Wearing the unconscious stallion's clothes over my shape change was, sadly, a necessity when dealing with a limited magic supply and having details that couldn't be imitated with magic. For example, while mimicking a naked form was easy enough, however, trying to copy anything they were wearing became a mental nightmare if you ever planned on taking anything off while maintaining it. A changeling in the process of disguising themselves would cover their body in a malleable shell that looked and felt like the being they were disguising themselves as. If it were bigger than we were, we'd take excess mass from our legs and expand our body to have our full range of movement, and if anything was smaller, we'd start compressing our mass into our legs instead.

While larger than the average changeling, it meant I was not able to take on a newborn foal as a form, but could at least shrink down to someone in their preteen filly or colt with moderate difficult. However, most normal changelings could barely match princess Luna in size without breaking themselves if they tried, and if the pictures were anything to go for, I was the only member of my caste that was still alive who could stand a chance at mimicking Celestia or Nightmare Moon, if the posters were to scale.

Of course, the more needlessly complex the disguise got, the more fragile it became. Mimicking clothing was fine and all, but taking any of it off, like say the stallions mask, and immediately it would begin to crumble like dust in the wind, and take a whole lot of what could of been recycled into energy to waste. Heck, the only reasons changelings had that green flame around them was so we could reconsume the magic we spent into making the disguise in the first place. Thus why no changeling in their right mind would imitate such objects unless they had no other choice. Didn't mean I liked it though, his clothes smelled oddly of ancient perfume and ashes, as though he'd just got done torching a building with perfume as flamer ammunition. Something I had doubts to being possible.

Then there was his cane, just what did this earth pony do with it? Considering it was impossible to hold it without magic or your mouth and walk at the same time. Not to mention that holding this cane in my mouth gave me the impression that I was about to go and beat down some random ponies who owed a gang money or something. So I put it away on the belt loop at the side of the formal wear meant for a stallion and shrugged, getting used to my new looks before heading back out to Grey, who merely looked me up and down and nodded his approval at my appearance.

The stallion I had taken the place of, however, had recovered from being tasered and was struggling at removing his butt and hooves from the floor. The sight of it made me laugh, which only attracted his attention and his wordless attempts at freaking out and cussing only grew more intense as he saw me disguised as him. Now I had a voice sample to draw from as well, which meant that I could now not only disguise myself as him, but speak like him as well. Grey had already donned his disguise and nodded to me while I headed out the door. I heard Grey comment to the other two ponies though before we left, "Now you two little colts sit tight and someone might find you in a few hours with a lot of explaining to do."

I giggled, and Grey rolled his eyes at me, "Go see if you can dig anything out of Life lemon about Blue Bright now that you're a goon of his. Tell him that the investigator shared some things with Stark before he died and that he'd need to move the kid now. Most of all make it look convincing, but at the same time don't try and get them to come down on Stark like a swarm of Aqualights on a disabled brute. I'll check out what this other witness knows about the situation at hoof. The more proof we have to back up the accusation that these ponies foalnapped Blue Bright the better."

We exchanged nods as I followed orders and went on my way to Life Lemon, who was minding his own business behind the counter while engaged in conversation with another patron of this evil restaurant. Once he was done, and no one else was coming to grab a seat, I approached him and told him in my sternest most masculine voice, "The Detectives been taken care of."

He nodded thoughtfully at that, "And the others?"

"Barely any difficulty," I told him, knowing that he was referring to me and Grey, "Took them by surprise as well, went down as soon as they were distracted by the body."

Life Lemon nodded, as though we weren't discussing anything other than table ware, which was frankly disturbing, "Good, good. Well back to your post."

Great, he was dismissing me already, so I gave him my best worried voice, thanking my lessons in subterfuge back in the stable while I showed what appeared to be genuine concern to Lemon, "Sir, I'd like to inform you of something first."

"Uh-huh." Lemon said, not really paying attention.

"There was evidence on the detective that suggests that Stark and the detective shared notes and that with the detectives removal, his suspicions would be proven correct." I reasoned to him, "We need to move his son at least from the current place he's being held to another room, perhaps out of the building altogether."

Now that had gotten his attention, "No, no, no." He repeated the words several times, "We can't do that, not with the dinner in an hour and the object we need to return to the old ways still in his body. I'll have someone stall Stark with more rounds of games and drinks. You can move the brats body after the preparations in the kitchen has been completed."

I nodded my understanding, gaining the sick knowledge that the son was in fact going to be prepared like another cooking ingredient. Ugh, how could anypony be that cruel. Draining children of blood for a meal? For a fancy establishment this had an undercurrent of raider culture going on here. Curiously enough I asked him what was the point to tricking the members attending to drinking Blue Blights blood, and the answer was not what I had been expecting. I was expecting some sort of petty grudge against Stark in general or that he was trying to raise an vampony army who thought the same as he did to take over the wasteland, that is what stereotypical villains dream of and did after all.

Instead I got a sigh as he explained, " I didn't want Blue Blood specifically, and if I could i'd use another pony in an instant rather than threaten our source of flamer oil for our legendary delicacies for normal folk. However, there just isn't enough time to swap him back, and with Grease Jar having given Stark reason to suspect us, we have little choice but to continue on with the plans. Which means bringing the coven to its former glory and understanding of our ancient traditions is a must if we hope for a chance of bringing back the old ways where we had the dominance of this Hole."

"The old ways are soon to become the present," I lied, and asked Lemon, "Can I have a set of keys in order to get rid if the body discretely once the chef is done with the kid?"

He nodded, pulling out a set of keys and passing them to me, keys which I rightfully planned to use at my earliest convenience. After which I bid him goodbye and he did the same as another customer had arrived to interrupt our secret-evil-conversation. So I went after in the direction Grey had went in order to go investigate the witness the detective had been about to meet with before his untimely assassination.

It was easy enough to find him, though he was with two other emotional signatures in my mental radar, one which was highly stressed out by something and the other of which was a sincere calm ten feet behind Grey's own. As I came within range, I noticed something odd. One of the presences had disappeared and the other one Grey had been next to was now moving erratically away from Grey while he pursued. I changed my path into that of a gallop as the figure hardly made it five feet before vanishing as well and I came across the scene of one dead member of their coven and a dead mercenary, the later of whom had been armed with a pistol and was the pony who had moved erratically after the coven member had died.

"What happened?!" I dropped the tone of my voice to normal, almost blowing my disguise right then as Grey reloaded his silenced gun.

"Dick here ambushed us and killed the witness after a very short discussion on whats going on here." he nodded to me, as though it was no more troublesome than having a paper cut, "Your chat with the Lemon punk go well?"

I nodded, a bit unnerved at the sight of yet more dead bodies to add to my list of nightmares. A lot of ponies seemed to be dying today, and as much as none of it was my fault, these ponies weren't exactly mindless raiders or rampaging ancient robots who thought everypony was a zebra for some reason. The messy holes in both of their chests wasn't helping though. That and this was one of the more civilized places I've seen outside of the stable so far and the idea that even here wasn't safe for everypony, when it was the capital of the Vanhoover district was suitably killing any expectation of mercy from the wasteland. I sighed.

"Well? Report Aria." Grey barked, drawing my attention back to him in an instant as old training kicked in

"Sir, He's in the kitchens, Sir!" I saluted and he sighed.

"At ease kid. Now, lets go get this kid and return him to his father." Grey walked out. Few seconds later he poked his head back in, "Which way is the kitchen again?"

I shrugged, "The door with the most waiters bringing out food? Oh, and Lemon is planning on trying to return these ponies to vampire-pony-ism. by the way with the dinner in an hour."

"An hour huh?" Grey asked, his eyes narrowing, and not in the suspicious way, it was more in the, 'I'm-going-to-give-you-guys a-rocket-launcher-and-send-you-against-a-radbit-jacked-on-drugs' way. Needless to say, I felt a shiver go down my spine.

"Grey..." I gave voice to cautious concern. His demented eye-narrowing narrowed further. "What are you planning?"

"Come here for a second Aria." Grey motioned for me to come forward, and I obliged, "Mind showing me your pipbuck for a second?"

I nodded, and undisguised myself so that the pipbuck could be seen again, and held it out for him, wincing ever so slightly as my bad leg groaned in pain as I put weight back on it, "What's up?"

Grey leaned forward and gripped a knob in his mouth and twisted it until it was on the data screen before saying a few choice words into it. To my surprise when he pulled away, a few more of the locked files on my leg had opened, he elaborated, "Came across an ingredient list for making fake blood and flavoring brahmin meat to taste like a ponies a while back in my travels." He looked away, as if remembering, "Hell of a time that was, Cannibals and cultists everywhere in Steeljaw." He shook his head, "Anyway, since you're going to be down there, I want you to knock out the head waiter and use the fake recipe for them to have during their dinner. Should make Lemon confess right up to what he did only to find out he failed right after wards. Make sure you follow the instructions to the letter, or else it isn't going to taste right." He looked to his covered back, as if remembering something, "Found that out the hard way..."

Right, another thing to ask Grey about later, I filed away the thought for now and switched my attention to the recipe, it was simple enough, shockingly so in fact. I nodded, and re disguised myself in the small room, and Grey nodded to me, "Go get 'em. I'll tell Stark about the little planned corruption Lemons trying to do to his members."

I nodded in return and head off, finding the kitchen was easy enough, as I predicted the waiters were consistently entering and exiting a service door, one thanks to my disguise, I entered without much notice. Once inside, however, I was greeted to the sight of several ponies cooking large chunks of Brahmin meat with flamethrowers of all things, I couldn't help but stare. Really? A heavy weapon like a flamethrower being used to cook meat? Did that many ponies even order Brahmin? As I passed by them, I wandered deeper into the kitchens, security was scarce it seemed, only the occasional stooge with a cane walking past as casually as I did. Their eyes either recognizing the stallion I was disguised as, or not caring since I was in uniform.

Of course, the kitchens was the easiest room to find,specially when it was labeled as such on the door. To my luck only one pony was acting as the chef here. However, unluckily, there was the fact that I had to figure out a way to dispose of him, find the kid, and deal up this fake blood selection all within less than an hour. Well to be more precise, fourty five minutes, but who was counting? The best course of action, would be to find Stark's son first. So, looking inside this, unusually tight kitchen, I had to consider where they would put the son in this kitchen.

Scanning around I could spot two other doors besides the one I had entered from. Both of which was locked via terminals next to each other. Judging from the screens, I could see that neither of them were secured with a password with a glance, though if this was just lazy programming, or for convince, was yet to be said. The loud pompous voice of the chef reached my ears, easily I could feel the rolls of annoyance flooding out of him, "Oye, What are you doin' here ya broad head?"

I turned to him, keeping a completely deadpan expression, my voice maintaining a simpler nature, "Movin' the kid. Stark thinks somethings up, and wants to check out the kitchens soon, Lemon's orders."

"Great, so I'll need to drain him of blood earlier then," the 'chef' commented snidely, "Like I don't have enough on my plate."

"Listen ya faceless smuck, why don't ya help me and get the wine jug for da party out of the left pantry. Kid's still in the freezer on da righ'. Kid wrecked da stock so we had to move everything out of it a few hours ago before he ruined anythin' else."

Well that is useful. I opened the pantry and peered my head in, "So tell me, what's a wonderful chef like you doing in a place like this?"

"Whatcha mean by tha'?"

"Well, I mean..." My magic lit up around the jug and took it out, I was going to need it, anyway, "Surely you're better than you look to be in control of your own kitchen. Those other guys down the hall hardly looked like they knew what they were doing with those flamers."

"Ah, a secret dat." the Chef declared proudly, not turning away from his cooking, "The fuel used in da weapons add a distinct flavor to da meat as it cooked."

I resisted the urge to gag at that. How do ponies eat meat without feeling sick to their stomachs? I resumed plotting out what I was going to do, and then it clicked together, "Oh dear..."

Those two words, some of the universal words anyone didn't want to hear unless they were the source of the misfortune. Sure enough the chef turned his attention to me, and I gestured inside the fridge, to something that would be out of his sight, "Rad Roaches here?" I muttered, adding the slight disgust that would be appropriate of the high society stallion I was impersonating.

"Wha'? Where?!" Came the chefs predictable response as he dropped everything he was doing to check it out with me, I showed him in, and as he entered to look inside I drew my cane.

"I don' see what your-" He began before I whacked him upside the head with the cane, giving enough magical force behind it to crack the cane against the back of his head. He let out a disgruntled surprised groan as he collapsed to his knees, turning his head to look at me, when the second blow landed after the first, securely knocking him out. Though I hit him a few more times for good measure, just to make sure he wasn't going to wake up anytime soon. Seriously, drinking the blood of ponies was not cool. Never is it okay to do that sort of thing. It was certainly a lot worse than emotion draining... right? I mean like, what they wanted to do was completely drain the kid to death.

But are you really that different? A familiar voice spoke into my head, After all, your kind has another type of emotion draining... and you're going to need it in case a fight breaks out... After all, all you have is a nearly broken stick.

I hadn't done that before though, the direct siphon, over the ambient kind. Back in the stable they had always said to only use that particular siphon in case I was entirely drained of magic. The effects on the victim would be... unpleasant. In some cases it ranged from being unable to feel anything for days to even months at a time.

The power, however, all that untapped potential energy...

I shook my head to clear it, I must be worse off than I thought to consider a full drain. Ya, that must be it, after what had happened over the past week, it wouldn't be unusual to punish them for trying to drain the blood out of a child by draining them of their will to live right? No, I was near my limit anyway, a direct drain would risk overflow followed by magical burnout as my reserves would theoretically explode on me in an unpredictable fashion. It was like magic 101 for changelings, if you took too much in, the emotions would start to overflow, effecting the changelings with the ambient emotions of those they had taken from, and I knew my limits by heart, everyling knew their own limits after some experimentation.

Or do you? the voice whispered back.

Shut up.

I swapped my disguise out for the chef's own, and took out the ingredients I'd need in order to craft the fake blood... drinks... Ugh still found that unnatural. And this was coming from the changeling grown in a freaking stable as part of an army. We were trained to make the enemy bleed and die, not drink from their wounds like it was a source of life for them. Sighing, I dropped my disguise for that of the chef, working out my voice until I could mimic his accent.

It was soothing at least, and grinding a half a dozen different herbs and spices into a find powder in order to mix it in with brahmin milk of all things. I shivered, as I followed the instructions. Where did Grey even get this recipe? It was yet another object on my quickly growing list of things to ask my companions. Grey's list was noticeably shorter than Cait's though. I grunted as I pulped a particularly stubborn rooted plant into juice to add to the mixture. Think about it later, Experiment 1993-13... Aria... Think about it later.

After ten minutes of stabbing, mashing, and pulping plants, I'd managed to fill the jug with the fake blood. Just in time too, as not ten seconds had passed before a lacky opened the door, proclaiming, "Chef Knife, lord Lemon requires the drinks for the banquet."

I grunted, before replying just as harshly, "Go on and take it ya expendable brat."

The waiter gritted his teeth and nodded, his horn lighting up as he levitated the jug out of the room. Sad thing was, it didn't take much to get into the chefs character, I had plenty of rage after both this whole situation and the poor AI that Cait and the others ruthlessly murdered. He and I were going to have some words tonight over that particular stunt.

Right, now it was time for the kid. I dropped my disguise after the waiter had left, and all but ripped the messy apron from my body as I approached the terminal and unlocked the freezer. What I saw, however, was not what I expected at all for Stark's Son.

Xp Footnote: 10% until level up.

Quest Perk Gained: Blood Cooking: You can now craft fake pony blood and flesh from a cooking source. You really regret letting Grey give you this recipe, don't you?

Next Chapter: Chapter 30: Danger On The Dance Floor Estimated time remaining: 9 Hours, 17 Minutes