Be Imperceptible.

“Hmph. Clever. But you're still too late.”

Hatred.

My PipBuck pressed uncomfortably at my left hoof, occasionally “blessing” me with a single click emanating from its geiger counter. I checked the screen, the radiation meter pointing firmly in the green. For me, even that little was torturous. The taste of hatred clung to my mouth and nostrils – that’s what I had come to realize radiation tasted like, and in the coming century or so, I’d almost grown used to it. But never quite.

In a different time, my magic sensitivity would’ve come as a massive boon, but now, with all of Equestria wrapped in a blanket of necromantic bile, it struck me as the cruelest of curses.

The radio by my side was finally picking up that damned station from Tenpony, accompanied by a faint white noise I couldn’t seem to tune out no matter how much I fiddled with the frequency knob. I sighed, It didn’t matter.

Almost as if to reward me for today, a song came in that I hadn’t heard before, one by that Velvet Remedy character. The musical variety alone was almost enough reward for what I went through today... almost. I closed my eyes and let myself drink in the sorrow of Velvet’s voice as she sang, momentarily distracted from the odious taste in my mouth.

It lasted but a fleeting moment, and as all good songs do, this one ended too soon, replaced by Homage’s disguised voice. She was once again gushing about the “Stable Dweller” she loved so much. It was a wonder I was the only one to see right through her disguise. Even in the apocalypse, with trust being such a rare commodity, ponies remained gullible and clueless.

This time, she congratulated her on escaping Fillydelphia, even accompanied by a zebra that tagged along with her, supposedly after a glorious battle culminating in the death of that crater alicorn, and then, as usual, misattributing her friends’ help by claiming she alone was the one that managed to get the radio tower back to transmitting Homage’s barely disguised fangirling. Luckily, I wasn’t mentioned anywhere.

It was a common saying in the wastes that ponies needed a “virtue” to embody, something to live by so as to not lose yourself in the wastes... I thought differently, I needed a nemesis. Whether they matched me in strength or even knew me didn’t matter, I just needed someone to direct my frustration towards, at the very least something to blame. There had been many different ponies, zebras, mares, and stallions in the past: Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, All of Stable-Tec... right now, it was Homage. She actually reminded me of Pinkie Pie, in no small way. What with the constant threat of her finding out about my operations. In both cases, it would lead to compromising centuries of work.

At least Homage wasn’t a malicious psychopath.

I scanned the sky again, this time spotting a rust-colored pegasus pulling a big sky wagon, inside it, I could see that Zebra Homage mentioned, guess they were taking her with them, after all. Good. I wouldn’t want my effort to be in vain. In any case, it was time to move.

*** *** ***

I got up from my perch atop our barricaded donut shop that had served as my camp for about a week or so, making my way to the ladder to meet up with Crimson Barrel. My jagged, makeshift armor clanking with every step.

In truth, all I was doing was try to apply bandage after bandage to make up for my failures. Not that it was all my fault... I remember offering my aid to Celestia sometime before the massacre at Littlehorn, and then once again to Luna after it. I knew where that war was going, we could’ve helped. But we were turned down repeatedly, we were supposedly too duplicitous and untrustworthy, surely we were actually double agents of the Zebra nation... Nevermind that the Ministry of Image and the Ministry of Morale (Tartarus, all the Ministries!) were capable of far more evil and dishonesty than anything I could’ve come up with.

I made my way down the ladder, counting every rung. 15 assassination attempts stopped.

They were so reckless, walking around in public like there wasn’t a damn thing to fear for as long as they were in “friendly” territory. They went about their routines like clockwork, no thought to make their movements unpredictable. A whopping 8 assassination attempts were at that spa Rarity and Fluttershy loved so damn much. Always on a thursday, always at three in the afternoon. As the war neared its end, roughly 40% of the staff there were my infiltrators.

I opened the door and felt the reticles of a targeting spell beep over me, followed by a beep as our machine gun turrets recognized me as friendly and stood down. 143 balefire bombs disarmed.

Between sabotaged missile launch platforms and factories, disarmed bombs smuggled inside cities and strategic points, and even some missiles neutralized mid-flight, we shielded Equestria from roughly 93% of every single bomb planned to have detonated that fateful day. The calamitous hellscape I found myself struggling to stomach was but a fraction of the potential destruction had we not intervened.

Of course, it wasn’t enough, it should’ve been 100%. And it could’ve been if we hadn’t been treated like villainous scum. If the nation that claimed to embody the values of friendship, love and tolerance spared any of that to us. Even if our motives weren’t pure, what right did they have to moralize us? I weaved past the barricades we had mounted and stepped over the desiccated corpse of Scrap Wrench, our resident mechanic, her muscles were atrophied, and her cheeks sunken. I couldn’t even bring myself to spare her any thought before giving one of her “babies” a good buck in its weak back-case, causing the turret to pop loudly as its internal mechanisms jammed and exploded. Then I moved over to the second, shooting suppressive fire over the storefront, vainly tearing new holes in its facade. Its angle of movement was not wide enough to turn backwards and see its actual threat. Another buck, and that one was gone just as the first.

I heard a clattering coming from deeper in the store, Crimson Barrel was rushing to my aid. He made it one step out of the reinforced door before being pinned down and disarmed. He looked into my eyes with confusion, then sheer terror.

“Wh-what are you doing?” The raider I had journeyed with for three weeks pleaded. He was the last survivor of a gang I commanded all the way from back in Ponyville.

“I’ve got no more use for you.” I found myself sneering as my horn flared, a sickly green tendril pulsing from it to my victim, Crimson’s eyes flashing all the right emotions: Betrayal, recognition, fear, all the emotions of someone connecting the dots, still I indulged him. “It wasn’t some strange radiation disease, it was me. I’d say I’m sorry, but truly I am not.” He tasted vile, hatred, sin, deeply suppressed guilt. all of these scum did, but they were the one demographic I could feast on without guilt, as little nutrition they provided. His body hit the floor with a light thud, atrophied and weakened, facing Scrap Wrench, the unicorn with whom he’d share a fate. Mercifully, I picked up his gun, rested its barrel on his head, and pulled the trigger.

I wondered if my empathic abilities and my magic sensitivity were one in the same. Would explain why every last one of them were sociopathic bitches... me included, I snorted.

Despite the way we were treated, we still worked diligently to help Equestria, at every possible turn. Why would we ever turn against our only source of food? What benefit would we derive from... this? If we didn’t stop it, then we’d have no means of survival, no land to call shelter. We grew more desperate as the war progressed, and then there was nothing more we could do.

I packed my things, walking in what had once been this place’s bathroom, wondering what my next persona should be... a trader? A wandering ghoul pony? Maybe even a zebra? Those were always a nice change of pace...

I looked in the dirty, cracked mirror, and saw the fragmented reflection of a battered and scarred raider, wearing medium armor fashioned from sheet metal and rebar. Her light green coat was visible in certain intervals, obscured by her armor and then by deep burn scars. Her dark green mane was fashioned in an attempt at a mohawk, not quite accomplished due to the lack of actual usable mane, most of it having fallen out due to radiation sickness. All a carefully crafted ruse, of course. I sighed in relief that I wouldn’t have to see that face anymore, at least for quite a while. Really, right now I just wanted to see Her.

I threw away my armor and was promptly engulfed in green flame, my nose scrunched as I suddenly became far more sensitive to magic, that taste of hate coating my mouth like oil. I stretched my now jagged legs, fluttering my wings tentatively in that cramped space. I could barely stand at my full height in that room without my horn scraping the crumbling paint off the ceiling, much less fly.

I finally looked in the mirror, and looking back was the malnourished, scowling, utterly exhausted, reflection of Chrysalis, last of the Changelings, and sole living member of the Shepherds.

*** *** ***

I expected him to be waiting for me at the building’s doors. Still, the sprite bot in front of me stood there silent, unsure of my identity, having already taken the form of a griffin scavenger.

“Hello, Watcher” I greeted, indulging Spike by not using his actual name.

It could’ve been a malfunction in its thrusters, but the bot lowered itself slightly, almost as if untensing in relief. Then its speakers popped to life “Thank you for your help, Chrys. I’m not sure if Pip could’ve managed to leave without your help”

“Indeed, what an exceptionally stupid plan...” I sneered. I was so tired of playing guardian angel to ponies. “You know, if I just revealed myself I’m sure I could’ve taken her out of there with significantly less risk.”

“We both know you can’t do that, and why.” Watcher replied through the flat voice of the spritebot’s speakers.

“Indeed.” I sighed, “So where to, now, Tenpony?”

“I think so...“

*** *** ***

I shot a glance in Baltimare’s direction – Stable 17’s location – as I flew, it was one of the closest stables to the hive. Once it became clear that the nuclear apocalypse couldn’t be prevented, we turned to our plan B... I struggled to remember my exact mental state at the time, everything happening so fast. I knew that countless of my children were about to die, as were ponies, zebras, and anything alive. I knew I had to survive, time was running out...

We... had to leave the hatcheries behind... I was the only Queen left, my species could only continue through me. Our hope was that we could somehow acquire safe shelter in the Stable by impersonating ponies. When the door closed, about 20% of the population of that vault were disguised changelings. Once inside, I could start a new brood, my people would survive...

I struggled a little to see ahead of me as I flew, tears blurring my vision slightly.

Of course, I was walking into that stable knowing I’d probably be stepping into a damn death trap, courtesy of those moronic “social experiments” Stable-Tec had set up. Ours, as it turned out, was a critical scarcity of basically everything: Tools, books, furniture, musical instruments, even food. Luckily changelings didn’t need to feed on pony food, so *that* scarcity didn’t hit us that hard. Still, apparently their idea was that scarcity would inspire people to share and thus improve social cohesion.

The worst thing was that it worked for a time too, after a few years we were even able to drop our disguises, without the constant stream of propaganda about our supposed evil deeds, we were for the first time treated as equals. Stable 17 had a blossoming theatre group, since changelings could impersonate any pony to play their role, it meant very little costs for costumes, which was great seeing as we didn’t want to stress our essential resources thin for such frivolous activities as not going insane inside an underground tomb.

All was well and good... until the damn water talisman busted. Stable-Tec’s “Built to last” policy extended to basically everything, but apparently the talismans were outsourced... A century or so after the door was sealed, rising tensions and inner conflict led me to the conclusion that we had to leave or we would all die.

And so me and my merry band of changelings left to find a new place to make our hive, except nowhere was clean enough. Tartarus, those damned fools said it would only take a few decades for the surface to clear enough to be livable!

I straightened myself, realizing my flying speed had slowed more and more as I got lost in thought. I had to focus on my mission.

So our goals changed, we had to help the ponies figure out some way of recovering, so that we’d taste love again, so that my changelings could live again. We’d care for this world when no one else will so that we’d have food again, we called ourselves the Shepherds.

Of course, without a means to replenish our population, everyone died out some gruesome death, with a lucky few passing out of old age, until it was just me.

“Help Spike find the elements,” I recited to myself between shaky breaths, “Locate food and shelter, build a new hive, survive” I needed Littlepip and her friends to live, I could feel it in them, they were close, they could be the ones, I just needed to do as I always did... “work from the shadows, weaken her foes, sabotage their supplies, throw their aim off just enough...”

“And through all of it, be imperceptible.”

Footnote: Maximum level (50)