Unlike most other changelings, Klika perpetually maintained both a partial transformation in her true form and a common feature in all her human forms: green eyes. Many changelings assumed that she was signifying her relationship to her father, especially since the shade of green she wore was the exact same shade as her father’s inner eye color. Of course, that was all conjecture on their part; no changeling had actually asked why she kept her eyes that color and she had never mentioned it in conversation.

Of course, the idea that Klika kept her eyes green because of her father was correct, if incomplete. It had nothing to do with his eyes, but everything to do with him. Well, he and her little-big sister.

On the last day of the self-improvement from hell her father had started, if anyone had been watching Klika, they would have noticed something odd. Between every ballistics gel mannequin she gutted with the her tail’s blade, after every concrete block she melted with her tail’s acid, and upon shattering stone against her fists and her fists against stone, Klika would glance at her adopted sister. And, upon seeing her sister meditating on a cloud, Klika’s scowl would deepen just a tad more. Then, with renewed vigor, Klika would dive back into her training.

It did not take any supernatural skill to read the signs; Klika was jealous of Selene. In the past, it had just been Klika and her father, and she loved it that way. Even though she had long been a changeling adult, and had long since completed school because of her father’s memories, Klika was at least able to get something like a childhood. Even her nieces and nephews, the biological children of the converts, never got as much attention from the king as she did, and Klika liked it that way.

Then Selene had come along and disrupted that equilibrium. In Klika’s opinion, the little brat was a waste of time and effort. On an academic level, Klika was fully aware of how long it took a normal human mind to develop; yet, from her own experiences, Klika was terribly confused on why Selene was so helpless at everyday things. What kind of creature couldn’t take care of themselves, especially if they had eleven years to figure out how to do it? And here Klika was, slaving away for her family, regularly offering her body to perverted men and women who should not even deserve to touch her, and from which Klika derived great satisfaction in draining of their love, in order to feed herself and her hive siblings.

And there Selene was, getting pampered by their father yet contributing nothing in return, not even love, for their father refused to feed significantly from the little alicorn. Klika got nice things because she worked hard. Selene got nice things for existing. Sure, she controlled the moon, but Selene would have done that anyway, even outside of their father’s care; why should she be rewarded if she brought no additional benefit to the hive? It drove Klika’s literal, pragmatic, and materialistic mind to pieces trying to understand the situation. Having never known Selene when she could not control the moon, and having never experienced the effort of moving the moon, Klika’s knowledge never connected on an emotional level for her to understand that Selene actually did something of importance.

Klika began to think, even if she was not consciously aware of her musings. Her subconscious thought process looked something like this: ‘If Selene is above me, I’ll just rip her down from there. But I don’t want to break her; Daddy would kill me. I’ll teach her a lesson.’ Of course, it was at this point that the communal portion of her mind and her own desires started to conflict. So, in an effort to end her own cognitive struggles, Klika’s subconscious mind hybridized the two. ‘I’ll make her stronger, so Daddy will recognize how important I am and won’t have to spend as much time teaching her. And, I’ll knock her off her high horse so she knows I AM the one in charge and I AM Daddy’s favorite.’

But, for all of Klika’s planning, she was not able to think much on it as her muscles healed for the final time that day. Instead, Klika looked down on the ground and saw a piece of rubble; it was not too big, not to jagged, and not covered in blood. The changeling princess bent down and picked up the fragment. As her scowl morphed into a smirk, Klika called out, “Hey Selene, think fast!”

The rock shot across the room, narrowly missing one of the Praetorians. In a split second, the rock struck Selene on the left moon shaped mark on her face; having been highly focused on maintaining her spells, Selene had been left with very little brainpower with which to react to the incoming projectile. She tumbled off her cloud seat and fell three feet to the hard floor below. Due to the surprise, the night alicorn dropped her spells; though they would persist for some time, without Selene feeding them, the scale of the spells caused them to rapidly consume their reserve magic. The blue dome within the warehouse visibly flickered before the alicorn could resume the connection.

In the seconds after Selene had fallen, Klika had flown over to her side. The changeling offered her hand to Selene, who grasped it and was promptly hoisted up. “What was that for?” Selene asked.

“Hehe, you looked so focused on that cloud of yours, I needed to get your attention,” Klika replied. “It’s not going to do you any good if you get hit because you were focusing on doing magic.” Klika’s tail curled around the two with the blade held in the corner of both of their fields of vision. “So, from now on, I’m going to hit you every time you do something stupid or leave yourself vulnerable. And I won’t stop until you can dodge or block whatever I throw every time, or until you stop giving me reasons to.”

“That’s mean!” Selene whined, rubbing her sore cheek. “See, I’m telling Dad!”

“I’m doing this for your own good,” Klika replied. “If I don’t have to hit you, or can’t hit you, that means you’re strong and smart. Daddy loves strong and smart people; he wouldn’t love an idiot weakling. But, if you tell Dad, then I won’t take the time to make you better. Then Dad won’t love you anymore and he’ll want to get rid of you. That door will be locked with you on the outside. And who knows what the government will do to a little girl with wings?” Klika smirked upon seeing Selene’s nervous expression. “We already saved you once; I’m sure those scientists are just itching to get you back so they can cut you up and see how you work.”

“No!”

“YES!” Klika shouted back a little too enthusiastically. “They’ll cut you up again and again and again; you’re an alicorn, so you can’t ever die! They’ll experiment on you forever!” There was a prickling sensation in the back of Klika’s mind, one that she had felt from time to time since she had been born. Her barbed, acid-spitting tail crept closer to Selene’s throat. The prickle intensified into a full itch that demanded to be scratched. The first few times she had felt it, her pets had died, choked to death with her own hands and cut apart for stew. Later, it had been vermin like rats and birds and annoying little dogs. The first time she had felt the itch for something bigger, she’d killed Dave the changeling murderer. This was the first time Klika had ever wanted to kill family. Disgusted with herself, she tried to repress the feeling, yet her blade did not move. “Unless, of course…”

“Unless what?” Selene begged, practically shaking. Tears welled up in the alicorn girl’s eyes.

Klika rolled her eyes and gently pricked Selene with her tail blade, careful to contain her acid. “Use your brain! Dad likes strong people; I’m trying to make you strong!” Ever so slowly, the blade inched away from Selene’s unprotected skin. “I’ll teach you so much that people will be like ‘Oh, look at all the amazing things she can do!’ Dad will love you and he’ll love me even more for teaching you! Won’t that be amazing?”

Between sniffles, Selene muttered, “Ok…”

Klika embraced her little-big sister in a hug, perhaps a tad tighter than what was appropriate. “Good.” Her grip tightened. “Lesson one…” Her grip tightened. “…I am…” Her grip tightened more. “…a very…” Selene squeaked as Klika’s grip tightened even more. “…strict…” Klicka growled. Her iron embrace caused Selene to wriggle in a vain effort to achieve freedom. “…teacher.” After one last monumental squeeze, Klika suddenly released Selene. Giving a broad, false smile, Klika said, “Got it? Good. Let’s go home; I want to teach you how to cook for yourself. I won’t always be around to make dinner for you.”

As Klika and Selene walked out of the warehouse-turned-training-grounds that afternoon, the former’s arm wrapped around the latter’s shoulders, Klika spied a small brown bird sitting in a branch twenty feet away. She smiled. The bird tweeted cheerfully. She flicked her tail. The bird did not tweet. Klika carefully whispered sweet nothings into her sister’s ear, her itch satisfied. A half dissolved feather landed on the ground with a slight hiss. She was a sister, Klika felt, no longer a monster. Perhaps she would go see Jeremiah, the Hive’s resident therapist, Klika mused, but first, she had to make sure Daddy loved her. Klika’s eyes flashed green.

When Greed looked at his flesh-and-blood son, he couldn’t help but think he had chosen the wrong name for himself. He idly wondered if Pride would be willing to trade names, but then shrugged the feeling away; she was not the material type. His son Wrath pulled the trigger of his gun, shooting the clay pigeon out of the air with lightning speed while enjoying his father’s praise with as much gusto as Gluttony and Lust enjoyed their namesakes.

“Pull!” With superhuman strength, Greed threw a pair of clay objects faster than the eye could follow at his son’s command. “DIE!” Wrath roared as his targets took to the air. Using his strain-granted superhuman reflexes, augmented slightly with pegasus magic, Wrath took aim and shot the impossibly quick projectiles out of the air; his gun’s twin retorts happened in such quick succession that they sounded like a single shot.

The gunslinger panted, calming his heart from the excitement. “The King has given us one hell of a power up with this strain,” Wrath commented. “I was never this good before, human or changeling, and am only getting better.”

“Oh yeah, it feels great, boy. Hey, do you wonder if these strain things stack? If I had a kid with Lust for her variant, or Princess Klika for the tail, would it have both of ours? Then if the kid had a kid with the other would that have all three?” Greed asked.

Wrath whacked his father in the head. “Let’s not be greedy now,” he replied, much to his dad’s annoyance. “Though, that’s something to think about. Let’s ask the king later.”

There was a loud scream from behind them. “Let go of me! Stop it! Stopitstopitstopitstopit!” A clear smack sounded before another voice moaned.

Gluttony, ignoring her stinging cheek, said, “Ah, come on, Lust! I’m hungry! We’ve been training all day! I want to go get something to eat!”

“Well, what gave you the idea that I was food?” Lust retorted.

Gluttony replied, “You always told me you liked it when men eat you out…”

“That’s sex! Not FOOD!” Lust screeched, her voice leaving it’s normally silky tone.

“Aren’t they the same thing?” Gluttony asked in an innocent tone.

“NO, YOU IDIOTOTIC BITCH!” Lust shrieked before smacking Gluttony again. Wrath idly wondered if his name could be stolen.

Tears welled up in Gluttony’s eyes. “Bu-bu-bu-but…”

Blinking as if clearing a fog from her sight, Lust looked down at her crying companion. “I, ah, oh shit… Glut, I’m sorry. I’m stressed right now and… You want a steak? Let’s get steak. Then we can hit Livewire for a good rutting.”

“Yay! Thanks, Lusty!”

Wrath and Greed chuckled at the two. Greed smiled and said, “Those two… They’ll never stop being friends, will they?”

Wrath replied, “Of course not. Gluttony may be simple minded, but she’s probably the next best contender for the Element of Loyalty.”

Greed chuckled. “I’d rather collect the whole set, if I had the chance. Hey, can I see your gun for a bit, boy?”

In reply, Wrath just chuckled as he took aim at his father’s head. The gun’s cry rang out and the bullet casing hit the floor. A drop of blood collected on the tip of Greed’s ear where the bullet had grazed him, exactly where his son had aimed. “I’d never get it back, Pops.” Taking aim once again at the target range, Wrath roared, “PULL!”

Cameron Cordel did not like his father. The man won the lottery, hooked up with and banged his mom, and then promptly got himself arrested. Cordel senior had won two life sentences for two premeditated murders. And even though Cameron was an adult now, his mother still dragged him to the jail once a month to “show off how much he had grown.” Cameron hated that man, but it was not for the murders themselves. Though he also hated being related to a murderer, what Cameron hated the most was the stress that Cordel senior inflicted upon his mother and himself.

To make matters worse, visitation day was the same day as rehearsal. Cameron’s band was becoming quite popular, especially with teenage girls, rabid fan-girls included. That wouldn’t be so bad, except both he and his producer were perfectionists and workaholics. Both demanded the very best from him, and he would give nothing less. That meant countless hours writing lyrics and music to find the perfect sound, and then countless more hours practicing. By the time he reached his allotted eight hours of relaxation on Sundays, he was at his wit’s end and ready to pull his hair out.

When Cameron got back to the Casino hotel where he was to perform soon, after having sat through an hour of gridlock traffic, he stomped his way towards his dressing room. Flinging open his door, he stepped in and reached for where his guitar case was supposed to be, only to grasp at nothing. He huffed in exasperation and stormed out.

While he was making his way to the stage, people kept giving him odd looks, blinking strangely, and doing double takes, though he was much too stressed to notice. Upon reaching the wing on stage left, he spotted his producer peeking out the curtain. Cameron tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Mary, have you seen my guitar?”

She turned her head, blinked, and then jumped as if she had seen a ghost. “But- What- How…” Her head whipped back and forth between the stage, which Cameron could not see onto from his angle, and Cameron himself. “That’s not possible!”

The young singer tilted his head in confusion. Then he heard it; a beautiful, hauntingly familiar song. A song that he had written just days ago, though it was sitting incomplete on his nightstand. And, in its lyric-less, incomplete state, it had never been heard by another human. Yet here it was, not only being played past the point he had worked to, but being sung as well. But the strangest part was the singer, the one voice Cameron knew better than all others: his own.

Cameron poked his head around the corner and saw an impossible sight. He and his band had just finished a perfect run of an incomplete song, yet he was also standing on the sidelines. How was that possible?

The other Cameron on stage started laughing Cameron’s signature laugh, a rapid, throaty chuckle that went up in pitch until it was a nasally giggle. “You can come out now, real Cameron.”

The real Cameron, too surprised to stop himself, stepped out from behind the curtain. “Who the hell are you? And why the hell do you look just like me?”

“Oh, doppelgänger of mine, where are my manners? Siva, at your service!” The other Cameron, now identified as Siva, replied, his accent changing to a slightly southern one. “It’s just Siva; I only have one name. As for your other question, why do I look just like you, Cameron? I have no idea. Weird genetics, maybe? Still, it’s odd that the way I’ve always looked is just like one of my favorite singers. I know all your songs.”

“That still doesn’t tell me what you’re doing here!” Cameron exclaimed.

Siva cocked his head to the side, much like how Cameron did when he was confused. “You never asked. I just thought that maybe, since I looked just like you, that you’d let me pretend to be you for a day.” The false Cameron gently set down the guitar and walked towards the original. “I mean, I fooled everyone perfectly. Not even your friends noticed that I wasn’t you.” Said friends looked away sheepishly. Upon reaching Cameron, Siva tossed up a hand and continued walking past. “And, though it was presumptuous of me, I did sing and play as well as you, doppelganger of mine. Or, if I didn’t, no one called me out on it. But, it’s not like you need a body double or anything. No extreme stress… No paparazzi… No rabid fangirls… Why would you need me? See y-”

“Wait!” Cameron interrupted at the last moment.

Siva paused mid-step, half way out the back door. “Yes?” he replied very slowly.

“You may be creepy, but…”

Siva smiled and, if the room had been dark, the stage crew would have seen his eyes glow.

Sally-Anne giggled, despite the tenseness of the situation. The situation was much like something that only Hollywood could have concocted. In fact, she remembered a movie that came out when she was ten that had something similar, though she could not recall the title. Her current project demanded security of an interesting sort; until they knew for sure if Victor was Clairvoyant or not, Sally-Anne’s king, her wonderful boyfriend, had hired her team to develop a counter-curse in complete isolation.

Isolation was an understatement. The first layer of security was that simply nothing would ever be spoken or written down. The entire development of the spell would take place within a mindscape while the photographic memory spell was active. Then, their bodies had been placed in a folded section of the false world of hammerspace, with the only connection being a hole of space six atoms in diameter. Then, the entire chamber had been accelerated in time so that six hours on the inside constitute six second on the outside. Onto that, several additional magical wards had been cast on the entrance hole so that no matter, energy, magic, or souls could pass through and no one who knew about the hole could remember it. The hole itself was then hidden deep within hammerspace; hundreds of miles of an impossible-to-navigate maze surrounded them. And above all of that was another Remember-Me-Not cast on hammerspace itself, erasing it from knowledge.

Sally-Anne was flattered that her love would go that far to protect her while she worked, and to protect her work itself. Victoria, Sally-Anne’s newest subordinate, was somewhat less flattered. “…I mean, really, is this project such a big deal?” She had asked Sal during their fifth six-hour session.

Sally-Anne looked up from the dream paper on which she was writing equations. To her, the letters looked like the Braille she had learned to read since her accident. To the others, her letters still looked like written letters due to the meaning being shared within the mental world. “Of course it is,” Sally-Anne replied. “Have you really looked at what that Crystal Curse does to a person on the inside? What if it was cast on one of us?”

“Would it matter?” Victoria retorted loudly, drawing the attention of the other changelings in Research and Development that were also working within the common dream. “We’re already slaves of a sort to the king anyway. One tyrant or another, either way, my free will vanished months ago.”

Sally-Anne fully spun around to look at Victoria. “Believe what you will, but Rex is not that kind of person. I don’t want you slandering his good name.”

“Says the girl who sleeps with him,” Victoria replied, rolling her eyes at the same time. “What do you think the hive mind is? I’ve looked at your notes on it and there are some similarities. Look at what the king did to that Taruke fellow. He could make us do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and we have no way to stop him.”

“Taruke was a criminal who was tried and found guilty. Rex wouldn’t do that to anybody without their permission,” Sally-Anne replied.

Victoria stood and started pacing. “Shouldn’t Taruke have been punished by the government? And I heard Rex has already possessed changelings. Yeah, he pays the ‘lings back, but that just makes us slaves with a paycheck.”

“We stopped being American when we became changelings,” Sally-Anne said. “Rex and the colonies’ councils are the government.”

“Newsflash: I didn’t choose to become a changeling!” Victoria screamed, throwing her hands into the air. “I was living the dream. My career was taking off; I just got promoted to head engineer at the company I worked for! He marched up to me at a bar and offered me a drink. Next thing I know, I’m hatching out of a cocoon with my life and my humanity stolen from me!”

“Newsflash,” Sally-Anne sarcastically echoed back, “I didn’t choose to become a changeling, either! I was captured on my way home from my last day of work. I too had stopped in a bar; he too offered me a drink. I got a bit tipsy, so he offered to let me crash at his place. I woke up a changeling. It’s the same story, I know. Yet I love him anyway. Rex’s much better than my last boyfriend; to think I was going to actually marry that idiot!”

Victoria sat there for a moment, trying to process Sal’s story. The other changelings made themselves look busy in the sudden silence. “Wasn’t that Ian, the man you got your heart frozen for after he killed himself?” Sally-Anne nodded. “That was right after I joined. I remember that you spent a few days moping and making everyone around you depressed, and then suddenly you couldn’t care less for the man. Next thing I know, you’re dating the king. Are you sure your feelings are genuine, or is he making you feel that way?”

Now it was Sal’s turn to be speechless. “I-I-I… I’m not sure…” She replied, the possibility dawning on her for the first time. “Oh, oh my, he was in my head for a time. I’ve never felt anything like it before. He could have changed something… no, I’m almost certain some things changed when he did. But I was crushing hard on him before that. I think that my feelings are real.”

Victoria looked at her boss skeptically. “If you say so. How much do you know about the king, anyway. I mean, we all have some of his shared memories, but they just stop after high school, and there’s nothing personal of his in there. Do you even know how old he is?”

Sally-Anne thought for a moment. “He’s the oldest changeling of all of us, at least. But chronological age? I’m not sure.”

Jerry, who had been listening in silently from another part of the shared dream, piped up. “The king turns twenty one in a few days. May 28th, if I’m not mistaken.”

Sally-Anne paled significantly. “Oh god, I’m a cougar.”

“What?” Victoria asked, confused. “How old are you?”

“Ugh, thirty two! I always figured he was older! Rex never wears anything that looks less than twenty five! And he has kids! We’ve had kids!” Sally-Anne scowled. “When I get out of here, mister, I’m going to have a word with you!”

Selene had always loved her big sister and her new daddy. In fact, to Selene’s mind, those two were the only ones who had ever earned the titles; she had never had a sister before and she could not remember her old father from before she was taken to the orphanage. But that did not matter to Selene; she loved them very much anyway. If she had not loved them, Selene knew that she would not have seen Daddy and Klika in those visions she had when baby Avis had bit her.

Her family was funny, Selene felt. They were not quite normal people, though they sometimes looked like people. That was all right with Selene; she did not look like a normal girl either, though she too could make herself look like a normal girl thanks to her teacher, Princess Luna. Sometimes, though, Selene wondered if they were more different than she thought.

Maybe they were space aliens? Selene had wondered that at one point or another. She had seen her dad open a portal to the “Queen.” Was that his wife? His sister? Selene knew that, like herself, Dad could not go through the magic portals. Maybe she could try to find the star that his planet orbited around and bring it closer, and then he could go home! And she could go visit Princess Luna and Princess Celestia, oh, and Princess Cadance, too!

Selene mused, wondering if maybe that was how she could be useful. Klika had told her that Dad loved people when they were useful. Siva and Avis and all her new little brothers and sisters – and she had a lot now – all got jobs as soon they got big enough. Even Klika had a job; she was a love collector, though how she actually collected love, Selene did not know. Idly, the little alicorn girl wondered if Luna would know.

But Selene was worried. If all her brothers and sisters had important jobs, why did she not have one? She was a big girl now; she had grown up to be as tall as the adults! Selene did not understand why she had no job. That scared her badly; Klika said Daddy would not love a loser!

Selene had no real understanding of how a family worked. Sure, Klika taught her how to cook and to clean and do laundry – at times, Selene even had to shoo the creepy, silent changeling, Ψ, out of the room so that she could do the chores, just like Klika taught her – but Klika would hit throw things at her or whack Selene in the head with her tail when the little alicorn did something wrong. Those did not hurt… much, and never left a mark, but it still bothered Selene.

The worst parts, though, were the insults. “You idiot! How could Dad love someone as stupid as you?” Klika had yelled at her many times. And Selene would cry, Klika would whack her in the head, and then she would show Selene the correct way of doing whatever she had just messed up on. Every time that happened, Selene promised herself she would be better.

The first time Selene had dodged Klika’s tail, she had expected her big sister to whack her again. Instead, Klika had hugged her and whispered, “Good, good. Don’t get hit. You did good, Selene.” But Selene was confused. If Klika was happy for her, why did she sound so mad? And why did her fingers feel like knives on her spine? Selene’s confusion melted away as the hug continued; Klika smelled so good that it made her feel all warm and fuzzy and happy. But it also made the slit in between her legs itch really badly. And then she felt tired.

Earlier mysteries forgotten, Selene obtained a new question later that evening: why had Klika left those dead birds and squirrels in her bed? That was gross. Now she had to wash those sheets again. Maybe Luna had a cleaning spell she could use.

This went on for several weeks. Every time Selene did something bad, Klika would punish her, but never when Dad was looking. And every time Selene did something good and her dad complimented her, Klika would add that she had helped teach her that skill. Dad would then praise her too. Afterwards, Klika would hug her and tell her that she was loved, and Selene would feel the warm feeling again. She could not quite remember why Klika’s smell made her feel that way. What was it that Dad had mentioned? Pheromones?

Klika’s behavior towards her did not really bother Selene. She was making herself useful, she was loved, and that was all that mattered.

And with everything Selene learned, she got better at doing every task, or at least dodging and blocking when she still occasionally messed up. For this particular instance of failure, Klika lobbed an empty soda can at her head. “You know, I doubt you’re strong enough to crush that can into a little ball,” Klika gibed.

“I am too strong enough!” Selene yelled back.

“Oh yeah? Prove it, wimp.” Selene immediately grabbed the can and began crushing it between her hands. “I meant with your magic,” Klika snapped.

“Oh, whoops…” Selene levitated the partially crushed can before her face and watched it violently implode. Once it was as small as she could make it, no larger than a cherry pit, Selene enthusiastically tossed it back to her adoptive big sister. “See, I told you I was strong enough!”

“Hmmm…” Klika hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe you are.” The faintest of smiles crossed Klika’s lips as her tail drooped to the floor; that was all the approval Selene needed.

Though, there was one thing that mildly bothered Selene, her despised vocal tic aside. Every time Klika had cooked since she had started tutoring Selene, she made pigeon stew. Selene hated pigeon stew.

Spark imagined himself to be a soldier in a bomb squad. Considering the unknown, love-and-hate filled object in his hands, the comparison was apt. Jak, like the chicken he was, was observing Spark through a window. The scientist greatly admired his partner’s willingness to stay at his side if things went FUBAR.

“You keep at it, Spark! I’m right here if ya’ need me. And if something goes kaboom, mahh… I’ll be the first out the door!”

Such loyalty. Spark huffed and refocused on his examination of the artifact, a crystal swirling with the colors of dark magic, black purple, and acid green, though hints of blue and pink could also be seen. He drove his own magic further and further into the workings of the crystal, looking for anything that might be a trap.

“Well, anything?” Jak’s muffled voice said, wafting through the glass barrier between them.

“Give me a minute,” Spark huffed. “Almost… got it… THERE!” He let out a deep sigh of relief. “You can come in now. It won’t blow up.”

“Mahh…” Jak grunted dismissively. “I think I’ll stay put. What did you find?”

“It’s as Victor said it was: a summoning spell. Drain the crystal of love, and it becomes brittle. Smash to dissipate the hate, and the spell triggers,” Spark explained. “There’s a tracking spell to tell him where the crystal goes, but it seems to be permanently active, rather than activated with the rest of the spell work.”

“So it’s a good thing Taruke brought it here, right?”

“Yeah,” Spark agreed. “I…”

“Spark, what is it?” Jak asked when the scientist fell silent. He placed his hand on the glass nervously. “Spark?”

<<Sorry, I just thought of something,>> Spark replied apologetically over the link. <<I’m no expert on dark magic, but what if he did something to the crystal that I cannot detect? It’s best if we say nothing aloud, alright?>>

<<Oh, good point,>> Jak agreed.

Smirking, Spark added, <<And it’s your turn to work with it anyway. Have at it, lover boy!>>

Spark stood and walked to the door. As Jak walked past him, Spark reached out a hand and gave him a slight push on the back. The head love collector stumbled forwards, almost tumbling into the cursed jewel before he caught his balance. “Not funny, man. And where the hell do you think you’re going?”

Spark smirked again from behind the glass. <<Oh, just here. I’ll show you the same loyalty you showed me.>>

Jak raised his hand, as if to argue the point. He opened his mouth, then closed it. It opened again, and closed again. The suspended arm lowered down to Jak’s side. <<Touché.>> He sat down cross-legged in front of the jewel. Spark felt a surge of magical energy flow from Jak to himself. <<That’s almost all the magic I have. My heart will stop in, oh, about ten minutes if this doesn’t work. Don’t let me die, ok?>>

<<No promises.>>

Jak growled aloud. <<NOT. HELPING.>> After glaring at Spark for several seconds, he turned his attention to the crystal in front of him. Spark watched the love inside fluctuate before leaking outwards and into Jak. When all but half of the love had been depleted, the collector stopped. A look of contemplation formed on his face, and for several minutes, he did not talk.

Spark was getting nervous. Jak’s time limit was fast approaching, but he did not want to interrupt and ruin Jak’s work by returning his magic. At the last possible second, the collector called out, “Love, now!”

The surge of energy raced out of Spark’s body and into Jak’s. He noticed that he had given too much and had dipped slightly into his own supply, but Spark did not care. Instead, he was curious about the-

“It’s a bust, I think.”

Spark blinked. “What? Why?”

<<Well,>> Jak said, pausing to form his answer, <<when I compared how much love I ‘swallowed’ and how much energy I got, it didn’t add up. Unless there is something really inefficient about this crystal, I don’t think this love magic from the Crystal Curse will help us. It’s like candy; a sweet treat that is better than total starvation, but offers almost nothing of value.>>

Spark’s shoulders slumped. <<That’s… disappointing.>>

<<And here I thought the nerd would say we need more data. I would need to see a living bearer of the curse and extract a fresh sample,>> Jak commented. <<I would also try sleeping with one of them to see if they are capable of producing natural lust like the other humans.>>

<<More data,>> Spark mumbled. In his mind, images of Rosaline’s shapely ass and breasts bounced around. <<Yes, that’s what we need. More data.>>

Chrysalis smiled as she watched her next order arrive from the human world. Her changelings, disguised as humans, eagerly unpacked the refrigerator truck parked on the opposite side of her portal. Meats from the human world tasted divine, in Chrysalis’s opinion. Lamb, beef, deer, swine, horse, all farm-raised animals from Earth made Equua’s fauna seem bland in comparison. And there was just something perversely satisfying, in her opinion, about eating the flesh of her fellow hoofed creatures without the twinge of guilt she got from eating the flesh of an intelligent creature. A not-so-guilty pleasure, so to speak.

“Caress my ears.” Chrysalis giggled softly. One of the truck drivers, under her hypnotic control while her changeling unloaded his vehicle, stroked her mane and caressed her ears. Chrysalis practically purred under his the gentle touch of his fingers. She could not help it; changeling ears were particularly sensitive and this human’s hands were practically made for worshiping her body.

The hands stopped. “Caress my ears,” Chrysalis said automatically. Despite the annoying side effect of needing to keep re-issuing her command, Chrysalis mentally praised Rex for a job well done on this spell of his, to which he replied his thanks. True, it was not the elusive retroactive-and-high-precision memory spell they had been working towards for years now, but for its imperfect function, the spell worked perfectly. “Caress my ears.”

Rex really did know how to spoil a girl. From technology, information, and food resources to his occasional spell that he invented or repurposed, Rex had given her hive enough to boost her to the position of one of the wealthiest mares in her world and had given her hive phenomenal political and economic power. Though it was not world domination yet – not even close – Chrysalis could make any individual or group suffer from what looked like a series of unconnected accidents and coincidences that occurred so fast, her target had no time to recover. And she loved it. “Caress my ears, my slave.”

“Yes, Mistress,” the hypnotized human replied.

She in turn had given Rex access to information, raw materials unobtainable on Earth, and access to a foreign marketplace in which his tech held a monopoly. Despite the fact that each hive’s currency was no good to the other, they had managed to come to an agreement. Chrysalis would play the role of retail, selling Rex’s goods for bits, trading the bits for resources, and selling the resources to Rex. Her counterpart, in turn, would do the inverse in his markets.

Her ‘pet’ human stopped rubbing her ears again. Looking out at her changelings, the queen observed that they had completely emptied the truck. “Slave, get in the truck.” He crossed through the portal and did as he was told. “Count to twenty.”

“One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine…” He trailed off and stared blankly into space. Chrysalis nodded in approval; he was clear to go.

“Drive to your place of work,” Chrysalis commanded. The truck started and pulled out. Just as it started to turn the corner, the changeling queen dispelled the magic surrounding the truck driver’s head. Giggling to herself, as she closed the portal to the other world, Chrysalis idly mused on having the royal masseur learn to work with hands. Such wonderful things, really.

Ed was confused. His truck was empty, the delivery confirmation paperwork was signed and dated, and he was driving back to the distribution center. So what the hell had happened? One minute, he was pulling up to the warehouse listed on his delivery instructions, and the next, he was on his way home.

And he could not remember any of the time in between at all. Only three things alerted him that something had changed: the gear of his truck had been in drive rather than reverse, the scene outside his windshield had jumped, and forty nine minutes had inexplicably passed in an instant.

It was not until he had pulled over that the full extent of the changes could be seen. Eventually, Ed came to a conclusion and a decision. He pulled out his phone and placed it against his ear. “Hey, Nurse, what does it mean to lose almost an hour’s worth of memory?”

Shining Armor, a changeling of two-and-a-half years and Captain of the Royal Guard for six, followed dutifully behind his princess. He hated having his loyalties conflicted between the princesses and the queen, but he realized that there was no use crying over spilled milk. What had happened, happened, and he just had to make the best of it.

There were perks to his situation. Since the vast majority of his hive mates lived in Equestria, it was in her best interests to make Equestria prosper, meaning that her goals and the Princess’s goals often aligned. He could interrogate criminals better now that he was a living lie detector. His favorite perk was his wife; saying she loved him was about as much of an understatement as saying the sun glowed like a match. And the sex, the mind-blowingly amazing sex. Shining Armor knew every trick in the changeling book and his wife loved to experiment.

But, while it may not have been his favorite perk, the most important one was foreknowledge. The hive mind allowed him instant access to informants across the city. So, while not admissible evidence in court, it gave his men in the police branch a place to start investigating. But in this case in particular, it gave him access to information even the princess did not know. That lent him a guess as to why Princess Celestia had called this small meeting

Shining stepped into Celestia’s private office, following closely behind her. As the door shut behind him, he could see Celestia’s horn light up with a set of spells that he knew well. As a bubble of golden light expanded, he warned his friends in the hive not to worry, for as the bubble hit, his link to the hive faded into silence. Only an obscenely powerful anti-scrying ward could disrupt the hive link, and only maybe a dozen ponies existed at any given time even had a chance of casting something that strong.

Shining Armor was not worried about any of the spells his Princess had just cast. No, what he was worried about was the spell she was now preparing. The guard Captains were the only ponies who knew with any certainty exactly how strong the princesses were. And this? This scared him badly. Celestia’s horn bubbled purple and green with hints of black: dark magic. Hatred, wrath, and fear surged to levels he had never before witnessed within the princess.

Shining Armor braced himself, clamping down on his transformation and shut off his passive feeding. He nearly sighed in relief as the ambient negative emotions stopped eating away at him, but kept his focus as he braced for the impact that the Celestia’s spell would cause when cast.

As a tradition, each unicorn Captain would try to create a unique spell for the guard. Inspired by the advanced biological knowledge of the other world, Shining Armor’s incomplete and unnamed spell cast billions of microscopic force fields using the cell membranes of his skin as a template. As Shining felt his spell take root, he prayed that it would at least protect him from the worst of the backlash from Celestia’s dark magic.

And then the spell struck. A rapidly expanding sphere of dark magic emanated from Celestia’s horn, washing over the Captain. For the briefest of instances, Shining Armor believed his spell would hold, as he felt no pain. However, that was not to last. The acidic magic punctured a portion of the magically insulating foam Shining’s spell had created. The changeling could feel his cells dying and rotting in his body.

And then it was over. The whole event, from the time he had noticed his princess casting dark magic to now, had taken less than a second. Shining Armor teetered slightly as his internal magic did its best to repair him. Celestia glanced over at him. “A precautionary measure… Captain Shining Armor, are you all right?”

“I am fine, your highness. It’s… just a little dizzy spell. I’ve been somewhat sensitive to magic since whatever happened to me since the attack a few years ago. You’ve noticed that I rarely use magic nowadays, right? Well, it seems that your spell did a number on my nerves,” the false unicorn replied, chuckling slightly as he regained his posture. Undetectably, he reactivated his passive feeding, happy to restore the empathic sixth-sense it provided, and happier still that the negative emotions were all gone.

“Oh dear, may I take a look?” Celestia asked, her voice more motherly than before.

“No, no, I'm fine.” In truth, he was not fine yet; he just did not want Celestia probing him with any medical spells that might compromise his situation. Celestia, though her face remained adorned with motherly love, experienced a very subtle shift in emotions. There was slightly less concern for Shining Armor and slightly more concern about Shining Armor; the distinction was monumental, despite its subtle nature.

“Very well, if you say so.” Celestia closed her eyes, mentally probing the wards of the room. When she next spoke, her tone was firm and deathly serious. “Rumor has it that one of Equestria’s most powerful enemies, long thought dead, is returning, and with allies.” Shining knew all of this, of course; his queen had broadcast the memories of all relevant conversations to the entire hive.

To keep his façade up, he reacted as if this was news to him. “Princess? Which enemy?”

“I am not at liberty to say just yet. Rumors also claim he has some observational presence within this castle. The last spell I used was an extra precaution. Unfortunately, if the source of this rumor is discovered by our enemy, we lose an ally. So, until Luna returns from the dream realm with absolute proof of his survival or the survival of an heir to his ideals, we can make no visible actions.”

“Understood, Princess,” Shining Armor replied.

“Good.” At that moment, the privacy spells began unraveling. As they fell, Celestia commented in a much more relaxed tone, “Princess Cadance has gone out to play; want to join her? Or would you like tea and chocolate cake instead? The chef’s special icing is to die for!” To anypony else outside of a high-ranking guard, those sentences were rather ordinary; to Shining Armor, they meant something completely different.

“X has gone out to play; want to join her” meant that the situation looked dire enough that the listener should spend some final time with his or her family. “Tea and chocolate cake” meant that the meeting was top secret. Variations in drink and dessert determined who could know. In this case, nopony would ever hear of that meeting ever again. Finally, the last sentence indicated the reason for the secrecy. Shining Armor interpreted it as “to control panic and protect civilians”.

However, by the time the final words had left Celestia’s mouth, the final ward had fallen, reestablishing his connection to the hive. In the first second, Queen Chrysalis knew everything. By the second second, King Rex did too.

“My plan worked, sister of mine!” Siva strutted in through the doorway to the cheap apartment, loudly proclaiming his success.

“He actually fell for it? And took the offer?” Avis replied, thoroughly bemused that his zany idea had worked. She set the water bottle and note that she had been holding down on the table.

“Well…” Siva replied with mock shame, “I did have to use a little hypnosis, barely enough to do anything except loosen his mind a little. At least his eyes weren't glowing at the end, sister of mine.”

Avis’ eyes quickly glanced back at the bottle before returning to her twin just as fast. Standing from where she had been seated, she walked forwards and embraced her brother. “Regardless, celebration is in order; you are the first changeling to feed off of another’s fame, and you didn't even have to replace him, dear brother of mine!”

Siva, having noticed his sister’s eye movement, asked, “What’s the white stuff in the bottle?”

“It’s from our dear father. The note said that it’s ‘royal jelly’ or something like that. He wants me to drink it all. No explanation why, though,” Avis replied.

Siva raised his currently blond eyebrow. “Royal jelly? I didn't even know we had royal jelly. I wonder if it is anything like bee jelly.”

Avis frowned. “I still don’t know what it is.”

“Then let me educate you, sister of mine!” Siva bowed with an overly dramatic flourish. Upon standing upright again, he said, “Royal jelly, for bees at least, is food for developing larvae. If given a small amount, you get a drone. Given a larger amount, you get a worker bee. And, if you give the larvae more than it could ever eat, it becomes a queen bee.”

“So why give me this?” Avis asked as she looked into the thick, white fluid within the bottle.

“Considering that we’re changelings of the worker caste, and we’ve never needed royal jelly before…” Siva paused. A contemplative look grew on his face. “I think it’s a promotion. You are the Vegas Colony leader after all, Princess Avis.”

Avis blinked and took an unconscious step back. “Me… A true queen? Is that even possible?”

Siva snickered. “There’s only one way to find out, sister of mine.” Grabbing the bottle of sweetly scented royal jelly, he pressed it into his sister’s hands. “Bottoms up!”

Author's Notes:

*Ding* Have a chapter.

I was withholding this chapter because... of reasons, but then I got tired of waiting. Here you go.

This chapter came about from the thought that Rex tends to dominate the scene whenever he shows up (admittedly, that is a rather Gary Stu trait). This chapter is to give other characters some screen time.

I got nothin' else to say...