‘Where am I? I don’t know where I am. Oh god, I’m scared,’ I thought, though I wished I could say it aloud. My mouth was refusing to work, among the countless other problems I was facing. I think it is perfectly justifiable to panic when your brain cannot find any of your body parts. A horrifying thought struck me, ‘Am I dead? No! I can’t be dead yet! I still have things to do! My family needs me!’

I perceived the area around me as black, which was strange because I currently did not possess eyes. On second thought, even the word ‘black’ seemed strange, for the void I was floating in was most definitely not black, or any other describable color for that matter. After watching the almost, but not quite, entirely unlike black sky for several… units of time, I came to realize that I was actually moving. For reason I do not understand, I decided that the direction I was going was down, and that terrified me. ‘No, I don’t want to go to Hell! No no no nononono!’

In the direction I was headed was something nearly indescribable and equally terrifying. I say nearly because, of all the possible ways to describe it, there was only one physical description. It was the gaping maw of death… madness… C̞͉̼̩̤͡h̭̳a͎̭̲̥o̺̲͍̬̰̗͠s͘ itself. ‘I don’t want to be eaten!’

Thankfully, the moment I thought that, my motion came to an extremely abrupt halt, punctuated by a metallic twang sounding from behind me. As strange as it was to be without a body, I somehow managed to contort myself so that I was looking up. Above me were hundreds of not-white stars; to each one, one of the v̱̖͙i̮̣͖̻̻̗̙ne̠̝̠̮͍s̙̤ of my soul was connected. I pulled and I moved. The idea of a smile crossed my not-body’s nonexistent features; this was my ticket out of here. I mustered up all of my strength and pulled myself up and away from that terror of an afterlife.

Slowly, but surely, I climbed ever upwards. I had no idea how long it was taking me to cover the distance from here to my salvation, or if time even existed at all in this nightmarish place. I just knew that I had to keep moving towards the stars, which I now realized were the souls of my hive.

Suddenly, there was a shudder that sent me swinging. I clutched my grip as tightly as I could. One of the stars above me shook, then dislodged itself and plummeted towards the ravenous mouth below. It stopped short, inches from its destruction, but now I was supporting both of our weights. I gave a tremendous heave, managing to pull both of us upwards, much to my delight. An instant after, my mood was ruined by a metallic pop and a shudder in the link between the dangling changeling and me. Fearing that my connection may not be strong enough to hold the poor changeling’s soul, I redoubled my efforts to return us to the land of the living.

A second tremor shook me, causing the poor soul and I to swing erratically. To my horror, a second soul plummeted past me and collided with the first. A series of metallic pops punctuated each swing of my twin passengers. I resumed my now herculean task of climbing upwards, even as the sounds grew more frequent. As I pulled once more, their bonds snapped with an explosive boom, propelling me upwards and leaving my not-ears ringing. I watched in horror as the two souls were devoured before my not-eyes. Promising to cry for them later, I once again resumed my upwards ascension.

With one last pull, I opened my real eyes once more.

Ginny Skinner was not mad. That would be too strong and too vague a term for what she was currently feeling. The best way to describe her current emotion was eight parts scared, two parts annoyed, three parts disappointed, and seven parts furious. That said, it’s best to keep in mind that Ginny often felt like that – with the exception of the fear – on most every occasion, especially when her king’s messes were involved.

The fear, however, arrived in her heart when she saw the king’s current mess: himself. Or, more accurately, his lifeless body – brain splattered on the floor and arm dangling loose – and the decapitated bodies of Ted and Shimmer. And, like salt on a wound, the police had beaten her Silencer squad to the scene.

The head of the Silencer division’s mind worked furiously, analyzing the situation. She and her team of six were currently hanging from the ceiling in the guise of flies. The police officers below had surrounded the corpses and were busy documenting the bloody crime scene. “What do you think these things are?” one officer asked.

“I have no idea,” another replied.

Ginny knew that there was no way of retrieving their bodies without magic; however, without the ability to erase memories, which meant one thing: no survivors. She sighed mentally, for her fly form was incapable of making such a noise. The head Silencer knew that her king would not like her decision if… no, when he woke up. Ginny had to believe that her leader would survive, that Chrysalis was telling the truth. If not, Ginny would rip a hole into the other universe herself and gladly join Slagteri in the mindless slaughter of the other hive.

Ginny felt empty without her king’s presence. It disturbed her greatly; she knew she was not alone in that opinion.

<<Eraser, set up a shield around the building. Make it shock any living thing that touches it, but allow non-living things to pass through it,>> Ginny ordered. <<We don’t want them shooting through it. Mirage, head outside and start sabotaging the vehicles. You three,>> Ginny gestured at a group with her front-right leg, <<On my signal, sink the bodies into the basement. We’ll wait there until Duke Nick arrives with the truck. We’ll carry them through the ground and up into the truck afterwards. Got it?>>

They nodded in agreement. Slagteri, however, asked, <<What about me?>>

<<I’m getting to you; hang on a minute,>> Ginny placated. <<Change.lng, activate.>>

<<//Change.lng: Yes, mistress Skinner?//>>

<<Replicate by twelve. Sabotage all police communications within the area, including, but not limited to, radio, ground-based satellite receivers, and cell-phones. Then, destroy the police cameras. After that, send me a copy of the security footage, and then erase the original footage. Understood?>>

<<//Change.lng: Yes, Mistress. Commands acknowledged.//>>

<<Slagteri,>> Ginny said, finally addressing the most excited of her squad, <<Within the shield, there will be no survivors.>>

<<Fuck yeah!>> The homicidal changeling cheered.

<<Try to keep the gore to a minimum, would you? We still need this place and I don’t think George would like to have to clean any more blood off the floors of his club than there already is,>> Ginny stated.

<<What are we going to do with the bodies?>> Mirage asked.

<<Oh, I got it! Let’s eat them!>> Slagteri suggested.

<<WHAT?>> two of the changelings cried. The others were also disturbed to varying degrees, though they did not say as such.

<<Come on! The other world’s ‘lings eat the ponies they capture. Hell, I snuck through one of the portals that the king and queen always keep open and hunted a pony once. It was fucking delicious; they taste just like good veal. I even ate the skin and bones! Admit it, that’s a perfectly good way to get rid of a body and it doesn’t break the king’s ‘no killing except for food’ rule.>>

<<But those are ponies; these are humans! Who the hell in their right mind – besides you, of course – would eat a human?>> Eraser asked.

<<I’m sure the hatchlings wouldn’t mind. They were never a fucking human to begin with,>> Slagteri commented.

<<Enough chit-chat,>> Ginny scolded. <<We have to get moving! Mirage, the vehicles.>>

As Mirage buzzed away, confusion had already broken out among the officers below. Their cameras would spark green and then implode; phones and radios suffered similar fates. A moment later, there was an explosion outside as one of the police cruiser’s gas tanks ruptured, followed by another. The officers attempted to exit the building, but found their path blocked by a glowing green energy field surrounding the building.

Upon the first officer touching the shield and getting electrocuted, mild panic erupted; they were too well trained for full on pandemonium. That quickly changed when the twelve officers found themselves hovering in the air, arms bound by their sides, and surrounded by the brilliant green magic aura of four changelings. The fly that was Slagteri descended from the ceiling and, in a burst of emerald flames, reverted to his true form.

“Hey, you fuckers weren’t supposed to see this. Now I’m going to have to kill you. The thing is… I’m not sorry in the slightest. In fact, I’m going to savor every. Last. Second. Of. Your. Misery.” Slagteri’s smile warped into a monstrous grin as he cackled like a hyena. Green sparks danced around the tips of his claws as he charged up a lightning spell. With a flick of Slagteri’s wrist, the nearest officer was bombarded by a lethal current, stopping his heart and charring his flesh. The deceased policeman’s colleagues screamed.

Slagteri paid no mind to them. Unlike many of his own hive-mates, Slagteri relished the pain of fear and hatred inflicted upon him by his victims; though useless as food, those emotions filled him with a sense of sick pride. The twisted changeling reached down to his victim’s corpse and relieved it of its gun.

“I really wish I had more time to play,” Slagteri bemoaned over the cries of the still living. “Sadly, I have to end it quick. But don’t worry; I’m sure that you’ll still taste just fine. Maybe I can even convince the Princess to cook you up. She does seem to have a talent for meat~” the monstrous changeling sang. He pointed the stolen weapon at an officer’s head, which promptly burst upon being struck with a bullet.

Over the next few minutes, the changeling executed the remaining humans in ever more creative ways. All the while, the remaining three changelings sank the bodies through the floor to join Ginny and the bodies of their fallen comrades. When the light left the eyes of the final human, the changelings surrounded themselves with green flame and passed through the now empty nightclub’s floor.

“Gruesome, but acceptable,” Ginny commented upon Slagteri’s arrival. “Now, we wait for the Duke to get here.”

“How far away is he?” Mirage asked, having returned earlier from her successful sabotaging mission.

“Ask him yourself,” one changeling commented. “Wait, never mind,” she corrected herself when Nick announced his arrival over the link. “That’s him now.”

“Dude, please wake up,” Nick said, though his heart was not into it. It was hard for him to have faith in a supposed magical power of regeneration when his best friend of fifteen years was lying in front of him missing part of his brain. A tear streamed down his cheek, then another, until it was a pair of continuous rivers flowing down each cheek. For minutes, Nick sobbed, kneeling at the side of his friend’s body and surrounded by over a dozen other corpses – encased in cocoons – in the back of the large truck.

Finally, as if answering Nick’s request, a green spark appeared in both wounds, which quickly grew into brilliant flames. The tissue in his skull began to fill in the hole, while the damaged arm was severed completely just below the shoulder as a new arm grew in.

In under a minute, the flames surrounding the king’s head vanished, leaving a whole head that was completely unmarred. The regenerative magic working on his arm, however, had slowed considerably after it had re-grown the elbow, though it was still working.

His eyes fluttered open.

Imagine sleeping soundly, then suddenly having your head simultaneously bashed in by a frying pan and your arm chopped off. That’s what returning to the land of the living felt like. Granted, I found out later that I actually had been shot in the head and had lost my arm, but it was still a huge amount of pain to suddenly feel all at once without the aid of painkillers or endorphins. I do not remember screaming, though they told me I did. Neither do I remember punching Ginny, kicking Nick, or having to be restrained, though they told me I did. All I remember is pain, then a sense of numbness, then the darkness of unconsciousness.

When I awoke later – minutes, they say – the pain was gone. Thankfully, Nick had cast a full-body numbing spell on me while I was out. Though it settled the pain, the magic did nothing for the other sign of bodily distress I was experiencing: hunger pains.

On a side note, the fact that I was experiencing hunger pains, or anything for that matter, was incredibly pleasurable at the moment; it’s shocking how much you miss discomfort after being disembodied and almost eaten… well, not alive, but…

My stomach growled at me, having been deprived of the magic and physical nutrients needed to reconstruct my body. It demanded that I ignore my friends and provide it sustenance now; I complied. Moving on a mixture of instinct and a half-remembered lesson from Chrysalis, I grabbed my severed arm with my one good hand and raised it to my mouth. Stretching my jaw apart – far wider than I can ever remember opening it before – I bit into my own limb, crunching through chitin, bone, and all.

It was strangely delicious and gone in a minute.

The magic and nutrients within the arm were snatched up by my body in a second and directed to the reconstruction of the very limb I had just consumed. Two minutes later, my body was whole once again.

Possessed by a sudden fascination with my own body, I raised my clawed hands to my mouth and began stretching my jaw downward. It unhinged like a snake’s, stretching much further and wider than any human’s jaw should have been able to. Then I stuck my fist into my mouth and was only mildly surprised that I could get it down my throat and into my ribcage without discomfort.

After withdrawing my fist, I stuck out my tongue, just to see how long it is. Two feet. I had a two-foot-long tongue. I gave a slight chuckle, amused by the body I had just gotten back. “Did anyone else know I could do that? Can you do that?”

Of course, the moment I said that, I had acknowledged the presence of the others around me, and, by extension, the situation as a whole. I looked around, noticing for the first time that I was in the back of the cocoon truck, a trailer-truck we used for carrying its namesake. Around me were eight living changelings, staring at me with teary eyes; two headless changeling corpses, formerly Shimmer and Ted; and a dozen dead police men and women.

The gravity of the situation hit me all at once; I cried.

“How do you hide a body?” I asked Chrysalis quietly. Tonight’s dream was a sideways city of twisted buildings bathed in an eerie, sunless twilight; we were seated on the glass of a horizontal window.

“Don’t. Eat it,” Chrysalis replied.

“How could you say such a horrid thing? I was talking about a fellow changeling! Not some god-forsaken pony!” I exclaimed, then burst into a fresh round of tears.

“Oh, Faust, I’m sorry… I-I-I didn’t know. I’m sorry for your loss.” She shifted one of her wings to a feathered version and draped it across my back. “But, as insensitive as it may seem, I was actually referring to both pony and changelings.”

“What?”

“You know how we changelings eat our own severed body parts to regain the nutrients to re-grow them, not just make a temporary copy?” She asked.

“Yeah… I ate my own arm today after getting it shot off…” I said dryly.

“What is a changeling but a limb of the whole? Even in death, they can have one last purpose.” Chrysalis moved closer and tightened her embrace as she spoke. In return, I also leaned closer; even in a dream, someone’s embrace is remarkably calming.

“And how do you deal with grief and loss?” I asked. “I know I’m not the only changeling in my hive that is grieving right now. At this rate, I don’t think any of us will be left untouched by the sorrow.”

“Celebrate their life, spend time with your hive, and try to return to normal. Time heals all wounds,” she answered.

I looked up at the sky and the building suspended above our heads. “What about the loss of a lover? Just this morning, I was working on a method to erase a person from someone’s memories, rather than just give straight retrograde amnesia; hell, we’re still working on erasing any memories. Then today, I was reunited with my old girlfriend. Now she’s a griffin and indirectly responsible for today’s disaster.”

“Indirectly?”

I sighed. “I watched the security footage of the fight. You can make out when those three fired their guns and when we were hit. She fired two shots, but both missed. It was her two human companions that killed us. All three escaped unpunished and relatively unharmed, though Dave did manage to get his arm broken by a flying stool.”

Chrysalis spoke, “To answer your question, you could again let time heal the wound, or…” She trailed off and looked away.

“Or?”

“No living creature but I knows of this trick. Sometimes, I do it for another, but I never explain what it was that I actually did. Sometimes, I even do it to myself if my emotions ever grow to be too much. Though, it’s not something I could ever enjoy,” Chrysalis states.

I ask, “What is it?”

“I call it heart freezing. Whenever a changeling or a pony feels a positive emotion, a tiny bit of magic is generated by the memory, love obviously being the strongest. When a changeling is starving or grieving, I take the memories of the pony they love the most and… break the emotions off of the memory,” Chrysalis reluctantly admits.

“It fills the memory’s owner with a surge of magic proportional to the amount of emotion they felt, but it ruins the memories themselves. From then on, the changeling is unable to remember any positive feelings regarding that pony; at best, they feel nothing, and at worst, they feel pure loathing for the object of their memory,” She explains.

“Then, upon meeting that pony again, the changeling is incapable of feeling anything good towards him or her. A changeling who has had his or her heart frozen is forever incapable of even recognizing the object of their affections as a living creature, and could kill him or her without hesitation.”

I whisper, “That’s awful.”

“It is,” she agrees. “But the heart is not completely frozen solid. A frozen heart can still feel love; it can thaw for another, but never the original pony. Still, it can end the ache of a broken heart. Though, you must never freeze your heart against one of your own hive; it is the greatest insult and can turn the whole hive hostile towards that one individual, which is nothing less than a nightmare for the unlucky one.”

“I will remember that,” I promised.

“Good.” Chrysalis nodded. “Remember, this is a last resort. If you think your heart can at all heal itself on its own, do not use it; you may need that love some day to save your life. Now, here is how you freeze a heart…”

Dave hissed as the doctor pulled the makeshift splint off in preparation to set the bone. “Ouch!”

“I’m sorry, I must have struck a nerve,” the doctor said. Perhaps it was Dave’s newfound paranoia, having seen definitive proof that changelings existed, but the doctor treating his arm did not sound sorry.

“Are you trying to hurt me?” Dave growled.

“No, sir. Every licensed doctor in the country is under oath to do no harm; I wouldn’t dare to hurt anyone, ever.” Something about the doctor’s tone bothered Dave. “If you need additional painkillers, I would be happy to have the nurse get you some.”

“Thanks…” Dave said.

The doctor reached over and pressed a button on the wall. A minute later, a nurse walked into the room. Dave swore he could see a scowl on her face for the briefest of instances before it vanished, only to be replaced with a meticulously sculpted neutral expression. “Nurse, would you grab a 10mg oral dose of morphine for the patient from the pharmacy?” She nodded and closed the door.

The doctor returned to his patient and began to set the bone fragments. Throughout the procedure, Dave had the sinking suspicion that the doctor was being more forceful than necessary, and that stupid nurse had yet to return with the morphine.

Paranoia built within Dave; Catherine had said that the hospital felt free of changelings, but Dave was not convinced. He wanted to scream; the anxiety was killing him. He wished he had his gun in here, but that would have gotten him arrested faster than he could have said ‘wait, I can explain.’ Dave just prayed that his fears were unfounded.

As soon as Dave had been given his cast and discharged, the nurse came up to the doctor. The latter said, “Never in my twenty years of practice have I wished so hard that I had never taken that oath. Now I can shamefully hide the fact that I was forced to heal a murderer.”

“Doc, I’ve got a confession to make. I lied,” the nurse claimed.

“What?”

“That wasn’t morphine. It was a sugar pill.”

“That was wrong of you; you are under oath, too. Had it been any other patient, I would have you fired in a heartbeat. Still… at least we saved the morphine for the patients who don’t get hurt by murdering innocents.”

The soft glow of a television lights a room. The news is on…

“…but scientists are still baffled by the strange events that took place at The Eye of the Beholder bar and nightclub. To recap for viewers who are just tuning in, according to eyewitnesses, at approximately 3:34 yesterday, a group of early customers drew guns on one another,” The reporter explained.

The camera cuts to a heavyset man. “I was workin’ in the kitchen when Maddie, our waitress, burst in, claiming that there were people waiving guns around. We all headed out the back, just to be safe. I called the police, who said they would send someone out real quick. Suddenly, gunshots went off and I realized that Maddie wasn’t with us.”

The camera cuts back to the reporter. “The staff explained that the young Madeline Thomas was a close friend to Theodor ‘Ted’ Johnson, the club’s bartender, who she viewed as a father figure. Since she was not with the evacuated staff, it was assumed that she had gone inside to protect Ted, who was in the line of fire. Only a moment after they had evacuated, nine gunshots were heard. The staff saw a white sedan speed out of the front lot, only for police officers to arrive a second later, too late to pursue.”

The reporter continued, “When the police arrived, what should have been a routine investigation took a turn for the supernatural. A green dome of energy appeared over the club that electrocuted any who touched it. Electronic devices literally imploded, showering sparks of green light, and police cars burst into emerald flames, as if the gas tanks were laced with copper. Communications cut and vehicles destroyed, the officers outside could do little but hope that their dozen colleagues inside were unharmed.”

The camera showed the damaged vehicles in the lot. The reporter continued her exposition, “When the dome suddenly vanished, investigators entered the premise, only to find an empty room. The three unidentified victims of the earlier shooting, Madeline Thomas, Ted Johnson, and all twelve officers were missing. Bloodstains from six different officers, three of the victims, a police issue handgun that had fired all of its rounds, and the severed hand of Officer Monroe were all that remained. Additionally, blood from the same nine individuals was found in the basement level, directly below the bar, with no indication of how it got there.”

The camera cuts to Police Chief Douglas. He says, “This is a terrible tragedy, and the Atlanta Police department will do everything it can to rescue the missing individuals as soon as possible. We are working with the FBI on this incident, and treating it as a possible terrorist attack with hostages. As of yet, no suspect has been identified, but-”

The television shuts off.

Author's Notes:

*Ding* Have the aftermath chapter.

A little explanation on the title. 3093 is the total number of dead bones in this chapter, 206 bones per human and 207 per changeling (two jaw bones) and 12 dead humans + 3 dead changelings. Of course, one of them didn't stay dead...

Anyway, Ca5(PO4)3(OH) is the chemical formula for hydroxylapatite, the inorganic white mineral that makes up bone.

So, Catherine and co. got away, Rex has a new tool, and a new magical incident has the world's attention. What's a changeling to do?

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Editors, I applaud you. Give Alternate Madness and Doctor_N some love!

Alternate Madness Note:

So much for me continuing the shtick on the DBZ like last chapter but eh, f*ck it. Seriously though, how many of you got a dirty thought, at him swallowing his fist? Don't lie you perv. NEVER THE LESS! I gotta go Apease the Grandmatriarchs. It involves cursed laxatives, centuries old cocoa, and an infant. Don't ask.

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Trivia!

-- Due to the nature of the hive mind, the bond between body and soul of a changeling has been considerably weakened. It has to be magically reinforced, leading to death on total magic depletion. When the bond is broken, the dead changeling's soul is ripped out of the hive mind connection.

-- Rex influences the magical affinities of his hive members, giving them a very slight advantage with mental, soul, and space/time magic.

-- There are four known soul eating creatures, but only three have ever lived at the same time. Luna's Nightmare was #3, but was slain by the Elements of Harmony. The Nightmare Night legend of her eating foals came from a misinterpretation of the original story.