“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