I didn't waste any time after sending my little pre-packaged message. I raced back up through the castle, passing out orders on the way,  till I got to the top of the highest tower still standing. The roof was gone, leaving it open to the sky.

I had been a busy little student, tinkering with illusions, enchantments, potions, artifacts... the pockets of my costume were full of crystals, glass vials, bits and bobs made out of twisted metal wires and other oddments. I had a notebook I had confiscated from the loot we'd accumulated, and over the past few weeks had used it to write down-- in english-- any spells I came across that seemed like they might be useful.  The moment I hit the top floor of the tower, I got out my notebook and got to work.

The weather over the Everfree was a bit tricky to work with. From what I'd gleaned from spying and from scrounging discarded magazines and newspapers, the pegasi hated messing with it. At first I was inclined to agree with them but once I figured out the trick of it, it was fairly easy to work with--

"Trick?"

"It's more chaotic. Random. Wants to... do its own thing. The trick isn't to control it but sort of work with it, tease it, sort of encourage it to wander around till it's headed the general direction you want to go, then push it in that direction. It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't done it. it's like.... starting a top spinning; once you get it going it balances all on its own. Your ponies might be able to plump a rainshower down wherever they want, but I could have kept that thunderhead rolling for a hundred years with just a little push now and then. Maybe not control it perfectly... but certainly sustain it."

--anyway, Pretty soon I had a solid cloudcover over most of the Everfree, and then whipped that up to a whopper of a thunderhead  centered over the castle. It wasn't long before it was self-perpetuating, pulling in power from the surrounding weather fronts, growing stronger by the minute. It wasn't raining yet... I didn't need it to.

I anchored it in place and moved to step two. I brought a shimmering dome down over the castle and the half-crumbled bluff it stood on. It touched the ground and kept going, digging down into the soil and rock several feet... No tunnelers were going to be getting under that. It flared purple-black and green before fading to near invisibility. The square-cubed law was working in my favor. Shining Armor's shield had covered an entire city. That stage performer, Tricksy, had put a bubble over Ponyville. Mine only covered a castle and a hill and was hundreds of times stronger. No bug or pony-cloud was getting through it.

The sky darkened as my thunderstorm grew. Soon it was as dark as night. My 'dogs were up on the walls, on every tower and at every arrow slit. The walls bristled with spears and bows and torches. A pattering of rain fell, swiftly strengthening. I had no choice about that; the shield had to be at least partially porous, to let the air in.  I took a moment to show one of my entourage how to shield his torch from the rain with an empty pitcher. He passed the trick along; soon the walls were bedecked with jack-o-lantern glows and the hiss of rain falling on hot clay.  Torchlight gleamed on rough blades and shone in feral eyes.

The courtyard below teemed with dozens of timberwolves, black and seething with purple-green balefire. They were nothing more than piles of wood stuck together with blobs of dark magic and doped with crudely copied instincts, but I could see them moving amongst themselves, tussling and snarling, forming a hierarchy the same as if they were truly alive. I was pleased to see Deadwood was rapidly asserting himself as the alpha; all others cringed away from him, or were rapidly subdued. I sent a few more tendrils of magic his way, knitting him together more solidly, making him more singular and cohesive. He was definitely a keeper.

There were no siege weapons in the castle. No arbalists or trebuchets, not even cauldrons for boiling oil. Hardly surprising; it was a pony castle after all. They probably thought an exceptionally brutal battle involved slushballs with gravel in them. Or maybe pies that were still hot from the oven. Some of the diamond dogs were making an effort to rig up a makeshift catapult or two on the towers--- little more than log teeter-totters with  large chunks of castle rubble strapped to one end, but the thought was there. I would have told them not to waste their time. I seriously doubted that siege weaponry would feature in the battle to come.

I took my place on the walls next to Skank, Mange, and Runt, and we waited.

And waited.

And waited a little more.

A 'dog came around with rations; some chunks of cooked meat and tough bread. We chewed and ate where we stood, looking out over the forest. It was another hour of waiting, the rain drumming on our helmets, before our first adversaries appeared.

There was a rattling buzz out among the trees, a noise that had nothing to do with the rain rattling the leaves or the wind shushing through them. A dozen scrawny, insect-like forms separated themselves from the shadows at the treeline and flew across the ravine to us, approaching cautiously. One in the fore was carrying a white flag. Bowstrings creaked all around me as diamond dog archers took aim. I let them: shield or no, looking up at a dozen notched arrows had to be intimidating, and I wanted that. The bugs ascended the short slope to the gates. "Parlay!"  the one bearing the flag shouted.

Okay, let me take a minute here. Giant, pony sized bugs with fangs. You'd figure they'd be terrifying, right? I mean, freaky where's-Sigourney-Weaver-when-you-need-her kind of scary. By all rights my skin should have been crawling. But it just wasn't happening for me. The diamond dogs had given me a bigger scare the first time I'd seen them. Okay, the one who'd shapeshifted in my grasp had scared the crap out of me, but, you know, element of surprise. Plus, green fire everywhere.

But once you got a good look at them, they looked...  they looked like a children's show idea of what a scary monster should be. They were ugly, all right. But fangs or no fangs, there just wasn't much menace there. They were skinny and knobby-jointed and  bulgy-eyed and they looked, well, goofy. Those holes perforating their legs and wings made them look like someone had taken a particularly gangly marionette and blasted it with a shotgun. And the fact that their voices sounded like someone playing a kazoo didn't help them, either. Straight up, they looked like villains from an episode of Howdy Doody.

I held up a hand, signaling for the diamond dogs to lower their weapons. Half of them did. The other half opened fire, sending arrows plonking against the inside of the shield. Not that it mattered, the arrows all flew wide anyway. Some even fell short. Apparently diamond dog reputation preceded them; the bugs didn't even flinch. I groaned, facepalmed, and thunked the nearest errant archer on the head hard enough to concuss him. I magically amplified my voice and shouted down at the changelings. "Say your peace," I said.

"Lower the barrier so that we may parlay," the bug with the flag razzed.

I glowered. "You'll parlay from where you stand," I replied.

The thunder rumbled. The changelings said nothing to one another, but the leader/flag bearer looked back to the treeline. Another gangly pony-marionette silhouette separated itself from the shadows and flew toward the light. this one was taller, slimmer, with a long trailing mane-like headfin and tail. Her eyes were different as well; rather than solid masses of blue-green, they were slip pupiled, with enormous bottle-green irises. She-- yes, she put out that "female" vibe, boo hoo, gender stereotyping, kiss my butt-- came floating over on tattered wings, half a dozen guards serving her as living shields.  All around, buzzing winged forms rose from the trees and floated in midair, swarming menacingly. She walked up to the force field like she owned the place and gave me an imperious look.

"Queen Chrysalis, I presume," I said.

Thump, thump. Thump thump thump.

"One and the same," she said, as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth.

Thump thump thump. Thump thump thump.

"State your business, Chrysalis," I said.

"I think we both know what that is...Darth Vulcan, is it?" She polished a hoof on her chest and looked at it. "You have... stumbled across an--

thump thump thumpity

"--an artifact of power, the legendary Alicorn Amulet. You have seized the Castle of the Pony Sisters. And now--

thump thump thump thump

"Will you idiots STOP THAT?" she yelled at her hovering troops, who were inexplicably zipping about, mindlessly banging their heads against the force field. She looked at me. "Would you dim some of those torches? The light..."

I waved for the 'dogs to snuff some of the torches. About a third went out. That was apparently enough; The changelings stopped bouncing off the force field and backed off, looking embarrassed.

"Ahem. Now, as I was saying.... My spies tell me that you have, indeed, found what sounds a great deal like the legendary Tree of Harmony." She smiled slyly. "Obviously your star is in ascendance."

"Obviously."

"We are both ponies of ambition--"

I pointed at myself. "Not," I enunciated carefully, "a pony. And neither are you."

She waved a hoof. "Semantics. But we can see eye to eye on certain things. We both regard the ponies as our enemies. We both have... and crave... power."

I let a little silence drag for a second. "You have no clue what I crave,"  I said.

"But whatever it is, we can gain it easier if we work together," she pointed out. "You have brute power; the power of the Alicorn Amulet, the power of your loyal minions--" she flicked her head towards one of the 'dogs standing on the parapets with me, barely hiding her expression of contempt (he was picking his nose.) " Even the power of the legendary Tree of Harmony in your grasp. But you barely know what to do with it." She gave me her best sly look.

"Whereas I am skilled and versed in the ways of magic. And I am also leader of a host of Changelings, the greatest natural spies and infiltrators on the planet. Together we could accomplish much."

"Until you betrayed me." I let her hear the sneer in my voice.

"Now, that is hardly a way to establish a working relationship," she pouted. Sheesh, I could slice the ham and serve it to my diamond dogs. "You're going to have to ally yourself with somepony eventually. You're not going to get far going it all alone."

"I'd get even less with an 'ally' who's liable to stab me in the back," I said. "Changelings are sneaks and deceivers by nature-- by necessity. You wouldn't be able to help yourself, any more than I could stop breathing." I discreetly scanned the sky, trusting in my helmet's glowing doom-eyes to conceal where I was looking. "Besides which-- you're incompetent."

Her expression got a lot less friendly. "Excuse me?"

The sky didn't have what I wanted. I had time on my hands so I decided to string her along a bit. "You heard me. Incompetent. I've read up on your little attempt at invading Canterlot. You had an insurmountable advantage. Had everything you wanted and more right at your... hooftips. You could have pulled victory from the jaws of defeat at a dozen different places, and you still blew it."

She snarled, baring her fangs. Ooo, I do believe I hit a nerve. "They pulled a surprise weapon on us," she snapped. "A last minute secret weapon nobody could have expected--"

"You mean the power of Love? Aren't you supposed to be the expert on that?" I let out a basso chuckle."Yet from what I hear you saw the threat coming. You'd just beaten Celestia with the power of Love, and then laughed when the Alicorn of Love told you that she and her true love could beat you. And stood there cackling like a cut-rate movie villain-- right up to the point the bride and groom slapped you halfway to the badlands with your own food supply." I chuckled again as she seethed.

"But no, I'm not even thinking of that. I'm thinking of the dozens of golden opportunities you passed up just so you could strut about the throne room of Canterlot, bragging about your victory."

"And what would YOU have done in my position?" Chrysalis said , her disdain dripping like treacle. Man it was easy to goad these ponies into gabbing.

"Taken Celestia's place," I said simply. "You were right next to the crown all this time. A poisoned dagger, something nasty in her morning tea, and you could have swapped her out with noone the wiser. A single day of basking in the love and adoration she gets from all of Equestria, and by the time anybody noticed something was wrong you would have been too powerful to stop."

Celestia gawked at me, stunned. I smirked. "I see a royal food-taster in somepony's future," I singsonged.

She flapped her jaw a bit. I could see the realization in her eyes of just what sort of grand opportunity she missed. I decided to push it. "Then again, it's lucky that you failed. For YOU. What do you suppose would have happened to you once your loyal subjects realized that you couldn't raise the sun?" Her jaw dropped further and her eyes glazed as she realized just how buggered (har har) she would have been had she actually succeeded.

That was it. Keep her attention. "Conquest? What were you thinking? Your race feeds on love. Do you know how cheap and easy that is to get from those vapid creatures? They're even more blind and fawning and sheeplike than my own race...and mine will throw affection at anything. With your powers you could have infiltrated as celebrities-- rock musicians, cute child actors, airheaded fashion models-- you would have had the love and idol worship of millions, and been living the lifestyle of the rich and famous on top of it.

"Hell, as soft as those ponies are, you could have walked up to them just as you are right now, stuck out a quivering lower lip and big dewy foal eyes and told them you were hungry, and they would have gushed love at you like a fire hose."

"The Queen of the Changelings does not beg like a pauper," she said stiffly, arching her neck and tipping her chin up at me, eyes flaring in anger.

"No. She just sneaks, and steals, and betrays when there is no need," I taunted. "She is a pick-feast with all the skills and foresight of a foal trying to steal a pack of chewing gum from a thrift shop. Any creature who lives on something other creatures throw away and still can't manage is too incompetent to live. Begone, cockroach; The Queen of the Changelings has nothing to offer me."  I really needed to write some of this stuff down for when I got home and went to a cosplay. This stuff was golden.

Her nostrils flared. "What arrogance leads you to think you can speak to me in this manner?" She said... in way too calm a voice. There it was. She was way too icy for someone who'd been dissed like that; looking past me for something to happen. She was playing for time.

"The same arrogance that leads you to think you can infiltrate my troops," I said, and snapped my fingers.

A few days back I had been busy putting enchantments on my helmet. The batteries for the voice changer and the glowing eyes were dead, for one thing; for another I wanted to find some way to make up for the fact that I had poor peripheral vision while I wore it. I put a few tricks and tweaks in it, but the biggy was a nifty little spell called the Betrayer's Bane. If it detected someone who had treachery on their mind, it made a little ringing noise, one that got louder the nearer the betrayer was or the more diabolical the betrayal would be. Kid sister planning on stealing your cupcake? tiny ring. Loyal lieutenant planning on stabbing you in the back? Loud ringing.

Of course it had some pretty bad drawbacks. It wasn't directional, for one thing. And according to the text, it could be very subjective-- which is a worse betrayal, a friend stealing ten bucks or a mortal enemy stealing one?  I had to restrict its range to keep it from going off every time some 'dog started pondering snitching one of the gems from my hoard without permission.

But I still used it. It had become necessary; diamond dogs choose their leader the canine way-- whoever beats the crap out of the old boss becomes the new boss. And a few of the bigger rowdies I'd freed from the dragon's slavery had gotten ambitious. I'd already been jumped a couple of times by slavering 'dogs looking to beat me down and take my place. The first two caught me by surprise and nearly stove my head in, helmet or no helmet. I managed to beat them back in line; the Alicorn Amulet gave me earth-pony strength as well as unicorn magic. But it was a close thing;  the others started looking a little more belligerent around me, too.

The third one was a big black brute with a battleaxe. He wasn't going for a mere beatdown, he was going for the kill. Unfortunately for him I'd already installed the Betrayer's Bane. The moment he went for me the faint but urgent dinging noise in my ear turned to a burring like an alarm clock. I spun around and caught him in midair with a lightning bolt. He dropped to the ground, smoking. I didn't have any more trouble with challengers after that.

As I had been running around the ruined castle I hadn't missed the fact that my horde was a bit larger than I recalled, or that the faint chiming had gotten very loud at certain points. When I got too close to certain Diamond Dogs, for one. Or to some of the pack of timber wolves that accompanied us. It wasn't anything I hadn't expected, but I was stunned at how swiftly she pulled it off. She must have had changelings waiting in the trees, ready to slip into our horde unnoticed as we rode into the castle. A leopard never changes its spots after all.

That's why I'd set up the first trap. I'd heard about Shining Armor's anti-changeling forcefield, and with some research had managed to half-guess, half-fudge how it had worked. When the forcefield over the ruins had gone up, I'd also set up a second spell right in the center of the castle to go off when I gave it the signal. I'd felt secure in waiting. For all her genetics were rooted in sneakiness, Chrysalis had struck me as someone who wanted to see the look on your face when she delivered the coup de grace. The moment I saw the gloating in her eyes, I set the spell off.

It wasn't quite the stone-hard wall of force I had hoped for; it was more of a vast, torrential wind, exploding outward in every direction from the center of the castle. It passed through stone walls and thorny vines without a rustle, sleeted through flesh and bone and fur without so much as ruffling a hair-- and swept every changeling lurking in my army up off their feet. They were dashed with brutal force against unyielding stone walls, thrown headlong into tangled masses of thorns, sent hurtling off the parapets. I saw half a dozen timberwolves hurtle into the sky only to smash with brutal force against the dome of the shield. Three of the 'dogs standing next to me went hurtling off the parapets like they were launched from a catapult. Green fire flared everywhere as changeling disguises failed under bruising and bone-crushing impacts.

The wind passed on, outward through the forcefield, blowing Chrysalis and her forces outside clear over the ravine and back into the trees. What I wouldn't have given for a camera; the look of rage and surprise on her face as she went hurtling arse-first into the Everfree was priceless. I could still hear her raving and screaming.

As soon as she disappeared I was bounding down the inside of the wall. The forcefield would hold her all day; let her waste her fury on that. "Search the castle, bring me any who did not escape!" I shouted. The dogs ran to obey.

The spell was still going. Before I'd reached the bottom of the curtain wall, a group of changelings came sliding helplessly across the courtyard, flailing their legs and going "waaaaaaaaa" in their buzzy voices. They piled up against the foot of the wall with thumps and groans and shouts of pain.

I hopped down to the courtyard and cut off the spell. They lay there in a tangle, groaning and wisely not trying anything. The diamond dogs returned a moment later, dragging a handful more, and tossed them into the pile. Most were busted up pretty badly.

A couple of them were wearing helmets. Commanders, I guessed. I picked out one from the tangle of limbs and wings and hoisted it up by the neck, Darth Vader style. Time for a recruiting drive.   "My offer is simple," I said. "Your queen has starved you, wasted you, thrown you into useless fights. My minions are fed and provided for. Join me and you will live well. Oppose me, and perish."

It hissed and spat in my face.

I clawed the slime off my mask with my free hand as the changeling writhed in my grip and tried to snap at me with its fangs. Just as I cleared my mask, it twisted its head and sank its dripping fangs into my forearm.

Everything went red.

kill him

I didn't even hesitate. Power boiled up my arm and into the changeling. It spasmed, lightning shooting out of its eyes, and...

Exploded. Just... bang. Like a water balloon. Green ichor flew everywhere. One minute I was holding a snapping, struggling bug-pony, the next I was holding this... this burst bag of dripping green gore and shattered bones.They weren't exoskeletal after all, I thought. How about that. I gagged a bit at the sight but kept it down.

How about that.

I dropped the remains on the ground. Some of them were still twitching. "Get rid of that," I said to noone in particular. Two 'dogs grabbed the corpse and dragged it off. I felt my stomach surging up, but before I could puke or scream or fall down freaking like a wuss, a cold wave passed through my body, taking away the nausea and shakes.

Not the time to break down, stay cold

That was it. Cool as a glacier. No time to wuss out now, Chrysalis would be back at it in a matter of minutes.

I realized what had just happened. Bitten. Poison! I examined my arm; it didn't look like the changeling's fangs had gotten through the armor. It was a little hard to tell; I was pretty splattered with green ichor... No. I was good. My heart rate slowed.

I looked over the much quieter group cowering before me. I stood there with dead changeling dripping off me and went on autopilot. I looked at the largest one there-- he was wearing a helmet like the first one, so I assumed he was next in command. "My offer is simple," I said. "Your queen has starved you, wasted you, thrown you into useless fights. My minions are fed and provided for. Join me and you will live well. Oppose me, and perish."

The bug got up on its knees and shook its head like an angry dog. "Never--" it said. "You can't-- can't make us betray our Queen."

Good, make an example of him as well

I started to brew up a ball of darkfire... then I hesitated. He'd strained awful hard to say something so simple. The thought popped in; Won't betray their Queen... or can't?

I used my magesight and looked at our prisoners. Carefully. It took some doing to pierce through the fuzz and static of their natural obscuring aura, but I managed; underneath was a webbing of livid green lines, almost like a mesh of veins and arteries clinging to their skin. It trailed off to a single point over their hearts, then floated away to trail off into the air. Three guesses where the other end of that tether went. Some sort of loyalty spell? A geas?

I would have to poke around through my library for days just to guess at what I was looking at. I didn't have days. Time to pull another wild guessathon. I reached out with a spectral hand, snared all the floating tethers, and snapped them. It certainly did something, to judge by the scream of rage that came from the other side of the wall. Man, that Chrysalis has a mouth on her.

It had results on this side of the forcefield as well; the bugs went noodle-limbed and started babbling and flailing about aimlessly.  I looked at the tendrils in my grasp; they were leaking light from their cut ends and sending little jolts and sparks up their length. I didn't know what that meant but it wasn't good. It must have been like unplugging a game cartridge without turning the game off (yes, I had an old Nintendo, yes my parents were cheap.) Uh oh. Well, I wasn't about to jam the ends of those tendrils into myself. So, playing a hunch, I took the ends in my fist, bunched them up-- and jammed them into the Alicorn Amulet on my chest.

I expected a lot of sparks and smoke and junk, or maybe the changelings to go into seizures. What happened was... nothing. The ghostly tendrils stuck to the Amulet, the staticky flickering quit, and the changelings suddenly seemed to snap out of whatever fit they were having. Hm. The helmeted one got back to his feet and looked at me. "Our... bond... to Chrysalis is gone," he said. "The geas--" (Hah, I called it) "-- is gone! How--" He squinted suspiciously. "No, wait... it is still there... I feel it. But it's not to Chrysalis... it's.." his eyes trailed over to the Amulet.

I tapped it. "To me," I said. Or more accurately, to whomever was wearing the amulet. Or so I hoped. It would suck if they decided they were literally bound to the Amulet itself, and the wearer was just a disposable accessory. I looked down at the Amulet with my magesight. The tethers ran to the Amulet... and from the amulet to me. I could see pulses of light moving along those fibers, from them to the medallion and from the medallion to me, indicating which way the loyalty of the geas ran.

I really hoped that indicated the way the loyalty ran. My guess was apparently right, to judge by his reaction. His expression went from shock to rage to frustration to resignation, all in a matter of seconds.

I looked at him. "So. This was how she kept your loyalty."

He nodded, squinting in a scowl. "She cast it upon the entire colony when she rose to power," he said.

Green light flashed over the castle wall as Chrysalis expressed her displeasure at losing some of her slaves. "So. Will you serve me willingly?" I said.

He looked me up and down, regarded the stains on the floor that used to be one of his soldiers, and shrugged fatalistically. "Willingly or not-- we serve," he said tonelessly. He bowed to me. His battered soldiers did the same.

What the hell, it worked for me. I turned and addressed the diamond dogs massed in the courtyard and huddled on the parapets and towers. "HEAR ME!" I bellowed, cranking up the volume till my voice echoed. "THESE CHANGELINGS RIGHT HERE--" I pointed at them "--ARE ON OUR SIDE NOW! IS THAT CLEAR?" I had learned to be very specific about that; a couple of recruitments from the local rival diamond dog tribes had ended up with my own soldiers bopping each other over the head.

"You are quick to trust," the lead changeling said, bemused.

"I am quick to punish those who betray that trust," I replied. He nodded carefully, understanding.

There was silence in the pouring rain (well, save for the sounds of unturned changelings bashing themselves against the shield and Chrysalis swearing). A hairy paw went up in the middle of the throng. "WHAT?" I said.

"How we tell them apart from others?" came the faint reply. I looked over at the bugs. Good question. I'd seen chinese crowd footage that was easier to pick out faces. I mentally flipped through a few options. "Kneel. And brace yourselves," I said to them, readying a spell.

The changeling looked worried. "What do you intend?" he said nervously.

"A little palette swap," I said. "Hope you like red." The spell washed over them. When the darkling energy dissipated, the change was striking. Rather than shades of murky green, they were now colored in dark, dark reds. Their plating was burnt umber, highlighted with blood crimson along the seams; their eyes glowed scarlet. NOW they looked a little more badass. The watching crowd of Diamond Dogs "oooooohed," impressed.

I repeated myself. "Will you now give me your oath, to serve me loyally?"

The lead changeling looked up at me. His grin was all fangs. "Against the preening fool Chrysalis? Gladly."

I held out my hand over his head."Your welfare is now my duty. Your loyalty is my due. You shall be fed, and sheltered, and provided for, as one of mine. " I looked out at the crowd. "NOW HEAR THIS: THESE CHANGELINGS SERVE ME! THEY FIGHT FOR ME! ANY WHO RAISES THEIR HAND TO THEM WILL BE PUNISHED!" I looked at the helmeted one. "Your name?"

"I have none," he said. "Under Chrysalis we only had numbers. I was sergeant commander number--"

I stopped him with a raised hand. "No good, these guys can't count," I muttered. "Here's your first benny, hope you like it.

"Arise... BLACK FANG!"

The diamond dogs set up a howl. Any excuse to raise a ruckus. The next minute they were hustling to get the defenses ready."-And give your men names too," I added under my breath to Black Fang. "My life's difficult enough."

"As you command," Black Fang said.

"He was right, you were rather quick to trust them," Celestia said, cocking an eyebrow.

"It was the geas," I said. "Or maybe I should call it a gestalt. They wouldn't act against me. I could feel it. The spell made them an extension of me... they couldn't try to harm me any more than my left toe could start a revolution against my head." I shrugged. "Plus, they hated Chrysalis' steaming guts. Anyway, I wasn't exactly in a position for a really long employee evaluation. If he betrays me, he betrays me, and there wasn't much I could do beyond that. Besides, he didn't have a grudge against me personally. Besides..." I tapped my helmet meaningfully, indicating the betrayal-detecting spell on it.

Celestia persisted. "You'd just turned one of their own to bloody scraps in front of them! "

"Yeah. Seems that fellow was the previous commander of their little group..."

"And what of your previous commander?" I guestured at the grue still dripping off me. The rain wasn't really washing it off well.

Black Fang spat dismissively. "A rear-echelon fool, promoted after the failure of the invasion. Screaming and leaping when he should have stabbed from the shadows. He got many of us killed. The troops had a running bet on whether he would be killed by Chrysalis, by an enemy he failed to subdue, or by one of his own command. I had a pint of nectar on him walking into a wild animal's den and provoking it." He grinned humorlessly.  "I wonder if I can convince the others that trying to bite an angry warlock through his armor counts. He would not have poisoned you, by the way. Our bite is numbing and enervating, but it does not kill."

I had the feeling this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. "As entertaining as this is, we are in no position for idle chatter," I said. "Chrysalis is not the only one who seeks to claim the Tree of Harmony tonight, and we are pressed for time."

"What would you have of me and my changelings?" Black Fang asked.

"That depends," I said. "How many of you are still on your hooves?"

Black Fang threw a glance over his men. "Two or three," he said. "The rest are nursing broken bones or other injuries from that little tumbler you threw them in."

"And what are your capabilities?" I said. "I know you can disguise yourselves as ponies, and other creatures too-- can you camouflage yourselves?" For an answer, he turned the color and pattern of the wall behind him. Even his eyes turned the grey of stone. He even managed to alter his physical shape and texture to look more like brick. Then with another flash of green flames he turned into a pony statue. Then into a suit of armor. "Clever," I said. "Tell your injured to tend their wounds and conceal themselves around the castle. There are plenty of nooks and crannies around here to hide in. Gather those who are fit, I have a mission for you.

"Your target will be in Ponyville..."

I quickly explained the objective to him. He nodded understanding, asked a few concise questions-- it was so nice working with somebody who was actually intelligent-- and moved to instruct his men. I was very pleased with the maneuver I'd plotted out. If things went well his mission would be unnecessary. If not, his actions might save my hide. And geas or not, this worked in my favor-- if he was disloyal, it put his able bodied soldiers far away from where he could backstab me. If that geas wasn't secure it put him where Chrysalis couldn't reclaim him. And it gave his injured an order to do what they'd probably do anyway-- go into hiding, lick their wounds, and wait till the battle was over.

And hey, what they were going to do might save my bacon later on. Multitasking, gotta love it.

I'd just finished giving him the breakdown when I noticed that Chrysalis and her minions had suddenly gotten rather quiet outside. I checked the dome; still up, the bottom rim still buried in rock five feet deep. I ran up the steps to the top of the curtain wall. Letting Chrysalis out of my sight was a bad mistake. I was halfway up the crumbling staircase when I felt it:

Thoom.

When I say I felt that, I mean I felt it through my feet. And I was wearing my Gene Simmons boots. I double timed it up the stairs; every two or three seconds I felt another thoom. I heard what sounded like trees cracking over the sound of the rain and thunder.

I got up there. All the 'dogs on the wall were gripping their weapons and looking scared. Skank was up on the wall, waiting for me. He finished shaking the water off his coat and turned to me. "Something coming, Master," he said, pointing out at the forest. "Many somethings. Many big somethings." The ground shook again. I looked where he was pointing; I could see places where the trees were shaking, and not because of the wind. That was what had distracted Chrysalis; she and her troops had ceased lashing the dome with changeling-bolts and were now all hovering in midair, turned outward to face whatever was coming this way. There was a stone wall, a force field dome, and a ravine filled with thorny black vines between us and whatever was coming, but I'd never felt more insufficiently defended.

I made an opening in the dome and spoke to Black Fang. "Take your men and go. Go now, while they're distracted." He nodded and flew off. Seconds later a flight of black-and-red changelings zipped out through the portal, on their way to complete their mission... or to flee and wait for their new 'master' to bite it. At this point it was moot.

Trees toppled, and the approaching enemy came into view. It was enormous, a huge hill of a creature, tall as the trees and almost thick as it was tall, lumpen and mossy and colored the gray of stone. It was bipedal, with short, thick stumpy legs, even thicker arms that dragged the ground as it walked, and a huge flattish slab of a head. Its face was human-ish, like a brutish carving of a caveman, and it had a slack-jawed vacant expression. It looked like it had been lobotomized-- which may have been the case, because there were huge black crystals growing right out of the top of its skull. It lumbered forward like a zombie, trampling the fallen trees underfoot and crushing them to splinters.

Behind it I could see at least two more, vacant-eyed and drooling and just as massive as the first. And overhead hovered a depressingly familiar pony-faced black cloud. "MINE!" Sombra roared. "THE CRYSTAL TREE SHALL BE MINE!"

It looked like Special Guest Number Two had arrived.