“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.