in most scenarios, but it’s also not complicated and, most importantly, it’s the first technique a member of the response team figured out on their own without 65536 bringing knowledge of tactics from the world of ponies. However, creating chitin weapons out of pure love and then recycling them at range, no matter how impressive that might be, isn’t the main benefit of the skill 99158 invented at the cost of time, love, and its own health. The second phase, though, is too dangerous to do during casual practice while on standby.

When it hears the main HSC door slide aside without sensing anyone’s hive link, it forgets the flying spear which clanks harmlessly on the floor a short distance away, and grows a fresh one from the carapace of its chest while turning to face the entrance. In the same movement, its hoof unfurls into a set of claws and the drone rips the throwing spear off, leaving a fresh scarred dent in its armor healing over the next few seconds, and aims it at the large intruder stomping towards it with, as much as the drone can read it, an impressed expression.

“Hi?” the approaching bat pony slows down when faced with a sharp object aimed at her, “I’m Gloom, remember? We met yesterday, I think. I’m not the best at making out the differences between you guys yet,” she says carefully. To her, this specific drone is easy to make out even in the limited light due to the heavily scarred carapace, but she might be wrong and there might be more similar-looking guards.

The drone performs a passable salute during which the chitin spear dissolves and its strange claw-hoof folds back into a full hoof.

“I’m 99158 from the response team. We did meet last breaky time. What do you need?”

“Straight to the point, I like that in a guard,” Gloom salutes back, “I report that my long-term mission is to hug every drone, but right now I’m looking for your ‘villain’. 99732 said it was working somewhere deep down, so I guess I’m looking for someone to take me there.”

To her surprise, 99158 takes a moment to measure her from hooves to her ears, shakes its head, and says with the unshakeable conviction of complete factuality:

“Not happening, Miss.”

“How come?” she asks, “I can trade something small but unique-”

The drone shakes its head and interrupts her.

“I think you’re a bit too big. There’s a barely stable area of crunchy-rock between us and the Guide’s Cave passable only through a short cave system that’s the normal route there or the emergency shafts we on the response team use, which are even narrower. We haven’t rebuilt the caves into core tunnels so far because, well, we fit through sorta fine and ruining the only natural solid passage through something so unstable would be stupid,” the drone shrugs.

Gloom sits down, frowns, and mulls over the response for a moment, rubbing her chin while 99158 waits patiently.

A drone is a third of my size, give or take. 65536 talked about the response team shafts, and they are direct connections leading down through which the drones can fly down if careful. Taking drone wingspan into consideration of the comparison between the caves and the shafts, I think I could get through if I crawled unless my shoulders are too broad, but definitely not with any equipment other than a saddlebag in front of me or in tow.

Probably not worth trying.

“That throws a wrench into my plans for today,” concludes Gloom, looking upwards into the darkness in the direction of the observation crystal overlooking the entrance, “What to do instead then?”

Problem number one - water. Problem number two - critical drone hug deficiency. Problem number three - getting Chrysalis to let me take one or more drones home. Problems one and three are freely exchangeable depending on mood.

She looks up when 99158 hesitantly approaches her and asks:

“Umm, you’re a guard like 65536, right?”

“Close enough,” Gloom shrugs.

“Do you wanna spar? 65536 used to spar with 387 every visit before he left.”

“I’m not exactly happy about hitting a cutie like you, but let’s trade - we spar and then I get to hug you,” Gloom winks at the drone who, once again, takes her aback by backing off with visible uncertainty.

“Are you sure?” it asks, “That doesn’t sound like a trade with much in it for you. I can add a small, blue shiny for the lesson.”

Gloom reaches over and pats 99158’s head.

“I don’t think you’d understand even if I explained it, but I’m getting all I want, you can trust me on that,” she stands up, smiling, and jumps on the spot to get the blood flowing before taking her saddlebag off. There’s enough space, but the visibility isn’t great. Still, a practice fight in only the light of her horseshoes could be a valuable experience, “Will you be using your short spear?”

99158 nods, grows a fresh one from its side like before and breaks it off, pointing it at Gloom with much less confidence now that it’s seeing her dart from side to side.

“Then, please, make it blunt,” she points at the weapon, “Unlike you, I’m soft and squishy and I don’t intend to add to my collection of holes.”

“How does one collect holes?”

“Focus!”

With a quick nod of the drone’s head, the tip of the chitin spear in 99158’s grip changes shape, and Gloom doesn’t have enough experience to realize what changing an inanimate object like that means. On top of that, she’s in a completely different head space - focused on her target.

The drone is on its three legs, holding the spear in its right foreleg, so Gloom darts forward and to her right. 99158’s spear harmlessly bounces off of her left foreleg as the drone is too slow to back off and reposition for a stab, opting for a desperate swing instead. Gloom simply swats 99158 away with her left foreleg, easily making it lose balance and fall over due to its weapon.

“Guards who primarily use spears have to practice stability on only their hind legs because their unarmed side is their weak point and you can’t keep backing off forever or your opponent will lead you where they want you.”

Sha backs off, waits for 99158 to pick itself up and gives it a little more space this time. This should make it more difficult for her to approach. As an experiment, she tries to approach from the drone’s strong side - her left, which 99158 clearly wasn’t expecting and fails to capitalize on until it’s way too late and Gloom’s too close to withdraw the spear back and stab. This time she doesn’t swat it sideways, rather she rushes past and trips 99158 up. On only two legs on the same side, 99158 makes the mistake of refusing to let the spear go to stabilize itself and simply keels over.

“You’re using a shorter spear than the Canterlot guards use, which means you have lower reach, but it’s lighter and more agile. You could try to hit me not at maximum range but react to what I’m doing. If you can ‘stab’ me in the chest or anywhere that’s not my head, you should consider it a win.”

Attack number three, however, ends even worse for 99158 who keeps the spear close to itself as instructed and stabs in Gloom’s direction when she fakes an attack, withdraws, and steps on the spear from above, breaking the surprisingly fragile weapon. When 99158 disintegrates both halves and backs off for another round, Gloom shakes her head.

“Don’t take it personally, but there’s no point in continuing. This is neither sparring nor useful practice. You’d need dozens of hours of stability practice and basic drills before you could even touch me. With an edged weapon, you could have a chance of harming me at least by accident, but while a spear is a good beginner weapon, it’s one of the worst beginner dueling weapons. There’s a good reason why barely trained militias use them in groups but only experts use them up close.”

The drone sighs and looks down at the floor.

“I see. I usually don’t use it against things that dodge, or in such open space, heh. Still, I didn’t expect this to end up so pathetic,” it chuckles dimly, and things click in Gloom’s head regarding how 99158 was moving and its choice of weapon.

“Wait, I think I got it wrong when you asked about 65536. You fight beasts, not other changelings, right? That’s what you want to train against?”

“Mhm,” the drone looks up and nods, “Melties and boomies that we usually use take 99856 some time to make, and the deep tunnels are much more dangerous than our old shafts so we use up way more than before. Often, we can’t make new ones quickly enough and we end up going down only with hardened goop sticks, but even those break and you can’t carry more than one or two and end up digging anything that gets close…” its voice trails off as it unconsciously touches one of the countless scars all over, “I was hoping that a practice against someone bigger, stronger, and more experienced would be useful.”

Her mind now entirely set on cheering 99158 up, Gloom reaches over and scratches the drone behind the ear, which never fails.

“No practice you could get against me would teach you what you need BUT-” she raises her hoof, “It’s good that we learned that quickly so we didn’t waste time on useless stuff. Thinking like a guard would only get you so far in this environment. You need to think like a trapper or a hunter and, to that goal, I must admit you’re pretty smart for choosing a spear. It’s a great weapon because all the bad stuff is happening as far from you as possible,” she smiles and boops 99158’s nose. Finally, the drone smiles back and says:

“I can do more with my spear, but I can’t show you here.”

Gloom stretches while taking a deep breath.

Bad Gloom! No dirty jokes. They wouldn’t get it anyway.

“That’s okay. I’ve just thought of something, do you want to try one more round?” she suggests instead.

“No matter how little chance I have, I gotta try,” 99158 stands up and nods.

Gloom steps back further to give 99158 time to prepare and the space to react before…

…charging directly ahead while flailing her head and yelling loudly: “OOGABOOGABOOGABOOGA!”

“MEEP?!”

99158 freezes, momentarily stunned by the new approach, but that frustrating moment of weakness which it genuinely despises with all its heart when its body reacts on its own and stops in a wave of cold that rushes from its ears down to its hooves doesn’t last long enough for Gloom to clear the distance. It points its spear, tenses up its three free legs, and braces for impact as the tip tracks Gloom’s mild swaying from side to side.

A hiss of pain. Not 99158’s.

An impact.

99158 finds itself on its back under Gloom’s body which slides back, revealing a head that quickly moves down and gives the drone a peck on its forehead. The bat mare rises up, wincing and rubbing the quickly forming bruise on her chest where she grazed the blunt spear despite bending sideways at the last moment.

“Owww, I’m gonna feel that one tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry. You spooked me and I didn’t know what else to do,” 99158 picks itself up as well.

“Don’t be,” she shakes her head, “It was practice, I asked for it, and now I can tell you what you did wrong.”

“I can’t stop you with how big you are. The same thing happened to me with scaly crunchers once. They’re heavier but slower and that was my first time facing them. One just rolled over me and I had to dig its head off. Thankfully, the others couldn’t bite me because I was kinda… inside one at that point.”

“Makes sense, you’re small and not that heavy or strong,” Gloom shrugs, “but there’s an anti-charge technique I can show you. It was mostly used by griffons against earth pony front-liners during wars, but it works against anything that either doesn’t intend to dodge, is going too fast to change direction effectively, or doesn’t have the room to maneuver. In my mind, points one and three apply to your situation.”

“I’m ready!” 99158 perks up.

“First, you need a spear at least double the length of your barrel,” when the drone grows a weapon of the correct length and rips it off with an evil crack which makes her wince as always, “Doesn’t that hurt?”

“Nope,” the drone shakes its head.

“Good. Next, you shift your weight onto your hind legs and prop the back end of the spear against the hoof on the same side,” after correcting the posture until she’s satisfied, she puts her hoof on the tip of 99158’s raised spear and gives it a hard push. The drone’s hind leg slides back but it remains upright, “Huh, I didn’t count on having to fight on a stone floor. Usually, the spear gets dug into the dirt and doesn’t move a bit.”

99158 briefly thinks about it and shakes its spear dismissively.

“That might not be a problem. I just got an idea how to work around that. I’ll play with it a bit later.”

“Glad to hear it, but I’m afraid you’ll have to test that on real targets,” Gloom rubs her chest again and makes a face, “It already hurts like blazes, and I could get seriously harmed if I rammed into a properly steadied spear, blunt that it may be,” she pats the drone’s head.

“Well…” 99158 dissolves the spear entirely and rubs its head, “You did fulfill your part of the trade in my eyes. Do you still want to hug me?”

“Definitely!” Gloom picks up her saddlebag and moves it to the drone statue overlooking the entrance before sitting down and propping her back against it, “I still haven’t figured out what I want to do today now that I can’t meet- what was the villain’s rank?” she beckons 99158 to come over.

“99818,” says the drone and gets scooped by Gloom into a hug where it rests. A moment later her hoof begins slowly running over its carapace, tracing the web of scars, “I just checked the shift schedule and it’s going to be in the Guide’s Cave next worky time too.”

“That’s not good,” Gloom frowns.

The longer the crystals stay active, the greater the chance of somepony problematic noticing them.

“99200 is in charge of the schedule while 10k is away, so maybe you could ask it to move some things around? I’m not sure how that would work since 99818 is volunteering, though,” 99158 tries to be helpful, spurred on by the trickle of love coming from Gloom. It can feel tingles running through its body with every breath as it absorbs fresh love given freely, something it’s never felt before, and it burrows itself deeper into Gloom’s embrace.

“200… that’s the cloak guy, right?”

“It sounds really weird to me when you say it like that. I mean, I understand it, but eugh…” it shudders before looking up at the head of the statue at the base of which they’re sitting, a statue whose sapphire eyes are glistening in the light of Gloom’s horseshoes, “But at least someone remembers us,” it says in a strangely bitter tone Gloom wouldn’t expect from a drone.

“Even I know about High Score,” says Gloom with a chuckle, “Don’t tell me there’s a single drone who doesn’t?”

“Everyone knows 10k as High Score but there are fewer and fewer drones who know why it refused to go below the rank 10000 despite being promoted by the Queen herself.”

“You’re one of the new 99-something guys yourself, right? Not one of the old drones.”

“I am… I just…” 99158 huffs in frustration, “I don’t know how to find the right words and how to put them in the correct order to say what I mean, sorry. Our lives are entirely different thanks to the veterans and it feels to me like no one really appreciates it.”

“Are you angry at others for enjoying the future 9999 fought for? That’s exactly what it would want, I think.”

“Hmph! That’s why I said I didn’t know the right words and order,” 99158 huffs, “I’m happy for everyone, it’s just me… I’m not satisfied with what I’m doing. I feel like I’m not doing enough, like I could be doing more, but I have no idea what.”

“You’re on a response team and you wanted my help in teaching you how to fight monsters. You already risk your life regularly trying to save others, there isn’t much further to go past that.”

“Yes, but…” the drone pouts into the darkness which makes Gloom only hug it tighter, “Take 57999, for example. I spend my time practicing and thinking about what can happen and how things can go when fighting various gribblers. I have my emergency cocoon, I get extra love rations, I have melties, I have a weapon, I have a love crystal on me in case I need a quick recharge, and I usually have two other response drones with me. 57999 isn’t a fighter, at least it always says it. It just likes gardening. Despite that, with none of the advantages I have, it killed multiple sticky biters when THEY surprised it. First when it was the only one tending the greenhouse and later when it was protecting its assistants. Do you get it?” it looks up at Gloom with teary eyes, “I’m happy it’s with us, I’m at awe of everything it did, I know the other veterans are the same, and they all still speak of 9999 as the best of them. It just makes me feel so weak and useless in comparison, like nothing I can do will be good enough. But that doesn’t matter, I just want to make sure 57999 doesn’t need to fight ever again and can bring us colorful flowers from time to time.” it reaches out to touch 9999’s statue and sighs, “And I feel like I’m the only one who thinks like that,” it pauses and slumps back into Gloom’s embrace, “I said the words wrong again and made a mess, didn’t I?”

“Hero worship is one hay of a drug, little guy. I know,” mutters Gloom, “For every moment of inspiration comes the backlash of inadequacy, at least if you’re smart enough to second-guess yourself. I feel the same whenever I see Hunter in the Commander office, and I know he does too. Princess Luna helped me with that by sharing a perspective from her millennia of life. She said that, in the long run, a lifetime of good service counts for much more than any burst of heroism. Stability is built on small, consistent efforts, not on doing one huge thing and coasting on it afterwards as many of those who consider themselves heroes do. Just do your best. I’m sure all the other drones are doing the same even though they might not think about it as deeply as you are.”

Wish I could say that about ponies too, but there’s a good reason why I love these guys so much. Drones - unburdened by bullshit.

“Please, don’t tell anyone. I don’t want them to feel bad like I do,” peeps 99158.

“My lips are sealed. I know how important it is to have a friend you can confide in.”

“Thank you, Miss Gloom,” the drone shifts around until Gloom gets the idea and lets it go, “You said your chest hurt where I hit you, right?”

“It’s not too bad, a bruise at worst,” she waves it off, not wanting to give the drone another reason to feel bad. 99158 sees through that and adds:

“Well, you said you didn’t know what to do since you can’t go to the Guide’s Cavern. How about you visit 57999’s greenhouse? It can make you some healing goop or at least a couple of agonyslayers. I gotta stay here in case of trouble but 99200 is on its way back and it could go with you.”

“Hmmm, that’s actually a great idea!” Gloom pats 99158’s head.

As far as I know, it’s at the edge of the Everfree. 57999 is bound to know where I could also find some water otherwise it wouldn’t be much of a greenhouse.

When Faust closes a door, she opens a window.

10: Knowledge and horrors of the deep

The casual cuddling session of Gloom and 99158 at the base of High Score’s statue is eventually interrupted by the soft grinding of the High Score Cavern’s main door sliding along its rails and letting in what looks like a heavily breathing hybrid of a drone and a trash heap. 99158 shuffles and twists in Gloom’s embrace and she lets the drone go before standing up herself.

“Need help?” asks 99158 immediately.

The overloaded drone shakes its head, lowers itself with a strained grunt, and lets the pile on its back slide off, revealing the rest of itself. Even Gloom can now easily recognize the drone wearing a protective cloak made from brown-ish grey scales.

“Heya, explorer guy!” she smiles at 99200, “What’s all that?”

The drone takes a couple moments to catch its breath, and eventually says:

“Rumbler scales. I got a whole bunch this time because something had finished eating the rumbler from the inside already and I couldn’t hear anything moving anymore. 99856 is bound to be boom-proof with this many… if I figure out how to fit them together.”

Before Gloom can say anything, both drones’ heads perk up, their small ears twitching, and 99158 bolts towards the entrance.

“What’s going on?” she asks, watching the drone pick several green resin objects from a set of alcoves right by the door which are too well sorted to be just a random drone’s stash.

“A response team alarm,” explains 99200, “From what I’m hearing, it’s a cave-in. Someone just has to dig 99687 out and 99158 will be there in case gribblers come out to check the area. A cave-in means things are moving, and moving things can be tasty.”

“Shouldn’t you help?”

“No,” 99158 replies this time, busy with shoving the green objects into various holes in the legs and hollow places of its carapace.

“I’m used to working alone and hiding a lot. I don’t have the group training that 99158, 99112, and 99911 have, and-” explains 99200 while 99158 rushes out of the HSC, “-some of the equipment the response team has is so rare no one else has the experience using it. If I threw some of it too far, too late, or not far enough, I could kill everyone.”

“Ah yes, the old ‘thou shalt count to three, no more, no less’,” Gloom nods, “I get it, I have some gear that lower ranked Nightguards can’t use either, and I know how bad things can get with a rookie on the team.”

After all, we took 65536 on a dreamscape mission with us only weeks after it landed in Luna’s room in the wake of the Canterlot invasion.

“I must admit I didn’t know you guys reached this level of specialization. In retrospect, I don’t know why I didn’t realize it from all I heard. I must have just thought of you as the same cute little drones, just with different interests,” she continues.

Not knowing what to say, 99200 only nods and starts fiddling with the pile of scales which are each about as big as the drone itself.

“Say, 65536 said these rumblers were the biggest threat to the hive as a whole, mainly due to being near-invulnerable. Can I take a look at one of the scales?”

“Sure,” 99200 nods and pauses what it’s doing when Gloom takes a knife from a sheath by her saddlebag and tries to scratch the scale, leaving only a faint impression on its surface. It grows way more interested when the bat pony raises her hoof, three dark blue and flickering, ethereal blades slide out of her horseshoe, and she rams them through the scale itself. When she pulls them out and they fade into nothingness again, three more marks remain at the point of contact, all slightly more prominent than the one left by the knife, but there are no holes left behind either. The only big difference is Gloom suddenly being short on breath as if she just had to gallop a hundred pony lengths.

“Wow, that is hard,” she flicks her head to get the mane out of her eyes, “How do you-”

With a flash of emerald fire, 99200 grows a short, green-shimmering blade out of its hoof and easily cuts through the scale with no resistance.

“How do I what?” it asks.

“Nevermind,” Gloom shakes her head, picks the knife up to return it to the sheath. The battery crystals clink in the saddlebag and she mutters to herself, “Huh, I completely forgot. I have the recharged batteries for you.”

“Gasp! Really?!” 99200’s jaw drop.

“Yup, give me a moment. I’ll put them in and check if the radio works.”

“The guys will be so happy!”

“I hope so,” Gloom trots up the stairs leading to the top one of the three levels of balconies, and walks along to the middle point where 99200 showed her the radio yesterday. She pulls it out of its alcove, opens a panel in the back, and slots the crystals in. With a push of the power button, the radio starts quietly hissing, and no amount of turning the tuning knob makes it catch any signal. Gloom leans over the railing and calls down, “Hey, the radio has power, but I can’t tune into anything.”

“The antenna thingy isn’t raised!” 99200 calls back.

“Can I do that on my end?”

Or perhaps, does 57999 make thingyraiser pills for that- no bad Gloom!

“We’re supposed to only do that right before breaky time because the Queen doesn’t want us to show where we live.”

Gloom nods, puts the radio back, and returns to 99200 who is carefully separating the large rumbler scales into small squares similar to the scales of its own cloak.

As if a huge, black pile in the middle of the Badlands wasn’t enough of a clue.

“200?”

“Where?” 99200 immediately looks around.

“You.”

“I’m not 200, I’m 99200,” the drone shoots Gloom a puzzled glance.

“I know, it’s just kinda of difficult to remember and say for ponies.”

“Huh…” it raises an eyebrow, “Okay, what do you need?”

“I think I need to talk to the villain guy,” Gloom gives her mission another shot, just in case 99200 knows a way to get down there that’s safer, “I’ve been told it’s down in the Guide’s Cavern and it’ll be there for the next few shifts too.”

“That’s not a good idea,” 99200 shakes its head, “It’s hard to breathe down there, you often need to flee using a specific path both from collapsing tunnels and weird gribblers and that’s impossible to do without the hive mind map and communication with other drones. And-” when 99200 measures her from head to hooves just like 99158 did, Gloom sighs.

“-and I wouldn’t fit through the only access path, right?”

“You could squeeze through, I think, you ponies are squishy. It wouldn’t be comfortable, though, and you might get stuck, in which case… honestly, I wouldn’t know what to do. We might not be able to dig you out. Do you want me to ask 99818 if it can make it up here for breaky time?”

“Would you?”

Unfortunately, 99200’s moment of concentration ends with the drone shaking its head and saying:

“99818 says it can’t do that because hot-glowy keeps melting access paths to the evil lair and leaving it before figuring out a stable blueprint would set the project back too much.”

“Oh well, I had to try,” Gloom shrugs, “With that plan on the back burner, could you show me the way to the greenhouse? 99158 said you knew the way.”

“I’d love to, but I really need to process the scales. I’m really sorry,” 99200 shakes its head, cutting the large scale non-stop, “99856 is refusing to rest at the node point even thought it got hurt really badly during its last boomy experiment and could barely walk for days,” it shudders, “Before that, some kind of a new melty made its muzzle drip blood so much it could barely breathe. I want to make it a cloak just like I have which it can use to protect itself from all the melty splatter that happens during testing, and try to figure out how to put scales on a muzzle mask like I use. It won’t do much good against the boomies, but it’s better than nothing.”

“Hmmm, no cloak will be useful against explosions, you need a solid and padded object for that, buuut…” Gloom automatically tries to help, “Ah hah! What if I helped you make an armor for 99856 that would be both resistant to liquid acid and corrosive gas, plus almost entirely blast-proof as well?”

“Wha- hah- huuh?” 99200 stops, looks at her, and tilts its head in disbelief, “That sounds too good to be true.”

“Okay, I may be overselling it with the gas resistance, but if your scales can block acid and if you can get more spider webs that your cloak is made of-” she softly rubs the underside of 99200’s cloak, “-I can show you a design for a proper padded splint mail, and I’m sure we can figure out how to make a fitting helmet together. Take me to the greenhouse today and I’ll spend a whole tomorrow working on it, or more if it takes longer. My full, undivided attention.”

99200 bites its lip, doing the mental arithmetic of advantages and disadvantages. Every worky time, every experiment is another chance of 99856 hurting itself. It could very likely finish the cloak today, but it’s as Gloom said - the cloak itself wouldn’t offer much protection against explosions. The possibility of Gloom lying about knowing how to make a proper armor never even crosses its mind because she has a solid reputation based on 65536’s stories, but mostly because 99200 is a drone, and lying… simply isn’t a thing in a world where any high rank can read your mind.

“Alright, let’s go. The sooner we finish, the sooner we can help 99856,” it nods and loads part of its pile back on its back, “I’ll just stash this away.”

“Let me help,” Gloom grabs two huge scales still connected by a strip of dry flesh and trots along. Unlike a drone, she can’t simply glue a pile of stuff to her back, so her carrying capacity is limited. 99200’s stash is in the bottom row so that the explorer can safely bring various knicknacks without worrying about space or having to fly with cargo, and 99200 just leaves the scales on the floor. Realizing that her help is mostly just symbolic, Gloom examines the Scufflestick set inside the alcove and gets an idea when she sees that it’s even more creatively customized and varied than the one she borrowed yesterday despite not being of as good quality. A quiet explorer would know what lurks around the best. How to ask the question without alerting it, though? “I wonder, 99200, is there a gribbler unit in Scufflestick based on something that’s invisible or reflective, very quick, and of about my size?”

“Hmmmm,” the drone shakes its head as it checks the hive mind unit list, “Nope. There are many gribblers that wait in ambush, but nothing I can think of that you couldn’t see up close. Most of the hard to see ones aren’t that great at running either.”

Gloom wasn’t expecting a clear answer, so she isn’t particularly disappointed, and it’s a good thing the drone isn’t asking for any kind of clarification.

“Thanks,” it pats 99200 as it brings the final batch, “Ready to go?”

“Yep, my worky time is pretty much empty, because I got 10k’s planning job, but 10k already planned over a week in advance, so I’m free to explore or help you.”

“Perhaps 10k knew I was coming, and arranged a free schedule for you exactly for that reason.”

“Huuuuh!” 99200’s mind - blown, “The veterans are so smart…”

Gloom scoops the explorer onto her back.

“Since we’re a bit tight on time, how about I carry you and you navigate? Are there any particularly dangerous places on the way?”

99200 shakes its head.

“The tunnel is direct, comfortably big enough for you, and not deep. Plus, it’s the only place that’s always patrolled by a high rank.”

***

The first movement in the guest cave comes around two hours after Gloom’s departure, and it’s a low moan from the disheveled purple alicorn waking up glued to her bedroll with a string of drool. Used to sleeping by a window, Twilight’s internal clock is controlled by the rising of the sun, so without any external hints she could have slept and slept and slept. That is, if it was in a real bed and not on a fairly thin layer of cloth between her and a solid stone floor.

“Ughh…” she wipes her mouth, rubs her eyes, and sits up. Her body protests after sleeping for so long on a hard surface, “Owww…”

The see-through, flickering, orange ball hovering in the center of the room is emitting little to no heat at this point, but serves well to wake up Twilight’s analytical mind with the sense of victory. She fires up her magic again, controlling the unstable flow that’s switching from resisting her and dampening the spell to empowering it to dangerous levels in the next instant, and lights up her horn so that she can have a look around. Gloom is missing and so are the recharged batteries, so she checks her watch and smiles.

I didn’t wake up in time to tell Gloom the plan for today. On the other hoof, my heat spell did last the entire night. It’s the simplest one next to light in my repertoire, but small victories are still progress.

She stretches with the loud cracking of bones filling the small cave, grateful for all the wilderness adventures with her friends that made her used to sleeping on the ground.

Speaking of - what IS the plan for today?

Her eyes fall on the ruined metal frame for the scrying cube and the pile of partially melted wires on her workbench.

Riiight…

Starting things slow by simply observing the subjects is out of the question for now, and Gloom already tainted the results anyway. Although… maybe not? Every basic observation method starts with introducing new variables into the environment of the subjects. Perhaps Gloom could be that variable. With the scrying crystals in place and correct guidance, I can still avoid revealing my involvement. After all, it’s likely that the drones already know that there’s more than one pony visiting the hive, but as long as I’m not being out in the open that knowledge means nothing. It also means that there shouldn’t be a big problem if I visit the drone gathering place which Gloom discovered only to talk to her. She’s bound to be there.

Happily humming to herself after solving her scientific conundrum, Twilight prepares the basic necessities for her excursion and leaves the cave.

“Slept well, Princess?” says a buzzing voice right next to her ear just as she clears the entrance.

“YAAAH?!” Twilight jumps into the other side of the tunnel and turns around, her breathing as quick and frantic as the sudden beating of her heart.

“I’m sorry,” the changeling backs away, “It’s me, 3012. I led you through the Badlands.”

“Yes- I- I remember you,” Twilight’s breathing slows down, “I’m just not good… with jumpscares.”

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” 3012 says in an apologetic tone, “It didn’t occur to me that you wouldn’t know that I was here. We usually know if there’s another changeling around, at least vaguely.”

Finally calmed down, Twilight’s analytical side takes charge.

“How many changelings are around anyway? I recall only seeing you, 2119, the Queen, and her… assistant?”

“There are close to five hundred drones. Despite having stabilized and not losing too many too often, the number still fluctuates too much to keep an accurate count. As for the number of ranked changelings, I’m specifically not allowed to tell you. Queen’s orders.”

“A matter of security, I get it,” Twilight rolls her eyes. Of course Chrysalis is doing it just to mess with her. Thankfully, it’s not particularly relevant to her research at the moment. The exchange trip was to study drones, so it’s the drones whom she will study, “Say, I would like to have a look around undisturbed. My assistant managed to map a section of the hive yesterday and I want to check if my map works well enough for my purposes. Am I allowed to walk around on my own?”

“Yes, you are,” 3012 nods, “I’m supposed to stay here today so feel free to ask if you want my assistance.”

“Thank you for the offer,” Twilight smiles, her backpack opens, and the magical map floats up to her face, enveloped in the purple shimmer of the magic of her horn, “Oookay, the compass doesn’t work, neither does scrolling and changing depth levels. Zooms out a little, which is better but-”

3012 just watches, puzzled, as the alicorn walks off without looking up from the folded piece of paper a single time, quietly muttering to herself inside her own little world.

***

Several minutes later, Twilight stops adjusting the flow of magic with a sigh. The enchanted paper simply doesn’t allow enough flexibility to repair the map into a fully working state. If she had the right tools, she could create a new map now that she knows a little better how the flow of magic works here, but alas.

She checks the map again to confirm that a good chunk of the mapped path leads straight ahead, and sends it flying back to her saddlebag.

“Alright, Twilight, time to get to work,” she says out loud, just to do something about the complete silence penetrated only by her hoofsteps and breathing.

A brief check of the tunnel itself makes her let out an impressed hum.

“Anti-slip floors,” she runs her hoof along the nubs dotting the ground, “The walls are narrowing upwards for greater stability. Most importantly, though, everything is smooth and polished to perfection even though it’s solid rock. No technology that ponies or griffons have can achieve this without digging a hole and laying an artificial tunnel made from stone or concrete slabs into it. How was this made?”

A close-up scrutiny of a random section of wall reveals that there are imperfections, after all, and Twilight immediately pulls out a magnifying glass and starts examining the narrow scratches, hoping to reveal the method of carving this tunnel. Thankfully, her light spell is stable enough for her to make it brighter.

“Magic might be more convenient, but good, old technology simply doesn’t f-” her magnifying glass falls to the ground and she recovers before it makes contact with the solid rock.

This time, it wasn’t her magic failing, but her mind.

“Impossible…” she whispers, now examining lines and lines of the scratches, “These aren’t material fractures, this is all writing! How was any of this made?!”

Twilight has seen ancient temples and numerous archeological dig sites in her admittedly short but packed lifetime, but the laser-focused, deep grooves she’s reading now are something entirely unique.

“Is this some kind of changeling script? Why is it vaguely familiar, yet I’m sure I can’t read it? A cipher that I read a long time ago or something?”

Eventually it clicks with the strength of an exploding volcano, leaving Twilight too stunned to do anything other than stare at the wall with her jaw dropped.

“Silversmith script?” she groans, her head still not computing as her body takes charge and almost automatically begins following the writing on the wall, “No… not just that. Mathematical equations in ponish notation mixed with Silversmith script!” she repeats, following the paragraphs of symbols, “What is the biggest secret of world history doing here? Are changelings and Silversmiths connected?”

She stops to take a deep breath.

“Calm down, Twilight. You’re not following the data, you’ve come to a conclusion and are trying to bend the data to fit,” she sits down to examine the writing near the floor, “This place is too close to the surface to be a Silversmith ruin, and they didn’t build from stone, but from istrium. No one knows how to make it, where to mine it, or what it really is. This is not istrium, this is granite. This is also just Silversmith script, not their writing style. So, what does the data say right now, without spending months on trying to translate some of this?” she waves her foreleg deeper into the tunnel, “Ponish notation and script mixed with Silversmith alphabet. A mix of cultures, maybe?” she gasps, “Could there be a Silversmith ruin underneath the hive, maybe even an actual city?”

Standing back up, she levitates a clean sheet of paper out of her saddlebag, presses it against the wall, and summons her magic.

“Samples first.”

Light from her horn passes up and down through the sheet, and Twilight examines the result.

“Ffffffffff- fine, this is fine,” she scowls at the grainy, staticky grey surface of the paper showing precisely zero amount of the content of the wall that it’s supposed to, “Just a minor setback. The wall isn’t going anywhere, and I can always negotiate a trip for a team of archeologists now that the lines of communication are open. Besides, let’s apply Occamare’s razor here - if changelings wrote this, changelings will be able to read it.”

With that conclusion. Twilight returns to 3012 who is patiently standing on guard by the empty guest cave.

“Say, 3012, can you read the writing on the wall?”

“Parts of it, yes,” the warrior nods, “It’s a mix of random drone ‘scribbles’ of things they found useful but not necessary to keep inside the hive mind and something the Queen ordered drones to write down. I was told that only the drones need to be able to read the contents, and that no ranked changelings with the exception of the Queen and 156 can do it. Something to do with the balance of powers in the hive and giving drones some leverage.”

“Thank you,” Twilight doesn’t know what more to say, but it feels like 3012 isn’t expecting anything himself, so she just nods and leaves again.

Looks like I have one more reason to visit the drone cavern today.

***

The square door made of green resin dotted with grey spots is enough of a clue for Twilight that she’s found the right place, and the map floating next to her head and showing the end of the drawn line is just the cherry on top. There’s no visible locking mechanism, so Twilight just pushes her hoof into the indentation in the middle of the presumed door, spins it to move the expected bar on the other side, and slides it sideways along the rails, revealing a space so wide open that the light of her horn doesn’t reach anywhere far enough.

Pumping some more power into the light spell and wincing and the magic resists Twilight’s control, the glowing ball surrounding her horn feels less like, well, light and more physically heavy object made from white tentacles reaching out through liquid treacle. Other than that, however, the visibility increases and the light spell obeys her for now.

“Miss Gloom?” she says out loud but too careful to straight up shout.

No answer. With how much of a shining beacon she must be now, if Gloom was here she would likely have noticed.

Letting out a sigh caused by yet another minor setback, Twilight decides that since no one seems to be around, she may as well explore a little with only a low risk of interfering with the subjects prematurely. With the discovery of Silversmith writing, the idea of unintrusive and perhaps entirely unseen observation has gone out of the window.

In the strong light, she can see a black stone statue of a changeling with large sapphires for eyes. To her knowledge, changelings look very similar based on their ‘class’ and this statue, while too big, is shaped like the drones she met at the Embassy in Canterlot. There’s a small, smooth section on the front of the raised base of the statue reading ‘9999’ in standard pony script.

There are two more statues like that behind the first one, one on the left and one on the right. The right one stops existing for Twilight because she notices that the left one has its foreleg outstretched and its hoof transformed into claws in which it’s holding a…

“Is that… what is that…?” the alicorn immediately rushes over to examine the staff made from silvery white metal, the final third of which opens into a three-pronged holder containing a narrow, brown-red, flat-top pyramid shape that makes the hair on the back of Twilight’s neck stand up, “A Silversmith device?” she runs her hoof along the staff, “That’s istrium for sure, but what is the top part?”

Just for completion’s sake, she checks the description of this statue too, and it reads “36658, The Guide”. Rising up, she notices that the top part of the artefact seems to be drawing in the tendrils of her light spell and wrapping them around itself to no discernible effect.

“Anypony from the United Orders of Wizardry would kill for this, literally in most cases,” she breathes out, “I MUST examine it.”

Her telekinetic grasp takes hold of the staff and fades immediately.

“What?”

Before she can try again, however, she hears the door behind her move, followed by a quiet, squelching noise. Like a caught criminal, she turns around, only to see-

-black tentacles reaching out and dozens of teal eyes staring into the dark depths of her soul.

Twilight lets out a high-pitched screech of pure terror and, in the place where even thought-through and carefully controlled magic goes haywire, makes the mistake of reflexively teleporting away and immediately starts choking, immobilized and with the flow of air cut off by the cold touch of solid rock around her head.

Author's Note

I've been barely managing to finish the weekly updates in time recently so I'm not sure how the weekly schedule will continue. On top of that, it's the usual depressive season of the year when I remind myself into how much of a no-win situation my decisions led me, so the creativity is a bit stifled.
On the other hand, I'm still producing hug bugs, and that counts for something.

11: The tiniest of hiccups

It’s a beautiful day in the Crystal Empire.

The sun is high in the sky and even here, far up north, it’s so pleasantly warm that the magical protective dome usually covering the entire city-state had been retracted earlier, which makes the solar rays even brighter than usual as they refract from the variety of colored crystal buildings. In short, the place is extremely shiny, which makes the day of a small, changeling mare covered in grey, zebra stripes even better than it would otherwise be. This isn’t the first time Smiley’s in the Crystal Empire, albeit it is the first time seeing it in its full, uncovered splendor, and she’s beaming from ear to ear on her way to the train station. Even while trotting, the trip is still going to take close to two hours because she has to cross close to the whole radius of the central Empire from the hotel in a cheap residential area where she stays whenever she visits.

Despite her rapid pace, she always finds a second to let her eyes linger on the occasional colorful and sparkling pony who isn’t busy working or her own twisted reflection following her on the shiny walls. Armed with her trusty writing slate hanging on an adjustable leather harness around her neck, her saddlebag containing a variety of pens, pencils, and even a surprisingly high-end albeit scratched and dented camera, Smiley is ready to pick up the group of drones who are supposed to arrive in the Crystal Empire today and show them the best time of their lives as well as a very special surprise that’s bound to make 10k wibble…

…in the best way possible.

Her body is pleasantly warm as she keeps trotting without the barest hint of fatigue, fueled by the fresh air laced with love constantly flowing from the Crystal Heart.

The day is hers to nom!

That is, until she hears a faint whistle of something that grows louder while she’s passing through a completely empty street. She unwillingly slows down, but not by actually stopping to move, rather by becoming frozen mid-trot. No matter how much she tries to move her legs, she’s not encountering any resistance or numbness of paralysis, yet her movement keeps slowing down until-

…

Smiley wakes up sitting propped against a cold wall in darkness, waves of nausea assaulting her immediately as her perception of reality resumes. She tries to move, something heavy around her foreleg clinks, and she falls down on hard floor, unable to stop her head from spinning and feeling as if her entire body from her hooves to her mouth wanted to throw up. Despite her internal clock, the lonely fragment of hive mind, and her normal mind all trying to shut down, she pushes herself up one final time, thinking-

“Best number will be disappointed with me… if I don’t… pick… 10k… up.”

-before her eyes roll back and everything fades.

***

As the immediate cold grip of stone surrounds Twilight’s head instead of replacing it in a gruesome shower of gore, one analytical thought flashes through her mind:

Good to know that at least SOME safety contingencies of the teleportation spell still work.

With that out of the way, it’s time to panic!

Her scream of horror from she saw left her out of breath, which is now making her body reflexively twist and pull away-

Wait!

She can move.

She’s inside a rock from her neck up but she can move the rest of her.

Is she far from the monster? Is she not far enough?

She doesn’t dare risk teleporting again. Everything went wrong even with a clear direction, leaving her with a risky course of action, but still less risky than choking to death. Her lungs burning, Twilight draws in the wild everywhere around, and lets it out.

In a burst of purple light, her stone prison shatters into pieces, leaving behind a slightly scorched and blinded alicorn happily gasping for air in the pitch blackness pierced only by wheezing from ahead.

She doesn’t have time to relax. She still has no idea where she is or if the monster is still around, so she fires up a light spell as powerful as she can make it while keeping it stable.

The alicorn looks around.

The door of the drone cavern is directly in front of her.

Two sapphires scattered on the floor between her and the exit glint in the light, and Twilight realizes she’s standing on the base of the first statue whose torso she obliterated with the magic blast, leaving behind only the hooves and small part of the four legs.

The monster! Where is the m-

She notices a small, crumpled pile of black, tentacle-y limbs by a wall.

Teal eyes open along the nearest limb, all aimed at her, and blink. The wheezing coming from the pile stops for a second before…

…turning into a loud, sorrowful wail.

Briefly frozen and unable to decide what to do -be it examining whatever the thing is closer or blasting it to pieces for good- she hears a gasp from behind followed by numerous hoofsteps. Not daring to leave the weeping eyeball squid-thing out of view, she only briefly glances backwards and, from her experience at the Embassy, she recognizes the approaching small, stocky changelings staring her way in horror as drones.

“A MONSTER!” yells the one with the courage to lead the small group.

“I’ve got it under contr-” Twilight raises her voice.

“GASP! THE MONSTER GOT 99998!” yells a different drone.

“Wait, wha-?!” Twilight looks backwards just in time to spot a green and white object the size of a tennis ball flying right at her. Despite the chaos of the situation, she manages to telekinetically catch it before it can make contact.

Everything goes white and blistering.

The alicorn screams in pain as the ball erupts into a white inferno and the flames turn the front of her neck and torso into a blinding torch. Twilight’s wide array of contingency spells -surface regeneration and various emergency protections- trigger one by one to save her from turning into a charred skeleton in an instant, and despite their instability they’re enough to leave her blinded only temporarily by the bright light and only with several burned off strands of her mane and a coat singed black.

The problem is that the drone is throwing a second ball already, and Twilight’s layer of worst-case safeguards is gone.

“STOP!” she roars, catches the ball about two pony lengths away from herself, and raises a see-through, purple barrier between herself and the caught object, “I’M NOT A-”

The ball doesn’t explode this time, though, instead releasing a pressurized cloud of green gas which immediately makes Twilght’s eyes sting even before visibly spreading far enough. It stops her from speaking and she makes the mistake of reflexively breathing in.

She immediately retches when what feels like liquid fire spreads through her nose, mouth, and down her throat. The new surge of agony washes away any scientific curiosity or, in fact, any other thought than the primal survival instinct.

RUN!

Twilight bolts out of the High Score Cavern, coughing and sneezing blood and dissolving tissue both from her nose and mouth. Every breath in makes more and more of her neck burn, and every hacking cough shoots out more and more chunks. The one good thing is that she reflexively closed her eyes as she breathed in the first time and opened them only once she turned around, so they’re not melting out of her sockets due to whatever hoof-held war crime the drone had thrown at her.

She just runs, not bothering with the map or anything and focusing only on remaining upright.

Thankfully…

Thankfully…

There are no hoofsteps following her.

Everything hurts.

She collapses on the floor into a rapidly expanding pool of her blood staining her muzzle and floating down her barrel. Her alicorn toughness and healing are barely successfully fighting the acid to a stalemate, so all she needs to do is to get her water bottle, stabilize enough magic for a cleansing spell, and wash the mess out.

A unicorn would be dead the second they took the first breath.

Twilight is trembling.

However, a part of her mind that’s always saved her when things got tough takes over and starts coldly following an internal list. There will be time to cry the trauma and horror away later.

Step 1 - get the water bottle.

Step 2 - cast Pastor the Powerful’s Purifying Panacea.

Step 3…

***

Back in the High Score Cavern, 99856 bites its lip as it mournfully gathers the two sapphires remaining of 9999’s statue. With a couple quiet squishes instead of hoofsteps, a second figure takes its side and lets out a quiet, sad sigh.

“I’m glad it only knocked you around a bit,” says the drone chemist and looks sideways while forcing a smile into a series of teal eyes dotting the equine figure’s neck and leg, all open in the chemist’s direction.

The group of five other drones are looking from the statue to 99856, uncertain about what to do now that the threat has been chased away but the damage remains.

“I gotta try harder and speed up my experiments and production. I can’t think of my own safety when the safety of all of us is at risk,” says the chemist in a determined tone, “I’ll make sure we have enough weapons for every drone to protect themselves or our home from whatever that gribbler was.”

***

Gloom has been casually trotting for close to two hours with 99200 on her back and lighting the way with a periodically refreshed stick of glowgoop. For a pony of her stamina this wouldn’t be a problem even on a summer day like this -hay, Nightguards normally did full training for just as long, armored and with equipment- but the straight underground tunnel leading across the Badlands to the greenhouse has been spacious enough to accommodate her size and somehow offered much fresher air than anywhere deeper in the hive without any visible ventilation or air flow. The conversation has been scarce on her side due to managing her breathing, consisting of the occasional casual question, but 99200 soon realized that having the time to think of a detailed and well-constructed answer only made the interaction better.

One such question comes up when a bead of sweat dripping down her mane tickles Gloom:

“Say, do you guys have any, uhh, wet-chokey here? I heard about you drawing baths for Chrysalis.”

It takes some serious processing before 99200 asks in a puzzled voice:

“Do you mean water? And how do you draw a bath? She just told us to make one from stone.”

“I do, I was just trying to guess what a drone name for it would be,” Gloom slows down a little to make speaking easier.

“Hehe, wet-chokey. Not bad,” 99200 smiles, “No, we just call it water. Buuut, we do make it by heating up what we at first called white-soft. You know - snow.”

“I knew I was close,” replies the mare, “But what I meant was if you had water without snow. Normally, cave systems tend to have some because, well, that’s what creates those caves in the first place, be it a full stream or just some seeping through cracks in the rocks.”

99200 rubs its chin in thought.

“I did find something similar to water a couple times, but it was full of weird green, smelling, squishy stuff. I never touched it, I just poked it with my exploration stick. That’s this long stick I usually make from stone and take with me on a trip. It’s useful when I don’t have time to make goop or chitin stuff.”

“Smart,” Gloom breathes out.

“Thank you, having it with me saved me sooo many times already. Once it even got bitten by a hanging chomper so hard that it stabbed itself through the… uhh… head, I think? One of the important bits for sure. That was when I started making them pointy. Aaanyway- water, right! The main thing about water is to avoid it, because there are almost always bad things in and often around it. Besides, all it does is make our goop squishier. I don’t even know why the Queen likes it so much, but maybe the snow water is different.”

“What about running water?”

“I’ve never seen water with legs. Teeth? Yes. Legs. No,” 99200 shakes its head vehemently.

“That’s when water isn’t still like in a puddle or in a bath, but flowing from one point to the other naturally like a river… which you probably don’t know what it is too, right?”

“Ohh, you mean like hot-glowy but water? I know some places, but they’re not marked on the hive map because, as I said, we don’t need water. The water doesn’t smell or try to eat you… as often, but it’s still dangerous around there. There’s a mostly safe one only a couple levels under the HSC.”

“Would you mind taking me there later?” asks Gloom.

“We kinda reeeally need to make the armor for 99200, Miss Gloom.”

“Definitely, that’s priority one. After that, I mean. It would feel amazing to be able to take a bath here. After all this running, you guys will be able to smell me even before you can feel the ground shaking under my heavy hooves.”

The drone sniffs the air.

“Maybe?”

“The air flow is better in this tunnel than anywhere else I’ve seen with the exception of the… High Score Cavern, was it?”

“Oh, that’s because there are air slits near the ceiling that lead into small shafts with holes to the surface. Those were a pain to dig out.”

“I see, so that’s why there are those small drains on the floor right by the wall,” Gloom nods her head.

“Uhh, what?” 99200 leans down from her back to look, “I don’t really know why we build the tunnels the way we do, 10k and the Queen just said to do that, and they work well even if it takes a lot of work to make them right.”

“Ah,” Gloom pauses, “Well, they’re there so that the tunnel won't flood.”

“Why would it? There’s no runny water around.”

“Rain?”

“Whazzat?”

“Water falling from the sky?”

“Ohhh, like 10k and the guys saw during shippy time? That doesn’t happen here, I think,” 99200 shakes its head, “Or is that floaty hot water thing 99111 was talking about last freezy time? Sorry, I’m a bit lost here.”

“It’s okay, I’m no mine engineer myself so I might be wrong,” Gloom changes the topic, “How far are we from the greenhouse?”

“We’re close to halfway there, I’d just like to take a short break when we reach the node point on the way,” says 99200.

Gloom’s eyes light up.

“Oh, another node point? Is there a resting drone that could use 20cc of hug-a-lin?”

***

A couple minutes of trotting later, 99200 taps on the back of Gloom’s head and asks her to stop. As it hops off of her, Gloom checks Twilight’s watch and does a little mental arithmetic. The greenhouse is supposedly situated on the north edge of the Badlands, which means that, using this tunnel, she cleared a comparable distance that took her, 3012 and Twilight about eight hours when walking on the cracked surface. When she thinks about it a little further, it makes sense. Using the tunnel, they didn’t have to avoid any ravines too difficult to fly over with Twilight’s cargo or pace themselves to not get fried in the sun. The downside, of course, is that if she wasn’t travelling with 99200, the constant silence would make her explode out of sheer boredom.

Her train of thought gets interrupted by a quite grinding of stone she now associates with the cover of the node point being moved away, and a second pair of teal eyes joins 99200’s, followed by the rest of the drone dragging itself out of the hole using only its forelegs before doing a weird twist with its hips and using its wings to position its hind legs correctly. Only then does it start shuffling towards Gloom with a mix of awe and apprehension.

“You’re so big up close!” it breathes out, its hind legs clacking in a strange way with every step, “You weren’t in the HSC anymore when 868 brought me last breaky time. What’s the stringy stuff all over you?” it pokes Gloom’s leg and immediately withdraws, somehow manages to lose balance and falls over on its butt, “Aw, holes…”

The bat pony walks over and sits by the drone’s side.

“I wonder, is there something wrong with your hind legs? Mind if I take a look? 200- 99200, can you bring the light over?”

“Yup, sure!” the drone props itself by its forelegs and stretches its hind legs out, “But I think that what’s left of my leggos is working just fine.”

By now, Gloom should be ready for statements like that, and yet, once again, her heart sinks as she spots the recovering drone’s wounds. Simply put, its fetlocks as well as the bottom part of the shins are missing at a roughly even length. A solid but hollow green boot with red veins is bolted to each drone’s leg chitin from each side, serving as a prosthesis.

“Aww, that’s horrible!” Gloom can’t help pulling the drone into a hug, “What happened to you?”

Contrary to the grim nature of the situation, the drone beams and perks up as if it was about to tell the most awesome adventure story ever.

“So, 99341 and I were following a seam of sharp, black shinies -that’s a special kind of shiny which you can find only near hot-glowy- when there was a huge rumble and everything started collapsing underneath,” even with its head pressed against Gloom’s chest, it waves its forelegs in the air, imitating the shaking, “It’s difficult surveying the ground so deep because everything keeps shaking and changing all the time so you can’t be sure you’re digging in a stable place even if the drones who did the survey last shift said it was clear. So, as the ground crumbled into the rising hot-glowy, I was a bit ahead and 99341 slipped, so I reached back and pulled it forward so hard it kinda pushed me back and I fell. Luckily, the collapse stopped where I was, but I couldn’t drag myself up onto solid ground in time and…” it pauses, “Well, it kinda didn’t hurt at all at first but when 99341 pulled me out it started hurting more and more and more and I didn’t dare use the emergency cocoon because it doesn’t help against hot-glowy and if the floor started collapsing again I would just slow 99341 down- huh?” its thousand-yard stare and quickened speech during the last segment stops as Gloom begins stroking its head, “I like this very much, Miss Gloom,” it mutters, “My leggos are growing back but it’s super slow and sometimes it hurts and burns even though there’s nothing to hurt and burn. It’s weird. 10k guessed I’m going to take months more to heal so I took the node point shift with the longest distance to cover because if I can’t work with my leggos then I gotta work with my head as much as possible.”

“Take your time,” says Gloom in a soothing, motherly voice, knowing that this is the only time in known drone history where a drone who suffered this much damage has at least a chance to survive and recover, “There will always be something to dig once you’re healthy again.”

“You think so?” asks the drone happily, “It’ll be a long time.”

“Of course.”

“That’s good to know,” the drone eases into her embrace, “It was all pretty scary, but for a moment I felt like I was on the response team, helping others out of danger. And 99911 made me these booties!” it wiggles its leg stumps and the prosthetic goop boots, “99856 spent some of the rare red shinies to make them, they almost don’t need any love to stay solid.”

“You’ve earned them,” Gloom comforts the drone, “And 99158 and the others on the response team would be proud of you. I met it in the High Score Cavern before 99200 led me here and it looked like a very responsible and helpful drone.”

99200, who has been silent since the start of the encounter, clears its throat and says:

“I wanted to stop by because 99557 was really bummed out that it missed meeting you last breaky time, Miss Gloom, and it was on the way, but we should get going. The longer we take, the longer 99856 doesn’t have the promised armor, and each one of its experiments is a test of luck.”

Gloom sighs and releases 99557 from her hug. The drone gets unsteadily back on its prosthetics, and she says:

“I know you guys have your telepathy, so if you’re running late during breaky time, just call someone ahead and if I’m in the HSC I’ll make sure to wait for you, okay?”

“Will do, Miss Gloom!”

With one last smile, 99557 begins crawling back into the hole leading to the node point, 99200 flies up onto Gloom’s back, and she gets ready for the second half of their trip to the greenhouse.

Author's Note

Probably no update next week. I'm sick and I barely managed to finish this one.

13-1: Greenhouse and chill

Gloom and 99200 should reach the greenhouse in only a couple minutes when the drone suddenly sits up and its breathing quickens.

“Anything wrong?” whispers Gloom, slowing her casual trot down into a quiet walk and focusing on controlling her breathing.

“Just a moment,” says 99200 in a normal volume, which Gloom reads as whatever made it tense up isn’t related to their surroundings, and picks up the pace again. A couple of heavy seconds later, 99200 speaks again, this time in a distant, stunned tone, “Something we’ve never seen before invaded the High Score Cavern and destroyed High Score’s statue.”

“Luna’s stars!” gasps Gloom, familiar with 9999’s sacrifice in the dreamscape while saving Luna from the Tantabus in the chaos post-changeling invasion from the retelling of events by both the Princess herself as well as 65536. That statue was the symbol of dronekind’s change from disposable tools into a civilization as well as the major changes in the hive itself that followed.

What sort of creature would the drones not know about when everypony said the top levels were safe? What would destroy a statue, though, and why?

The memory of the encounter with the invisible ‘thing’ returns, making Gloom shudder.

“Did anypony catch what the monster looked like?” she asks.

“It was huge! I’d show you but you ponies don’t have hive links. I guess you need at least some disadvantage since you’re nice and warm and fluffy,” says 99200 and shakes its head, “Anyway. It was huge and looked generally like a pony but with big wings different from yours and massive, white, tentacle-y glowing ball instead of a head,” the drone pauses, “Kinda like when you light up your hooves- uh, I mean boots- horseshoes, was it?”

Gloom stops, raises her forelegs, and lights her horseshoe up to maximum brightness she can muster. The warm, yellow light almost flows like a liquid and the edges of the ball seem to end in little tendrils like a frayed fabric. She turns the light off to stop draining the already limited amount of energy recharged from yesterday, and suspicion about something incredibly stupid creeps into her mind.

“Did- did anypony catch what color that monster was?”

Her suspicion proves correct when 99200 answers:

“Purple, very purple. The bright kind of purple.”

She lets out an extremely annoyed groan and a facehoof.

Luna damn it, Twilight! What did you do aside from burning out drone retinas with that goddamn lighthouse on your head?

“Is anypony hurt?” asks Gloom next.

“99998 got a bit thrown around but it’s okay,” 99200 shakes its head, “99856 used some new bombs to chase the monster away. It was bleeding really badly-” Gloom’s blood freezes in her veins, “-but when the guys later followed the trail it grew thinner and thinner until it disappeared.”

“Where did the blood trail lead?” she keeps making sure that 99200 really is talking about Twilight for some reason visiting the HSC and doing something dumb.

Oh thank the holy whatever-the-hay for alicorn resilience and Twilight’s knowledge of magic!

“The trail circled around a bit but eventually it faded while heading upwards through the tunnel-” 99200 makes a sequence of noises, buzzing, and clicking which makes zero sense to Gloom.

“What was that last thing?”

99200 pauses.

“Oh… yeah, that’s a hive map reference,” it scratches its head, “There’s no way to translate it into normal words, sorry. It’s just one of the core tunnels leading to higher levels of the hive.”

A spark of divine inspiration strikes Gloom as she resumes walking.

“I might know what the monster is,” she says.

“REALLY?!”

“Yes,” Gloom grins into the darkness ahead that’s only barely lit by 99200’s fresh glowgoop stick tucked behind her ear.

How to formulate the idea in the right way?

“I think,” she says slowly, “In a drone way, I would call her the Hey-ing Waver because she would normally call out to you like ‘Hey!’ and then wave to lure you towards her.”

“Whoa, you’re good!” 99200 is clearly impressed at the sensible nomenclature, “What does the Hey-ing Waver do?”

“If you don’t avoid her,” only the tiniest hint of sadistic satisfaction creeps into Gloom’s voice as she spins her nonsense, “she can snatch you up and put you in a tube and perform all sorts of weird experiments on you before she lets you go.”

“It, uhh, she lets you go afterwards? That doesn’t sound so bad,” 99200 furrows its brows, “Do the exterminants hurt?”

Gloom realizes that walking the thin line between innocently getting back at Twilight for her stupid intrusion and riling the drones up into an arms-race frenzy that might actually kill the alicorn is a bit more difficult than she expected.

“Some can hurt, a little, but… but they can take so long that you can miss breaky time.”

“That’s not the worst-” muses 99200.

“And worky time too,” Gloom raises the stakes.

“OH NO!” 99200 freezes, “What do we do?!”

“The best thing to do is to not listen, leave her alone, and avoid her if possible. Maybe throw something that’s not an internationally recognized war crime- something non-lethal, maybe just something very sticky at her if she tries to examine something from somepony’s stash without permission.”

“Do you think she’ll come back?” peeps 99200.

“Yes, I’m afraid she will,” Gloom sighs, “The thing is, the Hey-ing Waver isn’t malevolent-”

“What’s mlemmlevolume mean?”

“-Evil, it means evil. She’s not evil, she just can be extremely inconsiderate and can tunnel vision-”

“Tunnel vision sounds so cool!”

“-She can have a one-track mind and doesn’t always think of who she hurts to reach her goals!” Gloom huffs, “Because of that, I think that destroying 9999’s statue was an accident.”

At this point, Gloom gets and idea, a wonderful, terrible idea, and adds:

“But there’s one thing to be careful of - the Hey-ing Waver can leave behind weird, small, crystals that serve as her eyes. Who knows if she managed to lay them somewhere before you caught her, and you wouldn’t want her watching everything you do, would you? Don’t forget that she has wings so they can be anywhere.”

99200 vigorously nods.

“IMMA TELL EVERYONE RIGHT NOW!”

As the drone goes quiet to concentrate on everything it “learned” just now, Gloom allows herself a smug, satisfied smirk.

This way, Twilight’s spy crystals should get ruined even without villainy and the need to go to the Guide’s Cavern.

Author's Note

I'm sorry, but I have to start doing short updates. I can't keep up the 2-4k word pace weekly anymore. I feel tired, barely creative, unoriginal, and I keep stressing because I can barely finish chapters on time. It feels like doing work after coming from work. If I manage to build a buffer or return to being the insane writing machine like I used to, I'll make the chapters bigger again. Sorry, and thanks for still sticking around and talking despite the varied quality of my ramblings.

13-3: Greenhouse and chill

The trip to the poppy patch takes Gloom about twenty minutes at a pace which 99200 can keep up with only quickened breathing. That’s something the Nightguard learned during her time with 65536 - drones aren’t good distance runners despite possessing a naturally solid stamina, both due to their size and the build of their carapace limiting their range of motion in favor of support when carrying heavy weights. These days, 65536 is using a custom carapace transformation suited for Nightguard operations which is far from the stubby, stiff, little drone it used to be in the months after the invasion of Canterlot.

Thankfully, the patch is on the shared hive mind map so 99200 has no trouble leading them there despite 57999 sleeping on Gloom’s back all the way. When they reach a clearing a short distance deeper from the edge of the forest and the bed of red flowers reveals itself, it’s the first time since coming here that Gloom finds herself unimpressed. From what she heard, she thought the patch would be much larger, but it’s just the size of a couple flower beds that a pony would have in a small garden behind their house. A second, more exploratory, look at the freshly growing grass and plants all over the area, however, reveals that the flat and tilled ground must have spread much further in the past.

Gloom twists her neck to nudge 57999 who wakes up immediately, rubs its eyes, lets out a squeaky yawn, and looks around.

“Oh, we're here already? Sorry, I just kinda drifted off,” it scratches its head, clearly a bit ashamed at falling asleep during a mission, “Your back is so soft and comfy and the way it goes up and down as you walk just-” it yawns again, just thinking about it, before shaking its head and flying down from Gloom’s back, “It’s worky time, not sleepy time!”

“I wonder, why don’t you grow the poppies in the greenhouse?” asks Gloom when 57999 walks over to the small patch and starts unceremoniously munching the petals so thoroughly it leaves only the stalks, “It can’t be an easy walk for you.”

“It’s not difficult, it just takes some time. The greenhouse schedule works differently from that of other drones, because we have such a long way to walk there and back, so we sleep here but in turn we have a whole day or even two to spend in the HSC, and sometimes I just spend the day here, watering and getting rid of the growing weed- whoa!” it accidentally steps on the soft soil of the patch, stumbles, and falls over, breaking some flowers which it promptly starts eating when it gets back up, “It reminds me of the time when we used to take care of the place together with 36658. There are even some zebra trees growing nearby and I totally don’t wibble whenever I munch on their bark,” it shakes its head, “Anyway, I just like the colors of-” it waves its hoof in the air, “-everything, and I think it looks prettier as a layer on the ground than as a few lonely plants in a pot.”

“You know,” 99200 speaks out, “A couple of my explory trips ago I saw some weird, mushy stuff underground that glowed bright blue when I got close. I even poked it with my exploration stick and it didn’t try to get me in any way. It might look pretty neat in the greenhouse.”

“Hmmm…” 57999 rubs its chin.

“I don’t think that would work,” Gloom shakes her head, “I had to get out of deep caves many times during training and from all I know, stuff that grows underground almost never grows in daylight.”

“Awww…” the gardener frowns, “Do you know a lot about gardening?”

“Noooo, oh hay no no no,” Gloom laughs out loud, “The only plant I had when I was little was a cactus -that’s this hard plant that looks like a spiky club and is the easiest one to take care of- and I accidentally killed it by overwatering it. That’s one of many things that made me realize I’m only compatible with something that needs my support and care –kinda like you drones– and not something that straight up needs me to stay alive… like a foal,” she realizes she let out a little more than she wanted and that neither of the drones likely understand it, “But that’s neither here nor there. You just learn a little bit of everything as you grow older if you keep your mind open and that’s why I think that if you built an underground greenhouse, preferably one closer to home, you could have as many glowing mushrooms as you’d like. Another upside is that you wouldn’t need to take too much care of it, that stuff grows wherever.”

“That sounds good. We have sooo many empty caves even on upper levels,” 57999 cheers up again as it gulps down what it deems to be the final needed flower, and cuts down three more into a small bouquet held together by a dollop of goop which it presents to Gloom, “Um, for you, Miss Gloom. I’m not sure where to stick them because you don’t have any of the carapace gaps that we have.”

“Thank you,” Gloom smiles, lowers her head and nuzzles 57999’s cheek before fastening the flowers behind her ear, “You like red, don’t you?”

“I like all the colors on the surface,” 57999 shakes its head and its soft smile returns, “Red is just special, that’s all. We can go visit the stream now, I’ll replant what I ate later.”

“Hop on, then,” Gloom bends her legs but 57999 shakes its head.

“It’s close, just a little deeper in the forest, and I can’t keep lying around or my leggos get all stiff. I mean, even stiffer than now.”

57999 trips over a raised root less than a minute later when it fails to raise its less mobile foreleg in time, but stands up immediately, unbothered, unstoppable, and smiling.

***

“Whooooah, I can see all the way through!” 99200 is so amazed by the bubbling, four hooves deep and two pony lengths wide stream that it sticks its foreleg into the crystal clear water without even poking it with a stick first, “And it doesn’t smell at all.”

“Yep,” 57999 sits down on the bank, looking around and catching its breath, “Sometimes you can even see small floaters in it.”

57999 immediately backs out of the water, narrowing its eyes at the stream in suspicion.

“And you’re suuure that it’s safe?”

“Yes,” replies Gloom instead, taking her saddlebag off and throwing it on the grass. A moment later, she walks into the stream and lies down on her back, “This. Is. Bliss.”

After trotting for four hours followed by baking in the summer sun as they walked along the forest’s edge, the cool yet not cold water finally washing off the sweat from her misjudged use of a winter sleeping bag is exactly what she needed. Now she can finally start her day properly, at about three o’clock in the afternoon. It’s not perfect without soap, but rubbing the salt out of her mane and coat still feels wonderful.

As for the drones, Gloom isn’t their main focus for once because 99200 notices 57999 picking up a grasshopper and watching it crawl over its hoof.

“Caaareful, there may be more,” says the explorer, looking around.

57999 gives the other drone its usual, warm smile, lowers its foreleg to the ground, and lets the grasshopper crawl off.

“The surface is a bit different from the tunnels. Let me show you,” it stands up and nods its head sideways, beckoning 99200 to follow, “From what I’ve learned and confirmed with 65536, the critters on the surface prefer to run from bigger things. 65536 said it’s because there’s much more stuff to eat so creatures learned over time that it’s good to only hunt what’s safe. Plus, there are a crazy amount of spooky-looking things up here that just eat grass and plants and run away even from me.”

“Also, a lot of things that definitely don’t,” comments 99200, pointing to 57999’s ruined carapace.

“Surprisingly, that’s always been just the sticky biters, but they’re certainly making up for most other things avoiding me,” 57999 nods and stops by a tree with a couple low-hanging branches that are wrapped in spider webs, “But watch,” it slowly raises the branches, revealing small spiders that skitter deeper into the dark area.

“That’s a baaad idea, buddy,” 99200 shakes its head immediately, lowering itself so that it can immediately bolt back to the stream.

57999’s hoof unfolds into a set of claws without shapeshifting, and it scoops a single spider from the bunch into its new ‘palm’, presenting it to the visibly paralyzed explorer who has only one thought running through its mind:

Now it’s gonna bite 57999 and call the others to swarm it. We’ll pop the emergency cocoon and then I’ll have to carry it to the stream where we wash them off, I hope. We have no fire-

“Huh?” its train of thought crashes when 57999 lowers the spider back to the branches and the ‘monster’ immediately scuttles off into safety.

“You know what Miss Gloom feels like to us in the tunnels - that’s what we feel like to most things up here,” says the gardener, “Do you want to see more?”

“I believe you, but I really don’t need to see more webby spinners, small or otherwise,” 99200 shudders, “I get enough of the bad ones whenever I leave the HSC.”

“How about a flapper then?”

“Oookay?” agrees 99200 with hesitation.

57999 spits out a small goop chip, only thin enough to turn the sunlight green when looking through it. It looks up next and lets out a strange, throaty but high-pitched sound which makes 99200 even more alert.

What’s worse in the mind of the explorer? An answer comes from above followed by an approaching flapping of wings.

99200 immediately dives to the ground but nothing comes after it. Instead, when it hears 57999’s quiet snickering mirrored by weird, raspy croaking, it looks up again.

A black bird as large as a drone head is perched on 57999’s back, watching the explorer with small, beady eyes portraying a level of intelligence it had never seen before in a ‘flapper’. When 57999 offers it the green goop chip, it takes it with its long and sharp beak which to the explorer looks dangerously chitin-cracking and flesh-tearing, and simply keeps watching and making cooing noises while 57999 strokes its small head with a claw. When the drone withdraws its hoof, the black bird takes into the air and flies into the canopy.

“That’s crazy,” says 99200 in a shaky voice. Before it can say anything else, though, the flapper returns and lands back on 57999, completely unbothered that the drone is slowly walking back to the stream. 99200 follows, albeit while constantly watching the bird.

Gloom is still busy washing up, but shoots them a look followed by an impressed whistle.

“You got yourself a pet raven, 57999?” she calls out loudly enough for the drones to hear but not too loud to avoid scaring the bird, “They’re some of the smartest birds there are, so they’d know a good thing.”

“It’s like us - black and really likes shinies. That’s how I met one here in the first place - a shiny fell out of my hole when I tripped around here and it brought it back to me. I let the flapper keep it and now it sometimes flies by when I visit the poppy patch. I noticed it watching us from above, but I think it wasn’t sure about you, Miss Gloom.”

“Don’t worry about me, I’m not going to try and pet it. It may be smart but having to heal a pecked out chunk of flesh here isn’t a risk I’m willing to take.”

“How about you, 99200?” 57999 asks the explorer, “Just do what I did.”

99200 shuffles over and reaches out with its unfolded hoof -a common transformation used by drones these days for manipulating objects- and pets the raven with utmost care. As if understanding the drone’s worry, the bird flaps its wings and hops over onto 99200’s back.

“Meep meep meep meeeeep!” the drone freezes and closes its eyes. Its carapace is hard, it might protect it, but its open eyes are easy prey.

“Calm down, 99200, and breathe,” says 57999, ignoring Gloom’s burst of snickering, and puts its hoof on the explorer’s head, “Give the raven flapper a piece of goop. A thin one so that it reflects the sun.”

Forcing itself to stop shaking and following 57999’s instructions, 99200 gives the raven a freshly-made chip. The bird examines it, takes it, and flies away, finally letting the drone breathe a sigh of relief. It stays silent for a moment before looking at 57999 and saying:

“This is why you guys are amazing.”

“Huh? Who guys?” 57999 tilts its head, puzzled.

“You, you veterans. You guys have a direction and a vision and the courage to just go for it. You want your greenhouse and you stay there even when you don’t have to. You defended it with your life multiple times. You actually fought when you could have run!”

“Eh,” 57999 scratches its head, “That was more so that the guys helping me at the time could escape, not really for the greenhouse.”

“And 10k? It leads everyone and figures out new useful transformations it doesn’t even use for its work,” 99200 just keeps going, its voice growing more intense, “Smiley keeps travelling all over the world to find stories and bring them back home or to tell ponies about us. 65536 is a legend, and 20100 is barely in the hive these days because it’s always on missions from the Queen herself and has its own high rank protection everywhere,” it slumps back, “And we’re just here… digging and playing Scufflestick. I feel like we’re not moving forward, not getting better.”

“Hey, don’t badmouth digging,” 57999 chuckles and goes silent for a while, “That’s all of us left, isn’t it? Sometimes I forget…” it pauses, “I shouldn’t be forgetting, but the old thinky ball isn’t doing that great,” its soft smile returns, “But maybe that’s not such a bad thing. You’re the one overthinking stuff and worried because of it. I just do my work so that I get enough love and the Queen lets me do what makes me happy afterwards, like we’ve always done, and that’s all I need - something that lets me be, well, me,” it shrugs, “You and your whole exploring thing are the same. You gathering all the webs, rumbler scales, and exploring is making as much of a difference as we did. Holes, 99856 and 99111 have done so much more than me in half of their lives,” patting the thinking explorer’s head, it stands back up, “Everyone is moving at their own pace, some slower and some faster. The important thing is that they keep moving. We’re not competing for survival on scraps of love like under the old rules, but if we want to build something that lasts, we need to work together, each one of us adding some tiny bit that only we can until we can stand on our own with or without the high ranks. That was what 36658 wanted most of all.”

Gloom hasn’t been listening, using the drones’ conversation only as a comfortable background noise, and looks up when they go silent and their chatter doesn’t pick up again.

“Yo, guys! Are you sure you don’t want to join me? The water is great,” she calls out.

“What are you doing, anyway?” asks 99200 while trotting to the stream, which reminds Gloom that the drones don’t exactly understand the concept of washing up.

“That’s called washy time, right?” once again, 57999 surprises everyone with its ‘wisdom’. When Gloom nods, it adds as an explanation for the other drone, “We had to do this during shippy time. Even if we burn off the dirt that gathers on us by shapeshifting, it still leaves this fine powder that can make trails everywhere. Ponies don’t like that,” it takes its bracers off, puts them next to Gloom’s saddlebag, and shuffles into the stream where it sits down downstream from the bat pony who says a silent prayer for that when she notices the black trail which the flowing water is leaving behind the drone, “I think I like the really hot water more, though.”

“Saaaame,” agrees Gloom, “But I guess I’ll have to wait for that until I get back home to Canterlot.”

“Hmmm,” 99200 takes its cloak off and joins them, “We do have plenty of black-crunchy to heat water like we do for the Queen during freezy time, we just don’t have a good way to get the water to the HSC. This place is way too far.”

“Didn’t you say you knew about an underground stream?” asks Gloom, “Even stale water from weird smelling pools would be okay boiled and filtered, but I’d rather stick to running water. Speaking of - I doubt you can make some version of soap, right?”

“99111 can make bubble bricks, but it left with 10k and 99380, so no,” 57999 shakes its head.

“Oh well,” Gloom shrugs, rubs her chest, and wakes her bruise up, “Ow!” she winces, “I guess I’ve been messing around for long enough, and I’m getting cold. How about we head back?”

“Sure,” 57999 nods, “99200, can you fill the bucket, please?”

“On it!”

***

Back in the greenhouse, Gloom desperately tries to ignore the throwing up sounds of 57999 making “fresh” healing goop. The only thing that keeps her own stomach in check is the knowledge that drone resin isn’t some kind of food residue or vomit, it really just is a completely different material built from bottom up thanks to their internal instinctive shapeshifting. In fewer words - don’tthinkaboutitdon’tthinkaboutitdon’tthinkaboutit.

When the noises stop and Gloom dares to look towards the table in the back, 57999 is already approaching with a hoof-sized ball of green jelly.

“Just rub it where it hurts and anywhere you think might be a problem - you know how you ponies work the best,” it says.

Gloom nods and has to grit her teeth again when she feels how warm the ball is, but what saves her is that it smells of mint and not anything digested.

The skin under her coat goes numb fairly quickly including her hooves, but the pain goes away with it, so she keeps rubbing until only the slick hair of her coat remains. However, when she tries to stand up, her head spins a little and she has to sit down again.

“Hey, 57999, are you sure you made the weak version?” she asks, having to force herself to speak, “This feels a bit… strong.”

“Hmm? Yes, definitely. I even drank water before we left. I barely feel this,” it rubs the remains on its forelegs into a random dent in its carapace.

As Gloom watches the drone gesticulating, she realizes something:

“Wait, you rub it on your chitin and it still gets to your insides too?”

57999 nods, unsure where the questioning is going.

“Ohhh damn…” Gloom takes a deep breath and lies down on the floor, “Skin’s gonna absorb a lot more. I just gotta… gotta lie down… a bit.”

She passes out.

Author's Note

Prepping DnD session for friends this week, not sure if I'll write next chapter in time for next Monday.

14-1: Strange, new faces.

“10k, 99111, you gotta see this!” 99380’s voice that sounded excited before while describing all the shinies it could see from the high ground takes on a whole new pitch of amazement as it rings in the heads of the other two.

While 99380 is still sitting on the roof of the train station, trying to sense Smiley and dutifully watching the sporadic movement of ponies who aren’t at work at this time of day, 10k and 99111 are inside, the former aimlessly walking around and reading every bit of writing on a sign or a booth in order to distract itself from catastrophizing Smiley’s unplanned absence, and the latter lying on cargo platform where a train is being unloaded and examining the “delicate” construction of its undercarriage, completely unaware of a crystal earth pony watching its every move with suspicion. Crystal Empire might be a theoretical paradise for changelings, but how many really live there and what the crystal ponies’ experience with them is the drones have no idea.

“Is it Smiley?” asks 10k without any real hope.

“No, but you still gotta see this!”

“Huh…” 10k shrugs and heads off to the station’s exit where it catches up with 99111 and then back into the blinding sunlight and its crystal refractions. 99380 is already under the short stairs, waiting for them and visibly twitching with excitement, “What’s up?”

“Theretheretheretherethere!” it points down the long street.

“What the holes?” 10k tilts its head.

“That’s a- whaaa?” 99111 joins it, furrowing its brows in confusion.

What their eyes see is an approaching pitch black drone figure sharply contrasting with crystal ponies -WHOM THE DRONES KNOW THEY AREN’T ALLOWED TO POKE WITHOUT ASKING FIRST NO MATTER HOW MUCH THEY WANT TO!- going about their day. What their sense for love feels, however, is that the drone is practically glowing with love like a lighthouse. If all the ambient love in this place was bright, white light, the drone would be a moving prism making it scatter everywhere in a living corona of colors.

“That’s definitely not Smiley. Is that a drone? I can’t sense its hive link,” asks 10k in a dazed tone.

“I can,” says 99380, proving once again it’s hive mind specialization, “but it’s completely closed up. It’s like when the Queen visits HSC, pretending to be a drone, to check up on us.”

“Wait, what?” 10k and 99111 look at 99380 as one.

“Sorry, I wasn’t supposed to ever talk about that,” 99380’s ears droop, “I can’t sense her when she does it but I know it’s her when I see her. And I’m not allowed to talk about it anymore, I already said too much!” 99380 pouts defiantly.

“Alright,” 10k shrugs, “I guess it makes sense for her to keep an eye on us, although I thought that was what 156 was doing whenever she came to play Scufflestick.”

“The Queen plays Scufflestick too and that’s the last thing I’m going to say, I promise!” 99380 clamps its hooves over its mouth, “Mhmhmhm!”

“Got it,” 10k nods and resumes observing the strange changeling casually trotting their way, “Do you think it’s some high rank pretending to be a drone?”

“Nnnnnooooo…” says 99380 very slowly, unblocking its mouth, “Even the Queen’s love never felt like that.”

The drone finally gets close enough, notices them watching, waves its hoof, and picks up the pace. Now that it’s more than a dot in the distance, the hive trio can make out its details. First - it’s taller than they are, not by much but noticeably, although its overall build is that of the most default of default drones. While this doesn’t tell anything to 99380 and 99111, an old, painful memory surfaces in 10k’s mind.

It looks like Smiley before she changed the frame of her body to look more female… and added the stripes. Is it a Silent, an ex-Silent, or is it just a coincidence?

The second major difference becomes visible when the drone gets closer, and this time the first one who puts two and two together is 99111. There are strings of glowing purple symbols carved into the drone’s carapace around its neck and fetlocks, as well as around the upper and lower parts of its barrel connected by another string following where a spine would be. Being the one who had used the smart box the most while it still worked, 99111 recognizes some of the symbols as the alphabet in which the smart box knowledge was stored. 10k catches on quickly too, pondering if there’s a connection but concluding nothing in the few seconds it has before the drone stops in front of them with a wide, happy smile which to the trio looks entirely genuine.

“Gasp!” 99380 points at the string of runes around the drone’s barrel, finally catching on too, “Familiar scribbles!”

“Eeeee!” the drone’s reaction immediately dispels any doubts that it is, in fact, a drone, “Omigosh, that’s such a creative name for a pony transformation! Can I use it?”

“Sure,” 99380 nods.

“Yaaaaay!” the strange drone immediately pulls 99380 into an excited hug. When it withdraws a moment later. 10k can’t help noticing a brief look of extreme confusion on 99380’s face.

“Is anything wrong?”

“N-No,” replies 99380, “It’s… I… uhh…”

“Umm, who are you?” asks the drone leader, “You’re not a hive drone, right?”

“I am? Technically,” the drone scratches its head nervously, “My name’s Three!”

“Whoah!” all members of the trio back off a step and 10k asks, “That’s, uhh, your rank?”

I mean, that would explain the crazy amount of love just pouring off of it.

“Yep!” Three nods before waving its hoof defensively as if he said something wrong, “Well, I mean, my rank when I was in Queen Chrysalis’ hive had so many numbers that all I can recall is that there was a three somewhere in it,” Three chuckles, “So much has happened since then that I forget stuff.”

“You’re an old rules drone like me! I’m 10k, the current High Score,” it clicks to 10k, “How did you survive the invasion? Where did you land? How do you have so much love? What’s with the purple scribbles? Why do you feel so different?” the drone leader has to slow down when it realizes it’s rambling and tearing up, and finishes with the most important question, “Do you know any other drones who survived?

“That’s a looong story,” Three looks around, “I was hoping to talk about it while Smiley and I showed you around the Crystal Empire.”

“You know Smiley?”

“Everyone knows Smiley!” Three nods, “She left me a message to meet you here so that we could show you a couple important things on your first day. I was worried that you’d be gone already because I was running late.”

“I’m a bit worried…” admits 10k.

“I don’t think there’s a reason to be,” Three shakes his head, “There’s love everywhere in the Crystal Empire so she can’t go hungry and the crystal ponies don’t know much about changelings but they’re really nice. These days, there are a bunch of other ponies from all over Equestria around for some reason who can be a bit mean to us, but Prince Shiny and Miss Candy always make it very clear to everyone that changelings are welcome because we have all the food we want and don’t need to drain ponies. I think Smiley just found something interesting to write about and stopped to take notes.”

“Do we just wait here, then?” asks 10k.

“You can, but that would be a waste of time. The Crystal Empire is huge and walking around takes a lot of time,” Three shakes his head, “From what Smiley told me, you only have a couple days and there’s way too much to see. I know what Smiley wanted to show you first and where you were supposed to get accommodated, so we can start with that. If she doesn’t find you here she’ll know where to look for you.”

“I guess, but we should still cover our bases,” 10k looks at its companions, “I can wait here if you guys want to see more of this place first.”

“I really really want to see more of this place, but I have the best chance to detect Smiley,” 99380 sighs.

“Don’t worry,” 99111 waves its hoof dismissively, “I’ll stay here. She’s bound to look around and I’ll be able to sense her. Besides, I wanted to check the big cargo train up close. Those wheels in those slidy rail thingies are giving me some ideas about how we could clear up unstable caves back home.”

“Then it’s decided,” 10k nods, “Let’s go.”

“In case Smiley gets delayed even more and you have to find your way around,” Three points down the street he arrived, “ask anypony you can see for the Crystal Hear needle- wait!” he pauses, “There’s a tourist kiosk inside. Gimme a second.”

He rushes off into the station.

“I must admit I’m really nervous,” says 10k, watching the entrance, “Are you?”

“Oh deeefinitely, but there’s so much to explore I don’t have time to think about it,” says 99111, pointing at a street lamp, “See that glowing thingy? The inside looks like it’s made from fresh glowgoop, but it’s not. Everywhere you look, there’s something weird and neat.”

“And you, 99380?”

“I’m still wondering why I’m feeling entirely different since Three hugged me,” admits the drone in a strangely thoughtful tone, “It’s as if… as if the whole inside of my head was in one place - right here and now, but also as if I knew all the other stuff at the same time but it was in the back of my head. Is that how you smart drones feel all the time - not scattered and in pieces?” it shakes its head, “I’m not being helpful, am I?”

“As long as it means that you’re feeling better,” 10k shoots it a tired smile, the crushing weight of leadership and decision-making saddling its back once more.

Three returns with three small and colorful paper packages which are folded in a similar way the usual issue of Smiley’s Scribbles is, only much thicker, and gives each drone one.

“These are pony maps, in case you need to find your way around. Can you read them?” asks Three, giving each drone a folded copy.

10k unfolds the first layer, looks at it, and realizes it has zero clue what any of the shapes and writing means with the exception of “street”.

“This is a map? It looks nothing like our hive mind map,” it shakes its head as the cold feeling of its surroundings being entirely alien breaks its already fragile calm, “Sorry, I don’t understand the pictures and scribbles at all.”

“Alright then!” Three’s smile doesn’t disappear for even a moment, “We’re near an easy to see landmark, so let’s sit down on that bench and I’ll show you how to use these before we split up. Who knows? Maybe Smiley will show up in the meantime.”

***

99766 is walking through the endless web of tunnels that is the changeling hive, quietly humming to itself. It’s been a good worky time. It cleared out a small tunnel that redirected part of the stream of hot-glowy and lowered its level in other places, which will let drones dig deeper in the future. Its head is still spinning a bit due to how difficult it was to breathe down there but, from its experience, that’s going to wear off before it reaches HSC. It’s only mildly scorched thanks to all the cooling goop invented by 99856 using 57999’s flowers and provided wide scale by 99526 to drones digging around hot-glowy, and it even found a clear and sparkly shiny, and those are super rare!

Imma trade it for 57999’s stick that bends all the way and then I’m gonna goop it and throw it at something or someone! And if it sticks on them then… hey, that sounds like a fun, new game! Imma call it “hitting stuff with circles game”.

The drone stops humming.

Eh, it’s a work in progress.

Thinking of all the use for a stick that bends into a full circle, the drone almost misses a moment's brief reflection of its teal eyes off of something in the empty, otherwise pitch black tunnel. It doesn’t matter, though, because even if it caught the strange, teal glint hovering in mid-air, it wouldn’t be able to react in time.

It only feels an impact that sweeps it upwards off of its hooves and something squeezes it against the smooth wall of a core tunnel. 99766 is so shocked that, for a moment, it forgets to pop an emergency cocoon and just looks down instead at what’s holding it by its barrel. The only thing it can see is still the reflection of its eyes off of something up close, and…

…a set of strange but familiar, five, sharp, black long claws, four forming a palm pressing it against the wall and one immobilizing its right foreleg by being pushed through a hole in it.

It raises its left foreleg to dig whatever is holding it off-

At least it tries to.

In the fraction of a second it takes for its muscles to move, a thicker, sharp, jagged and segmented black tail forms out of the seemingly living darkness and spears the leg conveniently through a hole as well.

Drones are, when in danger, simple creatures. The rules are simple - don’t think (too much), flee (in a safe direction), use 99856’s emergency cocoon if running away is impossible. The only reason why 99766 isn’t encased in an extremely hard, green ball right now is that, despite being immobilized, it hasn’t recognized any of the usual symptoms of a problem. No evil buzzing, hungry roaring, skittering, or one of dozens of others. It simply got involuntarily moved and can’t move much. Right now, instincts are extremely confused and the mind is busy processing.

“Where is the Silversmith storage device?” growls a low voice coming from right in front of its muzzle without any visual input.

“Idunnowozzat!” peeps the drone.

The pressure on its barrel tightens. Stinging spikes of pain remaining from its burns quickly make it realize that so far it was not that bad.

“The thing you call ‘smart box’,” adds the voice, and the faint shape of a muzzle forms in the darkness, full of sharp teeth and prominent fangs.

“Th- th- th- that’s in the cave!” 99766’s pitch heightens.

CRUNCHING ALERT! CRUNCHING ALERT!

“This entire place is hundreds of thousands of pony lengths of twisted caves!” frustration creeps into the growling voice, “WHICH ONE?!”

“The one- the one where we go after work!”

“Where is it?” the grip around the drone’s barrel grows genuinely painful.

”EEEEP! I CAN'T THINK WHEN I’M SCARED AND POKED THROUGH BY ANGRY DARKNESS!” 99766 completely loses self-control and breaks into tears while twisting around.

It kicks its hind leg up and the invisible thing back off a tiny bit, but the drone isn’t aiming at anything other than itself, namely at a small crack in its belly containing a small, green capsule, which it hits with its knee. It could also activate it with a burst of love but… thoughts aren’t working right now.

*Hiss!*

A burst of green foam spurts out of all cracks in the drone’s carapace. Whatever was holding the drone vanishes entirely, making the rapidly hardening cocoon forming around it drop onto the floor.

Emergency cocoons have saved countless drones since their invention. A framework of special reactive resin lining the drone’s carapace designed to be set off and rapidly expand into a cocoon fueled by almost all of the user’s love while forcing them into hibernation and thus only barely needing to breathe or perform any other bodily functions. The final function is to send out a powerful hive mind signal containing the drone’s location and the last moment of the drone’s consciousness, based on which the response team can prepare their equipment adequately. Due to the requirements for setting one up being a combination of mental preparation and under-carapace access, it’s the most time-consuming drone “technology” to make and requires the cooperation of several drones.

Despite all that, the last thing 99766 sees is one of the claws which previously held it pressing against the cocoon and thin cracks spreading from the point of impact.

Author's Note

On a barely related note, I'm uploading "An Exercise In Management" to AO3 and while rereading some chapters yesterday I actually got into reading them and the whole escape from Canterlot sequence made me wibble. I may have gotten better in terms of writing clarity but GODDAMN...! I don't know if it's just the couple years difference and me forgetting the scenes or if I just had that much more soul. Depressing.

14-2: Strange, new faces

99158 and 99112 drop down through the final narrow, vertical shaft, reaching 99766’s last known location, or at least the correct level. The network of shortcuts accessible only to the response team has allowed them to descend all the way within three minutes, but they both know that they might be way too late already. Normally, emergency cocoons are the final resort when the drone is fleeing and can’t escape, and while the escape is still happening, the response team is already on the way due to a timely hive mind alert from the potential victim.

Three minutes can be way too long to get to someone if the alarm comes from using the cocoon itself. What’s worse this time - neither of the response drones have any idea what they’re up against. Still, they’re equipped with boomies and melties that deterred even the Hey-ing Waver, so the main concern is 99766’s survival.

99158 is galloping ahead and thus spots the green cocoon lying on the floor first.

“Weapons ready!” it mentally calls out. In response, a hole in 99112’s foreleg that’s near the fetlock widens enough so that the drone can just swing its hoof and the payload will fly out.

It stops by the cocoon, eyes narrowed into the darkness ahead, listening for anything, and cursing its beating heart, the blood rushing in its ears, and its quickened breathing for making things more difficult.

Both response drones have seen the final moment of 99766’s pre-cocooning experience, so they don’t waste any time guessing if using the emergency cocoon could have been an accident like in the early days after its invention when most of their job was hauling green blobs from random spots in the hive whenever a drone got spooked by literally anything, sometimes even when unrelated drones got spooked by a hive mind signal of a drone actually in danger.

“I’ll carry 99766, you cover my back,” orders 99158, loading the cocoon onto itself. The two are so tightly mentally connected that 99112 doesn’t even need to acknowledge the command.

“HSC? Since we have no clue what we’re up against, we might need some of 99856’s experimental stuff,” asks 99112 as it walks past 99158, ready to throw.

“No, GC is much closer and better fortified. I’ll feel better someplace we can lock and barricade ourselves in.”

Not a single spoken word was exchanged during the pickup, much to the disappointment of the ‘absolutely nothing inside the tunnel’ that begins silently following the retreating drones.

***

”You said you were the High Score, 10k, right?” asks Three, taking a short break from telling the duo following a step behind him about the Crystal Empire.

10k snaps out of observing the crystal buildings on the seemingly endless avenue and doing its best to not think about reasons why Smiley wouldn’t have made it to the meeting. They’ve been walking at a brisk pace for over an hour and, had Smiley made it to the train station and met with 99111 who stayed there, those two should have caught up.

“Hm? Yes, I am- I mean I did.”

“And that k means a thousand, right?”

“Yes, it’s supposed to be a pony thing,” 10k nods.

“I don’t recall much from the hive, boss said I was one of the last drones hatched before everyone left for the invasion, but wasn’t there a drone ranked nine-something?” when 10k sighs, Three stops and turns to face it, “I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”

“No, you didn’t. I am the current High Score. 9999 sacrificed itself to bring us everything we have today, so despite the Queen wanting to make my rank higher, I refused. The idea to add ‘k’ instead of using a full number came from 65536. 65536 is a-”

“I know 65536!” Three beams, “I visit it in Canterlot sometimes when Gem takes me there.”

“Gem…” 10k furrows its brows, “Do you mean Miss Gem? The one 65536 talks about? The changeling who looks like a zebra who taught Smiley how to write?”

“Yeah, Gem is my sister! I mean- boss’ daughter. Her rank in our hive is Four!”

They both stop talking and stare at each other, Three with a huge smile and 10k with a puzzled expression.

“Your hive?” asks 10k after a while of staring.

“Not allowed to talk about it!” Three pauses before adding, “But yes.”

“Are you telling me that there’s a different hive of changelings? One with other drones?”

“I’m definitely not telling you that,” Three winks, “But yes.”

“Whoa!” 10k’s jaw drops, “Any other old drones? Does the Queen know about you?”

“Nope, just me. And the boss, but he doesn’t count as a drone anymore. He got promoted to the boss, but he can’t dig anymore. I wouldn’t take the deal, but he didn’t have much of a choice,” Three frowns, if only for a moment, “And neither did I, really. As for the second question - Queen Chrysalis knows about us, buuut last time she tried to send an infiltrator, Miss 156, to check up on us, Miss One caught her here in the Crystal Empire and told her that she’ll send anyone she catches snooping around home in a tiny box,” Three pouts and looks at the sky, “I never really understood that one. I like tiny boxes, they’re cozy. Aaanyway, no one ever came afterwards.”

“You know 65536 and Miss Gem…” 10k shakes its head in disbelief, “Why didn’t 65536 ever say anything about any other hive? It knows how happy all of us would be to hear that there are drones doing well somewhere outside the hive- our hive, I mean.”

“It’s complicated,” uncharacteristically, Three sighs before immediately perking up with a confused expression, “Wait! It’s not anymore. Boss wanted us to stay hidden from everyone, but since Queen Chrysalis knows about us, 65536 knows about us, Smiley is out and about and knows me… I gotta ask Miss One again if I could write an article for the Scribbles! I gots new arguments! EEEEEEEE!” now beaming from ear to ear, Three pulls 10k into a bear hug.

And yet, it’s not crushing.

10k can’t explain it, but it instantly understands why 99380 looked so confused when Three hugged it earlier. Like a hot cocoa in freezing winter or a cold soda on a blazing summer day, the love inside 10k spreads from its core towards its stubby little horn and to the tips of its hooves. For a moment, it reminds it of the now ancient memory of a pink shockwave burning its love from the inside and blasting it out of Canterlot in its intensity, just… the exact opposite.

When Three breaks the hug, 10k doesn’t just feel full -all three visiting drones have been brimming with love even before disembarking from the train- it feels rejuvenated. Puzzled, it raises its foreleg and almost swallows its tongue. The faint white scars left all over its carapace from the damage it sustained while escaping the island Silversmith facility a full decade ago are entirely gone, replaced by smooth, strong, and sturdy chitin.

“What? How?” it whispers.

Three just shrugs and pokes 10k’s chest.

“Yeeeah, that sometimes happens when I hug others. It works on ponies too!” it happily bounces up and down, “There’s this place called the hospital where ponies who feel really bad are and they’re always happy when I visit. They like me in a place called cancer ward the most. I’m not sure what that’s about, but ponies there are always tired and sometimes they don’t even have their coats so they need all the hugs and let me sleep with them in their beds too. The staff always says they get better afterwards!”

“Is your special talent healing?” asks 10k, its mind racing a mile a minute.

I NEED TO INVITE THREE TO MEET 57999!

Even the Queen would understand. Or maybe we could have 57999 meet Three in Canterlot, if the hive wouldn’t work.

This. Must. Happen.

“I don’t think so,” Three shrugs, “I don’t really do anything special. Stuff just happens.”

“Does your goop have any special properties?”

“It’s green, squishy, and I can make it glow. Does that count?”

“No, we all can do that. In my experience, our goop changes in a special way if we eat something, but it can be anything so it’s super difficult to find what to eat. For example, 99526 starts producing more goop when it eats anything, waaay more than it ate or had inside it originally.”

“Wooow, boss never said anything about that. I got nothing,” Three shakes his head, “Does that mean I should start eating more pony stuff?”

“Probably, or at least taste a variety of things,” 10k points at the glowing, purple strings of runes on Three’s carapace, “I thought these had something to do with your special talent.”

“Completely unrelated,” Three shakes his head, “I think these keep me alive. I kinda died before and boss made me this new body. The glowy thingies keep the ‘me’ part inside the ‘body’ part.”

“Whoah!” 99380’s eyes go wide, “We could use that so much. Is there a way your boss or you could teach us how to make the body?”

“I’d have to ask,” Three shrugs, “I was kinda dead when boss did it, but there was this alicorn lady who shoved me into the body. But maybe he got better since then. Boss can do anything if he puts his mind to it!”

“Who’s this boss you're talking about anyway? Some high rank?” asks 10k, glancing into the distance where the seemingly endless avenue finally opens into a huge plaza.

For an old rules drone like me, he seems to genuinely love this high rank. I respect the current high ranks, especially the Queen, because they’re trying to change things and slowly succeeding. I even like 156 and miss 387 but Three’s tone is on a completely different level.

“Boss? A high rank?” Three laughs before stopping abruptly, “Waaaaait… I guess he is now, but he started as a drone just like me. Well, smarter than me. A lot of stuff happened and now he’s a proper King - with all the height, love storage, laser shooting, hive linking.”

“High Score…” 99380 breathes out, earning a slow, wide-eyed, but otherwise completely unreadable look from 10k.

“Huh, you’re right!” Three grins at 99380, “I think he’ll find it funny, but we don’t fight for rank or anything. For us, it’s more of a name. Just me being Three for real - can you imagine?” he laughs, waving his hoof dismissively, “I’d have to be all evil, punchy, have sharp teeth, and skulk around,” he suddenly gasps, “And boss would have to be like old Miss One! He he, that would be funny.”

Three gets lost in his own world for a moment while leading the duo towards the plaza. Neither of the hive drones mind a break in the conversation, 99380 lost once again in wonder of the shiny buildings, and 10k drafting up plans and arguments on how to have 57999 and Three meet.

I won’t lose another one!

Several minutes later, the trio stops under a needle-like spire in the center of the plaza supported by three pillars. In the middle of the open area directly under the spire sit a sharp, crystal stalagmite pointing up and a stalactite pointing down. Between them hovers a heart made of crystal, lazily spinning around. The drones have no clue what it is, but they can sense that it is the source of the love permeating the whole Empire. Three clears his throat, points at it, and say loudly and ceremoniously:

“Behold - the food machine!”

14-3: Strange, new faces

“GOT THE LAST ONE!” calls out 99200, grabbing the fifth and, according to what Miss Gloom told it about the creature, final Hey-ing Waver’s eye. This purple crystal was diabolically hidden, stuck in an uneven ridge on the ceiling with barely its tip peeking out. How and, most importantly, when the Hey-ing Waver could have set it up there is beyond the explorer, but it can’t ask Gloom due to having left her asleep in the greenhouse hours earlier, and a quick check-up with 57999 reveals that she’s still out cold. Despite the drones’ near-perfect night vision, the search for such deviously hidden, small objects took everyone gathered in the High Score Cavern the entire breaky time, but now it’s time to figure out what to do with the crystals and the decision rests on the shoulders of the acting drone leader.

“Do we just break them?” asks 99856 as one of the most senior drones.

“They look pretty,” comments someone else, “Like normal shinies, but more angular, and it looks as if there are lights inside.”

“Hmmm,” 99200 examines all five presented to it, “I wouldn’t mind just giving them away. The problem is that Miss Gloom said the Hey-ing Waver can watch us through them at any time.”

“Eep!” a drone backpedals through the crowd of drones surrounding the explorer.

The response team is the closest thing which the drones have to a security detail, so 99200 contacts 99158 in the Guide’s Cavern through the hive mind.

“We found the eyes. Any ideas on what to do with them?”

“Besides just breaking them?” asks 99158, “I dunno, the usual? Did anyone try to eat them already? What did the smart guys say, can they use it for anything? I’d definitely keep at least one hidden away where it can’t see anything for when 99111 and 10k return from the Crystal Empire. Maybe we could keep the eyes in an empty, enclosed hole and have a special place where the guys can use them up for experiments.”

“Good idea, thanks! How are things down there?”

“99766 woke up and told us all the details it could remember. It doesn’t look like we were followed, but we can’t be sure, whatever attacked it was completely invisible until up close. The best I can say is that it’s not inside here with us, no drones who came afterwards noticed anything, and no one who is supposed to be here is missing.”

“So… it’s all good?” asks 99200, hoping against hope.

“For now. Is Miss Gloom around? I’d like to ask her something.”

“No, she got extra sleepy after 57999’s healing goop. Why?”

“She was asking about an invisible gribbler in Scufflestick earlier. It makes me wonder if she met the thing too.”

“Oh goop!” 99200’s ears perk up, “She asked me too! We definitely have to talk about it when she returns here. Speaking of, are you coming back tonight?”

“No. The thing asked about the Smart Box. If it followed us here, I don’t want to lead it to the HSC. 99112 and I will return when worky time starts and everyone scatters in all directions. We didn’t use up any of our weapons, so we don’t need to go and restock.”

“Gotcha! Have a safe night, 99158.”

“You too, 99200.”

Mentally back in the HSC, the explorer jingles the crystals in its hoof, still unsure what to do with them. 99158 was right, though - there are smarter drones for this job.

“Hey, 99856, take one and try some stuff with it, okay? Just keep it in… I dunno, the black-crunchy storage when you’re not using it? You know what? Take two more and keep them in the storage for 10k and 99111.”

“Huh, yeah, not a bad idea,” the chemist nods and takes three crystals.

“99450, can you try some magic scribbles with it?” 99200 calls out the next drone who pushes through the curious crowd.

“Umm, sure? I can still do just the heating one, but I can do it right here,” 99450’s hoof unfolds, and it quickly inscribes a small symbol into the side of the crystal.

“Wait, not h-” 99200’s eyes go wide.

“Uh oh,” 99450 says the worst thing anyone experimenting with anything dangerous can say as the crystal shakes, starts rapidly heating up, and a small arc of lightning zaps its chitin, “DUUUUUCK!”

It throws the crystal over the heads of the crowd as far as it can while most drones dive to the ground.

Most drones.

“Quack?” says someone new who rolled the dice on hive mind knowledge about what might be happening and came up short. A sharp sound of shattering glass louder than it has any right to be pierces the air, and the surprised drone who didn’t get down immediately finds purple shards embedded deep in the chitin of its barrel and face, all thankfully missing its eyes and any soft tissue. It looks down, confused, “Umm, ow?”

“Ooookay…” 99200 breathes a sigh of relief as everyone starts getting back up, “99450, I’ll give you the last one, but try it IN YOUR WORKSHOP!”

“Yeeeeah,” 99450 says slowly, grabbing the crystal with a shaky hoof, “In retry-specks, that’s a way safer idea.”

Seeing that the Hey-ing Waver’s eyes are mostly in good hooves, the drones gradually disperse and get ready to go to sleep. Things eventually go silent and the High Score Cavern is left dark, lit only by the faint green shimmer of the pet slimes slowly wobbling on the floor, clearing out dead chitin, dirt, and trails of coal.

With one exception.

A uniquely built slim and tall drone is silently sitting in front of the legs remaining of High Score’s destroyed statue, looking at the two sapphires arranged above the writing on the raised base. Its ears twitch when it hears thudding hoofsteps approaching the entrance, but the mental signature accompanying them signals that everything is okay. Moments later, the HSC door slides to the side, letting in another drone, a normal one this time, who approaches the statue and its silent companion.

“What brings you here, 99818?” a voice rings in the arriving drone’s head, “I thought you’d be sleeping in the evil lair tonight.”

“With how the guys lowered the hot-glowy levels recently, a new area got uncovered and I have some new changes to think through. Always remember 65536’s rule - think twice, dig once,” the villain drone whispers back, careful not to disrupt the sleep of anyone nearby, “Plus, I wanted to see if High Score’s statue was really gone. What about you? Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“I think I’m responsible for this,” the mental message is followed by one long, hoof-less foreleg pointing at the sapphires, “I saw the Hey-ing Waver first and it looked as if it was just looking around. Then I made noise, it turned around, screeched, and then… everything’s fuzzy after that. I think something hit me and threw me against the wall. When I looked up, the statue was ruined. I think I spooked the creature just like I spooked the Queen when she saw me for the first time. If I didn’t look so unusual, the statue might-”

“No. Bad thoughts, 99998!” 99818 softly smacks the other drone’s nose and, despite its tone getting heated, it keeps its voice down, “We’ve been over this! You’re not allowed to think this, not in front of the statue of a drone who, without a doubt, accepted drones of any shape, weirdness, and levels of squishiness as long as they worked hard and did their best for dronekind as a whole! Be glad that 10k isn’t here, because if it heard you talk like that about yourself, it would sigh at you and give you ‘the look’!”

Both 99818 and 99998 shudder.

“And the Queen was wrong about you too and is being needlessly mean!” 99818’s ears splay back and it looks around, withdrawing its head between its shoulder blades, “Don’t tell her I said that.”

“Even if I did, I don’t think she’d hear me because she always starts yelling at me to go away,” 99998 shrugs.

The mood again until 99818 asks:

“Do you want to help me tomorrow with the evil lair? There’s a whole bunch of black-shiny left behind after the lava flow.”

99998 shakes its head.

“I’m going trotting with 99066’s guys. They like racing with me even if they can’t compete with my springy legs.”

“But they still want you around, right?”

“Yup.”

“Then don’t overthink it! 9999 knew when to think hard and when very specifically not to. Be like 9999!”

“What happened to ‘think twice, dig once’?”

“9999 was the High Score, so its rule comes first. It’s easy - know when to think and when not to, and when you have to think, think twice!” 99818 smiles, satisfied with its summary.

99998 smiles back and briefly tenses up when 99818 hugs it without hesitation before returning the embrace.

“I gotta head back down,” adds the villain when it untangles itself from 99998’s legs, stands up, and smiles at the ‘High Score’ written on the destroyed statue’s base, “The statue is just a reminder. What it represents must be here,” it taps its chest with one foreleg and when 99998 does the same, it adds, “See you again soon, buddy!”

“I’ll come down to help you as soon as I can.”

“Excellent, my minion!”

***

The Crystal Heart stops its slow spin around the axis indicated by the crystalline stalactite and stalagmite it’s hovering between when 99380 walks over and flies up to sniff it. Unsurprisingly, the light blue crystal almost half as big as the drone itself doesn’t smell like anything, but the sheer aura of love it’s sending out in pulses is undeniable.

“We could really use something like this back home,” 10k rises on its hind legs and pokes the crystal.

“Do not try to take it with you,” Three warns it, vigorously shaking its head, “I tried to borrow it and the ponies got super angry. Once everyone stopped yelling and I said sorry a lot, they explained that it protects the Crystal Empire from freezing over and also the whole Equestria from some windy things,” Three nervously scratches his head, “I can’t recall, I was feeling awful at the time and wibbled a lot.”

“Hmmmmmm, this is making me wonder…” as 10k withdraws, it gets an absolutely groundbreaking idea, and for once it’s not related to digging. 99380 and Three patiently watch as 10k hucks out a clump of goop and with a few digging strokes it shapes it into an angular shape like the love crystals in the hive are.

“Wooow, you can make love crystals?” asks Three, clearly amazed.

“Hm?” 10k takes a break from assessing the crystal’s reaction to the Crystal Heart, “Yup, 156 taught me and a couple others responsible for research. Honestly, it’s not difficult, so I’m not sure why it isn’t common hive mind knowledge. Aaanyway…” it raises the crystal towards the Crystal Heart and tries to sense the love inside it, which proves near-impossible with the amount of love everywhere around. Dissatisfied with the result, 10k presses its tiny horn against the crystal and personally charges it until it starts shimmering, “Alright, so it doesn’t absorb much love on its own, but we can do it and create full crystals instead,” it scratches its head, “Why in all holes isn’t the Queen simply sending changelings here to make loads of crystals and then bring them home? With 20100 getting all the shinies we need, we could easily spend some of it on the train and get enough love to feed the entire hive.”

“Uhh,” Three suddenly shifts on his legs, “If you guys don’t mind, would you like to move onto the next thing I wanted to show you?”

For once, 10k is in a situation where it has enough experience - spotting an extremely nervous drone, and asks with narrowed eyes:

“Do you know something?”

“Well, I mean, boss and Miss One said some mean things about the Queen,” Three’s ears droop.

“Yeees?” 10k leans forward.

“Well, I mean, you like it in the hive now, right? 65536 said things were completely different from what boss or Miss One remembered.”

“Come on, Three. If you know something that can help us, say it.”

Three sighs.

“Miss One said that Queen Chrysalis would never teach the hive anything that would let the hive changelings survive without relying on her,” he parrots obediently.

99380 patiently watches 10k as the drone leader thinks about it. What it can’t know is that in addition to 10k’s own thoughts, it hears a new, deep voice inside its head coupled with a sudden chill around its chest where it stored the strange crystal that it found earlier.

“You need power to survive…”

10k furrows its brows at hearing the strange, hissing voice in its head, contemplating where it came from. Three interprets its lack of further questions as the situation having been settled, and returns to business with:

“So, guys, if we’re done here, can we move onto the castle? I just wanted to show you the Crystal Heart and tell you that if you’re ever hungry or hurt, you just need to come here even if the guards are around. As long as you don’t touch it, you’re allowed to sit around and rest.”

“I like the way it spins too!” adds 99380 in a chipper tone which reveals to 10k that it must have been the only drone to hear the speaker, “Whoosh… whoosh… whoosh…” the drone’s eyes and voice follows the lazy turning around of the Heart.

“Careful there!” Three pats 99380’s head, “It’s waaay too easy to get lost and keep staring. It happened to me once too - I was watching, then I blinked, and the next thing I recall is it being dark and a crystal guard poking me, asking if I was okay.”

“So much food, so much danger…” muses 99380, forcing itself to look away.

“This whole place is a trap. I always get stuck somewhere until it gets dark or until a pony pokes me,” Three nods knowingly, “Let’s go! I’ve got an idea that might save you a whole bunch of shinies,” he waves his hoof at the drones, beckoning them to follow him, “Smiley wanted you to stay at a hotel near the edge of the Empire, but if Mister Shiny and Miss Candy have a spare room at the castle, there’ll be no need to go all the way there.”

“Mister Shiny…” the name sounds familiar to 10k who ponders where it knows the name from as it follows Three leading them towards the biggest building made of crystals they’ve seen so far. Despite it being a later time of the day, they soon have to push through a crowd of non-crystal ponies until Three changes direction, leads them around the castle to a back entrance guarded by two burly Crystal Guards.

“Hi, Mister Sun Scatter! Hi, Mister Star Glitter!” Three beams at the two guards whose stern expressions thaw immediately, “Could you let us in, please? There are ponies everywhere at the Crystal Heart plaza and around the main entrance.”

“Yeah, sure,” one guard unlocks the side door and lets the trio inside a long, mostly empty corridor, “Just don’t get under the staff’s hooves for the next week or so. Everypony will be busy with the summit.”

“Okay,” Three nods, “Smiley and I are going to show the guys around the Empire, I just wanted to ask if there’s a free guest room first.”

“I doubt that,” the guard shakes his head, “Half of the summit members are already accommodated here, but you can always ask if there’s a free cupboard somewhere that even the nobles’ servants wouldn’t take. Speaking of Smiley, my wife has this homemade recipe for crystal berry pie and would love to have it printed in the Scribbles. Could you put a good word in for her?”

“Will do, both to the cupboard and the Scribbles article!” Three points down the corridor away from where they can hear the murmur of numerous distant voices blending together, “Come on, guys.”

“Mister Shiny, wouldn’t he be one of the horny ponies - white, blue mane, somewhat bulgy, teal eyes kinda like us?” 10k hazards a guess. Shiny could mean anything in this place, but having met a pony explicitly called ‘Shiny’ who accompanied a pink all-in-one pony who could easily refill drones with love whenever, the clues start falling in their place.

“Yep, do you know him?”

“We met a long time ago,” says 10k, “I wonder if he remembers us.”