Life was not looking good for Ginny Skinner right now. Twelve. The Silencers had twelve different dead-man switches to keep from exploding on them. That meant twelve changelings had to be dropped into impersonation roles with little more than a face, a name, and a drivers license. Yes, the thirteenth member of the anti-changeling movement provided some help, but otherwise Ginny's team had to start finding information from scratch.

Sure, there was a huge amount about each person online. The problem was, there was a huge amount about each person online – way too much to review in a few days – yet Ginny was still missing an incredible amount of information, namely a lifetime of memory, for each person.

Then, just as Ginny was trying to convince her King that they should just convert the rest of the movement to changelings and return them to their lives, a dead-man switch went off.

Pictures and documents appeared in forums and on social media. Photos of undisguised changelings, reports on suspicious activity, and more went online. And by the time that she had found that information, it was too late to stop the re-posts. Ginny knew there was no way to stop it now; completely erasing information regarding a conspiracy was only going to make people believe it.

For once in her life, the cynical, ADHD personality of the internet collective worked to Ginny's advantage. The whole world was still abuzz with talk of the "Angel of the Night," keeping the posts regarding the changelings in the background. Compounded with change.lng's efforts to increase the down-vote count, her team's efforts to spread libel, distractions, and stupidity – Ginny loved trolling, she really did – and change.lng's doctoring of the posts and re-posts to make the poster seem insane, the Head Silencer was able to shove knowledge about changelings out of the spotlight.

The problem was that the information still existed. Despite her King's optimism, Ginny firmly believed that this would come back to bite her in the ass.

Gilda had been very annoyed these last few months. First, she had gotten herself stuck with a lame-o human girl – though, Catherine turned out to actually be pretty cool when she started bug hunting. Then, Gilda got her body warped; she hated being forced to walk on her two hind legs. Every time she walked towards something, it saw her from an angle that was reserved for intimate relationships.

Catherine had suggested that Gilda wrap herself in cloth until she could find a seamstress to make herself clothing. Gilda had begrudgingly accepted, though she hated how Catherine had laughed and said it made her look very Greek, wearing a toga like that.

Over time, that annoying girl had convinced her that maybe, just maybe, Gilda should swallow her pride and apologize to RD and her friends. Maybe, Catherine had suggested to her, that was the key to getting her friend back under her wing.

So, with a look of cool determination and more butterflies in her stomach than she would ever admit, Gilda took off and flew towards Ponyville. The griffin's determination, though, was so strong that she vowed to get her friend back at any cost.

Then Catherine had to go and get herself captured by the changelings, full cocooning and everything. Gilda was annoyed – her default stress reaction – not at her maybe-friend, but at herself because she could not do much to help. The griffin hen swooped down into the forest floor below.

Gilds hoped that White Tail Woods had the specie of moss she needed; when chewed up and injected into a cocoon, the moss accelerated the metabolism of the changeling's venom, allowing the prisoner to wake and move sooner without alerting the bugs. Gilda grinned, having found a patch.

She covered her nostrils on her beak and placed the disgusting stuff in her mouth. After a moment of vigorous chewing, Gilda opened a small portal that exited right next to Catherine's face and spat the glob through.

Gilda waited, and waited, and waited. The sun set over the horizon and the moon came out. Finally, Gilda and Catherine decided that she was alert enough to escape on her own, even if she was not at peak condition. Using the portal as a knife, the pair cut through the bottom of Catherine's cocoon. Catherine fell out.

Now, it must be noted that while a cocoon in Equa is generally hung in a cave or a pony's house – or even not hung at all – which generally implies that the cocoon is perhaps maybe a foot or two above the ground. Conversely, Catherine's cocoon was hung in a warehouse that was two and a half stories tall; she hung nearly twenty feet above the ground.

It also must be noted that the universes in which Catherine and Gilda reside have two different sets of physics equations, namely those that involve the electromagnetic force and how it relates to molecular cohesion. In Equa's universe, matter is not as tightly bound together as it is in Earth's universe, though the chemical bonds are partly supplemented by the ambient magic field, something that Earth lacks. This in turn alters equations relating to elasticity in Equa; in layman's terms, things are bouncier in ponyland.

Catherine was not in Equa. Catherine was not just a foot above the ground. Catherine was not able to fly with goo-covered wings. Catherine was not able to stop falling head first towards a concrete floor.

Gilda was not able to forget what death by broken neck felt like.

The griffin coughed at the same time as the light left Catherine's eyes, a thin trail of blood escaped Gilda's beak. The feeling of butterflies in her stomach from earlier intensified into full-on stomach cramps. Gilda coughed again, more blood escaping this time.

Doubling over in pain, Gilda gasped in for air. Each breath came harder and harder as her lungs filled with blood. To her, it felt like her abdomen and ribs were being crushed. With one last, desperate gasp, Gilda expired.

Now, had someone been watching the scene at the exact moment every cell in both bodies died, they would see the bodies seemingly implode into a swirling vortex. Their bodies vanished and the vortex faded until, with one last ripple in space and time, it was as if their corpses had never been.

<<Catherine is missing!>> Those three words set my hive into a frenzy. Panic ensued when we realized that we might have a rogue Griffin on the loose.

When someone had the bright idea to watch the security footage, panic turned to mystery. I was saddened to see Catherine fall to her death, but I was terribly confused by the way her body vanished. I ended up watching the video several times, trying to decipher what had occurred. One run-through, I had had Soul-Sight active, for curiosity's sake. The fact that I could see souls in video was secondary to what I saw there; things that looked awfully similar to my t҉̻̙ḛ͈̩̫͚̝n̠̭͍̗̫d̤̬͍͇̲̤͝ͅr̘̯͠i͝ļs̞̤̜͓͍ dragged her body into the void.

March rolled around with little fanfare. Since the bizarre ending of the anti-changeling movement, things had been thankfully quite quiet. It had been business as usual, with one small exception; we were planning to enter a period of rapid population growth, but until then, we halted all conversions and breeding. As we prepared for the future, we hoarded our money and resources. We watched. We planned. We waited.

My phone rang at noon, as expected. I pushed the button to answer and set the phone by my ear. “Tell me, who are you?”

“I am Slagteri, a loyal member of the hive,” the voice on the other end said. The line was rehearsed; every three days, he would call me and we would go through the script together. I dove into the memories of his last three days, making sure that he had done nothing wrong in that time.

“Everything seems fine,” I replied, satisfied that he had been good. “What was your crime?”

“I murdered. I tortured. I snuck through your portals to the other universe without permission and killed ponies.”

“Why is that bad?” I asked

“I subverted your authority, I endangered the hive, and I acted like a monster,” Slagteri said. Here lay the true beauty of the heartbreaker punishment, as I use it. Unlike Chrysalis, who simply banishes the changeling for a time, I invoke cognitive dissonance within the offender. On threat of withholding love, I force them to internalize the scripted speech, to really mean it.

“What are you?”

“A bad changeling.” With each repetition, they believe the script even more.

“What do you want to be?”

“I want to be a good changeling,” Slagteri says. It is brainwashing without magic and without the risk of completely re-writing their personality. Of course, it does have some effect on the individual; that is the point.

“What do you promise to do?”

“I promise to obey all of your rules. I promise to not kill without your permission, to torture without your permission, or to subvert your authority ever again.” At this point, I rewarded Slagteri enough love to last the next three days. He audibly sighed in relief over the phone.

“Do you still want to live?”

“I don’t know… yes.” That was new. Normally, Slagteri would always say yes to that final question. I knew heartbreaker was supposed to be rough. Sometimes, it drove changelings crazy. “I hate the quiet,” Slagteri added. “It’s too much, sometimes. I miss the voices… they made me feel good, important, like I belonged. Can I have the voices back, King?”

Klika was much the same way. Her biggest complaint was the lack of the voices of her hive mates. Lately, she had taken to listening to really loud music to fill the void from the hive mind. If her random twitching was any indication, her plan was not working. And she only had one month to go.

As for Taruke, even though his brain was not physically suffering from the full sensory deprivation, which would normally drive a person to hallucinate within an hour, his personality was showing surprising resilience. He seemed to have taken to chanting a motivational mantra every now and again. Sometimes, I let him out so that he does not completely loose his sanity.

Though, there is one thing that I have found that I will not share with the rest of the hive; I liked using his body. It is convenient being in two places at once. That led me to muse on certain intriguing possibilities.

Over the month, whenever I was not using both of my bodies, either Alpha or Beta would study magic. I had an affinity for mind, soul, and space-time magic, three rather under-developed areas of magic; that was not surprising considering that about only about five percent of the unicorn population had even half the potential I did in any of those three areas. Though, the books I have read, what I know about my own powers, and the shows I had seen on TV have given me some wonderful ides.

Said ideas lead me to where my Beta is now, grinning like a madman while sitting on a rock-hard bed in a high-security prison. This particular bed, in this particular cell, was owned by none other than John Smith – that is his actual name – the most famous serial killer in the last fifty years. At twenty-two years old, he had been convicted of eighty counts of murder and was rumored to have as high as a hundred-fifty kills. He was currently on death-row.

I wanted him so badly, it hurt.

Of course, adding someone like that to the hive spelled disaster with bold letters. No, what I should say is that I wanted his body and soul, sans the mind. He was to be my guinea pig for some of my more complicated, cruel, and dangerous experiments.

I had always enjoyed learning, which was probably why Sal and I got along so well. However, there were some things that I wanted to try that even my R&D team should not know about. And hey, if this guy died during my experiments, well, I am sure that humanity has some more scum from which I can chose my new toys from. It is not like they wanted him anyway.

The cell door opened and in he shuffled. John was a scrawny looking man, definitely not the kind of face I would peg as a serial killer. Though, I knew all about looking how looks could be deceiving.

Absentmindedly, I shifted into Soul-Sight vision; his soul was just as impossibly beautiful as any other pure human’s, unmarred by my corrupting influence. The only soul that I had ever seen that could beat a human’s soul was Selene’s; comparing her to a human was like comparing her full moon to a firefly. There was no competition.

I had found myself more and more often watching people with Soul-Sight, ever since the end of the Griffin Affair, as the hive has started calling last month’s fiasco. Ironically, Soul-Sight was the very spell that had started the whole mess. Yet, had Sal not cast it, we might not have caught the anti-changeling faction as soon as we had, and then we may have lost more changelings in the resulting fallout.

John sat down next to me, completely oblivious to my presence; I may have said this before, but ode to the joys of the Notice-Me-Not spell. Once the thick cell door closed and locked, I made my move. Reaching over, I tapped his shoulder at the same moment I ended my spell.

Who would have expected him to scream like a soprano? Or that he could jump so high?

Of course, I probably would have, too, had I been in his position. Just for laughs, I had chosen to dress as a satyr with an extra-long, prehensile tail and a red variation of my real eyes. Imagine his surprise when someone who looks like the devil seemingly appears out of thin air while in a locked cell. I grinned, showing off my fangs and sharpened teeth. For extra creepiness factor, I licked my lips with my Beta’s extra-long tongue. “Greetings, John Smith. I have a… proposition for you.”

He crawled backwards on the floor from where he had fallen. “Are you the devil?”

I smiled savagely. “I go by many names.” It was true; in my bedroom, I have over sixty unique false ID cards and passports. “But, as I said, I have a proposition for you. Freedom from prison for the rest of your body’s natural life, but your soul is mine. Well, it was mine to begin with, so that is not much of a problem for you.” I offered my hand. “Well, do you want out?”

"Sure, I'm doomed anyway," John said. "Why not? What do I have to lose?" He grabbed my hand and I quickly pulled him close to me. My bare chest pressed against his prison uniform and my tail curled possessively around his body. Suddenly jerking my head down, I sank my fangs into his neck, injecting my paralytic venom.

Around John and my Beta, my Alpha's magic gathered, preparing for a long range teleportation. My skill with the spell had grown so much that, as long as I had a clear visualization of both target and destination – easy with two sets of eyes – I could teleport up to twice my weight anywhere within seven miles of the starting location. With a flash of green light, the killer and my Beta vanished from the prison cell. An instant later, they reappeared in a storage facility that I had rented for my experiments.

Beta dumped my paralyzed prisoner among a pile of stolen electronics and set to work.

I checked over the letter once more, making sure that it's wording was perfect. Satisfied that it was, I grabbed a pen and signed the document that could potentially avert a crisis. I folded the high quality paper and slipped it inside. After sealing the letter, I addressed it to Equestria's Royal sisters, Princesses Luna and Celestia.

"Selene, can you come here please?" I asked. "I need a favor."

She trotted over to me in her usual gait, a consequence of her oddly-jointed legs. “What’s up, Daddy?”

“I need you to give Princess Luna a letter,” I told her. “It’s really important that she gets it, ok?”

“Got it!” Selene’s face scrunched up in the way I had come to associate with her talking with Luna. After a moment of silent conversation, her face relaxed. She snapped her fingers; the letter vanished in a flash of light.

“Thank you very much.” I patted Selene on the head. “I’m expecting a reply, so if you could bring it to me whenever Luna sends it, I’d be very glad.”

“Right!”

“…and if we increase the middle class tax bracket by four-point-six-two percent, then I expect we will see a revenue increase of…”

Luna hated managing court alone. Because of the large volume of petitioners who had come to court today, the princesses had mutually decided to take their lunch breaks separately. Though to Luna, it seemed like the moment Celestia had stepped out, every last noblepony in Canterlot had crawled out of the woodwork to complain about taxes. It was infuriating.

So, when an envelope appeared out of thin air and landed on her head, Luna was gladder for the interruption than she was embarrassed about being assaulted by postage.

"Allow me to interrupt up a moment, Bull Market," Luna said as she opened the letter. Her eyes darted back and forth, scanning the contents of the message. An eyebrow raised in surprise. "Court shall take a short recess. My sister needs to see this," Luna stood as she made her declaration. Swiftly, she trotted to the door, secretly glad that she had an excuse to escape. Her personal guard followed swiftly behind, his trained steps carefully measured as to keep up with his Princess's long strides without rattling his armor. The Night Princess's secretary followed a moment later, his steps significantly less graceful or precise.

"I assume that my sister is still dining within the royal dining hall?"

"Yes, your majesty," the stoic guard replied. "Shall I lead you there, your highness?"

"Yes, please. Quick Quill, how many bits would you wager on my sister partaking in the Chef's chocolate cake as we enter?" Luna asked.

Startled by the princess's address, the grey unicorn stumbled slightly. Readjusting his glasses with his magic, he said, "Princess, I am no gambler, but even I would not be foolish enough to accept that bet; of course Princess Celestia is."

"You know my sister too well, Quick Quill."

The guard in front of them opened the double doors to the Princesses' private dining hall with his magic. Luna walked in just as Celestia placed a fork full of cake in her mouth. Upon seeing this, Luna snickered and nudged her secretary.

After swallowing, Celestia asked, "Luna, is it my turn already?"

"Nay sister, 'tis not yet your time to face the noble hoards." Luna chuckled and shook her mane. "Rather, I received a most interesting request for us."

"Oh? Do tell." Luna levitated the otherworldly letter to the Solar Princess. Celestia unfurled it and began to read.

Dear Princess Luna and Princess Celestia of Equestria,

My nation is in the midst of a miniature revolution, so to speak, and I was reminded of our position in our world. More accurately, I was reminded of the poor relations between our two nations, mostly through fault of my own. As such, I see fit to extend the olive branch. At a time and location of your choice, I wish to publicly apologize to Princess Mi Amore Cadenza and Missus Twilight Sparkle. I also wish to pay each of them restitution for damages incurred on both parties as a direct result of my actions.

As I cannot personally set foot on your world due to my status as a Gatekeeper, I wish to send an undisguised ambassador in my place, if you will grant me that privilege. However, I do understand that your majesties may not wish for my kind to have any presence in your nation. That is perfectly understandable; changelings do not make for the best company, after all. If that is the case, then I request to be allowed to state my apology through a portal that is under the control of Selene and Princess Luna.

Furthermore, I would also request some of your time to negotiate and sign a treaty of non-aggression between the Kingdom of Equestria and the Earth Hive. It is my hope that, perhaps one day, changelings and ponies would live in harmony with one another. Though it seems to me more like a fleeting dream than a concrete possibility. For now, I would settle with our nations agreeing to be “Not Enemies.”

I eagerly await your response. As travel from my home to yours is quiet near instantaneous, and I am willing to completely rearrange my schedule to suit your needs, name a time and a location and I will have my ambassador there.

My regards,
King Alvarium Rex, Ruler of the Earth Hive.

“That is most certainly an interesting development,” Celestia commented when she finished the letter.

“I never expected a changeling to apologize,” Luna added. “’Tia, do you think it is wise to allow his changelings anywhere near us?”

Celestia set down the letter and turned towards her younger sibling. “Sister, I feel that we should give them the benefit of the doubt. We know next to nothing about him or his people, even less than we do about Queen Crysalis’s Hive. It might be a wise idea to get to know our new neighbors.”

“Hmmm…” Luna tilted her head. For a moment, she was lost in thought. “…I cannot help but to think that there is more to him that we first imagined. On our last encounter, he seemed to know far more than he should and implied that his influence was greater than we thought. I would like to get to the bottom of this mystery.”

“I would too, Luna,” Celestia motioned for Quick Quill to bring her a quill, ink, and a scroll. The secretary scurried out, only to hurry back in a moment later bearing the requested items. Celestia took the writing materials and quickly drafted up a reply in her flowing horn-writing. “Does court in three days from now work, Luna?”

“I have no issue with that,” the night alicorn replied. “It will also give your Faithful Student time to arrive in Canterlot.” Celestia nodded and finished the scroll. Sealing it up, she passed it to her sister.

Luna took the letter. The night princess turned and focused on a point on the floor a few hoof lengths away. Gasps went out among the servants and staff when the world seemed to rip apart at the seams, revealing a filly’s bedroom. On the bed lay somepony they assumed to be a second Princess Luna.

That opinion changed when the mare stood up, easily taller than Celestia. “Hi Luna! Hi Celly! Daddy said you’d have something for him.” Several of the servants gasped at the disrespectful way she had addressed their royalty. Celestia and Luna were unfazed. Selene just looked at Luna expectantly.

Luna levitated the scroll through the portal, where Selene promptly snatched it out of the air. She bounced a little and ran off through her door. Her voice could be heard echoing from down the hall, “THANKS! DADDY, Luna sent a letter!” The portal closed behind her.

“That girl has as much energy as Lady Pinkamina,” Luna commented with a chuckle.

A jet of emerald flame illuminated the wooden library. The assistant caretaker of the Ponyville branch clasped the scroll that had just emerged from his gut. “Twilight,” he called, “Princess Celestia sent a letter!”

There was a thump from the floor above; Spike knew enough from his own experiences to know that was the sound of a book dropping on the oak floor. “Can you bring it up here?” Twilight called from her study.

Spike quickly ascended the stairs. Passing by a fallen stack of books that was magically restacking itself, he walked over to Twilight and handed over the message.

The lavender mare’s eyes quickly scanned the scroll’s contents. “Spike, get the travel checklists. Princess Celestia wants us in Canterlot for a few days.”

I switched out my Alpha and Beta bodies as soon as I heard the Princess’s reply; my Alpha teleported into the storage container that housed my serial killer prisoner and my Beta teleported back to my current apartment. I looked down at John, who had been bound and shoved against the wall. His head slowly turned to look at me, telling me that he was fighting off the paralysis. Next to him sat a stolen, humanoid robot that I would use later.

I beckoned with my finger and lifted John up with my magic, only to plop him down in the center of the magic chalk circle that my Beta had drawn. I grabbed an emerald out of the small box of gems I had brought for this experiment; I had no idea how many tries it would take. Bending down, I placed the gem on one particular rune on the circle.

Soul magic is an interesting area of study; like its sister discipline of necromancy, soul magic often requires a casting aid for practical use. For this particular challenge, I had drawn a simple soul containment circle to keep his spirit from departing too quickly.

I sat down next to the control rune, satisfied that everything was in place, and ready to begin my two experiments. Though, the term ‘experiment’ was a bit of a stretch; I had not used the scientific method, nor was I planning to document my findings beyond a few annotations in the text, nor was I ever planning to tell anyone my findings. Perhaps the better term would be ‘garage tinkering.’

To start, I activated my Soul-Sight so that I could see what I was doing. The world faded to a blurry monochrome, but John’s soul blazed with an impossibly colored light. Placing my hand on the control rune, I channeled my magic into the ring. Though I could not see the actual color, a brilliant green glow emanated from each symbol, drowning out the electric lights. The strange t҉̻̙ḛ͈̩̫͚̝n̠̭͍̗̫d̤̬͍͇̲̤͝ͅr̘̯͠i͝ļs̞̤̜͓͍ of my own soul writhed and squirmed excitedly on the edges of my vision.

John’s body spasmed once my magic took hold. My soul seemingly caressed his own as it was slowly lifted from his body, up until his was shoved into the emerald. A feeling of disappointment fluttered in the back of his mind as I looked at his soul, so compressed and tiny within the gemstone.

I wiped a stream of drool off of my chin with one hand and directed my magic to his body’s heart with the other. Gently massaging the organ with my magic, I kept the blood flowing to his brain. Satisfied that his soulless body would survive on my life support, I started my first test. Since my other changelings had a piece of my soul in each of them, I wondered if it was possible to convert a soulless body.

I pushed my essence in, watching as my t҉̻̙ḛ͈̩̫͚̝n̠̭͍̗̫d̤̬͍͇̲̤͝ͅr̘̯͠i͝ļs̞̤̜͓͍ shoved their way into John’s body. Each piece of my soul started knitting together into a fleshy mass that glowed with a blindingly bright darkness. It hurt my eyes to look at, yet I could not turn away. In fact, I almost felt turned on by the experience, if not just highly excited.

As the t҉̻̙ḛ͈̩̫͚̝n̠̭͍̗̫d̤̬͍͇̲̤͝ͅr̘̯͠i͝ļs̞̤̜͓͍ slowed their work, a surge of changeling fire enveloped the serial killer’s vacant body. When it cleared, a changeling lay on the ground, heart beating on its own. I was surprised; the conversion should have taken over twenty-four hours, but took less than a minute. When the changeling opened its eyes, I could immediately see what it saw without even trying to press my consciousness into it.

It stood up, acting partially on its own, partially by my command. It felt different than how I was currently controlling Taruke; the mind felt more independent than a limb, but less intelligent than another changeling. I could tell that without me pulling its strings, there was literally no intelligence within that changeling.

Another thing I noticed was that it completely lacked wings. Curious, I started playing around with it, examining every detail of my Frankenstein creation. Every few minutes, I would find something else wrong with it; it could not mold magic, it could not shape-shift, it was weaker than normal, it had no venom, it had no female reproductive system, it could not speak on its own, and it did not think on its own. Overall, it was useless as a changeling.

'I like him. I think I’ll keep him as a servant. Maybe I’ll call him Ψ, to keep with the Greek letter theme.'

Grabbing the gem that housed the serial Killer’s soul, I placed it onto a mounting on the robot that I had attached and clicked it shut. Before the next step, I double checked the straps securing the robot. Satisfied, I illuminated my hand with magic and pressed it against the emerald’s casing. The spell I had chosen was a modified Come-to-Life spell used for making golems out of the souls of others; that was probably why I had found the spell in the Black Archives.

A slight hum filled the air as the robot’s cooling fan turned on. Its head tilted upwards, pointing its eye-cameras at me. “What… the… hell… did… you… do… to… me?” it slowly asked.

“That’s odd,” I commented, “I don’t remember you having a sound system.”

It struggled against its bonds, though the servos were too weak to break them. “Answer… me… damn… it.”

“Oh, your voice comes from your soul crystal, interesting.” Again, I paid him no mind. “So, how does it feel?”

The machine jerked its arm at me, the bonds stopping the hand inches from my face. “What… the… hell… did… you… do… to… me? You… promised… that… I… would… be… free.”

Sighing, I realized that I was not going to get anywhere until I addressed his complaint. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to make a deal with the devil?” I grinned at him. Pointing to Ψ, I said, “There’s what’s left of your body. It will be free from jail for the rest of its natural life.” Then, pointing to the gem in the robot’s chest, I added, “But your soul is mine. So, how does it feel? You know what? Screw the interview; I’ll find out myself.”

To the outside observer, it would seem like I did absolutely nothing. For the serial killer’s soul, it was a terrifying experience being pierced by my soul’s v͉i̟͎͢n̼̠e̼̳͙̜̺s̲̹̪̣̠. For the fourth time ever, I purposefully invaded a mind with the intent of warping it to my whim. After finding what a robot body felt like – very numb, by the way – I pulled out any useful information I could find and then began to tighten my grip. Tighter and tighter I squeezed, harder than I had ever squeezed a mind before. He screamed in agony before his mind and soul finally imploded, leaving basically a blank slate behind.

Having no further need for the useless soul, I popped the gem out of the robot and powered the machine down to save for another day. I promised myself that at some time in the future, I would consider robotic soldiers. As I fiddled with the stone that shown from within with an invisible light, I was interrupted from my musing by my stomach’s rumbling.

My attention was drawn to the fact that I had spent far more magic than I had meant, mostly due to a secret that I made Sally-Anne swear not to tell when we discovered it. A twinge of paranoia wafted through my mind; I did not have enough magic to teleport anywhere I could easily feed, drawing from the shared reserve would draw attention to me, and I did not have my car with me. I considered flying; that would be a little risky without a Notice-Me-Not, but good camouflage should suffice.

As I walked out of the storage shed, I ordered Ψ to stay put; I would come back for him later. Idly, I popped the soul emerald into my mouth, intent on reclaiming some of my magic while simultaneously freeing the crushed soul. A split second later, I spat the emerald from my mouth as I nearly choked; I had just experienced the sensation of something that was definitely not emerald – but not at all unpleasant – surging down my throat.

‘What the fuck was that?’ I asked myself, for I was much fuller than that amount of magic should have made me. I shook, unsure of what to make of this new development. 'As freaky as that was, I kind of liked that feeling.'

Seeing as I had more than enough power for a teleport, I returned to the storage container, grabbed Ψ, and left in a flash.

The emerald rolled around on the ground, dead and grey.

Author's Notes:

*Ding*

You know how last chapter I said that it was the end of the Catherine arc? I lied. This is the real end. Reality f**kin' ensues. (ABitterPill reminded me of some things, so I hoped this real ending satisfies [him/her/it/them/etc]. Thanks, [insert appropriate pronoun here]!)

I also decided on what happens when a Gatekeeper dies, and not in the "It's ok, he can come back" sort of way. Both gatekeepers die and vanish. There's a reason for that. A sinister reason.

---

Introducing Ψ (pronounced like "sai" or "sigh")! Bring your criminals to Rex so that he can turn them into reanimated butlers!

---

Hive population 350 (+ 1 digital, +1 drone)

---

In other news, I have created a group, The Gatekeeper Universe, as a place to collect spin-off stories and work on collaborations. Join if you want. I would love to see what you guys and girls create.

---

(edited 6/26/2014)