Spike had no idea what could have caused the bright flash, but it had sent his kids into a frenzy, some trying to hone their non-sticky web into makeshift spears so they could start violently stabbing the walls in search of an invisible foe. Her children's little groups were already rearing their heads, Topax and Opal still holding onto their two followers; however, holding control over the larger group was Jasper, who seemed to be in charge of the five who had been with her as the first scavenger team. Three of her five made up the ones trying to craft the spears: Garnet, Aquamarine, and Citrine were all hard at work, sharing notes and helping the others to try and make their spears have a solid point, their attempts taking the shape of very long hammers with oddly shaped small heads instead of spears.

The Remaining Two where Morganite and Moonstone nicknamed Morgan and Moon by Spike immediately after naming them since he didn't want to break the gem naming convention, but wasn't about to add the stone to Moon's name; Morganite had gotten the same treatment since Morgan was right there in her name, they both firmly clung to the two entrances, making sure no one got in or out without being noticed.

Jasper had instructed her squad to do this within a few seconds after the flash, Opal instructing her team to keep working on the hive since Jasper had it covered, while Topaz had her crew guard the gem pile as she worked on digging out one of the old Diamond dog beds as a sort of hoard room. However, Spike figured to them it was just a fridge since the only worth they held in the gems was as the source of their mother's food.

Spike watched his children working, and as he saw them all doing their own thing, forming their plans and responding to the unknown with different variables coming up as the thing that needed to be dealt with first, he truly pondered how exactly he had made them.

His knee-jerk response had been, 'Oh, I ate a magic rock; all that leftover magic must have turned into an egg,' and thinking back on that line of thought, it made very little sense; the leftover magic might have somehow manifested as an egg or as the ability of Asexual reproduction, but it was more likely that he had just overcharged his wish and was a super magical Changeling.

He had no proof of either, but the longer he was in his new body, the more he felt it might have been the latter; surely, if changeling could change their diet to whatever, then all that crap about needing to eat love wouldn't have happened, but if the latter was the true answer, that still left him pondering where the egg had come from, and why it was fertilized.

The longer he tried to think the problem over, the less sense it made, leaving him with two possible outcomes, with either answer still leaving a huge hole of unanswered questions in their wake.

"I'm not figuring this out down here," Spike decided with a yawn; Spike knew fully well his sleepiness was not the result of a hard day but of him being bored. Gem hunting had been fun at first, but his children fighting over his attention made it hard to enjoy the hunt itself since he had to make sure none of them felt ignored. Even now, he had to make sure Jasper knew her efforts were appreciated.

Spike got to his hooves and walked over to Jasper, who was showing Garnet, Aquamarine, and Citrine that if they used rocks, they could craft the spearhead around it; Spike had instead come to help them advance a little. Citrine noticed his approach first, and her nervousness spread to the others; though Jasper was just as visibly nervous, Spike got the air that if he told them they were doing something wrong and needed to be punished, Jasper would insist the fault was her's alone.

"I can tell you have a good heart," Spike smiled at Jasper, who lit up at the praise she had received for something she hadn't even gotten to show that she would actually do, having been planning to take all the blame but not fully sure if she had the nerve to go through with it. Having been called out and praised on it cemented that she would do it for her siblings if the need arose.

Spike held out a few pieces of Topaz, which he had shared his fingers with and easily cut into the shape of a spearhead, "Topaz isn't a particularly tasty or nutritious gem, but it is a very hard gem; I'm sure you can make some fine spears if you make them using a Topaz core," Jasper handed out three of them and held onto the extras.

"Once we make sure the hive is empty, we'll turn these into spares," Jasper assured her mother. Spike patted her head, earning a jealous mutter from the others; she patted their heads, telling them to do her proud with their spear work before walking away.

"You heard Mother," Jasper said firmly, "Do well with your spears, and you may get to be held by her tonight!" the idea of being held by him while sleeping seemed to be all of his children's ultimate goal, Spike found himself feeling bad again, knowing he'd have to pick one and leave the others feeling like they'd somehow failed during the day, to make matters worse since he had no idea how the egg had been made, it was still possible he would end up spitting out another, and go from twelve to twenty-four or even more, meaning that try as he might, some children would probably end up being left out of his attention.

"No more eggs," he begged silently, "Or at the very least one more with only like two or three inside it, how's that sound? Deal?" Trying to strike a deal with nothing didn't seem to result in anything, so Spike went back to hoping he didn't spit out another egg as he inspected the old Diamond Dog bed he had set the first egg in, He turned his hands into a monstrous combination of a dragon and a mole before tearing through the wall, he did his best to make it larger while also doing his best to avoid having it cave in on top of him, the resulting room he made was barely bigger than a closet, and he couldn't stand at full height in it. Still, it would serve his purpose and be a nice nap room; if nothing else, he could easily lay down without feeling cramped.

Spike walked over to the gem pile and turned his hands back to normal. Ruby and Emerald had been watching as Topaz did her best to imitate Spike's dragon mole hands and had sped up at least a little; the two jumped upon realizing how close to their mother they were; they watched as she shuffled around before grabbing a gem at random and looking at it.

"Ruby," Spike declared as he looked at the Red gemstone. Ruby seemed unsure if her mother was talking to her or inspecting the gemstone before eating it; she looked to Emerald, who only managed to shrug before backing up as Spike picked up Ruby, who was terrified she had somehow offended her mother and was about to face the consequences.

"I'm taking a nap," Spike declared as she held Ruby close to her chest, "Keep going about your business; wake me when you're all hungry," Having set the rules, Spike turned to his new nap room and Ruby held on, unsure what a nap was as her mother lay down, and snuggled her in her arms, her breathing slowed, and Ruby realized her mother was sleeping, Ruby held on tightly as she enjoyed being held, quickly drifting off to sleep in Spikes arms.

"Lucky," Emerald muttered, realizing Ruby had just won the lottery, being chosen to sleep with their mother for no reason other than their mother randomly finding a Ruby in the pile. Emerald thought about abandoning her post for a moment, if for nothing other than attention, but quickly rationalized that if she did that and the next gem drawn was an Emerald, her mother might disregard it as punishment. Upon noticing Ruby had been selected and having been with her, Emerald was questioned by her sisters. She gave the simple answer that Ruby had been choosing to sleep at their mother's side at random and that so long as she was good, all she had to do was wait for their mother to pull out an Emberal before sleep time, and she'd get to sleep at her side.

The word that any good girl could sleep with mom so long as they remained good spread quickly through the small hive, and Spike had succeeded in solving his worries about showing favoritism in his sleep.

Starlight was hard at work with Fluttershy. Starlight was mapping out the paths they had traveled, and Fluttershy was providing the stressed mare with mandatory tea and biscuit breaks every thirty minutes to make sure Starlight didn't hurt herself.

Twilight, being Spike's sister, had responded with nothing short of full-blown panic. Being the head Princess of Equestria, however, she couldn't get out to Ponyville to help in person at the time without leaving behind a myriad of problems that Spike would have to help her deal with. In a previous situation a little over a year ago, she had promised Spike if he ever did randomly vanish for a while, she'd keep doing her job so he didn't come back and have to spend three straight days with her doing paperwork. In comparison, she tried to manage the nobles before they did something stupid and left them with even more paperwork.

Having found a happy middle ground with the unknown Changeling hive, Twilight had managed to send Throax as her panic proxy over both Spike Missing and the discovery of a new Queen Changeling; the fact that the latter was probably the reason for the first problem was probably not all that helpful in making the problem easier for Thorax to deal with it.

"I didn't even know there were other Queen Changelings," Thorax complained to Ocellus, "I always figured Chrysalis just named herself queen, like a made-up title to make herself feel more important!"

"To be fair, it's only been really talked about in sharing circles after you took charge," Ocellus noted, "And when you're in the sharing circle, we usually talk about working out past trauma at having once been faceless drones, not Changeling history,"

"Still, you think, as the leader, someone would have asked me about it at some point," Ocellus chose not to chase that thread and instead attempted to push Thorax back on track.

"This is a conversation we can have in length later with more Changelings,"

"Right, Right," Thorax agreed and turned to Starlight, who Fluttershy was serving tea along with some encouraging words,"

"I'm sure he's fine," Fluttershy said nervously, "Worst case scenario, he's just passed out in a massive cave system, who knows where, and he doesn't even realize he's lost, at least not until he wakes up, so the faster we act the more likely we are to catch a glimpse of him, and the Queen couldn't have taken him all that far if she went from having no hive to having one built up between him going missing and us showing up,"

"These caves split and connect in hundreds of directions the deeper you go," Starlight noted with a groan, "Rarity once told me when I went on a gem hunt with her that one should never go into the old Diamond dog territory without at least a unicorn that can teleport you back to the surface, it's basically an underground maze with dozens or maybe even hundreds of paths all at different elevations, some might even look like just a hole but actually connect to a different path,"

"Well, I doubt Spike or the Queen decided to try squeezing through a hole that roughly scales to small Diamond dogs, so those paths are probably safe to write off,"

"Well," Throax cut in one Fluttershy's confident response with a double one, "It's possible the Queen stuffed him into one of those holes; we're not entirely what kind of Changeling she is, but she eats Gems, a very Dragonesk quality for a creature to have, it could be she decided to store Spike and use him as emergency meat or even try to get him to hunt gems for her once her hive grows large enough,"

"Oh, thanks," Starlight muttered, "A Changeling hive with a theoretical taste for meat, I certainly can't forget to add that to the list of concerns I'm having, and Spike being stuffed away into a tiny hole off to the side of a random cave helps calm the situation down, we've narrowed the search to every square inch of the cave within a search radius of unknown size!"

"She's under a lot of stress," Fluttershy ensured Thorax, "That information was very helpful in informing us the search is going to have to be fairly large, meaning we need to make sure the changelings are properly kept at a distance until we can find Spike,"

"Well, I'd give you...three days?" Thorax scratched his chin in thought, "Maybe four?" Thorax shrugged at the time specifics, "Either way, if they sensed you down there in any way, they'll be put in a panic, and part of that panic will be to try and secure the area, and even though they're small, I'd give 'em three days before they begin sealing off the cave entrances with hive membrane and fully attempt to claim all the caves there as their hive, a population boom would be bound to happen none too long after so keep an eye out for anyone disappearing,"

"She already has babies," Starlight noted, "She probably did unsavory things to Spike in his sleep, although he'll probably just be mad he won't get to remember doing it,"

"No," Thoraxes voice had no hint of doubt, "All changelings are born with the innate ability of asexual reproduction, a one-and-done sort of deal that is triggered if the changeling is alone in a potentially hostile environment for too long, of course, Chrysalis took great care in making sure none of us, myself included, could do that to prevent revolt, but the asexually made offspring are typically very tiny, and since your new neighbor is a queen I imagine once the hive is properly protected, they'll look for a proper doner to offer up the required DNA for the queen to make offspring,"

"So just keep all colts in ponyville on lockdown, or look out for specific ones?" Thorax laughed at the question.

"Fluttershy, we're Changelings; if I really felt like it, I could easily use any female or male for their genetic material and use it for child production; no pony or frankly creature is safe from a Changeling if we're to be technical, it's just a matter of principle, Chrysalis wanted to be the sole matriarch, and no long needing love to survive you'd be hard pressed to find a Changeling desperate enough for love to take the unsavory path,"

"So not only do I need to form a search party," Starlight took a deep breath as she rested her face in her hands, muffling her speech slightly, "I also have to make sure no creature gets close to the caves?" Throax shrugged.

"I mean, I have no idea what mental level this new queen is on; she could be purely instincts, or maybe they mature fast, and she'll be insanely picky on who or what she uses as a DNA source for her hive,"

Once again, being told that just about anything that could go wrong had the potential to go wrong due to the unknown nature of the mysterious new Queen, Starlight had to fight the urge to bang her head on her desk in pure frustration as she took a deep breath.

"Alright, we don't have time to sit around chit-chatting anymore than we already have; I've got a large number of volunteers and not a lot of Unicorns who can teleport," Starlight turned to Ocellus and Smolder, the latter of whom looked almost as though she was either close to slipping into an unrestful chair slumber or was faking it in the hope she'd be passed over and could avoid being a part of the conversation.

"Ocellus, you and Smolder are on guard duty; keep your distance and make sure nothing enters or exits the cave system, and if you see the new hive trying to seal off the entrances sooner than our crafted on-the-spot timetable predicts, try to stall them,"

"Dammit," Smolder muttered under her breath, her fake name having failed to keep her from getting involved; Smolder got up, stretched, and offered her hand to Ocellus, who took it and then looked to Starlight to make sure she was finished talking to them. Starlight had nothing more to offer them at the moment, and Ocellus teleported herself and Smolder away to begin keeping watch over the cave entrance.

With the cave entrances covered, Starlight buckled down while trying to find Unicorn, and Changeling was required to help in their search of the cave system. At the same time, Fluttershy and Thorax began a dialog with one another on how best to request peace talks with the Queen without coming off as rude or being tricked into a trap.

Spike woke from his nap and, since she had been napping with him, took care to leave Ruby sleeping as he got up before calling for the three team leaders for a status report, and when none of them seemed to understand who he was referring to, he tried again.

"Jasper, Opal, and Topaz," He sighed, "The three who have been taking charge?" The others muttered about who was a follower of who; the trio of leaders were happy to be called upon by their mother for a meeting. "Alright, so while I was napping, all three of you were doing tasks; care to report on them?"

"We have searched every nook and cranny of the cave." Jasper replied at once, "Whatever made the flash seems to have used it as a diversion to allow it to escape; also, our new spears have been crafted, and the cores you provided are holding well,"

"Alright, keep an eye out and keep our defenses high, Opal? Topaz?" seemingly taking the order, their names were called out as their position to speak. Opal took center stage next.

"We have already fully developed the core of the hive and are underway in integrating all that lies outside it; we've already laid the groundwork for the next tunnel and shall be finished in integrating it fully within the hour,"

"Good, I'll go take a look at that after I hear what Topaz has to say," Spike noticed Ruby was waking up and patted her lightly. Ruby held onto Spike's hand and fell back into slumber; Spike turned, and Topaz spoke,"

"We have created a proper store room for your gems and have relocated your drinking basin inside of it; unfortunately, as Ruby was selected to sleep with you, Emerald and I alone haven't been enough to fully finish everything, as we have yet to finish the door and haven't even begun sorting the gems into their proper storage sports, and your basin still needs to be filled with water,"

"I can live with hand filtering my water for another day or two," Spike said to the dismay of his children. Ruby rolled over in her sleep, and Spike regained ownership of his hand, "That said, as a little bonus for any who gets to sleep with me, even if I wake up early, they're to be left to their rest until they way up on their own, so let's leave Ruby for the time being and get back to work, I have some inspections to run, and you all have your teams to manage, Jasper could you lend someone to Topaz until Ruby wakes up,"

"I'll have Garnet guard the gems so you and Emerald can focus fully on construction," Jasper decided, receiving thanks from Topaz as the two moved out. Opal chose to stay at her mother's side so she could receive a proper review of her crew's work.

Upon leaving her little sleep area, Spike looked up and found the entire cave was now fully coated in the webby hive membrane. Several bridges went from wall to wall, and he could see Saphire, a member of Opal's construction crew, using one of them to help her keep steady as she began digging through the wall, showing Spike that the bridges served as walkways between different entrances, allowing them to walk instead of fly should they be moving large cargo instead of just themselves.

"Well, the core of the hive is developing well," Spike noted as he inspected the stream; just as murky as ever, several parts of it had been bridged over, leaving only two drinking spots and preventing it from cutting the floor of the hive into two parts. "Solid work on working around the stream," Opal seemed pleased with the praise as she led Spike to the mouth of the hive that split left and right. The right was still a short hallway with a hive wall blocking all none changelings from entering, but the left had been expanded; the walls of the cave were still made of rock, but bits of hive wall coated the wall, as though Opal had run her hoof down it until she had found a good spot to stop and put the door back up.

The cave they were in only went on for about thirty paces before the door popped back into view, but the fact that Opal's second team member, Amethyst, wasn't waiting for them told Spike there was more work being done on the other side of the door.

Upon opening the wall, Spike found two daughters waiting for him; the area beyond the door was little more than a fork in the road, one path going off the right and slanting up and one going to the left and slanting down, Amythest was working on the right upward path, midway through the construction of another door wall, and standing back constantly shifting her gaze between the two paths was Citrine, armed with a spear and ready to protect Amythest if something snuck up on them.

"Solid work," Spike noted, immediately stepping back as Citrine swung at her in a panic at the sudden voice. She then dropped her spear in a worse panic upon realizing she had just swung at her mother. Spike picked up the spear as Opal and Amytherst muttered less than pleasant words about Citrine; the muttered insults ceased with a hard look from Spike before she handed the spear back to Citrine, "No harm done," She assured her little guard, "It can be scary doing a job all on your lonesome but for the future try to avoid stabbing things on sight if they can talk since they might scream for help and bring more to assault us, although if they try to attack, that problem is a moot point, so stab away then,"

His little lesson was told in an attempt to keep his children from spreading rumors about one another. Spike told Opal her crew's work was going great before heading back into the hive, leaving Opal and Amytheys with a warning about speaking ill of their sister.

His children hard at work and feeling flabby; Spike wanted to walk out the opposite entrance and go out on a gem hunt. But with his children relying on him to feed them and not wanting to send them into a panic over him just leaving the hive without a word, Spike decided to try his luck at drinking from the stream with his hand one final time before being condemned to mouth-to-mouth regurgitated water for the foreseeable future.

Author's Note

Exposition chapter is expositiony