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here, far up north, it’s so pleasantly warm that the magical protective dome usually covering the entire city-state had been retracted earlier, which makes the solar rays even brighter than usual as they refract from the variety of colored crystal buildings.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.