“Hey… newbie, is that you? What’s up with your face?” One of Catherine’s co-workers called out. He was not the first – nor the last – to comment on the woman’s changing appearance. Catherine growled softly to herself as she walked through the police station offices; it was not like she had any choice in having her mouth partially warped into a bird beak or feathers growing out of her scalp. Her wings, responding to her annoyance, rustled slightly from their hiding spot under her overcoat.

“Aliens,” Catherine quipped as she strode past his desk. It was her go-to response whenever anyone questioned her appearance; considering the sky above, people were oddly willing to accept that answer.

Her wings twitched again. Catherine longed to fly, to stretch her wings and soar through the clouds. Unfortunately, now was neither the time nor place to do so. Even if it was a good time, so long as she wanted the protection of her anti-magic ring, her wings would never grant her enough lift. It absolutely drove Catherine bonkers, her body fighting itself over flight versus self protection.

However, despite her misery from wearing said ring, she was glad for it. Her partner had found a unicorn to prove that it worked. Annoying as that blue mare was, Trick – or whatever her name was – was unable to do anything to Catherine only while she wore the ring, much to Catherine’s relief. The only flaw was that it only partially defended against a changeling’s voracious appetite. Every day while driving her car, she would feel twinges in the back of her mind from when she passed through the range of a changeling’s passive feeding aura. It made Catherine realize how numerous the changelings really were.

Doing patrol duty in her squad car had given Catherine a great opportunity. Since a single changeling’s aura extended about forty feet around it – compounded by additional changelings – any place that Catherine could feel from the street meant that multiple changelings were gathered there.

She found the hive in six days, not that she could do anything about it. Walking in alone would be suicide. Catherine needed hard evidence in order to convince anyone of anything. That is why she needed to talk to Sarah, whose informants could get Catherine the dirt she needed.

As the elevator dinged and the doors opened up, Catherine stepped out onto her floor only to be greeted by the signature tug on her emotions. Quickly, she conjured up thoughts of rage, hatred, and bloody violence, which, while ruining her mood, staved off the worst of the changeling’s influence. “Damn, there’s one here, too,” Catherine swore. Her gloved claws subconsciously moved together, feeling the ring that she wore underneath. She could vaguely tell that the changeling was in front of her; however, her sense – sharpening with her continuous transformation – was still not strong enough to pick one changeling out of the crowd.

Walking down the space between the desks towards where Sarah sat, Catherine brushed past Chief Douglass. “Good morning, Officer Nord,” he called out. She replied similarly – her tone was carefully controlled so as to not betray her inner rage – but did not stop walking.

“Lieutenant Shrader,” she addressed Sarah, “May I talk with you? In private, if possible.”

“Lieutenant… What’s the emergency?” Sarah said while standing from her desk. “You’re never that formal unless something’s bothering you, Officer Nord… Well?”

“Not here, too many people.” Catherine turned and walked towards the break room, Sarah on her heels. Upon arriving in the empty room, Catherin closed and locked the door, then moved to cover the security camera in the corner. Sarah looked at her nervously, unsure of what to make of her subordinate’s actions. “Hand me your gun.”

“What?” The lieutenant asked.

“Or just set it on the table, out of harm’s way. Either way, I don’t want it going off.”

“Ok, now you’re freaking me out,” Sarah said, but complied anyway. As soon as the gun was on the other end of the table, Catherine reached into her purse and pulled out a roll of gauze, a small bottle of liquid bandage, and a bottle of hand sanitizer.

Catherine turned her back towards Sarah and pulled off her gloves. “Sorry about the secrecy. I have to check. Use the hand sanitizer, Lieutenant, please,” Catherine said. When she heard the distinctive squirting noise, Catherine reached for the bottle for herself.

Sarah, seeing Catherine’s yellow talons for the first time, gasped. “Catherine, what happened to your hand?”

The talon-handed woman said nothing. Instead, Catherine whirled around and grabbed Sarah’s hands with her claws, still dripping with the alcoholic sanitizer. Before Sara could react, the pointed tips of Catherine’s fingers raked across the back of her superior’s hands, leaving deep, bloody gashes. Sarah hissed in pain as the alcohol both burned and sterilized the wound. “Yeaouch! The hell was that for?” Sarah screamed

“I’m really, really sorry about that. I just had to be sure that you were the real you. Though they bleed red, just like us, you would have switched back to your true form if you were one of them. They can't handle pain. Come over to the sink, let’s get that washed out and cleaned up.” Catherine turned on the water in the sink.

After getting patched up, Sarah said, “You could get in a huge amount of trouble for doing that, you know. Attacking a fellow officer is a huge offense; you’re lucky that I’m such a nice person. Now, explain why, exactly, you thought it was a good idea to shred the back of my hand. What the hell is going on?”

In response, Catherine just took off her overcoat and spread her wings – eighteen feet from wingtip to wingtip – filling the width of the room. From around Catherine’s waist unfurled a light brown, five-foot long tail with a dark brown plume of fur at the tip. “The sky isn’t the only strange thing here,” Catherine replied.

Sarah massaged her forehead. “So you’re telling me there’s a race of sociopathic, parasitic, shape-shifting insects invading Earth; they murder, steal, and kidnap for fun; and one of those people they’ve captured can actually move the whole moon?” Catherine and the humanoid-griffin behind the portal both nodded. The former reached into her purse and pulled out a handful of photos and slid them to Sarah. Each one showed an apartment window which contained either the insect-people or the blue, winged woman with hair that looked like a flowing part of the night sky.

“Her name is Selene, at least as far as I can tell. My lip reading is passable at best, so I’m not totally sure.” Catherine shrugged. “It’s ironic; Luna is the Roman counterpart to the Greek Selene, both moon goddesses. Here we have the Equestrian Luna and American Selene, both who control the moon. I digress; she seems to think that one of them is her father. However, her magic is the only one that isn’t changeling green, which leads me to think that she’s relatively human and that brainwashing may be involved.”

“Brainwashing?” Sarah asked, startled.

“Dweeb, the changelings are masters of the mind, both with magic and mundane tricks,” the griffin beyond the portal said. “Even if it’s easy to snap someone out of a hypnotic trance, those lame-o’s have other ways of getting under your skin. If that doesn’t work, they have a whole bunch of other nasty surprises, including the ability to silently call for help. The only harmless changeling is a cold, headless one.”

Catherine declared, “Which is why Gilda and I are hunting them.”

“How can I help?” Sarah asked. “You can’t possibly do this alone.”

“Thanks, Sarah. I need your contacts in the black market. Scum like the changelings tend to be attracted to the criminal world, so there is our best bet for finding more evidence,” Catherine said.

“Hmm… I think I know the right guy. Anthony Titarenko knows everything about everything when it comes to organized crime. He works as a bartender at the… Livewire… Club…” A look of panic crossed the Lieutenant’s features. “They eat love! Can the changelings feed on lust, too?”

“Yes, they do. Those bastards are often working as whores in pleasure stables,” The griffin said.

“And… what was his name, the one who took William?”

As if the words were physically disgusting, Catherine spat, “Alvarium Rex. The hive king himself.”

“Oh god… I think I had sex with him.”

“What? When? How?” Catherine screamed, pounding her re-gloved fist on the break room table.

“The Livewire Club is a sex club. That man, he introduced himself as Rex and his eyes… they changed from brown to glowing green in a second. I still remember that, despite the alcohol.”

Catherine draped her wing around the other woman. “At least you are alright. That said, Anthony is out. There’s no way I’m walking into that place. And tell anyone you know who goes there to stay away.”

“The Chief goes there…”

Catherine stiffened. “Ok, Sarah, listen. Around him, you have to pretend everything is fine, and that you know nothing about Changelings, alright?” Catherine asked, to which Sarah nodded. “Good. Now, I felt a changeling earlier when I came in this morning. It’s quite possible that he has been replaced, but we have no proof. Do nothing yet, got it?”

Sarah nodded. “Yeah, ok.”

“Good,” Catherine replied. “Ok, do you have any other decent contacts that we can use?”

“Well, there is one other…”

“God damnit, why did it have to be here?” Dave asked.

Sarah asked, “What’s wrong with this place? It’s a whole lot nicer now than it ever was.”

“He got his hand chopped off by an enraged changeling the last time he was here,” Catherine answered for Dave. He just gave a stink eye in retaliation. “Got your rings?”

Dave grunted in affirmation, while Sarah asked, “Are you sure these work?”

“They stop me from flying. They stop a unicorn from picking me up…”

‘Unicorn?’ Dave mouthed, but did not say.

“… and they nullified her spells. Magic is magic, regardless of species. The rings work,” Catherine stated.

“If I die from your belief in some stupid trinkets, I am so haunting you for eternity,” Dave grumbled.

Catherine rolled her eyes. “Duly noted. Now…” The griffin-human hybrid started forwards towards the door of the ‘Eye of the Beholder’ bar. Her two fully human companions followed closely behind her. Upon entering, the trio sat down at the bar. Catherine shuddered at the presence of changelings.

The bartender came up to them and took Sarah and Dave’s drink orders, both beers. When he came to Catherine for her order, she gathered her resolve and replied, “Just water. My 21st isn’t for another month. Though I do have a question… Do the names William Ross or Alvarium Rex mean anything to you?”

Unseen by any of the trio, the bartender clenched his fist by his side. The innate magic within the changeling informed him of the details of Catherine’s body, and what he sensed bothered him. <<King, some girl just asked for you by name. She’s not quite human; she has wings. What do I do?>>

<<Show me the memory.>>

The bartender passed the memory along the hive link. Suddenly, the alien presence of his king slid into his body and took control. “Before I answer, what do those names mean to you?”

“One’s a boyfriend, the other’s a monster.”

“Funny…” the possessed bartender said. His gaze fell upon the necklace that adorned Catherine’s figure, and the large emerald within. A faint smile grazed the bartender’s lips, before fading in an instant. “You know, he’s been thinking about you, lately, wondering if you would come for him.”

Catherine growled. “Which one?”

“Does it really matter?” The possessed bartender asked. “William foolishly hoped that you’d come back as a lover. Rex feared that you would return as an enemy. They never suspected you would show yourself to be a griffin.”

“And you’re the changeling I’ve been feeling,” Catherine replied. Her two human companions lowered their hands to their belts, where their handguns were holstered.

“Feeling… You know, I’ve always wondered what it was that made griffins lunge at our throats and eat our corpses.” For her part, Catherine looked absolutely disgusted at the bartender’s accusation.

“Perhaps it’s the energy leaving your body at the slightest happy thought within forty feet of a changeling. It’s quite disgusting, actually,” she retorted.

“So, that’s it? You can feel the passive feeding?” he asked, amused.

Suddenly, the feeling within Catherine halved itself, and then a more distant source vanished. Catherine swore to herself; she had given away how the changelings were detected and they had nullified that advantage. Now she was worried; there was more than one changeling in the room, possibly listening in, who could now be hiding among the other customers.

“You know, it’s a pain to turn that off,” the bartender complained. “You could at least appreciate the gesture, Catherine.”

The bartender’s last sentence sounded off. Catherine blinked and looked around. In the seat next to her sat a man in a black jacket. So hyper-focused on the bartender she had been, Catherine had not noticed him sit down next to her. “You know,” both the bartender and the man said in unison, “It makes me feel good that you didn’t sell the emerald I gave you.” The man turned to Catherine and smiled a smile that she had not seen in two and a half years, ever since it had burned away in the emerald flames.

“Hey there, my sweet Catherine.”

Author's Notes:

*Ding* Have a Catherine chapter. It may not be the longest chapter, but it does have the longest title. And look, it's Gilda! I needed a griffin, and she's an established griffin character with no known job, could be portrayed as speciest without being too OOC, and has served time on-screen as an antagonist. Gilda fit the bill. (My editor Alternate Madness was upset that it wasn't Ambassador Gavriil from the 'Color' short in chapter 36.)

Honestly, Catherine is not a villain, just an antagonist. In fact, I've mused with the idea of writing a spin-off story involving Catherine and her adventures as a Gatekeeper. It's worth a shot, but not right now. What do you think? (Please comment. I love reading what you have to say!)

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Anyway, about the next chapter, I've been having issues determining the fine details in how this scene plays out. I think I'll start out with a short piece on what Rex has been doing since Ian's suicide and this last scene, then the scene itself from Rex's perspective, then the resolution.

But enough about the near future, let's talk about the distant future! I have plans for the next four major story arcs, but far more for the last three than the first. If you would like to help me brainstorm for the next arc, PM me and I will fill you in with what I have so far. Reply fast, because I'm not going to do this with everybody.

Here's a clue for what is to come, in order: Moon, Love, Oblivion, Chaos, Sun, Tomato paste on a Mirror, Friendship, and Nature. Does that make sense? The second word also coincides chronologically with the start of Season 3 in this version of Equestria. (I really cannot see all of seasons 1-3 happening in 1 year, like MLP S4 implies.)

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Thank you to my wonderful editors, Doctor_N, Alternate Madness, and the GLOW CLOUD! ALL HAIL THE GLOW CLOUD! Ahem... Sorry about that. What was I saying? Oh yes, thank you to my wonderful editors, Doctor_N and Alternate Madness! Those two are the best!

Alternate Madness Note:

Sorry I was so silent for a while, I went undercover in Sweden to slay a troll. Anyway, NEXT TIME ON BQ,RK, Will the ex fight her once lover, with the realization that it was the same man the entire time? Will she shoot him for the revenge from spurning her all those years ago? Will the guy with the cut off hand, that no one cares about, do anything? FIND OUT NEXT TIME ON BLACK QUEEN, RED KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING!

NEVER THE LESS! See you guys next time, it's open season on bad OCs, and now the best opportunity for trophy kills!

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In other news, I may be collaborating on a spin-off story with PandoraBoxable in the near future. Nothing is set in stone yet, but my fingers are crossed.

You know that writing challenge I mentioned in my authors notes a few chapters ago? Yeah, I want to expand this story into a mass-collab work like the Chess Game of the Gods by Rust/Blackwing. PM me for details if you want to join. I already have a group up!

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I'm not going to bother with those stats anymore... except for the hive population.

Changeling population: 342 (274 converted, 67 hatched, 1 permanent digital)

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Anyway, have fun! (And those who get the reference, you get an internet high-five!)