The moment the call to swarm was given, Switch and his partner had taken to the air with the precision and enthusiasm that could only be summoned by one thing: a mission from the Queen herself. Their wings buzzing behind them, the pair joined in the black cloud growing in the skies over the Crystal Empire, rising until they were just over the rooftops of the apartment buildings.

Switch studied his partner as the smaller changeling scanned the streets below, analyzing the crowd of panicking quadrupeds with a pair of eyes sharpened by years of practice. As they flew, they were forced to dodge the jagged spires jutting off the roves of every building in an imitation of medieval Equestrian architecture. Or maybe not an imitation, he mused. These guys have been in some sort of hibernation for the past millennium, right?

As he watched, a group of changelings descended into the river of panicking ponies, firing off goop as they encircled a small pack right in the middle, which trapped the ponies along the edge and turned them into living barricades for the ponies in the middle. The effect was like dropping a massive rock into a stream, forcing the ponies behind the circle into a pair of narrow channels along the street’s edges, where they were easy pickings. The air filled with the cries and moans of the surprised and trapped ponies, now hemmed in by their own crystalline structures.

“Yeah, welcome back,” he sighed under his breath. What they did was a necessary evil, he knew that, but it didn’t ease his conscience any. He turned his attention to his friend and called: “You see ‘em!?”

The smaller changeling shook his head, his eyes remaining trained on the streets below. “Naw, but that might not mean anything with the sheer amount of ‘em down there.”

Switch grinned. “Bait, m’man, you must be losin’ your touch if you can’t find a pair of magical, brightly-colored ponies.”

“Oh, don’t even give me that bullshit, dude,” Bait hissed through a good-natured smile. “I’m looking for a couple of specific ponies in a sea of…THERE!”

The smiles disappeared on both faces immediately. Both angled downward, aiming for one of the horizontal spires poking off the edge of a rooftop overlooking an alley that smelt like a sewer. Or a college student’s dorm room. Switch raised his hooves, knees bending to absorb the hit, promptly straightening up once the force of the blow had been properly dispersed throughout his body. Bait, on the other hoof, hooked his forelegs on the structure and swung around, landing nimbly right next to his friend.

“Where?” Switch asked automatically.

Bait raised a hoof, signaling for quiet, then he motioned for Switch to follow. Nodding, the larger changeling kept on the smaller’s six as they scaled the wall, hooves gripping every minor imperfection in the purple crystal while their wings worked silently to provide just enough extra lift to keep them moving. At the top, both grasped the outer edge of the roof and propelled themselves over with a burst of strength from their forehooves. They landed near-simultaneously, wings flaring out at the last moment to arrest their momentum, then promptly skittered to the far edge of the building, where Bait called for a halt.

He turned to his friend and motioned to the far edge of the rooftop, then pointed downwards. The message was loud and clear: down there. Nodding, Switch hugged the roof and crept alongside his friend, peeking over the ledge just enough to see.

In the alley below him, hiding behind a garbage can next to a crude graffiti image of a pony with a penis the size of its own body, were the Elements of Kindness and Laughter. As Switch watched, the pegasus took a quick peek over the can, saw a couple dozen changelings descend upon a family of touring unicorns, and immediately turned back to her friend with wide eyes, quivering lips, and a coat that went from butter yellow to pale white in the space of a few seconds.

“Fluttershy?” The pink pony asked, resting a hoof on her shoulder. “Are you alright?”

The pegasus shook her head, grabbed the pink one’s hoof, and jammed it into her own mouth, emitting a few high-pitched squeaks. Switch let out a quick chortle, closer to a cough than a laugh. That was kinda cute… he thought.

“Better?” The pink one asked hopefully.

“Kind of,” the yellow one whispered, which combined with her already-quiet nature to form a nearly inaudible squeak that took all of Switch’s ability to discern. “A-are they gone?”

“No,” the pink one said, trying to smile reassuringly but coming up with an expression so paper-thin it took yellow all of half a second to see through it. “But don’t worry! I’m sure we’ll be safe so long as no one sees us!”

“Oh for pity’s sake,” Bait whispered, shaking his head shamefully. “They’re not just tempting fate, they’re wiggling their little flanks right in its face!”

“That gonna be our cue?” Switch hissed back.

Bait just grinned. “Might as well be, right?” He snickered. Sharing his grin, Switch joined him as he vaulted the wall and fell to the ground, wings fanning out again to lessen the shock. The ponies only knew they were being stalked when the changelings landed with a pair of light taps.

“Eep,” yellow squeaked fearfully.

Switch pasted an easygoing, intimidating little grin on his face, eyeing the pegasus. “Well, well, Bait, what’ve we got here?”

Bait copied the grin, circling around to stand right behind pink. “Looks like a coupla pretty little ponies, tryin’ to get away,” he replied, tracing a hoof along her spine to elicit a shiver.

“D’aww, de poor, scared, widdle ponies.”

“You leave us alone, you meanies!” Pink screeched, cradling her friend in her forelegs, who cowered and shivered fearfully.

Switch felt the tiniest twinge of guilt as he leaned in, that grin still mocking her with all its might. “And if I don’t? If I were to simply truss the pair of you up like cattle and drag you back to our Queen by force?”

Without a word, pink slowly unwrapped her hoof around yellow, never breaking eye contact with Switch. He allowed the tiniest possible uncomfortable shift in his stance as she slowly reached behind herself, and suddenly whipped around with a no-fucking-way-where-did-that-even-come-rom cannon in her grip. With a single blast, Bait was sent flying against the wall in an explosion of confetti and streamers, where he bashed his head against a trash can and splashed into a puddle at her hooves.

“BAIT!” Switch started, taking a step forward, only to almost fall face-first right into the cannon. The pink pony smiled as she wrapped a hoof around the device’s trigger, slowly applying more and more pressure, and all the while Switch could only think of one thing to say: “Where in the hay were you even hiding…”

He was interrupted by 500 FPS of pure, party-starting power slamming into his face, sending him flying in a cold display of calculated precision. His head reeling, Switch laid paralyzed as the pink pony grimly blew the smoke off her weapon, returning it to whatever hellish pocket dimension she’d retrieved it from, grabbing yellow, and taking off down another back alleyway.

Switch grumbled, cradling his head with a grimace, forcing the stars back out of his vision. His eyes bugged out at the sight of the small, limp form lying in a puddle off to the side. “BAIT!” He gasped, rushing to his friend’s side. The smaller changeling stared at the sky with a big, blank look, a large dent in the trash can by his head from where he’d hit. “Oh my sweet Chrysalis, Bait! Say something!” He gasped, pulling his friend in close.

The other changeling kept staring straight upwards, mouthing: “Wah-wah-wah-wah…”

Switch cringed. “Something besides that. Something coherent.”

“Wah-wah-wah-wah…”

“Bait, c’mon! Command to Bait! Come in, Bait! Where are ya!?”

“Wah-wah-wah-wah…”

“Seriously, you’re starting to freak me out now.”

“Wah-wah-wah-wah…”

“C’mon, li’l buddy! Don’t tell me I’ve just lost my best friend to brain damage!”

At that, the smaller changeling locked eyes with the larger, grabbed his cheeks in his hooves, pulled him in and said with infinite glee: “Wha-wha-what a MARE! I mean, did you see that!? She just nailed us with that thing and then blew the smoke off like it was nothin’! I didn’t even know anyone did that outside of movies! It was so cool!”

Immediately, Switch relaxed. “Hey Romeo,” he said with a grin, pulling out of the hooves’ grip. “If you’re done peeing yourself over the highlighter-colored horsey, we’re supposed to chase them down now?”

“Huh?” He looked over his shoulder at the alleyway pink and yellow had just disappeared into. “Oh, right, c’mon.”

They leapt into the air, their insect-like wings allowing them to swerve and maneuver through the tight alleyways of the Crystal Empire in pursuit of their prey. It was ironic: the ponies’ own city had been built specifically to give changelings the advantage. In such close quarters, pegasi wings were almost completely useless. Even with Switch’s semi-crippled wing and bobbing flying pattern, it only took them a few minutes to catch up to the mares trying to gallop away.

“Girls, just make this easy on yourselves!” Switch bellowed after the pink tails bobbing up and down in his vision (partly from his half-crippled flight pattern). “We’ve already taken the city! It’s only a matter of time before we take you too!”

“Dinner and a movie first!” Pinkie bellowed, springing off a wall, slamming on top of a garbage can, and leaping off at just the right angle to send the lid flying into the larger changeling’s face.

“So cool…” Bait muttered, distracted just long enough to slam headfirst into the side of a dumpster with a loud clang.

“See ya, losahs!” Pinkie giggled, beaming as she looked over to her friend and saw a stifled grin on her face. The mares smiled at each other and looked straight ahead, determined to make their escape.

Behind them, Switch peeled his face out of the lid and looked at the impression it left behind: bared fangs, wide eyes, gaping mouth. “Aw jeez, do I really look like this when I’m surprised?” He muttered.

“Switch!” Bait yelled as he buzzed into the air, motioning for him to join in.

“Right,” the larger changeling muttered, throwing the lid aside and buzzing into the air. Even with all the head starts the ponies had gained with pink’s apparent combat ability, they couldn’t hope to stay ahead of two changelings for long!

Three more bashed-in trashcan lids, two dented dumpster sides, and a particularly pissed-off Rottweiler later, and both changelings’ belief in that assertion was starting to shake. “Switch!” Bait gasped, peeling his face out of a hole in a brick wall and pulling a slice of rotten cucumber off his one fang. “We can’t go on like this!”

Climbing out of a dumpster with a large, multicolored circus afro super-glued to his head, the larger changeling nodded. “Agreed. We should bargle the table much cauliflower.”

“What?”

“I said we need to come up with something better. What do you think I said?”

“Okaaayyy…” Bait said, eyebrows arched in concern as he made a mental note to check his friend into the nearest infirmary later. “I think we’ve been going at this all wrong. We’ve just been brute-forcing it like a couple of idiots.”

Grinning as he tore the afro off, Switch held his hoof out straight ahead. “Time for a little Bait and Switch?”

Returning the grin and completing the bro-hoof, Bait nodded. “Time for a little Bait and Switch.”

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Pinkie took the quickest moment to peer over her shoulder. “Fluttershy, hold up,” she said, slowing to a trot.

“Are you crazy!?” The pegasus squealed, still galloping full-steam ahead. “They’re right behind us!”

“No they aren’t! Look!” Pinkie gasped, seizing Fluttershy’s tail in her teeth. Finally, the pegasus chanced a quick glance over her shoulder. No changelings. None whatsoever. She joined Pinkie and slowed down to a trot, and the pair grinned at each other.

“That was close!” Fluttershy giggled. “Oh Pinkie, you were so brave!”

“Eh, I got most of that stuff from Rainbow Dash, especially that last line,” Pinkie shrugged. “Besides, you were brave too!”

“Oh, no I wasn’t, I’m not…”

“Don’t say that, Flutters! I know how badly you wanted to curl up into a little ball, but instead you…”

“HELP!” Someone gasped. The mares looked ahead just as a small, purple filly with a messy orange mane bolted around a corner and skidded to a halt in front of them. “Oh thank goodness, other ponies!” She gasped in relief.

“Hey there,” Pinkie said gently, stopping to offer a hoof to the little filly. “What’s your name, little girl?”

The filly paused. “Bai…uh…Betty. I’m Betty.” She replied after a moment’s hesitation.

“Oh, you poor thing,” Fluttershy cooed, giving the filly a warm nuzzle. “What seems to be the problem?”

“My daddy,” the filly choked, tears welling up in her eyes. “W-we were just walking and shopping and doing pony things and all of a sudden these nasty, black, bug things showed up and everyone was running around and yelling and there was a big e-esplosion and someone hit my daddy and now he’s not moving and…”

“Shhh…” Pinkie whispered, embracing the filly with all the gentleness afforded her by months of babysitting experience. “Now, where’s your daddy?”

“Just around that corner there,” the filly sniffled, pointing a hoof to the little alley she’d just run from.

“Fluttershy?” Pinkie asked, motioning towards the alleyway and to the little filly currently holding her leg in a death grip.

Nodding shakily, the pegasus galloped away and rounded the corner, almost immediately spying a tall, blue unicorn stallion lying amidst some garbage strewn around an overturned can. Without a moment’s hesitation, she bolted to his side and set to work, turning him onto his back and checking him over for injuries. The only thing that hit her on seeing the stallion’s pristine coat was a sense of relief that she wouldn’t need to put her meager pony medical skills to the test, and not how odd it was that a full-grown stallion who had apparently been knocked unconscious didn’t have a mark on him. “Oh dear…sir, are you alright?” She asked.

The stallion coughed weakly and opened his eyes, which shimmered a deep green. Fluttershy’s own baby blues widened and she took a step back. All at once, the stallion leapt to his hooves and hissed, unleashing a strange spurt of goo from his horn as fangs materialized out of his gumline.

“Oh!” She gasped, stumbling back as the goo caught her in the wing. She looked on in horror as it immediately hardened, locking her wing to the side even more forcefully than her fear usually would. Her eyes widened in terror as the stallion reared up, towering over her as his blue coat disappeared in a flash of green flame, revealing black chitin and insect-like wings.

“I’m feeling better, now that we’ve finally got you cornered,” the large changeling sneered, taking a few steps towards her.

“Oh-oh-PINKIE!” Fluttershy gasped, hyperventilating as she galloped around the corner. “They’re…change…” she trailed off as she caught sight of the pink mare lying on the ground, letting out a muffled cry from behind the goop gluing her lips together. The smaller changeling stood over her, binding her hooves and looking back to Fluttershy in triumph.

“Oh no...” Fluttershy squeaked, backing away as the smaller changeling grinned at her and hissed. Her flank brushed against something solid, and a shiver travelled up her spine. “Oh no…” she whimpered again, hot breath beating against her back. She twirled just as the larger changeling snapped at her, hissing threateningly. Breathing heavily, she backed up against the wall, eyes wide in horror as the pair advanced on her. Pinkie screeched and struggled hopelessly against her bonds, flopping around like a fish on dry land. The pegasus felt the cold, hard crystal of the building behind her press against her flanks, and she shut her eyes and fell to her stomach. Trapped…

Whimpering, she held her hooves over her eyes and sniffled, tears welling. Oh, how she wished somepony else were here. Twilight would just teleport them to safety, or Rarity would yell their assailants into submission before beating them senseless for such “uncouth behavior,” and it went without saying that Dash and AJ would be dancing a jig over the changelings’ unconscious bodies by now. Heck, if Pinkie were free, she’d probably be blasting these two to ribbons with her party cannon. But her? Poor little Fluttershy? She was useless. All she could do was curl up into a little ball and cry like a…

“Oh jeez, dude, is she crying?”

Fluttershy opened one eye slowly, tentatively. Both changelings stared back at her, ice-cold eyes wide in shock.

“Yep,” the larger changeling replied. “She’s crying.”

“Seriously!? But she’s an Element of Harmony! The other one kicked our butts hard enough to…oh jeez, here come the tears…”

“Okay…okay, look…uh…little…pony…” Switch said awkwardly. He looked to his partner, who shrugged and urged him along with a hoof. Rolling his eyes, Switch turned his attention back to the little yellow pegasus and slowly crept towards her. She recognized the approach immediately: it was the same one she used whenever she approached an injured bunny or something else small and easily frightened.

“Dude?” The smaller changeling said. “I’m not sure you should…”

“Just gimme a second, okay?” Switch barked, keeping his voice even and low. Slowly, he made his way towards her, staying low and small, ears folded back submissively. His partner fell silent, watching curiously. Even Pinkie stopped struggling and flopping around, watching as Switch slowly stretched a hoof out to the little pegasus.

Her breath coming more slowly, Fluttershy watched the chitinous hoof extend towards her and, as if she were mesmerized, slowly stuck her own out, reaching towards it. Eventually, the keratin at the bottom of her hoof made contact with the hardened chitin at the bottom of his. He smiled slightly, disarming her despite the ugly scar running down the side of his face. Slowly, tentatively, she returned the smile. Nodding, he promptly leaned in close to her and, before she could react, unleashed a spurt of goo that bound her forelegs together.

“Oh!” She gasped in surprise, automatically turning to run, only to stumble over her new bonds.

“Easy, easy!” He shouted, grabbing her before she could even start falling over. She whimpered again, even as he gently laid her over his back, alongside Pinkie. Through it all, the chitin on his forehead remained scrunched up, as if he were trying to say I’m sorry with just his facial expression. “It’s over now, okay?”

She felt tears well up in her eyes again, but nodded. Sighing as the pegasus curled up on his back and hid her face behind her mane, Switch gestured to his friend. “C’mon. I think the Queen was expecting us back a while ago.”

“Y-yeah,” Bait stammered, still taken aback by the events of the past few minutes. He hurried to trot alongside his friend and partner in crime, but something felt off. He knew he should have felt like a million bucks after defeating the Elements of Kindness and Laughter, but something had cheapened the victory, hollowed it out and made it worthless. He still tried to walk with his chest thrust out in victory, but he never did manage to meet the eyes of the captured pegasus as they strolled back to the tavern: a fact that did not escape the cold, hate-filled gaze of the creature watching them from the rooftops.

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“Weaklings,” High-General Chickit muttered, glaring at the pair of soldiers trotting away with their prisoners. Oh sure, they’d gotten the job done, but he remembered a time when there’d be no negotiations: where his soldiers would have simply snatched the ponies up and carried them off. No muss, no fuss.

He grimaced. Was the Queen’s weakness bleeding through to her subjects somehow? No, that was ridiculous. This had been a generational thing, a slow bleed that left the swarm’s fangs dull, its subjects soft. He had heard the rumors of changelings leaving the swarm to live with ponies in secret. How they could turn their backs on their own swarm was beyond him, the very thought made his stomach twist. How could anyone give up the nurturing walls of the changeling caverns to live with ponies? To only love with ponies? To even…copulate with ponies…

A shudder travelled up the High-General’s black, chitin-shielded spine, his wings quivering with the motion. No, the Queen’s weakness was just another symptom of the disease that had been slowly tearing out the entire species’ resolve. Love and sympathy had no place in a changeling’s heart, only its belly, but now it was contaminating the minds of everyling around him!

Nose wrinkling in disgust, he turned away from the roof’s edge, cape billowing out behind him in a small breeze. Well, diseases just needed to be cured, that was all. And he would cure this disease, rip it right out of every single changeling’s veins himself if he had to, drum it into their skulls that THEY were superior, THEY were the pinnacle of evolution, and THEY were meant to feed upon the creatures of this world as their forefathers had before them!

He slowly descended the steps from his high point, allowing every one of his steps to echo off the walls. Well, if there was one thing he could be grateful for, it was that some of his fellow changelings hadn’t given in. At least some of the swarm remained free of the sickness. The darkness at the bottom of the steps, accompanied by the glowing eyes of his loyal soldiers and muffled screams of his prisoners, reminded him of this.

His fangs gleaming in the dark, he ignited a spark at the end of his horn, casting the makeshift cavern in a sickly, green glow. The few dozen changelings in the room greeted him, not even flinching in the sudden light, which was more than could be said for the handful of ponies currently glued to the walls, which flinched and moaned and carried on in the most pathetic of ways. He snarled to silence them, and heard a few suddenly break down in tears.

He smiled. Oh sure, his domain didn’t seem like much now, but given time, it would become so much more. This is where it all begins…

“High General!” One of the changelings stepped forward and saluted, waiting until Chickit nodded before lowering his hoof and proceeding. “Raiding parties would like to report approximately seven ponies, captured and ready to serve the true swarm, sir!”

The General gazed down at the underling disapprovingly, earning a cringe from the other changeling. “Seven?”

“Well…the Queen has spread her forces out quite effectively, sir,” the underling’s ears folded back, his gaze breaking contact with the General’s. “Capturing ponies without the loyalists and general populace noticing proved more difficult than anticipated.”

The changeling cringed beneath his superior’s steely gaze, the High-General’s eyes like a wild Manticore’s, glowing in the darkness. Eventually, the High General waved a hoof. “As should have been expected,” he sighed. “Chrysalis still must secure the city; of course she has her forces fanning out to search for any stragglers from the so-called ‘Crystal Guard’. She can’t risk them retaining an organized presence within the city once the Equestrians respond in force.”

“Of course, sir,” the underling replied, an audible sigh of relief making its way through the ranks of the changelings scattered around the room.

“Still, that phase won’t last long,” the High-General replied, the steely glare rematerializing on his face. “Once Chrysalis believes her position to be secure, her forces will settle in for a long occupation. That means predictable patrols, troops concentrating in garrisons, and more room for us to operate.”

He strode up to the reporting changeling and glared right into his eyes. “I fully expect you…all of you…to compensate for today’s shortcomings once that happens. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” the changeling replied, fighting back the urge to recoil from his leader’s gaze.

“Good,” he replied, striding up to that lovely pegasus couple he’d captured that same day. By now, the wife of the group was in tears, the husband hyperventilating through his nostrils right up to the point when Chickit tore off the goop binding his lips.

“Gah! P-please…” the stallion blubbered pathetically the moment his lips were free. “L-let her go, I-I have enough love for you, just…”

The General gazed down at the stallion as if he were looking at a piece of trash that had gotten caught in a hole in his hoof. “You would so willingly sacrifice yourself for this mare?” He asked dispassionately.

“I-yes! Of course I…”

Without another word, the General hovered his mouth over the pony’s neck, and a second later a little pink cloud sprouted right out of the flesh and into the General’s mouth. The pony gasped and fell limp, his eyes going blank while the General fed, his wife looking on in abject terror. Eventually, his hunger sated, the General backed away and replaced the pony’s gag, the mare’s muffled cries filling his ears. “And that is what makes you weak,” he whispered into his ear. “You could be the most powerful creature in the world, but with love in your heart, all I’d need to do is threaten this mare to cow you.”

Turning away from the food store, Chickit trotted back up the steps, wiping some of the grime from the floor off his cape. “Take a quick snack, and then move out. I want us ready to expand our food supply by the time the sun sets.”

“Yes, sir.” Every changeling in the room sounded off, immediately lining up to suck a pony dry. Not even pausing to watch, the General ascended back into the light of the rooftop, surveying the towers and parapets of the Crystal Empire. Somewhere far off, somepony screamed, followed by a choir of hisses and the telltale buzzing of insect wings. A few black dots darted into view from behind the crushed, smoldering ruins of a little cafe somewhere far off and dove into the streets below.

"My beloved swarm," he smiled, pride swelling within his chest. "I shall protect you at all costs, no matter the circumstances."

A scowl quickly spread across his face and he turned away from the view. "Even if it's from yourselves."

Author's Notes:

...and that's another...