‘Cogitator Echoing Truth, this is harvester Roulette. The situation in Ponyville has become more extreme than estimated by Whispering Terror. Requesting permission for unusual measures in order to maximize harvest.’

’This is cogitator Echoing Truth. Elaborate on request.’

The changeling could feel the conversation being flagged for immediate attention. She did her best not to tremble at the idea of receiving as much attention as the number of minds now focussed on her suggested.

‘The dragon in Ponyville is destroying the entire town. I am with an estimated twenty ponies who have sought safety in the basement of the sofa shop. The sheer volume of fear they are putting out is such that I would only be able to harvest it all if I was in my natural form.’

Roulette took a breath, she was sure her plan would cause an uproar.

‘I propose to reveal myself to these ponies and convince them to feed me their emotions under the guise of using them against the dragon.’

There was an explosion of mind-voices over her link, strong enough that it was hard for the harvester not to flinch and cry out from behind the couch where she had hidden herself.

SILENCE!

“Eep!”

The mind-voice of Chrysalis was unusually focussed, she could feel her mind sweeping over her own before scanning the link for others who were listening in.

’I sense six arbiters here. I would hear from you each in turn now. Brinn.’

’The idea has merit, my queen, but risks both the harvest and the harvester.’

’Deliberata.’

’Chances of failure are high. I recommend displaying anger and indignation that a dragon has been fed changeling emotion crystals in order to raise chances of success.’

’Noted. Derodomontatus.’

’It is not worth it. The harvester should continue with her orders as you planned, my queen.’

’Heirodyus’

’Send a second harvester to backup harvester Roulette. A single drone will be overwhelmed if they turn hostile.’

’Only four harvesters in that town, not viable. Kledji.’

’The plan will succeed. Ponies are stupid, frightened ponies even more so.’

’Sevax.’

’Recommend Deliberata’s plan with addition, false death of a sibling. However, my opinion no longer matters, my Queen, as the harvester has been noticed.’

Among the hive mind, gasps, cries of alarm and a few vindictive chuckles were heard before Chrysalis’ voice overrode them again.

’Harvester execute the plan Arbiter Sevax recommended. Good luck, daughter of the swarm.’

Roulette held her eyes closed as awareness of her surroundings returned to her in a rush.

Thinking quickly, she worked the tear ducts of her chosen pony form as quickly and as hard as she could, causing tears to leak from her eyes.

“Its eyes stopped glowing.” she heard a pony half whisper.

“Is she crying?” another asked in confusion.

“Why is she crying?” a foal asked behind her, before being shushed by her mother.

“Can a changeling even cry?” a stallion asked, his voice thick with suspicion.

Choosing her moment, Roulette jerked her head upwards and around towards the sound of the stallion’s voice.

More than a dozen ponies were staring at her from above and around the couch that she had hidden behind. Many of them jerked in fear at her sudden movement while several foals looked on in curiosity, often held back by the forelegs of their mothers.

“Eeep!” she squeaked, that was a lot of attention focussed on her. Forcing down her sudden sense of panic, being in front of ponies who knew she was a changeling was never an easy thing, she let out a long sigh.

“Well. Looks like I’m well and truly discovered,” she said as she flopped her head back down onto her outstretched forelegs.

A stallion’s hoof came down mere inches from her snout. “Give me one good reason not to throw you out to that dragon, changeling,” the stallion growled aggressively, though she could tell that his bravado was mostly a front.

“It doesn’t matter,” she mumbled in as apathetic tone as she could muster, “my sister just died trying to slow that dragon down.”

She carefully sipped on the burst of surprise and sympathy that came with her pronouncement, using some of their own sorrow to make her own false emotions more real.

WHUMP!

Roulette looked to the ceiling as the ground shook underneath them. Spike had just stepped next to the building they were hiding under.

“He’s so drunk on rage and greed it would take a small swarm to calm him down.”

Shakily, she stood and stepped towards the stairs, only to be blocked by the aggressive stallion, a suspicious look on his face.

“Please step aside. I will try to drain as much of his anger as I can.” green fire spread across her body as she spoke, revealing her normal chitinous form, much to the horrified fascination of the ponies in the room who had been looking on.

The newly revealed nymph walked to the top of the stairs and closed her eyes, allowing her horn to ignite as she pretended to drain emotion from the dragon outside.

“WHAT?!” she cried out, rearing up on the landing. She siphoned some of the anger from the ponies below her who had regarded her suspiciously, using it to amplify her enraged bellow.

“That’s manufactured rage!”

Roulette turned on the landing to face the ponies below her, anger clearly visible on her face as she gnashed her fanged mouth. “Somepony cast a spell on the dragon! I can’t take emotion that isn’t real…”

The nymph trailed off as if she had just realized something.

“Quill! I need a quill and ink, quickly!”

Several of the ponies shuffled nervously, unsure what to make of this changeling in their midst, one or two of them automatically checked their saddlebags.

A young colt cried out, “I got chalk,” as he held up a white stick.

Roulette raced down the stairs and snatched up the chalk, bumping a mare out of the way as she cleared some floorspace. Sighting carefully, she lodged the piece of chalk in a small hole near her hoof.

Working rapidly, she drew 4 lines to make an eight pointed star, marking positions on two of the arms. She pulled her head up and inhaled deeply, drinking in some emotions as she pretended to take a whiff of the air.

She marked a third arm as some of the ponies around her took curious sniffs of the air. Barely a second later, Roulette was scribbling equations onto the wooden floorboards as quickly as she could.

“What are you doing?” one of the mares near her asked nervously.

“If I can’t drain the dragon’s emotions, I can cancel them out,” she said, frowning in concentration, drinking in the curiosity the whole time, “now hush, emotional vectorization is HARD.”

“Emotional what now?” another mare asked.

“Changeling maths,” Roulette dismissed, “how to mix emotions to enhance or counteract another one.”

The room lapsed into near silence, several of the ponies watching curiously as the changeling worked for almost a minute more.

“Got it!” Roulette cried out in triumph.

“I need to gather as much fear, grief and happiness as I can get my hoofs on…”

“Now hold on there, bug filly, you ain’t stealing any of my emotions!”

“You’re not turning me into a zompony!” Another cried out.

Roulette facehoofed. Hard. “I really hate those Daring Do books,” she moaned.

“Idiots, you have no idea how emotivores work, do you? If you take an apple from a tree, does it grow a new apple next year? SAME THING!” she shouted the last two words. “Whatever I drain comes back in a day or two, sooner with proper motivation.”

“You can have my fear if you like. I don’t like being afraid,” said a unicorn with a bright green mane.

“Come on and grab my hoof then, we don’t have time to do this the slow way.”

A hesitant second later, the unicorn was washed over with a pale green fire and put her hoof down. “Oh wow… I feel kinda numb, so weird.”

Seeing that their neighbor was otherwise unhurt, several of her friends pushed forward and offered their hooves as well. Four flashes of fire later, Roulette stepped back.

“Hold on a sec, too much…”

Hacking and spitting a few times, she rapidly spat out and moulded four crystals with her magic, two a sickly yellow, one a deep blue and the last a bright green.

“Okay, I’m good now.”

“What are those?” a foal asked.

“Crystallized emotions. I can’t hold too much, or I’ll get very sick. Like if you eat too much candy.”

As she spoke, Roulette drained another two ponies, before turning back to shake hooves with her seventh.

“You go do what you can to stop that there dragon, you hear me young missy?” an elderly mare said as she held out her hoof.

“I’ll do all I can. If it’s not enough, I’ll send a message to everyling I can to come help. This town is my home too, you know.”

The elderly mare nodded as the fire washed over her. “Good filly.”

As Roulette turned to generate more crystals, she noticed a colt with his nose near the ones she had just made. “Look all you like,” she chided, “but don’t taste them or you’ll end up like that dragon. Concentrated emotion is very bad for ponies.”

The foal drew back at the thought of becoming a monster, watching with awe as she generated five more crystals.

“One more batch should do it,” Roulette panted with exertion, “At least if my numbers are right.”

Several more ponies clambered forward to offer themselves to her and in short order, she was generating another four crystals.

“Ow,” Roulette panted, “that was hard.” Stepping forward, she hocked up a final ball of slime and formed it into a large green case around the crystals.

“Now to slow down that dragon. Stay here where it’s safe, if it doesn’t work, I’ll try to lead it away from town.” Placing the large crystal on her back, she climbed the stairs before turning into a pegasus on the landing in front of the door.

“Wish me luck!” she called as she opened the door into the shop above and vanished from sight.

As she flew south and most resolutely away from the enraged Spike, Roulette’s eyes lit up.

‘Cogitator Echoing Truth, this is harvester Roulette, please forward my compliments to Arbiters Deliberata, Sevax and Kledji. Eighteen crystals and change harvested in under a minute.’

She could feel the shock over the link as Echoing Truth received her message.

‘Ponies really are stupid.’

CRACK-BOOM!

“Vinyl! Vinyl wake up!” the frenzied and most unladylike cries echoed through the house as Octavia raced upstairs.

Actually kicking down Vinyl’s door, she dove for the edge of the bed, where she spied the slumbering DJ’s tail hanging out from underneath the covers.

Clamping down with her teeth on Vinyl’s tail, Octavia did her best to shout her warnings to her roommate even as she was dragging her physically from her bed.

“YOW!” Vinyl Scratch shouted as her rump hit the floor, her head dragged backwards through her sheets.

“Octy! What’s gotten into you?”

“Can’t you hear him?” Octavia shrieked, gesturing at the window as she dropped Vinyl’s tail. “Twilight’s dragon has gone berserk, he’s tearing apart the town! We have to get out of here!”

“What, Spike?” Vinyl scoffed as she stood and walked to the window to see what all the commotion was about.

“The little dragon we see sorting books and playing with fillies? HA! What’s he doing this time? Riding one of the fillies to joust with Carrot Top? Lusting after that fashion mare, what’s her name? Rarity? No, no, wait. Don’t tell me. He’s plotting the downfall of Twilight’s pet owl again.”

Vinyl’s derisive laughter was cut off by the reverberating boom of an enormous footstep in the distance.

"GRAAAAAAAAHH!!!"

Octavia swept the curtain aside and raised an eyebrow at her roommate as she gestured grandly to the view of a gigantic rampaging purple dragon standing over shattered shell of what was once the town hall.

“Riiiiiight... not so little. What are you waiting for? Let’s scram!”

With a clatter of hooves, Vinyl was out the door and headed for the stairs, Octavia hot on her heels.

“Wait!” Octavia cried, “What about my jewelry box?”

This time, it was Vinyl’s turn to grab Octavia by the tail “You wanna carry shiny stuff when a dragon is on a rampage? Are you crazy? You might as well bathe in ketchup for him.”

“Oh, right. Let’s just get out of here.”

Winding their way down the street, passing a trio of houses that had already been flattened, the pair spotted other ponies running for the Whitetail Woods and joined them.

“This way!” shouted a tan earth pony near the entrance to the woods, her voice carrying over the sounds of panic. “Go deeper into the woods where it’s safe. Everypony come this way!”

The pair joined the flow of frightened earth ponies and unicorns down the path and into the woods as pegasi flitted through the trees above them.

It wasn’t long before they passed under a small rope bridge set between two trees. Octavia stopped to peer closely at the trees, nudging Vinyl as she came to a stop and turned.

“It that a tree house?” she asked, pointing with a hoof.

“Hey Featherweight, see anything yet?” they heard the voice of a colt cry out from inside.

“There’s pegasi coming from Cloudsdale and Canterlot!”

“Cool!” the colt shouted back, “D’ya think it’s the Wonderbolts?”

“Featherweight, Rumble! Over here, over here! There’s somepony coming from the Everfree Forest!” a third colt shouted from a couple of trees over.

“Wha? How the hay did you get up here, Pipsqueak?”

“LOOK! Use your spyglass, mateys!”

The two mares listened on curiously to find out what was going on.

“This way everypony,” called the Mayor from behind them as she led a final group into the woods, “there is a nice big clearing near the middle where we can gather and figure out what to do once the dragon has been stopped.”

“...d’you think it is?”

The words floated down from above Vinyl and Octavia, partially drowned out by the Mayor’s call.

“I think it’s the human everypony was talking about, but why is it running towards the dragon, and why is that pony following him?”

“I can see a horn, and she’s purple. Guys! I think that’s Twilight Sparkle!” Came the excited voice of Pipsqueak as he used Featherweight’s camera lens as an impromptu telescope.

Rumble tapped his forehooves excitedly. “WOW! I bet she’s making the human come fight the dragon for us!”

Pipsqueak talked through the side of his mouth as he kept his view on the human and the lavender unicorn following him. “D’you think he’ll really breathe fire at him? I wanna see that mean dragon burnt down to gryphon chow!”

“Dragons are fireproof, stoopid! It’s gotta be something else.”

“Alright then Feathers, if you’re so smart how do you beat a dragon?”

“I dunno, Rumble. I wish we could do something ta help.”

“I know what ya mean, Feathers. I wish Thunderlane was here. My big bro always knows what to do.”

The excited, but confused voice of Pipsqueak cut in. “Wha?! The human’s stopped, mateys! He stopped running and now he’s… dancing?”

“DANCING?” Rumble and Featherweight echoed, looking at the ever piratical Pipsqueak like he had gone out of his mind.

“Dancing?” Two mares below them had turned to each other in confusion, wondering what in the world was going on out there to cause Iroh to start dancing.

CRACK-BOOM!

“Iroh,” shouted the lavender unicorn, skittering after the old man as he puffed his way across the field, huffing like a stallion who had just galloped a mile, “what are you doing? You can’t fight an angry dragon! He’ll eat you alive!”

“Not…. huff… not fight…” Iroh wheezed to the formerly green unicorn, “distract… huff huff… if those... pegasi… huff… aren’t... hurting it… huff... with kicks… I will… huff huff… only annoy it…”

“What?” she shouted as she drew level with Iroh and slowed to a fast trot. “How are you going to annoy him?”

“No, no time… to explain… must get… to top… of that… hill…WOAH!”

With a jerk, Iroh was lifted off his feet by a pale yellow aura as his miscolored companion picked him up with her levitation and sped up to gallop across the field and to the top of the hill on the opposite side.

“Thank you,” Iroh said as his breathing returned to normal, “now I suggest you put me down and stay clear. This is very dangerous.”

Not giving the unicorn a chance to respond, Iroh stilled himself for a couple of seconds before snapping his arms out and beginning a series of intricate circular motions.

The pony suffering a bout of Lavender Unicorn Syndrome watched his movements carefully for a moment before looking towards the town nearly a quarter of a mile away, Spike towering over the buildings with what looked like the top of a water tower tucked under one of his arms.

Several pegasi flitting over the devastated town paused in their circling to hover and look in their direction, as if they sensed something that she could not.

Come to think of it, why did it feel like her mane was lifting off of her head?

The lavender pony turned back, just in time to see a long spark arc between Iroh’s hands, from the tips of two outstretched fingers to the tips of the two outstretched fingers on his other hand.

Her jaw dropped. Another spark arced, then a third as Iroh picked up speed.

With a snap, Iroh brought his arms together and sighted down his arms towards the distant form of the rampaging Spike.

CRACK-BOOM!

Author's Notes:

Right, pre-read at the very least. Chapter split in two to keep with my standard chapter sizes.

Thanks to epreeses1 and Ice4smaster for pre-reading.