It wasn't long before Darth Vulcan struck again. Once again, his target of choice was hapless, innocent Ponyville.

At dawn, the ponies of the town were rousted out of their peaceful slumber by the shrieks of dismay of Fluttershy, the villages' number one animal expert. She was running through town raising the alarm. With winter closing in, Fluttershy had, as was her habit, been very busy setting up her countless animal friends at her home for the winter. Upon doing her rounds at her homestead that morning, however, she had discovered to her horror that nearly every adoptable pet was missing. Every coop, pen, cage, pet house, aquarium or terrarium was either vacated or missing entirely.  Even Angel, Fluttershy's own irascible rabbit, had been nabbed.

It didn't take long to figure out who was responsible. Traces of changeling magic, plus hoofprints and diamond dog tracks, made it obvious that Darth Vulcan-- or at least his minions-- had been the culprits.

This was a devastating blow to the town; the overly-micromanaged local ecosystem-- or at least the cultural routines; the real ecosystem didn't give a tinker's damn what a bunch of anal-retentive ponies did---  would be thrown completely out of kilter for at least a year till the town's allotment of random cute and fluffy background animals could be brought in. Frantic queries from the Mayor as to how this would affect Winter Wrap-Up, Spring Startup, Summer's Running of the Rabbits and thousands of other complete wastes of tax dollars, labor and public time were deflected for now; Princess Twilight Sparkle and the other former Element bearers had their hooves full comforting the distraught animal caretaker.

They were gathered in the Golden Oaks library for an impromptu war council. Fluttershy wept into Rainbow Dash's mane while the filly athlete awkwardly patted her on the back. "How dreadful!" Rarity said. "Will that horrible creature ever leave Ponyville in peace??"

"You figure the scalawag is still nearby, Twi?" Applejack said.

Twilight shook her head. "He completely emptied out his old lair in the Everfree," she said. "I don't think he was planning on sticking around after he escaped. This was probably one final dirty deed on his way out the door." She scowled. "He could be anywhere in Equestria by now. Or further."

"It's kind of a weird thing to do, though," Rainbow Dash said from where she sat uncomfortably hugging Fluttershy.

"Yeah, I mean, of all the things to steal, why bunnies?" Pinkie Pie said.

"Who knows what horrible things that evil Darth Vulcan has planned for them?" Fluttershy sobbed.

"This is a bunny rabbit," I said, holding up a lop-eared blob of fur. "It is a device for turning carrots into love."

In front of me sat a platoon of red-tinted changelings, the fiercest and deadliest soul-sucking spies and saboteurs in the world of Equestria (which wasn't saying much, but you went with what you had.) Each was holding a rabbit, puppy, or kitten in the crook of his or her leg. Some were awkwardly petting the discomfited looking animals with their free hoof, like a child in a petting zoo who'd never encountered an animal before.

Feeding Diamond Dogs was fairly straightforward. Timberwolves? Took some thought but a mix of wood and leaves doused with a bit of raw magic did the trick. Changelings, though? That had proven a challenge. We were fortunate that we had way more Diamond Dogs than we had Changelings at this point, but that could change... it seems that some of the Changelings were female after all. We could see some population growth, possibly.

Some careful questions about changelings and how they fed got... surprisingly disturbing answers. These weren't misunderstood little critters who just needed a little wuv to survive; these were vampires by any other name. Maybe not as bloody or vicious or even as lethal as the blood sucking kind, but bad enough. Their food supply was other people--- That alone made them dangerous.

They were quite capable of draining their victims forcibly of love-energy. It wasn't a harmless process either. It started out leaving the victim feeling tired, weak and listless. Eventually they would become apathetic and emotionless; if the changeling fed on them long enough or drained them too deeply, the victim would start acting stoned, like mindless zombies with no will of their own. The'd recover their health in time of course; this was fluffy pony land after all, not Ravenloft. But it was still pretty creepy. Harmful, too; many of the victims were never quite the same again.  The side effects of being a changeling's long term meal ticket read like a D.A.R.E. anti-drug leaflet-- anemia, memory loss, circulatory problems,  vision problems, loss of fine motor control, impotence-- minor stuff. But still.

Changelings preferred to live solitary lives, hiding among other species and feed off the unsuspecting, posing as friends or lovers and then leaving for new prey when suspicions grew. Sometimes, if circumstances dictated, they would cocoon their victim for the long haul-- say, over a winter-- store them someplace hidden,  feed them this sort of hallucinatory royal jelly, and then drained them of love energy slowly over months while they hung there in their own basement or attic, trippin' balls.

They preferred the solo thing. But every now and then, when things got sparse, they'd do the locust thing. They'd get a generation that was bigger, stronger, more aggressive... and they'd swarm. And then some smart cookie in the swarm would proclaim themselves Queen.....

Whenever they gathered together to form a hive, as they did under Chrysalis, feeding their numbers got more complicated.  Issues of scale, I suppose... They would stuff whatever wild animals, monsters, or luckless travelers they caught into cocoons to feed the hive, freeing them months or years later, when they were too sickly to justify the effort of keeping them. Of course they eventually had to let their prisoners go-- but they were never the same. And if the changelings weren't careful, they could kill their prey.... a notion that revolted and horrified Black Fang and his crew, to my surprise. Putting someone in a coma-cocoon and draining them to a sickly husk was apparently okay, but outright killing them was apparently not. In fact one of the rumors about Chrysalis by her political enemies was that she didn't bother with releasing the victims from her own 'larder;' that she just drained them to husks and left their dessicated corpses in the bottoms of the cocoons. Cultural taboos. Go figure.

This had posed something of a conundrum when it came to feeding them. They couldn't go kidnapping and cocooning up ponies for a snack while they were laying low. And understandably, the 'dogs weren't exactly enthusiastic about being "volunteered" to feed the troops.  Dark Fang and his troops had resorted to feeding off the pups. When they'd revealed this, there'd almost been a riot: Big Mama threw a fit when I took the Changelings to task. I put my foot down, though. I told her I didn't care how restful it had been with all the pups sleeping most of the day away, I wasn't going to have their growth stunted.

Naturally I'd been in urgent need of an alternative to having one part of my mighty legion snacking on the other. Luckily, while we were still making our retreat to our new digs, one of my intel bugs let slip the fact that Ponyville had some sort of pet farm on its outskirts, packed full of cats and dogs and bunnies and other animals. Bingo. A quick raid in the dead of night, just before we pulled up stakes, and we had hundreds of cages full of all things fluffy and feathery.

A quick consultation with Black Fang revealed that, while convenient, cocooning a bunch of animals for their love energy wasn't exactly ideal. Making the pods took up a lot of resources and nutrients (the cocoons and royal jelly were, um, changeling excretions) and the energy you got from hive pods wasn't as rich or plentiful as you got from an awake, alert victim. Plus, hauling those pods around was a drag. But, then again, Black Fang's platoon didn't have any experience with handling live animals...

So, here I was, giving a lecture to my dread changeling minions on the ins and outs of caring for puppies and kittens and birdies and bunny wabbits. @#$ my life. "That's right," I urged. "Pet the bunny. Feed the bunny. Love the buAAARGH!!!" at that point, the rabbit I'd been holding revealed his true nature. Dunno what his deal was, I'd thought he'd looked dodgy when I first pulled him out of the chicken wire cage... like he was copping a 'tude. Anyway, he sinks his choppers right into my hand, right at the web between the thumb and forefinger. He didn't break skin through the glove, of course, but it sure hurt like the dickens.

I flailed him around a minute and finally pried him loose. I got him by the throat; the little bastard just glared and spit at me. "Fine, we'll do it your way," I hissed. I stepped out of the cave, sighted for the far side of the encampment, and drop kicked the little effer right over the entrenchments. He sailed right over the fence and disappeared into the woods beyond, squalling like... well, like a pissed-off rabbit. I heard a couple of the timberwargs tear off through the trees after the furry little football. No stomachs, but hey, instincts are instincts. Good riddance. The little twerp had way too much intelligence in those beady little eyes.

I returned to the class, picked another, much more intimidated looking rabbit out of the pen, and continued. "Now, where were we?"

A moment later, one of the scouts came running in. "Ponies in the woods, Dread One!" he said.

I blanched under my mask. Not good. We were still on the move, hunting for a new, permanent lair. I'd hoped for more time before Sunbutt and Moonbutt's flunkies found us--- the Everfree was hella big, after all, and not exactly easy to search-- but it looked like time was up. "Where are they?"

"Two miles that way," the scout said, pointing.

"That is far too close for comfort," Black Fang said. "Shall we break camp?"

"Stay calm, they may not be looking for us," I said.

"Pretty sure they are," the scout said.

"Why?" I said.

"They stand in middle of clearing yelling 'helloooo! We looking for Dread Lord Darth Vulcan!' " the scout clarified. I just stopped and stared at him. "Maybe they Fuller Brush Salesponies?" he suggested.

I resisted the urge to facepalm; I was resisting that urge a lot since arriving in this place. "Take a few guards, go see what they want," I said to Black Fang. "Don't let them see you arrive or leave. Don't let them get close enough to put a tracing spell on you." Black Fang nodded and took off like a shot, three or four other changelings trailing after him.

He came trailing back in during the middle of "how to feed the bunny". He had about a dozen bound and blindfolded ponies trailing behind him. They were a surprisingly rough and scraggly looking lot.... well, for pastel mini-ponies. They were dressed in prison rags, and were moderately filthy. Several had scars, or notches in their ears. One had an eye patch. There were broken manacles clamped around several hooves, and the one or two with horns had rings clamped to them. I noted that three of them were bat-winged ponies, like the ones in Luna's guard. They all stood around, doing a terrible job of looking hard and tough.

I just stood there with a carrot in my hand. "....Why?" I finally asked.

"They have... an unusual proposition, Master," Black Fang said. It was hard to tell with those weird blank eyes of his, but he looked puzzled.

Okay, Black Fang wasn't stupid. He was probably the sharpest knife in the drawer around here, in fact, so this had to be something weird to throw him off his stride. I handed the rabbit and the carrot off to a changeling and flicked a handful of magic at a nearby stump. With a creak and a groan the rotting stump I'd gestured at grew and stretched, thrusting roots and branches out of the forest floor, and twisted itself into a gnarled wooden throne. I sat down. "...Ooookay," I said. "Let's hear it. Untie them--- but leave their horns capped and their wings bound." No point making a surprise attack easier.

The changelings untied the prisoners. They all flexed and stretched carefully. I ignored the hollywood backlot mix of pony "thugs" and focused on the three bat-winged pegasi. "Interesting. Luna's batponies," I said.

"Thestrals," one of them corrected automatically.

I decided he must be the leader. He was certainly the biggest of the lot. "And what brings you out here?"

He snorted and shrugged. "The palace falling off the mountain," he said. "We were doing time in the dungeons when the wall sheared off clear down the line of cells." He grinned humorlessly, his fangs showing. "We decided to take the invitation to leave."

"And how did three of Luna's pet freaks end up in her dungeons in the first place?"

The three glared and snarled silently but minded their manners. The lead stallion snorted. "Her majesty didn't care for how we made a few extra bits on the side, squeezing the bookies and grifters to look the other way," he said gruffly. "We got drummed out and thrown in the dungeon for graft. If they catch us again, we go right back in the hole. Dunno about these others--" he tossed his head at the riff raff behind him-- "but once the palace took a dive into the lake, we decided to take our chances with you." There were grumbles of assent from the others.

I sat there and stayed quiet till the crowd of ex-con ponies started getting restless and nervous. "So three of Luna's exclusive, reclusive, pet bat pony elite guard just happen to show up on my doorstep, resumes in hand and looking for a new job," I said sarcastically. "How did you honestly expect me to fall for such an obvious trick?"

"Because they prepared for it," someone in the group said. The group parted; a scrawny half-grown unicorn stallion, probably a teenager, stepped forward. He was pale white under the dust spattered on him, with a jet black tail and a scruffy mane that hung down over one side of his face. He shot the batpony a glowering smirk. "Hey, Sarge," he said to the lead batpony. "Remember me?"

"It's not a trick!" the batpony mare snorted. I could see the anxiety in her eyes though. "Use your magic to scan our minds if you want..."

"I didn't sense any falsehood in them," Black Fang murmured in my ear, letting his horn glow briefly.

The scrawny pony heard him. His smirk turned into a leer. "That's cause they chugged a couple vials of Liar's Tongue before they came here," he said. He pulled three tiny glass bottles from under his tattered prison shirt and rolled them across the ground in my direction. I could see a few droplets of glowing green potion clinging to the bottom of the glass.  "Good stuff, if you can get it-- it makes you the world's best liar. It works by making it so even you believe the story you're telling." He gave the lead batpony a sneer. "Good thing it's so pricey only a princess could afford it, right, Sergeant Nightshade?"

The burly batpony lunged at the colt; two of the changelings restrained him. Black Fang stepped over and pried his mouth open with the edge of a hoof. "Yes, I can see it glowing at the back of his throat," he told me.

One of the other prisoners-- the one with the eyepatch-- swore. "I knew it was too good an idea... yeah, the colt ain't lyin.' This stuff is pricey; only way a couple guards coulda gotten it is if Luna herself gave it to them."

"You little worm!" the batpony stalliong ranted at the colt. "You betrayed your own people!"

The colt sneered right back. " You mean the ponies that didn't give a crap about me? That threw me in a dungeon?" he said. "Shoulda thought about that before you arrested me, Sergeant." He looked at me. "I was locked up in a cell by this buttscrubber for stealing food from one of Prince Blueblood's garden parties! He was going to have my horn sawed off!"

I gave him a gimlet stare. The fact that it was through my helmet sort of diffused the effect, but Black Fang took the cue. He stepped over and pried open the colt's mouth and peered down his throat. "He's clean," he said. "And I'm sensing no falsehood either."

I looked over at Sergeant Nightshade. "You decided to try and pull this off with a pony whose horn you tried to have sawn off?" I said.

"It would have grown back," Nightshade said as a defensive aside. "We have to do something to stop repeat offenders--"

"I woulda been helpless as a foal till it did!" the colt howled. "It woulda been a death sentence where I live! The street toughs woulda used me for a punching bag!" He lunged for the undercover pony. The changelings restrained him.

I pushed them apart with my magic. "All right," I said to him. "Start... from the beginning."

He looked jittery at being addressed directly, but he manned up. "Like I said," he shrugged. "Sergeant Numbnuts there arrested me for swiping some food from Prince Blueballs' party. They drag me down to the dungeons and leave me there. I was sitting in the cell waiting for them to come in with a hacksaw when the whole castle started shaking. Next thing I know they're digging us out of the rubble, leaving us chained up together. After a while they stick us in a paddy wagon to haul us off, but the wagon overturns.

A bunch of us make a break for it, we end up hiding out in one of the ruined buildings... and there were a LOT of ruined buildings. Then somepony in the group gets the brilliant idea to try our odds with the new Dark Lord of the Everfree." He tossed his head at the three batponies and snorted. "Imagine my joy when I found out it was these three tossers." The other fugitives glared at the guards with undisguised hatred.

"And you didn't recognize them before?"

"Without a helmet on their heads, their lips on some rich pony's butt and a poker up their plots?" the colt rolled his eyes. The guards glared but kept their mouths shut. "Anyway, I decided to stay up and listen in on them. Heard them talking about infiltrating your ranks... they'd figured you wouldn't look them over too close if they came in with a bunch of 'prison rubbish,' and that their spooky, spooky bat-wing look would make you think they were kindred spirits, or some crap." He smiled sweetly at them. "Looks like they guessed wrong."

"And then they'd wait until the right moment to betray me," I finished tiredly. I looked at the batponies, then at my guards. "Take them away, chain them up. I will dispose of them later. Leave them unharmed otherwise. They will be taking my message back to their mistress for me." They knew they were had; they were led away without any struggle. "And what of the rest of you?" I said to the riffraff.

The eye-patched pony shrugged. "Ain't nothin' changed, I guess. We still got no place to go; if you'll take us, we're yours."

"Works for me," I said. "Black Fang, Mange, get those manacles and horn-rings off them. Arm them, armor them, equip them, bivouac them. Get them some food-- NO MEAT, you numbskulls--. and see to it that they get their tags."

"Tags?" Eyepatch said.

I reached over and lifted up a necklace around one of the 'dog's neck. A wooden tag with a couple of runes carved on it dangled from the end. "dream wards," I said. "Hasn't it dawned on you that Princess Luna could spy on us through your dreams?" He blanched; message gotten. They dispersed, herded away by the dogs.

I directed my attention back to the colt. "And you," I said. He hadn't moved. "What do you want?" He looked back at me, obviously waiting for the other horseshoe to drop. "Well?" I said. "You ratted out the guard ponies. What did you hope to get from it? Gratitude? Money? Revenge?"

"I can get all that with what I really want," he said.

"Which is?"

"Power," he said. He flicked his freshly-unclamped horn; a spark dropped from the tip. "I'm a unicorn. I'm supposed to be one of the most magically powerful pony race in Equestria." I didn't correct him. Bull me no crap, we both knew the truth: super strength, green thumbs and wings are no match for the power to kill people with your brain.  "But for all my wonderful marvelous magic I'm a stinking street urchin. I get by stealing bread to eat and snitching half-bit pieces out of fountains. Meanwhile every horse-bird and yokel dirt pony can push me around and shake me down for what I have in my pockets." He kicked angrily at a pebble. He looked at me, a greedy light in his eyes. "I want what you have. I want respect. I want money. I want ponies to be sorry they ever pushed me around. I want power. And I'll take whatever you give me."

"And what can you do for me?" I said.

He hunched down defensively. "Whatever I have to," he muttered.

"A good answer. But what can you do?" I stressed.

He looked me in the eye. "I... I don't know a lot of magic," he confessed. "Not any really powerful stuff." His voice was a little shaky, but as he talked his confidence went up a little. " But I got spells that can pick a lock. Any lock. I can pick any pocket, too. I can steal a pony's watch, ask him what time it is, and he won't even notice. I can forge someone's signature, sweet and clean... cast another spell that would make a banker think a sink washer is a solid gold bit. I know a track-muddling spell that would make a bloodhound lose a railroad track.  I can run any sort of grift or scam you name, too-- chase the lady, melon drop, Neighjing Tea.... "

I held up my hand to stop him. Curiosity was eating me up. "Let me see your mark," I said. He turned to one side; on his flank was... a top hat? With three playing cards coming out of it.  

"Got it when I was five," he said proudly. "Knew a pony in my neighborhood... He didn't have much magic either, but he always had one surprise up his sleeve or another. If he wasn't doing street performance he was selling bottles of tonic water or playing pennies with the city workers for pocket change or sweeping chimneys or playing a one-pony band.... never the same thing twice. I wanted to be like that more than anything-- I decided someday I was gonna have a thousand tricks under my hat." He smirked proudly. "Have just about that many, too."

"What is your name?" Even as I asked I almost knew.

"Dodger, sir," he said. "Art--"

"Artful Dodger," I finished for him, to his mystification. "It would be." Rolling my eyes to myself, I picked a large, broad leaf off a nearby bush; with a moment's concentration I'd turned it into a silk top hat-- a perfect match for the one on his flank. I floated it over to him. "You are my personal agent and apprentice now," I said. "What I say, you do. No questions. Where I send you, you go. No questions. Stay with me and I will give you that power you want-- and more." I upended the hat and dropped it on his head. "Welcome aboard, Mister Dodger. Do not disappoint me."

He gave me a scheming grin from under the brim of his hat.

It was two days later that Sergeant Nightshade and his two lieutenants staggered out of the Everfree Forest. Whether by luck or fate or chance or the fact that the Everfree Forest's magic seemed to have a malicious sense of humor, they found themselves on the outskirts of Ponyville.

The first cottage they encountered was Fluttershy's; the pegasus was out on the front step, tending to her recently returned rabbit, Angel. The bunny was crouched down in an odd position and looking rather... constipated. Fluttershy picked up a pair of pliers in her wingtip and moved in. "Now hold still," she said in a soothing tone, "And I'll pull your tail back out. It's a ways in there, so try not to tense up... one, two..." There was a popping noise and a painful sounding squawk. "There," she said to the shaken rabbit. "You'll have to sit on a foam ring for a while, and we'll keep you on soft foods, but-- " It was then that she glanced up and saw the Princess' agents.

They were a sight to behold. Darth Vulcan and his minions had gotten creative. All three of them had been tarred and feathered from their noses clear back to their midriffs. From there on back they had been painted green. They were limping from where some of the fugitive recruits, angered at being conned by three undercover cops, had beaten them with sacks of moldy oranges. And, when you lined them up, one could see that the words "NICE TRY PRINCESS" had been shaved into their rumps. They were otherwise unmolested; during their trek back their bizarre appearance had frightened off any of the wildlife.

Nightshade regarded Fluttershy with the one eye that wasn't blocked with a cloud of feathers. "Lady Fluttershy?" he said.

"Eep? Um.... yes?"

"Inform the Princesses... mission accomplished. He's in."

"Oh.... my....."