Xenobiologist(s)

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.