Bait blinked and looked around, confused. He was in a restaurant of some sort. Pretty upscale, by the looks of it. A smattering of ponies sat in a corner, but the vast majority of dimly-lit, posh booths were populated with changelings. Not soldiers on-duty though, this was no mess hall. The folded napkins and silken tablecloths and waiter-ponies in tuxedoes and tiny mustaches were more than enough to tell him that. In addition, most of the parties were mixed-gender: one mare and one stallion to a table. Most notably, he was one of the few tables that had a mixture of races. He found that odd. Almost as odd as the iceberg lettuce in some sort of orange dressing sitting on a fancy china plate in front of him. His muzzle wrinkled. He hated lettuce, and was already preparing to ask the waiter for something else when he or she came back. Something nice and safe, like a large grub from the underground, preferably still wriggling.

His gaze drifted up, and his heart froze. Pinkie was sitting in front of him, unrestrained, giggling with that yellow pegasus from the first day of the invasion. He tensed up, ready to tackle and restrain them both, but then he noticed the goop covering the pegasus’s wings and the little stone still stuck to Pinkie’s back, revealed when she reached across the table for a salt shaker. He relaxed again. Okay, this was good. Obviously, whatever had happened, he was still in the Crystal Empire. At least he had that.

“Bait?” Bait’s head swiveled around to meet Switch’s gaze. He was wearing the sombrero from their time chasing the exact two mares in front of them. Bait frowned. Stranger and stranger.

“Yes, Switch?” He asked, his gaze drifting back to the giggling ball of pink energy before him. She had just shared a joke with the pegasus and was giggling wildly, while the pegasus covered her mouth daintily with a hoof. Bait noticed Switch’s gaze drift back to the pegasus.

“What’re we doing here?” He asked, still watching the pegasus as if she were about to reveal the cure for cancer in her dainty little giggle. “The last I remember, we were in the meeting hall, and they…”

“…they asked us something.” Bait frowned. “They wanted to come here…Pinkie heard of this place, wanted to try the local cuisine…”

It was all coming back to him now. Meeting with Switch and his charge in a small cavern, watching Fluttershy and Pinkie bound around from sheer happiness at seeing one another, dodging awkward glances from his long-time teammate, and then the mares had trotted up and asked if they could do dinner someplace nice. They were going to say no, about to say it, and then their eyes got this weird, wavery effect, and blue sparkles…sparkles everywhere…

“Yeah, I remember,” Switch’s forehead-chitin furrowed. “What the hell? Some kinda…pony mind trick? Have we been hypnotized?”

Bait’s frown continued until he drank in Pinkie’s warm laughter. That bubbly sound which filled his chitin with warmth, as if the fluorescent blood in his veins was rising a couple degrees, giving his black cheeks a green hue. He turned to his longtime teammate in embarrassment, ready with some excuse about a previously-unmentioned lettuce allergy, until he noticed the same color on Switch’s cheeks as he drank in the yellow pegasus. Switch looked dumbly down at him and grinned with all the intelligence of a monkey in a cage.

“You too, huh?” Bait asked flatly.

“Yeah,” Switch sighed, turning back to the yellow pegasus. “We’re so screwed.”

“Hey!” Pinkie said suddenly, tossing herself in between the two. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

“Nothing!” Both stallions gasped.

“Sports!” Bait added.

“Violent films!” Switch said. If both could have face-hooved without drawing more attention from the crowd surrounding them, they would have.

Pinkie looked back and forth between them curiously, an eyebrow rising. Sweat gathered on both stallions’ foreheads, then Fluttershy said: “Pinkie, leave them alone, they have a lot to catch up on that’s none of our business.”

Pinkie frowned, then beamed again. “Okay!” She sang, bouncing back into her seat while the stallions sighed in relief. If it had been possible, both would have bounded across the table and kissed the yellow pegasus full on the mouth right at that moment, though neither would ever admit it.

“Why is that though?” Pinkie said before anypony (or anyling) could gather their marbles.

“Er…what?” Bait asked intelligently.

“Well, you two are partners at least, right?” She cocked her head in Bait’s direction. “Pretty much the only thing you’ll talk about is all the awesome stuff you’ve done together, Baity.”

Switch hunched his eyebrows and looked over at Bait while the smaller changeling shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “It’s…not all I talk about…” he said with a weak cough.

“Really? That’s all he talks about?” Switch grinned at Bait like a shark encountering an abnormally large and slow trout. “My oh my, glad to see I’ve had such an impact on him.”

“Wait,” Fluttershy stared blankly at the pair. “I haven’t heard a word about this.”

Bait perked up and slowly swiveled his head at Switch, whose ragged, blackened ears promptly folded back. “C-c’mon, Fluttershy, I-I’ve mentioned this…”

“U-um, not that I can recall,” she said quietly, ducking behind her mane.

“Oh, really?” Bait nearly shouted, leaning against the table while glaring at his partner. “Really!? Not a word about me!? Really!? As if I didn’t fucking exist!?”

“Oh, come off your high horse,” Switch sneered, all pretense of civility forgotten. “So you mentioned your buddy to your little fillyfriend, and that makes you the better stallion. Wooptie-fucking-doo, however did you manage?”

“Wuh-oh…guys?” Pinkie said, cringing back.

“At least I acknowledged you!” Bait slammed his hooves against the table. “At least I didn’t try and forget you existed, like you apparently did with me!”

“Um…guys?” Fluttershy whispered.

“And can you blame me!?” Switch screamed, bolting up from the table. “Fifteen years! Fifteen years of close calls and blood and sweat and tears, and in the first slightly embarrassing moment, you turned your back on me!”

“G-guys?” Pinkie tried one last time.

“Of course I was fucking embarrassed! You straight-up committed a hate crime in the middle of the Hive! Did you seriously expect me to support that!?”

“Wait, hate crime?” Fluttershy asked.

“Well, excuse me for making sure all the homo love stayed where it belonged! Excuse me for keeping us safe from drinking that poison!”

“Hoboy…” Pinkie shrank in her seat, looking around at the ponies and changelings at the other tables turning in their direction.

“Oh, I’m sorry, thank you Switchy,” Bait said, leaning back. “I didn’t realize you were protecting us from the homo-poison your dad made up to cover his stupid, outdated, irrational hate!”

“You leave my father out of this! He was the toughest stallion there was!”

“Your dad was a bigoted, drunken asshole!”

By now, all eyes in the restaurant were on the small, strange group sitting in the candlelight. Everyone could tell where this was going, even those who hadn’t been paying attention. Most of the couples, pony and changeling, had already excused themselves. The changeling waitstaff stood at the ready, watching the larger changeling as his hooves tensed on the table, clenching so hard that a cord stood out on his neck.

“You have five seconds to take that back,” he hissed at his dining partner.

Bait never broke eye contact as he leaned back in his chair, crossing his forehooves over his chest. He enunciated his words loudly and clearly, exaggerating each syllable, dragging the phrase out long enough for the tension in the room to hit the breaking point (and for a few more of the less aggressive couples to flee the danger zone): “Bigoted. Drunken. Asshole.”

He saw the way his partner’s shoulder flinched, the momentary wind up before the larger stallion’s hoof would lash out in a powerful jab to the throat. Switch’s shoulders tensed, ready to whip his hooves up in a block, when Pinkie darted in between them. “Stop it! Both of you!” She barked.

Both changelings had been so totally focused on one another, it had been easy to forget the mares sitting across from them. At least, easy until a couple hundred pounds of pink horsey dropped in between them.

Pinkie glared at them both, switching between Bait and Switch easily. “You two should be ashamed!” She announced. “Fighting in public like a couple of colts!”

“I…” Bait started, but a quick glare from her searing baby-blues silenced him.

“You’ve ruined this dinner, driven away ponies AND changelings that had just been trying to enjoy a good meal, and you scared Flutters!”

Both stallions finally took note of the yellow pegasus sitting across from them, cowering behind her mane and shivering. “Aw shoot,” Switch said. “Fluttershy, I’m so…”

“Now, I may not agree with the way either of you has handled this entire situation, but I think we all can agree that whatever’s been happening, it isn’t worth your friendship!” She spat. “Don’t you think so!? Is what you’re fighting about really worth losing that?”

Bait’s breath caught in his throat as he looked past her, towards Switch. Something twisted in his chest as he watched the larger changeling rub the scar over his eye. Bait sat back down, only now aware of a dull ache in his bad fang.

“Well!?” Pinkie asked expectedly.

“It’s…not…” Switch said. “We may not see eye-to-eye about this, but it’s not worth losing everything we’ve got.”

“I think what he thinks about homosexuality is disgusting and dated,” Bait sneered, but when Pinkie glared at him his gaze fell. “But…if I ain’t there, I’d just worry all the time about who’s taking care of him.”

“I can handle myself!”

“Switch, please! Last time we were split up for a mission, I found you living on a diet of pure ramen!” Bait scoffed.

“Really?” Pinkie looked over at Switch with a queasy look. “Ew, what are ya, a college freshman?”

“I just like the taste!” He shouted defensively.

“That, and you can’t cook worth half a damn,” Bait snickered.

“I can cook!”

“You burned peanut butter and jelly. That is a sign from the gods that you are not meant to cook,” Bait scoffed.

Switch just grinned, grabbing his partner up in a death grip and forcing a noogie on him. “At least I can ride all the roller coasters at any theme park.”

Bait turned bright green with embarrassment.

“Baity!” Pinkie giggled. “Is that true!?”

“One time!” Bait screeched. “One time, some near-sighed old coot said I wasn’t tall enough when I so totally was, and he had to take a closer look to see! Once!”

“Once is enough, shortie,” Switch snickered.

“You wanna finish what we started!?” Bait asked, but the grin he shared told Pinkie everything she needed to know. Another day, another friendship saved. She returned to her seat with a satisfied smile, at least until the waiter returned.

“Ah, garçon,” Bait said, looking puzzled at the changeling’s empty hands. “Where are our drinks?”

“I am afraid, monsieur, that there will be no drinks,” the changeling replied, his pencil-thin mustache twitching at the end of his muzzle. “For your disturbance of the other guests, I am afraid we must ask that you and your party leave.”

“What!?” Switch gasped, sitting up straight. “Over a little bit of…”

“We are afraid, monsieur, that we were only willing to tolerate you and your guests to a certain extent,” the changeling’s mustache twitched atop a set of lips pursed in distaste. “That extent has now been reached and passed. We really must ask you to leave.”

Switch was the first to stand. “If this is about them being ponies, I’ll…”

But Bait’s hoof on his shoulder stopped him. “Switch, c’mon. It’s not just what they are, it’s who they are.”

“Wha…oh,” Switch grimaced, resisting the urge to facehoof. Of course. Bad enough that the mares with them were ponies, but Element Bearers? Ones directly responsible for the failure at Canterlot?

Pinkie and Fluttershy watched on, oblivious to the minor drama building as their escorts hurried them away, rushing them past the tables of changelings with upturned snouts and disgusted sneers, hurrying them out the front door.

“That…could’ve gone better,” Bait muttered.

“Yeah,” Switch smiled thinly. “Could’ve gone a lot worse, though.”

“Yep,” Bait smiled back and turned to the reason why it didn’t, the only thing that kept a deep-seated disagreement from devolving into a friendship-destroying argument, only to find his side distinctly lacking in pink, balloon-butted horses.

“Hey, where’s Pink?” He started, and as if in response, a cry sounded behind him, followed quickly by Pinkie galloping past the maître d’s podium with something small, wiry, and curly clenched tightly in her hoof.

“Guys! It’s real!” She shrieked ecstatically, the bit of hair suspended on her hoof. The changelings and the pegasus watched her in confusion until their waiter came galloping behind her, a sore, red mark on his upper lip where his mustache had been.

“Can you believe it!?” She cried, prancing on her hooves while holding her prize over her head. “It’s seriously for realz really real!”

“BANNED! FOR! EVER!” The waiter screamed before retreating into the restaurant.

“Well, we never wanted to come back here anyway, you big, big…poopyhead!” She cried, throwing the mustache ineffectively against the front window and watching it drift into the potted plants.

Bait and Switch, to their credit, managed to keep from bursting out in laughter for a solid ten seconds before turning to one another. Each stallion seeing his partner barely controlling himself, biting their lips and guffawing while rocking side to side, was just enough to push them over the edge. The changelings fell against one another, howling with laughter. Being Infiltrators, they mostly managed to stick to normal laughter recognizable as any stallion’s laughter, but being changelings, a few chittering chirps still managed to slip out here and there. For a solid five minutes, they stood there, clenching each other, rolling with laughter, only managing to look up into a giggling Fluttershy’s and glaring Pinkie’s muzzles once the worst of the giggles had worked their way out of their systems.

“What? He is a poopyhead.” Pinkie said, still glaring down at them.

That set off another two minutes of laughter, only this time when it ended they both managed to press themselves to their hooves. Stumbling like drunken stallions, Bait and Switch each took their respective charges’ sides and led them down the street, giggling like madstallions, thinking they’d seen the last of their giggles, then glancing at each other and starting another round of snickers.

“Dear Maker above,” Switch gasped when the worst had passed. “I didn’t know it was possible to laugh that hard.”

“I tend to have that effect on ponies,” Pinkie said, happily bouncing along beside the group.

Bait looked at her and smiled genuinely, watching the way her mane bounced with each hop, drinking in those gorgeously-deep blue eyes, and feeling content for the first time in a very long time. “Yeah, I noticed,” he said. “You probably kept us from ripping each other apart back there.”

“That’s a thing I do, too!” She beamed.

“Can we repay ya somehow? This whole evening was a disaster, it only seems fair,” Bait said, obviously hoping for a redo for the entire night.

Pinkie paused mid-hop, defying all physics as she floated gently to the ground, a hoof on her chin as her eyebrows hunched in thought. Then, she turned to the group and smiled. “Tell me about your ear. Why it’s all twisted up.”

Both changelings blanched immediately. If it was possible, they probably would have turned pale-white. One of Switch’s forehooves lifted on an obvious path towards his wounded eye, only to immediately stop and settle back on the ground. After a solid minute of silence, Pinkie blinked at them. “What, did I say something wrong?” She asked.

“That’s…personal…” Switch said.

“You said you’d tell me later though, Baity,” she said. She locked eyes with the smaller changeling, lower lip quivering. “It’s later right now.”

Bait massaged his temple as Switch’s jaw dropped. “You told her what!?” Switch gasped.

“I didn’t think she’d remember!” Bait yelled defensively.

“And that’s where you made your mistake!” Pinkie sang happily, resuming her bouncing.

Switch glared, holding his ground. “That is a very private matter, not fit for…”

“Actually, I want to hear it too,” Fluttershy added, finally popping back into the conversation after remaining in the background for so long.

Switch blanched again, turning to her, his jaw working up and down a few times as he looked directly into her eyes and felt a massive, endless white void replace his thoughts. “I-it’s nothing, really! It just…”

“It has t’do with your ear though, doesn’t it? And your fang?” Pinkie asked, levelling an accusing hoof at the scar. “Don’t lie: me an’ Flutters saw you rubbing it!”

“I-it still doesn’t have to anything to do with what we’re doing!” Bait yelled, coming to his friend’s rescue. “So just drop it!”

The way Pinkie’s shoulders slumped and mane drooped would have made anypony immediately want to hug her. Both changelings inexplicably felt an overwhelming urge to throw themselves at her and wrap their hooves around her shoulders and tell her it was okay. Even Fluttershy had to keep herself from moving to reassure her friend, remembering the numerous times Pinkie had used this exact tactic against Twilight whenever she wanted to throw a citywide party and Twilight tried to convince her that the annual budget from Canterlot couldn’t take the strain, always managing to squeeze a few extra bits from the unicorn after a few hours of dejected looks.

The changelings proved resistant, however, suddenly becoming interested in their own hooves and in studying the crystalline structures around them while the Pinkie bombardment continued, until she was finally forced to whip out a secret weapon.

“That’s okay,” she sighed, ears folding down. “We’re just your prisoners and nothing more, it’s not like you have to tell us.”

That ripped through the changelings’ defenses like a tear-soaked meteor through cardboard. They sighed, fidgeted, grumbled, and finally resigned themselves to the realization that this night could end many ways, none of which involved this story not getting told.