Changing The Lunar Guard

I had a beautiful dream that night.

I was in a cave. It was a rather nice cave. It was my cave. The cave I had known my entire life. Every few meters grew a glowing mushroom and so the cave was covered in a pleasant green light. I wandered the caverns without a care in the world. I was doing what I was born to do. I was doing what I was raised to do and I was doing what I loved to do. I protected the hive.

Like any other night on my patrol, the caves were completely empty. A peaceful night. Everything was like I remembered. Exactly as I remembered and I remembered every detail. When one walks the same caverns for years, those caverns tend to stay in one's memory.

Only one stone seemed out of place. A small blue stone close to the floor. Any other pony or changling that passed by would have overlooked it. I couldn't overlook it. Every other detail was perfect but this small stone was out of place.  After a few seconds of inspection I tried to pick it up but it was far too heavy.  This small blue rock must have weighed a ton but it was no bigger than a pebble.

"Ow. Stop thy touching!" The stone spoke. I was stunned for a second, this was a talking rock after all.

"Luna?" I asked.

"How did thou know?"

"The 'thy' kind of gave it away."

A flash of blue light filled the cave before fading back to green. "Nay, before that. Thou seemed to notice us from a distance. We thought our disguise was perfect and yet thou spotted us with ease."

"I've been walking these halls for years. They always look exactly the same. A small blue stone stands out."

"Why have thou been wandering these halls for so long?"

"A while back Queen Chrysalis feared an invasion of diamond dogs. When the new brood was hatched, a few of them were put in charge of guarding some of the outlying tunnels."

"So thou were born into this role?"

"No changeling is born without a purpose. Just sometimes that purpose disappears."

"Like thy purpose?"

"Yes, however I got lucky. I worked so far out from the main hive that almost no changeling noticed me. Had anyling payed too much attention, they would of noticed how pointless I was and I would have been executed."

"For not doing thy job correctly?"

"For being a waste of resources."

"That is barbaric!"

"You, actually I guess both of us, live in a world where there is plenty to go around. In the hive, where food is scarce, any unused personnel is a drain to everyling."

"Was Crystal another one of the lucky ones?"

"Not even close, her breed is in high demand."

"Her breed?"

"Each changeling has biological enhancements depending on what job they were born for. Each job has it's own breed of changlings. I am a guard built with a stronger exoskeleton and a mind that handles well under pressure. Crystal is a scout. Her job is to go outside the hive under direct orders of the queen and retrieve some food."

"What does thou eat anyway."

"We don't eat anything. Our food source is the love we collect from other species."

"We are confused. If thy species feeds off the love of other species, why have we never heard of thine species before?"

"The queen is very strict about who makes it out of the hive. In her mind, if word of our species got out,  we would all perish. I think she is out of her mind. If we could hunt for ourselves, I don't think any of us would go hungry."

"We are not sure. Thou are a rather scary looking race all together. I don't know how many would accept thee. We had three sets of doctors refuse to operate on you based on thy appearance."

"I think I need to thank you for that still. The doctors that did operate must have cared a lot. Only a great dose of love could have helped me recover."

"Actually both thine surgery and Crystals were performed personally by us. After so many ponies wasted our time. We took matters into our own hooves."

"I guess I owe you a lot then. I am forever in your debt."

"Please don't mention that to 'Tia. We are not supposed to interfere in the affairs of mortals."

"Your secret is safe."

"Thank thee Nightfall. Now we believe we shall be off. Have a good night."

"Wait. Luna, if you would like I could give you a tour of my old hive. Uhm, show you more about the changling race."

"As long as we are not a bother."

After that we wandered the halls of the hive. I pointed out a few interesting places such as the place I was born and the place I met Crystal. It was actually the throne room that caught me by surprise. One detail I was not expecting.

"Why is there a crater in the wall?" Luna asked politely.

I knew why. It was where Crystal had been kicked by Hellraiser. I was stunned by the simple crater. That crater was the reason I had been sent to Canterlot. It brought back the fear I had. The desperation of that day and the hatred of Hellraiser. Everything about that day stung.

"Are thou alright?"

"Yes, it's just. That is Crystal."

"How can that be Crystal?"

"Sorry, it's not. When I was standing trial Crystal stepped up to try and save me. One good kick from Hellraiser and she made that crater."

"Hellraiser? You never mentioned that changling before."

"There is good reason for that. He's Commander Hellraiser. He is second in command to Queen Chrysalis and has direct control over the changling army, special ops teams, and guards."

"What made this Hellraiser so terrible."

"He is basically an extended reach of Chrysalis. Every order she says, he is right there with the whip. Metaphorically and sometimes literally."

"How did he come to be Chrysalis's right hoof?"

"I don't know. Most changelings don't die of natural causes. Most die when they outlive their usefulness. Hellraiser happens to be one of the oldest changelings alive. I don't know if he even knows his age. As long as anyone can remember, he has been at Chrysalis's side."

"I am sorry Nighty. I would love to spend more time with you but the night has begun and we need to wake up." Luna quickly faded out of existence and the world around me faded with it. I was left in a field of darkness.

I woke up very slowly.  I didn't even have the energy to open my eyes at first. So I just lay there hugging my blankets. They were so soft, like a teddy bear. I wish I could have stayed in that semi-asleep bliss.

"Nightfall, thou can let go of us any time." My eyes burst open. I was in Luna's bed hugging her like a child's plaything. Only a second passed and I was able to snap out of my sleepy state. Only a second more to scramble out of hugging Luna and propel myself backwards out of the bed.

Luna laughed. "We said 'thou can let go', not 'we are a vampony'. However thy reaction was more entertaining than we originally expected."

"Sorry Luna. I thought I was hugging blankets and I was so sleepy and I ..." I quietly trailed off as I picked myself off the floor.

"So thou are saying that we are not worth hugging."

"No. I didn't say that. I was just saying that-"

"Shhh Nightfall. We jest. We know what thou meant." Luna interrupted me.

"So what now?" I asked.

"We have a surprise for Crystal and thee. We shall fetch Crystal and then inform both of thou of our suprise.

"Okay then. Where should I meet you and Crystal?"

"Are thou not coming with us?" She questioned me.

I was confused. "I thought you were going to teleport away and get Crystal."

"That would be a big invasion of privacy. Teleporting in on somepony unexpected especially into a bedroom. Trust us, 'Tia taught us that lesson very well."

I obviously chose to go with her. We wandered down a few corridors and got to the cleaner side of the castle. The castle seemed very different from the previous night. For one thing the halls were littered with ponies whereas the previous night there were none. Maybe I wasn't raised right, but I thought ponies went around practically nude most of the time, yet all the ponies we past seemed to all be wearing various ridiculous pieces of clothing.

It wasn't very long before we reached Crystal's room. We knocked on the door and after getting a response from Crystal, entered the room.

"Hi guys! Great night tonight." Crystal expressed with just a little to much excitement.

"Thank thee. We made sure to make it extra special tonight."

"Why is that Luna?"

"What do thou know of Nightmare Night?"

"It's this awesome celebration were ponies dress up in really weird costumes." I could tell from Crystal's excitement she really liked Nightmare Night. "And they go around pranking each other and giving out candy. Then they choose a statue and dump some of their candy on it."

"Well, close enough. This year we are going to be making an appearance. After last year's failure in this city, we are going to be trying Ponyville."

"So what are we waiting for?" I asked.

“I don’t like this.” I said as I unhooked myself from the carriage. We had already landed in ponyville and Luna decided she didn’t want us around.

“Oh come on Nighty. The Princess told us to have fun. What do you want to do?” Crystal asked while gesturing toward a cotton candy stand.

“We really should check on Luna.”

“We really should go get some candy. Come on, everyone will be amazed by our costumes.” I rolled my eyes.

“We aren’t wearing costumes.”

“That’s why they are so believable. Besides, Luna specifically told us she didn’t need our help.” While that was true, I still didn't want to leave Luna alone.

“Couldn’t it be some kind of test?”

“Absolutely. Wait, no. Actually, I'm gonna go with a definite maybe.”

“So we go find Luna?” Not sure how to respond to crystal’s answer.

“Sure. Maybe she went to get some cotton candy!” Crystal ran off.

I ended up following Crystal. I really didn’t want to but I didn’t know anything about ponies or about the town I was in. I didn’t even know which way Luna went. Even though Crystal was only gone a few seconds. I found her with a heart attack’s worth of junk food.

“Want some?” Crystal asked.

“How did you get so much food?” I said while slightly confused.

“It’s Nightmare Night.”

“But you were only gone for like ten seconds.” My confusion was not cleared up.

“Oh, this pink pony with a bunch of children ran by and dropped some of their candy.”

“Shouldn’t you give it back?”

“I would but I already ate it.” I was about to question her but before I could, she essentially absorbed the food she had with her mouth. I debated testing the limits of my jaw for a second but decided against it. Sometimes Crystal is one of a kind.

“Wait what is that?” Crystal suddenly looked away.

“I didn’t hear anything.” I responded.

“There was definitely a Gwaa Thwump sound over there.”

“What kind of sound?”

“It sounded like somepony very surprised and then fainting.”

“How could you possible know what that sounds like?” I asked skeptically.

"I had a pony walk in on me whilst in my changeling form. But never mind that, somepony might need our help!" She dashed off immediately. I was quick to follow. A wall of bushes blocked our path, with a small struggle I pushed past them and came to a small clearing. There were only two noteworthy things in the entire clearing.

The first being a pony fainted on the ground. From what I could tell it was a she and she was white with purple hair. However that was the least of my worries. In front of me lay Crystal. She was sprawled out on the ground. I took a step closer to check her vitals. Only at the last second did I realise that whoever, or whatever, did this could still be around.

And then everything went black.