The changelings didn't waste any time and neither did Silver Bit and Orion. Orion cut down changeling after changeling with dark magic attacks and Silver used her two musket shots with a deadly accuracy. With no time to reload her weapons, she had to resort to using her second musket as a club. With every swing, she broke into their skulls and scattered their brains or knocked their heads clean off their brittle necks. Silver could feel her limbs getting weaker and weaker as the fight went on. Each swing taking more and more out of her as more and more Changelings came to kill them.

Orion was doing well, his talent seemed to also include killing changelings as well as hunting them. His spell could disintegrate a changeling almost instantly. On more than one occasion he saved her with it but things were getting more and more intense. After what seemed like an eternity, and just as suddenly as they appeared, they ran. The bodies of their brother's and sister's littered the desert and their green blood wet the sand. Silver fell to her knees in relief and Orion sighed rubbing his head.

"We need to get moving." Silver said standing up and throwing her rifles over her shoulders. "While the trail is fresh."

"No." Orion said bluntly. "They're going towards Las Pegasus. The opposite direction of the trail we're following. They're trying to take us off track. We must be getting close to the Badlands."

"How do you know that?"

"It's what I'd would do."

"Huh?"

"Always assume your enemy is as smart, or smarter than yourself. If I were Chrysalis, and I knew somepony was coming for me, I'd try and lead them the other way."

"So we follow where they came from and not where they're going?"

"That's the idea." Orion looked to the east and saw daylight starting to break. "We should start moving west. If we can get along the ocean then we can get more water."

"We can't drink salt water. It would make our situation worse."

"Not if you have a filter for the water. If I'm right about where we are we should be there by the end of the day today. Let's go."

"Can't we rest?"

Orion looked back at her with a surprised look on his face. "You should know that if we stay here we'll be in the sun longer than we have to. At the coast at the least we can get some shade as we continue south. Let's go."

Silver Bit groaned and started after Orion. They walked unimpeded for hours, only stopping to drink and have some of the rations they brought with them. Silver could feel the sun on her back as it rose over them. At this point they'd reached the part of Equestria that nothing lived. South of the Badlands was Mianica; Silver only knew that because that's where the first Daring Do was set. Bellow that, no pony had ever explored that far south. No pony dared to even try. Hell, most don't try going to the Badlands but this was a special exception.

Silver and Orion reached the edge of a forest just before night fall after traveling south west for what seemed like an eternity. Not even Orion could fake not being tired. They set up camp and decided to go south west more tomorrow morning and hope that they don't run into anything troublesome. Orion checked the map and said they'd made it to the edge of the Haystead Swamps. The water wouldn't be drinkable unless it was filtered properly but it would make due for now. Just after Orion went to sleep, Silver was unable to. Something was off about this place.

She couldn’t quite put her hoof on it but something was off kilter. The world around them wasn't as noisy as she'd expected. Even at the edge of the swamp they should be able to hear the loud creatures that live there. Like the toads and such. She could hear them faintly but after venturing from camp to relieve herself, she found the rest of it. It was obvious they were up wind of it because it smelled atrocious! And the sounds were a long ways away. It wasn't reassuring. It was like the animals were like, "Hey, they're fucked. Let's stay as far away from them as possible."

The thought actually made her a bit paranoid. Something could be lurking behind her and she wouldn't ever know it. It kept her up and made it impossible to even consider sleeping. And another thing that didn't help was being so close to the Badlands. The Great Dragon Migration was about a month ago so that wouldn't be a problem right?...Right? She really didn't want to find out that she was wrong about that.

A rustle! She heard a rustle behind her. She knew she did. Silver started to back away from it and towards what she hoped was east. She turned and bolted as a rustle came a few feet to her right. Her heart rate increased and her mind raced. The old stories of the Headless Horse and things her cousin would tell her on Nightmare Night started coming to mind. Never being heard from again, a horseshoe being the only thing left of her. She couldn't take it!

She was afraid. She didn't want to be here anymore. This was too much! Just too much! She had to get out of here! Silver Bit ran faster and faster until she tried going in-between two trees and stopped cold. She jolted forward then fell flat on her stomach. Looking back she could see nothing approaching but that didn't make her feel any less afraid. She could see one of her muskets bent and broken.

She'd completely forgotten that she still had them on her shoulders. Silver threw the broken one off and pulled the good one off of her back. She'd reloaded it a while ago but made sure of it before pulling the hammer back to full cock. She quickly started scanning the area for anything that could hurt her before pushing the hammer back down and kept running. She was more than done with this place, she was hoping it would burn to the ground in a lightning storm.

She kept running. She didn't know how long she'd been running for at this point but she was hoping that she could find her way out of here. She was too afraid to care anymore, she just wanted to get out. She stopped running just as she entered a clearing. It wasn’t any clearing though, it was the the size of a small town. It was huge! Small dirt mounds sat all around the clearing, some much larger than others. Silver started moving further into the clearing until something caught her attention at the other end of the clearing. A hollow oak tree the size of a Manehatten skyscraper stood with a green glow coming from holes in the bark. High pitched whispers flowed through the entire clearing. They were terrifying to her; menacing. Silver turned and found Orion standing with her broken rifle in a red aura and a look of concern on his face.

"Hey. What are you-" Orion looked behind her and his concern turned to fear. "Shit, get down!" he said shoving Silver down behind a dirt mound nearby.

"What? What is it?"

"Do you know what you just ran to?"

"No… I was running."

"That's a hive!"

"A hive?"

"A changeling base out. They use caves mostly but this has changeling written all over it."

"That's where they are?"

"We were going to need to call this in. We're going to need back up."

Silver would've been content to waiting if a certain light brown earth pony hadn't crossed her mind. "How long will that take?" She said urgently.

"From where we are now, about two hours."

"Two hours? They'll find out we're here before they get here."

"It took four platoons to even make a dent in their defenses once before. Two ponies would die before they even got to the front door."

"We have to do something."

"We are. We're calling them in The Commander. He can tear down half of this place on his own. We need him."

"Has anypony tried taking a hive on their own?"

"They were kids that thought they won't die doing it. In short, no pony will go in there and live."

"What about Tiber? He could be in there!"

"Tiber's not my priority. Not just anypony can even do this without some serious help."

Silver was tired of this. Orion dropped her broken rifle and put a hoof up to his right ear. Before he could get a word out, Silver Bit grabbed the butt of the broken rifle and slammed it into the back of the yellow unicorn's head. He yelped in pain and surprise as his world slipped into black.

"Well I'm not like anypony." Silver put her remaining good rifle in her teeth and started towards the hive.