Chapters The dim trickling sound of water forming stalagmites and stalactites echoed throughout the gem-filled caves; the dim light of a head lantern filled the dark void that typically coated the cave as Spike used a pick axe to dig up gems. He could have been finished with the task a long while before this point, but despite his best efforts, he hadn't been able to even begin filling the cart until his stomach was empty. A constant roadblock in his life was his inability to be patient when it came to his stomach.
Spike had agreed to gather a few gems for Rarity, who was on her way to Manehattan for business for the next few days. Spike liked to imagine she was actually doing business and, as Rainbow had delicately put it, not doing her new favorite client. Despite his best attempts, Spike had found that Rarity's preferences seemed to change; any time Spike managed to get close to what she was looking for in a colt, it would abruptly change.
Spike was just about to finish his haul and return them to Rarity's boutique but decided to test the now barren wall he had been working on to see if it might have any special finds he could take with him; he struck once, twice, thrice. After a few strikes, he became determined to find something and spent what might have been hours searching for a treat before finally pulling his pick out of the wall and seeing a shimmering glow in the small tunnel he had dug.
Spike tossed his pick behind him toward his cart and dug with his claws to extract the gem. To his surprise, it was one he had seen in a book but never in person; the gem's color changed every few seconds, starting from the bottom and working its way up; the change happened so fast that it was constantly shifting between three different colors, making it quite the trippy sight.
As far as Spike could remember, the gem in his hand had many names, the blandest one being the Rainbow gem and the more extravagant one being the Wishing stone, rumored to be ancient fossilized magic that could grant wishes to whoever held it, each wish causing the rock to deteriorate, ultimately turning it into nothing.
Sure, he could have tested its rumored powers, but it was a gem, and he was a hungry Spike. He had barely grasped what he was holding before his tongue had snatched it into his maw. He cracked it in his teeth, and just in case it was real, he made a rushed wish before he destroyed it. Thinking back to Rarity's ever-changing desires, he decided it was the best he could think of on the spot and made his rushed wish just in case it might work.
"I wish I had the power to change in an instant," His mouth began glowing as he swallowed the magic rock, and his skin felt funny; his funny feeling quickly spread to the rest of his body, and in that instant, he tried to step back, in doing that he was granted the harsh reality that he no longer had feet, he had hooves.
"What the Fu-" Spike's swear was cut off, both by him hitting the ground and the silent realization that the words that had come out hadn't been in his voice. "Oh," a familiar female voice spoke out, "Oh shit," Spike looked at his hands and saw the black-clawed hand that was very much not his hand but the hand of a pre-reformed Changling.
"Oh Shit," Spike repeated the swear several times in a panic at the realization that his stupid panicked wish probably wouldn't stand as an excuse that he totally wasn't Chrysalis even though he sounded and probably looked just like her now.
"I better not be a lady," He realized as he checked just that; despite having a lady-like figure, he was still male, although he realized that might have just been his new Changling powers lying to him to make himself feel better. "I'll accept it and try not to ever think about being a lady," He decided; his clothes hung loose on him, and having once seen Thorax changing his outfit using his powers, Spike did his best to give himself clothes, a wrap-around his chest and a basic skirt was the best he could do and he decided not to push it as he got to his hooves and looked around.
"I can't go home," He realized as he thought about all the ways it would go wrong; since he now lived in Canterlot and was only visiting Ponyville at Rarity's request, he doubted he could get past the changing security around the castle, much less make it to the train station or even enter Ponyville.
Much like any rational creature would, Spike did the only thing there was to do: flop to the ground, roll up into the fetal position, and rock back and forth in panic. After a nice long panic attack, Spike did his best to get to his new hooves and stumble to his cart, all his hard work being for nothing, but even as a Changling, he was still Spike. His tongue immediately snatched a Gem, and as soon as it did so, his teeth warped, and he felt his stomach Shift inside him. The small gem shot past his lips, and he crunched down on it without any real effort, his body having changed from a normal changing to one that could eat and process gems since his every natural instance had been honed for doing just that.
As soon as Spike ate one Gem, he flew into a frenzy of stress eating, his massive haul being reduced to barely half a wagon's worth within just a few minutes.
"Oh, that helps," He sighed as his stomach gurgled in appreciation at being filled; it was weird; he felt like he had two stomaches, but he chalked it up as his body changing to allow him to overeat without hurting himself and he tossed his pick into the wagon before pulling it deeper into the cave system, Diamond Dogs had once called the caves home, but after an incident with Rarity they had all packed up and migrated far into the uncharted west to avoid as much contact with ponies as possible. Spike pulled his wagon down the cave system; when his headlamp went out, his eyes adjusted to see in the dark as though it was broad daylight, and he tossed the lamp aside before continuing into the cave system.
Soon, he found a tunnel carved out with claw marks; he ventured down it and, after several twists and turns, found what he had been looking for; if one thing was true for all creatures, it was they all needed to drink, and Diamond Dogs were known to make their territories with artificially crafted streams. While the water was less than crystal clear, it wasn't stagnant, and that was all Spike needed for the moment; Spike set his wagon in a dip in the wall that had probably once been a Diamond Dog's bed.
Spike focused on giving his hand filter fins and dipped them into the water; after some trial and error, he got a little bit of muck-free water and sipped it down, not having enough to gulp it down, as soon as he did so, however, the thing he had mistaken as a second stomach began forcing it's way up his throat.
It was far too large to spit up, and if he had been anything other than a changing, he probably would have choked out on it; that he was a changing, and his neck and lower jaw basically just ripped apart to let him spit the object out before returning to their original place.
His first thought was how horrifying he had probably looked during those few moments; his thoughts quickly turned to the thing he had spat up; it was a large webby sack of some kind After inspecting, Spike was left with the simple thought that all the leftover magic from the wishing stone had found a way to be used inside his body, being used to fulfill the primary function of any proper Queen Changling.
"Stupid Rock," Spike angrily declared as he held the Egg sack in his hands, "I didn't ask to be a fucking mother!"
Spike sat next to the underwater stream, irritable, chewing on a chunk of Saphire. He had placed the egg sack down in one of the bed holes the Diamond dogs had left behind; after trying to get it to stick in place, he had started producing a sticky web-like substance and proceeded to wrap it around the egg sack to keep it from falling over.
With nothing else to do, Spike sat next to the stream, hoping the egg sack was a dud, as being a mama would make his situation infinitely more problematic as it was highly likely they would require love to eat and would instinctively reject his Gem workaround.
Spike chose not to think about it and began playing with his wings to try and take his mind off his problems. The clear membranes of his wings were interesting to look at. Once he got the hang of moving them around, he easily integrated his pre-existing knowledge of flying into them and was able to scavenge around the old Diamond dog beds that went up to the top of the large cavern he had found the waterway in, easily plundering more than a few gems, he noticed most all of them where Topaz and figured that Diamond Dogs had pinned them as the least valuable of their collections since they had been the most abundant ones to be left behind.
Spike dumped them into the pile, eating several of them as he did so, and went back to using his new powers to try and figure out how to filter the water; the most successful method he had yet found was also his least favorite as it required him to filter it in his mouth, leaving a less than satisfying muddy texture that he had to spit and scrap out for a while afterward.
Unwilling to deal with muddy aftertastes, Spike slowly tried to quench his thirst using his hands as a filter, dipping them slightly into the water and letting water pass through the webby parts; once his cupped hand had water in, he'd stop letting water pass through his fin's and pulled a hand full of water out, having at least gotten good enough at doing it that he was able to get a few good mouthfuls of water without any unpleasant after tastes.
Unsure what else he could even begin to do in his current situation, Spike curled up at the entrance to the Diamond Dog Bed he had placed the egg sack in and created a makeshift pillow and blanket out of a non-sticky version of the webby material he had used to secure the egg sack.
"Good Night," He told the empty area, already missing his basket; even if it was small, at least it had been in a fortified castle instead of deep in the unknown depths of a cave system that could easily hold many dangerous creatures, Spike didn't swiftly drift off to sleep, his dreams far from pleasant when he finally did.
Spike's absence didn't go unnoticed by the residents of Ponyville; he had been set up to spend the night at Fluttershy's cottage, and in turn, Fluttershy had been quick to whip herself into a panic when he failed to arrive within an hour, that panic only gaining steam when one hour turned into several, and several hours turned into the entire night.
Now fully freaking out, Fluttershy called upon the only help available to her; Rarity was in Manehattan, Applejack was in Applelossa with her family for an apple themes festival, Rainbow Dash was busy with Scootaloo in Clouddale training her for her Wonderbolts entrance exam, Pinkie Pie was on a cruise with the Cakes, her husband and her daughter, and while Twilight was always available, that was the equivalence of throwing fire at a fire to try and put it out.
So Fluttershy opened the door on the only pony available to lend her aid in searching for Spike.
"Did you check to make sure he didn't just head out on the train?" Starlight asked after Fluttershy filled her in on what had happened, "He might have just forgotten he was supposed to spend the night and just bit the bullet to head back home,"
"I checked with the train staff at the two-hour mark; they said no dragons got on or off at the Ponyville station or the Canterlot station, and since then, they've tracked all dragons who have, and none of them were Spike,"
"He might have eaten himself into a food coma," Starlight chuckled, "You know how he gets with gems; the doof won't hesitate to make himself sick ten times out of ten when gems are involved, and there are more than a few cave systems not all to far from Ponyville that have been known to produce some top shelf gems, any idea where he went?"
"I don't know where he went exactly," Fluttershy informed Starlight awkwardly, "He just said it was a hot spot for Diamond Dogs a few years back, but it's been a while since that happened, so I don't fully remember where it happened,"
"Give me an hour," Starlight decided, "I should be able to get more than a few students and staff members of the school to help in this rescue; it could be a good friendship exercise,"
"I'll go with you," Fluttershy decided, "Me sitting here being worried all day won't help my nerves; I can help, even if only a little,"
Spike slept less than peacefully on the ground; the stones were cold, and his blanket and pillow had an odd texture about them, the longer he slept on the ground, the more he felt like something was crawling around and biting him.
Having never fully fallen asleep during the night, Spike didn't have to deal with that half-dazed state and realize he wasn't dreaming. Instead, he had to deal with the realization that something was, in fact, crawling on him and biting him.
Spike held up his arm and saw three or four larval changelings with their teeth buried deep into his arms. The instincts that came with his new body were just about the only things that kept him from swatting them off in a panic, as his instincts instead told him this was just how things went and to go back to sleep.
He went against his instincts; even with all the biting, his sucky bedtime accessories were what bothered him more. He got up carefully, counting twelve larval channelings, nine in total on both arms, one on his leg, he could feel one on his neck and one firmly grasping his right ear.
He watched as they firmly kept themselves in place, sucking up vital energy from their mother into themselves; as far as Spike could remember from visiting Thorax, this wasn't a normal Changling thing, but the Changelings he had seen with babies were the new Changelings. Since the new Changelings didn't have a larval state, so he imagined this was simply a result of him being obsolete in comparison. Since his hive consisted of himself and twelve babies, he doubted sharing his love would do much to help that since their collective love was inferior to a generations-old hive with enough members to fill their own country.
Having no frame of reference for how Queen Changeling sustained their children, especially their first batch of children, Spike just let them keep biting him as he began eating gems to keep his energy up. It became clear within what felt like an hour or two that his new babies were growing fast, going from fitting in the palm of his hand to being the size of foals within that time. They didn't quite look to be growing right, and Spike pondered if the Wishing stone might not have had enough magic to fully fertilize the egg or if this was just something that happened with the first batch and all other eggs would take longer to mature.
"Hey there," Spike had to hold up the one of his ear as it started getting to big for his ear to support it alone, unwilling to forcefully make it unlatch, as that might result in it not relatching. "I kind of suck with names, so you'll just have to name yourselves if you don't want to all be named Joe, but that's a problem for when you're all grown up, so let's give it an hour or two, I guess," Spike lay on his back as the latched babies began growing too big from him to keep moving his arm, he took care to make sure one of his necks wasn't squashed beneath him and just waited for them to let go.
Soon, he felt the pressure of their growing teeth, which eventually pulled out of his arms, his leg, his neck, and finally his ear. Once free of their bites, he got back into a sitting position and found twelve female changelings, all without so much as the slightest marking to differentiate themselves from each other. Something he wasn't entirely sure what to pin on; it could have been the result of them being his first brood or the result of them being created using his genes and pure magic that had resulted in them all being nothing more than lesser biological clones of himself.
They were noticeably smaller than most changelings he had seen in the past; even the ones standing up to their full height were barely pushing the five-foot mark; being a mother, Spike decided on their first lesson. Modesty and why they needed to cover their shame.
"Hello, Children," Spike called out; as soon as he spoke, they all hurriedly gathered around him; instead of sitting at a respectable distance, they glomped onto him, each seemingly determined to touch him at least a little. "I want all of you to copy my clothes," Spike demanded; he expected to have to go step by step to explain exactly what that entailed, but all twelve effortlessly did as they were told, their tops and bottoms covered just as he was covered, all of them stared at him with expectant eyes. "Alright, good, that was all for the moment. Go...exist, and don't drown yourselves. I'd make me feel bad," Spike sat still as his children chose to exist exactly where they already were.
When Spike tried to lay back down, several of them seemed insistent that they were now his bed, and soon Spike was forcefully pulled down by his children onto a bed made of them; once he was lying down, they all snuggled against him, to their credit they made a far better blanket and pillow then his previous attempts and having been drained of his energy to fast forward their development Spike was quick to give into them and fell asleep in their embrace within the first minute of them forming his new bed.
Fluttershy and Starlight looked out at the several members of the school of friendship that had been selected to assist in the hunt for Spike. It had taken longer than they would have liked. Still, after putting in the request, just about every student and staff member had jumped at the opportunity, some wanting to help, some wanting to use it as an extra credit opportunity, some mistaking it as some test, and others still simply wanting to get out of class for the day.
"So, How are we doing this?" Smolder questioned as she looked at the brought map Sweetie Belle had managed to provide the search team; cause from the looks of it, we've got three tunnels to look down, not including all the extended paths and whatnot,"
"You and Ocellus will make up one team, me and Fluttershy the other," Starlight decided, "Since Ocellus and I can both teleport, in the event you end up lost in the tunnels or find Spike in a sticky situation, you can just teleport back here without having the navigate your way back out,"
"We have six hours," Ocellus noted, "So we should search individually for roughly three hours and then join back up to search the third if Spike isn't in one of the first two; if that fails, then we return with Princess Twilight and a much larger team and begin combing over the cave system to the best of our abilities,"
Fluttershy handed Smolder a bag as Ocellus and Starlight used a few spells to make sure they could contact one another in the event Spike was found so they could call the other if one of them lost track of time. Smolder fit herself with a handy head lantern, a canteen full of warm tea, and more than enough snacks.
"make sure to save some for Spike," Fluttershy cautioned.
"Yeah," Smolder said to make sure Fluttershy knew she'd heard her, "That mook probably caved the roof in trying to get a good haul,"
"I'm sure he's fine," Fluttershy attempted to consol the situation, and Smolder, in turn, laughed.
"If the cave did collapse on top of him, he'd just enter a hibernation state and sleep till he gets unburied. I had an uncle who went missing for a few hundred years and came home after an earthquake made him resurface; don't go worrying about Spike; dragons are tough and stupid, more so than any cave-dwelling creature that might be calling this place home now,"
"Alright," Starlight called out as Fluttershy equipped herself with her Head lantern, "We'll take the entrance in the hill; you two go in through the one with a Tree covering it, and don't forget to call us if you come across Spike or anything that might have dragged him off," The two teams broke apart and moved to the two entrances to begin the search.
Feeling snug as a bug in a rug, Spike was finally able to get some proper rest and, not too long after, jolt awake when the weight of what was happening properly hit his fully awake mind.
"Oh crap," Spike made to get up, and once his new children moved out of bed formation, he took note that only six children had stayed at his side to keep him comfy; the other six seemed completely absent from the cave. "Hm, guess I wasn't up to par with their standards," Not exactly bonded with the fully grown children he had spat out a few hours ago, he wasn't about to hold it against them for abandoning a mother that had thus far in their short life only lazed about eating and sleeping.
Spike made his way to the water and began finger filtering the water, his children for their part; they seemed far less bothered by the only flavor of water they'd ever had and went to town slurping up the water straight from its source; they did copy what Spike had done on his first attempt and spit out the copious amounts of sediment that were mixed in with the water, but none seemed bothered by the flavor.
"You lot pick names for yourselves yet?" Spike asked, not expecting a response and more just speaking to try and remain sane in the situation, "Cause if not, I'm naming you all Joe,"
"What's a Joe?" Spike almost had a heart attack when one of his daughters spoke to him in response to the statement.
"Oh my stars," Spike took several deep breaths, "You can already talk? Who taught you to do that? Did I? I don't think I did," none of his present daughters seemed to understand the questions. Instead, they went back to drinking their fill of water. However, he did note some seemed concerned with his manner of drinking; a few tried copying him, and while he could tell from their expressions they liked the taste of dirtless water better, they still chose to mouth filter; he assumed their motive was efficiency over pleasure.
"So I was kind of out of it when you all hatched," Spike noted, "But there were twelve of you, right?" He hadn't taught them to speak, and they still could, so he banked on them, knowing what twelve meant.
"The scavengers are hunting," one of his daughters informed him. Spike found that response less soothing than he figured his daughters thought it would.
"hunting what exactly?" One of them seemed satiated on thirst and pointed behind Spike; he followed the provided directions and found himself looking at his gem pile; his wagon was gone, and the pile had one leftover to nearly triple what he had brought with him originally. Spike let out a relieved sigh, having been panicking that his new children were invading Ponyville to siphon off their love; the fact that his desire to eat gems had been so deep-rooted of a desire that his children had adapted it as their food source was a relief to him.
Spike happily partook of the pile, planning to eat his fill; he was just about to fill himself up when one of his daughters bit him again, just like they had in their larval state. Spike could feel them sucking up the energy he had converted the gems to and came to the proper realization that his children, despite having rapidly matured for a reason outside his realm of understanding, were probably incapable of digesting his chosen food source and were instead relying on Spike to process them into nutrition, as he thought the six present where already lining up for their time to eat.
Despite being bitten with fangs that would make a vampire jealous, the bites didn't seem to be causing him anything resembling pain; chalking that fact up to his body just naturally providing for the young it had created, Spike went back to filling his face, his children siphoning his nutrients coming with the bonus of his belly remaining only partially filled throughout his feast for several dozen times longer than it otherwise would have, letting him eat the equivalent of roughly five meals before the present young seemed satisfied and began buzzing around the walls.
"If the six that left are the scavenger Changelings, then the six still present must be the hive guards; I wonder if they take shifts or if they're genetically pre-destined for their roles?"
Now interested in how his children conducted themselves, Spike waited for the six to return, pondering if they would go back out or stick around; he at least felt it was wise to assume they would line up for their feeding time.
Spike watched as the six still inside the hive began creating the same web-like substance he had from their hands and started smearing it all along the walls; at first, it looked more like them making a mess for mess's sake. Still, it quickly turned into a home renovation project when, after two opposing spots were coated in the webs, his children began making a little bridge to connect the two walls, only to make him more curious about their end goal.
Spike was so caught up in watching the seemingly pointless wall bridge construction that he failed to notice his other children return until they dumped his wagon over, throwing more gems into the pile.
Spike took his place by the gems and began eating as his children lined up behind him and began eating their fill; he noticed that one of the ones who had stayed home and already eaten snuck into the line when he ended up feeding seven kids instead of six but couldn't really tell them apart so just let it slide for the time being.
Spike watched as the six who had returned flew up and joined in on the creation of webbing as the other six all flocked around the wagon and fought over who got to pull it. Spike assumed it had been decided while he was asleep that the wagon puller didn't have to dig up the gems.
"I'll pull the Wagon," Spike decided, to the shock of his children as he got up and took the lead, "Better than laying around and waiting to die of boredom," He expected his brood to be against the idea, instead, they seemed beyond excited at the idea of him joining them; Spike wished the ones staying inside the hive now luck on construction and reminded them to stay hydrated before leaving them to their work and leading the expedition into the caves.
Author's Note
I may colapse this chapter and the first into one big chapter, stlll not 100% sure yet
Spike lit his horn; having studied with Twilight for almost all his life, he had less of a problem with knowing what to do and more of a problem having no experience in actually doing it.
"Like this," Spike said for what felt like the hundredth time as he used a basic levitation spell to put a gem into the wagon before putting it back in the wall with magic and watching as some of his kids tried to copy the spell, they managed to pull it from the wall again, but they seemed to be fighting over who would get credit for doing it right first and where trying to pull it to their hand instead of the wagon,
Spike had mixed feelings, wanting to turn back into himself but not entirely sure if his children would recognize him; he figured he should at least try to find a way to get them into Thorax's care before trying to find a way to revert himself just in case they renounced him as their matriarch for no longer being a Changeling. Spike pulled himself together and watched as one of his kids claimed the gem, having been the first to realize the gem was within reach, and she just needed to grab it before the others thought of doing it.
"Well, points were points are due," Spike conceded, "You win the tug of war; that said, how about you all try using that spell to get your gems?" Now exactly being an expert in the field of parenting and having had no real time to mentally prepare for being one, Spike patted the winner on the head, who squealed in delight before tossing her gem into the wagon and running after the others who were all trying to earn their praise. Try as hard as he could; Spike ended up having to concede all of his children looked the same, with no small marks or even differences in horn shapes. Spike had picked a few colored gems and had them all pick one before getting them to change the colors of the membrane they were using as clothes so he could at least tell them apart.
The one who had won their little game had picked a Topaz to base her colors on. And since Spike was far from a whiz with names, he'd decided that was how he'd pick out their names; Topaz joined up with two of her sisters, Ruby and Emerald, leaving the remaining trio of Saphire, Amythest, and Opal to form their team.
Three of them spread out and began hunting for gems while the other three scouted behind them to make sure they hadn't missed anything. The hunting party was subject to teasing if they had, in fact, missed anything.
Not exactly in a hurry, Spike walked down one of the paths a little ways and then waited for his children's gem hunt to take them a fair distance from him before moving up to their current location and repeating.
As they walked, Spike attempted to copy a spell he had previously seen Rarity use, not entirely sure how to do it since Rarity had been born with the innate ability to do the spell instead of learning it, having even listed it as what had allowed her to get her cutie mark.
The Gem tracking spell wasn't world-shattering, as it wouldn't work if the gems were too deep in the earth, and Rarity had mentioned that the first use of the spell tended to drag you to the gem without properly pinning the placement of it.
With the wagon only half full, what with these closer tunnels having been stripped of a lot of gems by the Diamond Dogs that once called them home, the wagon wasn't filling up all too fast, and it was only being filled with small gems for the most part, save for the occasional large Topaz that the Diamond Dogs seemed not to care much for.
Spike tried to spell and only achieved a few magical sparks; not one to give up easily, and now having several children in need of him to eat to motivate him, he continued trying to get the spell to function; he and his children had probably been wondering the cave for well past an hour before the spell finally did something.
Rarity had warned that something had been done to toss Spike into the nearest wall horn first. Taking this as an opportunity to see if he could, Spike attempted to take his original body shape; he ended up a little more monstrous than he had meant to but no longer having a horn let him easily pull away, using the more animalistic versions of his hand he easily dug through the wall and found a hidden vain of gems that would easily fill the wagon, he was about to call out to his children, but they had converged on him as soon as he had slammed into the wall, apparently thinking something had hit him they clung to the opposite wall, fangs bared as they searched for what had hit him.
"It was me," Spike informed them curtly as he lit the spell and was jerked towards the gems, "it was just a little stronger than I thought it would be," Spike's children all crawled across the ceiling and began forming a line to transfer the gems to the wagon, Topaz and Opal both took point on either side of Spike, he assumed acting as his guard since they now had a sizable enough amount of loot to consider it being bad to lose.
"So," Spike leaned down to be on their level as he spoke, "If something did try to make off with our gems, what would you two do?" neither seemed to have thought that far ahead and mumbled under their breaths, "Well I'm pretty strong, but not if I have to keep all of you and the gems safe, so if something bad does try to attack us, you two make sure your sisters and my gems get home safely if I'm not back soon send out a search party, I could be hurt, or I could just be lost since a fight might throw my directions off and I could lose the way home,"
Topaz and Opal gave a hearty salute, and Spike felt a little less worried, having gotten the feeling his children would have killed themselves for the sake of a fight they probably couldn't win.
"Now then, let's get these gems home. I'm hungry and thirsty, and I'm sure you all are too,"
With only a few minutes remaining on their agreed-upon re-grouping and no signs of Spike, Starlight, and Fluttershy had returned to the meet-up spot early, waiting for Ocellus and Smolder, who had been called and responded they wanted to check on an odd pattern they had found on the ground to see if Spike might have caused it.
Starlight was now confident what they had found wasn't Spike; having gone to the third entrance to inspect the area, she had found some prints, some very Spike-shaped prints with little wagon tracks running along with them.
"We were kind of in a panic," Fluttershy rationalized, "Otherwise, we might have thought to inspect all three entrances before rushing down two of them to try and find Spike quickly.
"Well, if we hadn't done that, we'd be a few hours ahead of where we are now," Starlight's tone was irritable, clearly upset she hadn't thought to check the entrances first, "We might have already found him if we'd bothered to check first, ended this entire debacle and be laughing about it over tea,"
Starlight looked down. Unlike the other two entrances, this one was an entrance in the ceiling of the cave. Fluttershy waited for Ocelous and Smolder to return so she could tell them what they had found, so Starlight short-ranged teleported to the floor of the cave; as soon as she entered the cave, several creatures in the depth of its system sensed something entered their mother's domain and quickly set to work making sure it wouldn't be able to attempt to enter the partially developed hive without being noticed.
None the wiser of this, Starlight began looking around the cavernous area. A small underground stream trickled across the floor of the cave, and thanks to it and a spell for light, she could see where Spike had accidentally stepped in it before continuing down one of the paths; his tracks didn't last very long; a scorch mark on the ground indicating he had dried off his foot with some dragon fire, but it at least told her what path he had started and probably stayed on.
With Spike having burnt his trail, Starlight had no further leads to his starting path and waited for the others to join her in the cave system.
"We must have found an old checkpoint of some kind," Smolder said with a yawn as she flew down into the cave, "Probably for Diamond Dogs, back before they fled their natural territory because ponies wanted it,"
"That happened before I lived here," Starlight noted, "And Fluttershy has tried getting them to come home; it turns out the undiscovered west is great for hiding because no one could find them to even make the offer, so it's probably for the best they moved, now no one can steal their homes,"
"Whatever helps you sleep at night," Smolder yawned as Ocellus and Fluttershy flew in after Starlight. Fluttershy instantly noticed a change in demeanor from Ocellus, who touched down and then suddenly flattened her ears.
"What's wrong?" Fluttershy asked, getting the other two's attention.
"There are Changelings down here," Ocellus noted at once as she lifted one ear; after a moment, she pointed towards Starlight, "They're down that way,"
"How can you tell that?" Smolder demanded as she sniffed the air, "All I smell is...Spike's breath?" Smolder looked for the source and found the scorch mark, "Oh yeah, that'll do it,"
"Changeling hives give off a magical sound queue," Ocellus replied nervously, "inaudible to most creatures, even the changelings from the hive, but it acts as a queue to Changelings from another hive that they're trespassing," After processing that information, only one question rang true.
"Other hives?" Smolder demanded, "You mean there is more than just one?"
"Well, Chrysalis wiped out all the other queens years ago," Ocellus noted nervously, "So there should been only the one, but I guess there was at least one other Queen class Changeling other than Chrysalis herself who lived, could be they pretended to be a diamond dog and only recently realized they had the caves to themselves and set out expanding their hive,"
"Taking a guess, these guys aren't the sharing love type?" Ocelluses face told her she doubted it; Starlight got to her feet and had them all gather up before using a spell to hide their presence. Ocellus helped double down on it just in case they had the ability to nullify none changeling magic, and the group moved into the cave; the safety of it was unknown, but they had to at least attempt to extract Spike before calling both Twilight and Thorax to try and broker a peace between this yet undiscovered hive.
They did their best to remain quiet; all firmly pushed against the wall as they moved slowly but surely down the cave. Ocellus, being able to sense the magical vibrations the hive material let out, could direct them towards it; Starlight had a bet that if Spike was still down here, he'd probably gotten snatched up by the hive as a food source.
"So you're hive doesn't have a Queen no more, yeah?" Smolder asked, "Or is Thorax the Queen now?"
"Use to be only Chrysalis could have new Changeling babies, but after Thorax showed us how to share love, we as a race evolved beyond the need for a Queen and can now procreate on our own, that said we are all siblings, so we've had to share our love outside our hive to keep new Changelings being born.
"So this Queen might not entirely be willing to embrace change if she loses her value," Starlight noted.
"Look, I'll be real," Ocellus took a deep breath, "She could look exactly like Chrysalis, but she might look nothing like Chrysalis; I can't guarantee how she'll act; she might be super old and spitful. She could have been hidden away as an egg, and we're gonna run up on Spike helping a young mother with half a dozen babies," Ocellus shrugged, "I just know about my hive and a bunch of old stories passed around by word of mouth, and I'm trying to use that to fumble through this encounter, I can't promise it won't be dangerous, but I can't promise it will be dangerous, just...just be prepared for literally anything I guess, our goal is to find Spike and get him out before we really push on with investigating Ponyville's new neighbors,"
The group journeyed deeper and deeper into the caves, following Ocelluse's directions until they stopped near a small divot in the cave wall upon Smolder's request. Her reasonings were explained upon confirming her suspicions.
"The stink of Spike's breath ends here," She noted in a worried tone.
"You can track Spike by his breath?" Ocellus asked suspiciously, "Last I checked, you could only do that with me because you were intimate with the taste of my breath?"
"Oh, what? I can't have a past?" Smolder demanded with a huff, "It was one night years ago before I dated Gallus and way before you and I became a thing,"
"One night, and you can still remember the taste of his mouth hu?" Ocellus muttered suspiciously.
"Well yeah, that boy has a weird veggie and gem-based diet, and it makes his breath smell like old cabbage mixed with over-ripe rubies,"
"How do you ripen a gemstone?" Fluttershy asked curiously, being waved off by Smolder.
"Ponies wouldn't understand," Smolder took a deep breath as Ocellus continued giving her a sharp look, "Look, I'm just saying I don't smell his breath at all past this point, so he either wasn't breathing or breathing to low to leave a good scent behind, so this is either where he was knocked on his ass or he just stood there and decided it was a sweet place to die,"
"You don't think the changelings..." Starlight's concerns were waved away immediately.
"Can't drain the love from a corpse," Ocellus reassured Starlight.
"And while Spike is soft for a dragon, he's not nearly that soft; nothing that could fit in this tunnel without leaving a clear impression behind could kill a dragon, so it's safe to say this is where they got the jump on him, so he's probably in their hive, and not as a willing guest,"
"Then we've no time to waste," Starlight decided, "Fluttershy, grab my hand; Ocellus, you get Smolders; get ready to teleport back to the entrance and then back to the school; we don't want our rescue team to get swarmed by a hive while trying to find us,"
"You don't wanna send Fluttershy back?" Smolder asked, "No offense, of course, but wouldn't it be...the wisest option here?"
"If the Changeling Queen isn't completely hostile, Fluttershy is the best option to try and talk her into giving Spike back in exchange for an attempt at peace between the hive and Equestria; we might even be able to convince her to join with Thorax,"
"Alright, I guess that's a fair reason," Smolder conceded, "I'm mostly here in case you need me to dig Spike out of a cave-in or punch a very hostile Changeling,"
Ocellus continued directing them toward the hive before having them stop dead and telling them all to breathe softly and stay quiet.
Starlight heard a sound, not skittering, not talking; it sounded like the pitiful squeak of a wheel in need of being oiled. A dim light filled the cave as a familiar face walked around a corner behind them. Starlight held her breath as the Queen Changling walked fairly close to the group, dragging behind her the little wagon that had most likely been Spikes, full of gems; not too far behind her, six very small Changelings followed around after her, creating a serious problem for the group as they where checking the wall's fiercely, Starlight pondered if they had noticed Ocellus just as she had noticed them.
The Queen stopped as she waited for her children to catch up; they grew closer and closer until they suddenly all flocked to the opposing wall. Starlight and the others used the distraction to backtrack down the wall to avoid being detected; they watched one as the Changelings pulled out their prize, several gemstones that they added to the cart before going back to scanning the walls, apparently not for intruders, but for hidden Gem deposits.
The group waited until they were a few feet away before speaking.
"Alright," Smolder broke the silence, "I may not be an expert on Changelings...but they normally don't care about Gem, yeah?"
"She didn't quite look right," Ocellus noted; the Queen, who had looked exactly like Chrysalis to the rest, had apparently not looked quite the same to Ocellus, "Maybe it's just been too long since I've seen her, but she didn't have any holes in her, none of them did, she'd have to be very well feed for that, Spike might not be the only thing down here, either that or she's found a way around that problem,"
The mystery of what was happening in these caves only grew. They continued moving closer to the Hive, Ocellus telling them they were close, only to find a dead end in the direction the Queen had gone, the faint tracks left by the wagon even going directly into the wall.
"Dam," Ocellus swore, "It's a hive door; you might have dealt with 'em when you invaded Chrysalises old hive. Only a Changeling can open it, but I can't guarantee they won't be guarding the other side; they'll swarm us the second they see it open, Changeling or not," Ocellus bit her lip, and the group all looked to Starlight with a simple question: do they risk it or not.
"Teleport Smolder and Fluttershy to the entrance and then come back," Starlight decided, "If it's just us, we might be able to get Spike out," Ocellus nodded her head and took both Smolder and Fluttershy's hand before teleporting away, Starlight pressed firmly against the wall, just in case some of the changelings suddenly exited the hive.
Spike hadn't been expecting to find a door upon returning home, much less to find his six remaining daughters had put work in; the entire floor of their new hive was covered in the odd webbing, so much so that it extended outside the entrance and had been used to block off both sides, the thick walls of it apparently only opening when one of them approached it with the intent of using it as a door.
The yet unnamed group of six seemed to be in deep deliberation around the water source; she heard them having a conversation; it was odd every time she heard them talk, realizing they were sapient creatures she had spat out and were already having their wants and feelings, even if they where only at the state of wanting Mama Spike to pay attention to them specifically over the other children.
The children she had been out with had already split up into two cliques, where one victory was the other two's victory, with Opal and Topaz seemingly heading the two rival groups, as they were only a day old. Spike was confident their groups would shift and change about rapidly. Leaving his scavenger party, Spike got on his knees and began panhandling the water slowly to get a non-muddy taste.
The ones who had been the first savaging group seemed to, at the moment, be acting as one big group of six. However, the fact that they had no colors to help Spike pick them out meant he had no idea which child was considered leader as they talked; whatever they had been discussing before his return had been tossed out upon watching him drink.
"Mother hates the taste," One of them complained.
"Has to use hands," Another agreed.
"It's Beneath mother," One declared. Spike found them not liking that he was slowly filtering the water with his hands to be a sweet gesture; he sat next to the gem pile and began eating as the scavenger group began feeding off him, going two at a time, one on his neck, one biting into the arm not shoveling gems down his open maw, neither hurting him like it probably should have.
As he ate and fed his children, Spike watched the small group trying to find a way to use the webbs to stop the dirt flavor, only for the web to either be ripped apart by the current or be too thick and start damming back the water. Having apparently reached an impasse, they went back to trying to talk it out.
"We need new water," one complained.
"Then we will find new water," one decided confidently.
"How?" Several asked with interest, the one who had been confident deflated at the question.
"We could ask mother?" They pitched.
"Mother is too noble; they'll tell us it's fine and keep wasting their precious time with bad water," Spike felt bad at the pedestal he had somehow ended up on, his children already feeling something like cupping his hands to get water was an act too far beneath him and was now their problem to work around so he need not bother doing it.
"If I'd known it would bother them so much, I'd have moved us to the entrance," Spike had ended up choosing to go deeper out of a fear of running into a search party for himself and getting called out as the monster that had captured the real Spike in a bid to take his place or something, "No, no I wouldn't have," Spike corrected, "Maybe I can sneak into Ponyville long enough to get one of those pictures that have a filter built into the lid? No, all stores are equipped with those stupid magic sensors, so they'd call me out as a changeling in disguise within seconds, and while that may not be all that bad now, my face would cause nothing less than violence,"
Spike went back to eating, planning to tell his children he was fine with panhandling the mud out of his water with his hands before noticing one had started drinking the water and then turned and started kissing one of her sisters.
"I stopped paying attention for about ten seconds. What is happening?" Spike stopped eating; Topaz, Opal, and their teams had already finished eating and started working on the walls. Spike now had to deal with explaining why Incest was bad, as his six remaining children seemed to be devolving into it; as he walked up to him, he noticed one would drink, kiss one, and then go back to drinking as all of them seemed to be exchanging the kiss in a line, ending with one who looked oddly determined.
Spike chose to at least see if they had a reason before telling them off, and his patience paid off fairly quickly.
"My social stomaches, Full," the one at the end of the line said mid-kiss as water began pouring out between the final two's mouths. Spike's concerns about incest dyed down, but he still had no idea what his children were doing or what a social stomach was as he watched them craft a bowl using the webbing; the little bowl turned into a cauldron, and the one who he figured had been at the end stuck her head in it, she kept her head ducked inside before pulling it out with a prideful look, the others looked inside and began congratulating one another before Spike looked inside, Water filled the bottom, crystal clear and also slightly disgusting. Spike looked up and found his six children practically dancing with how hard they were shaking; the gleams in their eyes killed his will to tell them how gross he found this.
"Hm, good job solving my water problem," Spike was swarmed by them as they all began claiming it was their idea and how they should get to be held during sleep that night. Having not planned to give out rewards, Spike told them to line up by the gem pile so he could feed them and name them, and then they could discuss who slept where.
As they began lining up, Spike used his hand to scoop out the water at the bottom since they hadn't filled it up very much and sipped it. To his relief, it did not taste like spit, just water. Spike let out a relieved sigh before going back to the pile to start eating and pick out some gems for names.
Starlight was starting to sweat when Ocellus finally returned, "What took you so long?" Starlight demanded; Ocellus just sighed.
"Fluttershy insisted I drink some tea before coming back to help keep me energized in case your magic doesn't work inside the hive, and I have to teleport us both out along with Spike," Ocellus and Starlight held hands, and Ocellus opened the door, after a moment of nothing the two entered slowly, Ocellus took care to shut the door behind them before they ventured down the small hall, the sound of buzzing could be heard by the large entrance that was between the entrance and another one further down the hall, Ocellus and Starlight peaked in.
Ocellus took count and noted the pitifully small size of the hive, and having a proper moment to see them when not scuttling along the ceiling and walls of a cave, she took note of how pitifully small the changelings of the hive were themselves. Ocellus had been born small, and when she was old enough to begin work in the hive, she had remained small; even then, she was bigger than the ones in this hive. She vaguely recalled some very old and tiny changelings, telling her they were the ones who laid the groundwork for the hive.
"Starlight," Ocellus spoke with telepathy, something that only worked a short distance and usually only one way if the other person didn't also have the spell; Starlight, having been the one to teach Oellus, had it as well.
"You see him?" Starlight asked, having been trying to catch sight of Spike, walking about or stuck to the ceiling in a cacoon.
"No, but these Changelings are their mother's first generation, and judging by the size and shape of this hive, I don't think it existed yesterday,"
"Meaning?" Starlight failed to see what this had to do with getting Spike, and Ocellus was happy to tell her why it had everything to do with that.
"Meaning Spike might have been the one to wake the Queen up from hibernation, and if she was a queen without a hive, I doubt she'd risk trying to feed off a fire-breathing Dragon; she might have dragged him with her with the intent to do so but abandoned him somewhere in the cave system upon realizing he'd be to much trouble,"
"So Spike probably isn't in here," Starlight realized, "Still, the Queen's our best bet, at least in figuring out where he might have to been ditched, if we come back with just a dozen or so Changelings we should be able to get a surrender out of her and-" The sound of crunching drew Starlight's attention. Her train of thought died when she saw what was making the noise; Ocellus followed her gaze when Starlight stopped talking, and they both watched in stunned silence as they watched the Queen Changeling crunch down on Gem stones as though they were cookies.
As the Queen ate, two of her brood bit into her skin, and she kept eating without complaint; Starlight wanted to ask Ocellus what exactly was happening with that but received the opposite of answers.
"How the hell is she doing that?" Ocellus seemed sincerely baffled at the situation they were watching, "Changelings can't do that."
"Maybe she just used her powers to change her digestive system so-"
"We can change our bodies, sure, but we can't just eat gems like a dragon and then be satisfied like a dragon; it would fill our bellies, but it would burn more energy, physical and magical, than we could gain from it, and mess up our stomachs when the transformation eventual became too hard to maintain, even with that many gems she shouldn't be able to do that, much less while having other changing suck out her nutrients!"
Despite Ocellus deeming it impossible, the Queen Changeling continued to do so to such an effortless degree that she kept eating even when her children were done eating, holding up a few gems as she ate and speaking to them; she was too far away to properly hear, but they watched one of the Changelings change the color of her organic clothing to match the same shade of orange as the gem the Queen was holding and then skip away for a moment before taking to the air and joining the others in covering the walls.
"No signs of Spike," Ocellus declared after getting over the impossibility of what was happening before her. Ocellus magically scanned the partially built hive and found nothing indicating Spike had ever been within its confines, "Not now or ever, she never took him this far at least,"
"Let's go," Starlight took one last look at the Changeling and took note she seemed to be enjoying the gems before the two teleported out with a flash that sent the hive into a panic.
Smolder was waiting for them; Fluttershy had gone ahead to tell Sunburst to send in the reports of a rouge Changeling hive near Ponyville and call in both Twilight and Thorax for support on the matter.
"Bad news?" Smolder was slightly nervous about what their response might be.
"Spike never made it to the hive," Starlight informed her, "The hive itself is made up of one Queen and several Changelings that might as well be babies; far as we can tell, the Queen decided Spike was more trouble than he was worth and ditched him, deciding to use his gems as a food source over him.
Smolder was slack-jawed as she looked between them before pointing to Ocellus.
"No, I can't eat gems," Ocellus snapped back, "That Queen must be a different kind of Changeling, a subterranean type or something, I dunno. I'm not a scholar of Changeling history. Who knows what other hives were like? Maybe we only eat love because Chrysalis likes eating it or something and birthed us in such a way that we could only eat it so she could get more of it or something!" Ocellus shrugged at the idea, "I'm going home and taking a bath. Are you coming?"
"Come get us when Twilight gets here," Smolder requested of Starlight before being teleported away with Ocellus.
"Alright, Guess I'll pool the data and then go back on the hunt for Spike," Starlight sighed as she teleported herself back to her office to start making a map, her navigation spell having been stuck to all four members of the search, she hoped she would have a fair bit of it mapped out before Twilight arrived in a panic.
Author's Note
Trophallaxis is what the six were doing with the water, just in case anyone was curious about it. If you wanna know what that means, then I recommend watching AntsCanada or just looking it up
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
Spike almost felt evil as he lay on his pile of gems, now thinking of it as his throne. He watched his children toil away with hard labor and sat back and ate. Now that their core was properly secured and they had set up a sizable stash, none of his daughters seemed to take him wanting to go out as anything less than a declaration of then failing to meet his needs, only resulting in them working faster and harder, and resulting in more hiccups and mistakes as they worked.
Spike had bargained for them to slow down and work with more care in exchange for him remaining inside the hive until it was time for the second stage of the hive his daughters seemed thrilled for.
That situation had resulted in him lazing around on his gem pile, now taking the shape of an almost decent pass at a poor dragon stash. He figured there were a couple hundred gems in the pile, but since some dragons could build stashes numbering in the low millions, he doubted he was anything special, not helped by his constant munching on the gems.
He attempted to distract himself from the longevity of his current hive, seeing as the deep soils of Equestria could form Gems in only a few years.
These caverns had once held a diamond dog colony well past several hundred large; he doubted his small hive would outweigh the gems so long as he avoided increasing its population too rapidly, an easy task as he was still hoping not to bear more children and deal the guilt of losing track of who was who, doubting the cave produced enough gems for him to come up with twelve more names, much less hundreds of names.
"I wonder if Twilight will let me take maternity leave," Spike muttered as he scratched his chin, knowing that the second his identity was confirmed, Twilight would celebrate his new form with a stack of paperwork a mile high. "I could lie and say I have another egg and just hope it stays a lie,"
With their mother firmly distracted by what they could only guess were deep, complicated thoughts, the three group leaders of the hive met by the water source for an important meeting, with the gem-gathering group having begun constructing doors at every tunnel to help the builders with their job the hive was well on its way of being massive. Still, if they wanted things to pick up, they'd need the next generation to arrive sooner rather than later.
"Mother is giving off the pheromones to try and draw in a female mate," Jasper declared with confidence, "But we won't be able to spread those pheromones out for several more days at this rate; we need to find a proper mate for mother so our workforce can properly grow,"
"Since your team consists of half the hive, I vote Jasper takes two of her followers and begins looking for a suitable breeder for Mother to use for hive expansion," Topaz agreed with Opal's suggestion; Jasper found no reason to fight against the idea and so immediately picked two of her finest warriors,
"Morgan, Moon!" The two scuttled off the doors they were guarding and took position on either side of Jasper, "We'll be journeying to the surface to bring Mother a candidate or two for breeding; we may need to use force, so be ready," The two confirmed their orders, and Jasper took point, asking Opal and Topaz to watch her remaining troops before she began the quest to find a mare for her mother.
Smolder yawned, across the dirt field Ocellus was camouflaged against a rock, using it as a vantage point as she shifted her gaze between two of the three entrances. Smolder was currently lying above the one Spike had originally entered through.
"Couldn't we play like cards or something?" Smolder asked gruffly, the creeping sensation of boredom making her feel dead inside and growing worse by the second.
"Hush," Ocellus called back, louder than she would have liked due to the distance between the two, "We needed to keep an eye out for any Changelings trying to explore outside their nest,"
"You said yourself it'll take three days at least for them to start sealing off the entrances," Smolder complained, "Can't we at least take a little break and get some lunch?"
"We can't just leave, what if they snatch some creature up?" Ocellus snapped back.
"You teleport us to Sugar cube corner, we get out food, we teleport back," Smolder rationalized, "Even if they do leave during that time we'll catch them trying to drag their hapless victim back into the cave," Ocellus was quiet for a short time as she sat on her perch before finally responding,
"No more than ten minutes," She caved in with a sigh as she did a short teleportation jump to Smolder's side, and the two locked hands before teleporting to get their lunch.
As soon as they teleported away Jasper stuck her head out of the Entrance Smolder had been guarding, She and her two companions had been waiting for nearly half an hour by the entrance, having seen Smolder carelessly lazing around the entrance, not that the dragon had been doing much in keeping quiet even if she had managed to stay hidden.
Jasper, Morgan, and Moon had already used the light shining into the cave from the entrance to help adjust their eyes, but the full open sky was still a little too bright.
"How long is ten minutes?" Morgan asked in reference to how long they had until their two predators returned in a bid to try and catch stragglers at the hive entrance.
"Not long enough I presume," Jasper decided, "Mark the other two entrances so the construction team knows to keep an eye out for predators before working on construction in this area," Morgan and Moon did as they were told while Jasper marked the entrance they left from with her pheromones to signify danger in the area.
Morgan stopped and stared at it as it, in turn, stared at her in shock.
"Oh," It spoke to her in a kind tone slightly edged with nervousness, "Hello there," It had a basket in one hand but set it down as it got to its knees and offered her hand to Morgan, Morgan approached the creature's hand and, figuring the lose of her own life would at least give Moon and Jasper the time they would need to flee back into the hive and gain plenty of distance, she set her hand in the palm of the creature, who gingerly close its hand around hers and shook it carefully.
"My name is Fluttershy," It told her sweetly, "Are you lost?" Fluttershy knew she was in danger of being snatched away just like Spike, but Starlight knew where the hive was, and if she was the one taken away she had a far better chance of being noticed since she was expected back at the castle within the hour under threat of having a search party sent after her.
"Morgan," Morgan introduced herself firmly upon realizing that this creature was a mare and that finding a mare had quite literally been her only job. Morgan pulled on Fluttershy's hand as she spoke, "Come with me," Morgan's tone was commanding more so than polite, but Fluttershy picked up her basket and followed after her.
"We may need to scrap the mission," Moon told Jasper, who was concerned she was going to have to agree until Morgan spoke up, both Jasper and Moon had been too busy to take count and figured Morgan would scream if she was attacked.
"I found a mare," Morgan informed the duo, who turned at the statement and looked up at Fluttershy, who just waved at them.
"Hello," Fluttershy was slightly nervous but, having already been told that all Changling outside of the Queen were probably only a few days old at best, she figured there was a chance these three had no idea just how dangerous the surrounding wilderness had the potential to be for small defenseless creatures. Since Smolder and Ocellus had seemingly started playing hooky she wasn't going to fly off and leave three small children to run headfirst into the woods, her animal friends were nice, but even a nice animal had the potential to be dangerous if you couldn't talk it down.
"We are successful," Jasper cheered, "Mare, you are coming with us so we may present you to our mother!"
"Ok," Fluttershy did her best to be nice, having already been told by Thorax, who had gotten a few older changelings to talk about Queens, That a Queen usually only had one mate in their life, and would usually go out of their way to seduce their desired partner to, as Thorax had so elegantly put it, Milk them for all their worth. This information had, if nothing else, ensured that Fluttershy was unlikely to have the act of making children forced upon her, at least not immediately, there was no telling if taking too long would result in the Queen assaulting Fluttershy or if denying her advances would result in getting tossed out.
With Smolder and Ocellus still nowhere in sight, Fluttershy allowed herself to be led into the caves so she could meet the new Changeling Queen face-to-face.
Spike wasn't aware that three of his daughters were off finding him a hookup, seeing as only two of them were still in the hive he just figured the others were out foraging or building. The Two stragglers, Aquamarine and Citrine were hard at work, using the cauldron they had crafted on the spot to filter water, the two were trying to filter out the water the best they could, but it seemed that only having two of them was slowing it down, Aquamarine drank from the water source, poured it into Citrine's social stomach, and then went back to drinking as Citrine did her best to spit back up as much of the water that wasn't filtered as possible, then pour out the clean water into the cauldron.
Being the only thing to do other than eat, Spike had chosen to watch them work, and so far the water seemed cleaner, but in being cleaner it only made the sediment sticking to the bottom all that much more clear to see.
"It's still a little earthy," Spike noted after taking a sip, still shivering in slight disgust at the act of trophallaxis, "Maybe you just need a third or even a fourth to get all the muck out of it, this water is dangerously close to being considered mud now," When Spike had first arrived the water had been dirty, but now it seemed the hive excavation efforts had caused a shift in sentiment, enough that their waterway had lost half it's volume for a little while, only to swell back up with a flow of muddy water. "Someone must have harvested gems too close to the waterway somewhere down the way, we're gonna need to find the water source this hails from and work on reinforcing the waterway, if we're not careful it could get sealed off and the backed up pressure could cause parts of the cave to flood,"
Spike watched as the water flowed past them, pondering if this was a problem they should try to fix, or if trying to communicate with Ponyville was worth the risk, he figured they would be less hostile towards his children if he at least told them how to act.
"We should attempt to start a relationship with the town not too far from our hive," Spike informed his two present daughters as they tried to work out how to filter water as a duo, "It would be far more beneficial for us to make friends of them," His two daughters held an air about that that told Spike they'd blindly follow his chosen path without hesitation or much care of whether it was a good path or not.
"So, if you see a pony, don't hurt them unless they start it ok?" The duo looked at one another and then back to Spike.
"How do we know if they're going to start it? and what is it?"
"I hadn't planned on you not understanding that," Spike replied bluntly, "Give me a second I've clearly started too high and I need to work my way down so I can bring you up to my level," His Two Daughters seemed excited at the prospect as Spike tried to figure out how to explain how exactly not to hurt ponies, and when it would be ok to hurt ponies, regardless of how bizarre the situation was telling his kids not to hurt a pony ever could get them killed and that wasn't going to fly with him,"
"Alright so when I said it I was referring to a fight, so don't fight ponies unless they start it, does that make sense?" He watched his daughters talking amongst one another, clearly trying to work out how to reply so their mother didn't think of them as not understanding, a dangerous sign showing off a strong likelihood that his child would say they understood what he was telling them if they felt they understood even slightly.
As he waited for them to tell him if they understood, he heard the entrance open but kept his eyes on the two he was talking to, making sure they didn't sneak a loophole into his orders.
"So if they have a sword and they stab one of us...then we can stab them?" Aquamarine sounded like she was asking a question but she also had an odd air of confidence about her.
"If they have a sword and try to stab you, then stab them before they can stab you, the moment you realize they mean you harm, at that moment you should intend to do them harm," The two went back to deliberating with one another, Aquamarine clearly furious she had gotten it wrong.
"That's a very nice rule," Fluttershy told Spike.
"It's just the basic..." Spike fell silent and slowly looked over to the new voice, Jasper, Morgan, and Moon all standing proud as they presented her with Fluttershy.
"We found a female," Jasper told Spike proudly, "Now we can begin bolstering our ranks,"
"Oh boy," Spike replied as he looked at Fluttershy for a very long moment, "Oh no," he decided as he got up and walked to his new horde, "That's really bad," He decided as he made absolutely sure it was Fluttershy before flopping into the gems, his Daughters hurridly moving Fluttershy into the room and making room for their mother to get to work.
"Hello," Fluttershy said awkwardly, "I'm sorry if this is a bad time, but your lovely children insisted I come for a visit," Spike let out a groan as he took a Gem stone and began eating it before looking back to Fluttershy.
"You ever hear of a Wishing stone?" he asked her as he made the mental preparation for what he would do if Fluttershy didn't belive the story he was about to tell her, "Cause I got a hell of a story to tell you,"
Author's Note
Happy New Years
