Chickit looked down at the pair of stallions shivering beneath his gaze. He repressed the urge to sigh audibly. The things he had to deal with…

He scoffed, adjusting himself in his seat. He’d known that the number of changelings brought in via court martial would be low, but the pickings had turned out to be so slim…and distasteful. He’d hoped at least a few stallions with fire in their hearts would have gotten themselves written up for reckless endangerment or for breaking a superior officer’s leg in a drunken bar fight, but no, he was left with these two. A couple of bullies well known for their cowardice in battle. Rapist bullies, no less. Well, attempted rape, at least. He wasn’t sure if failing at their crimes made things better or worse, and at the moment, he didn’t really care.

“So, tried to rape the caretaker of the nursery, eh?” He shook his head, earning a cringe from one of the shackled changelings kneeling before him. “Isn’t she one of the Element Bearers? High-profile, Very Important Prisoner type? How’d that work for ya?”

“Sir,” one of the stallions mewled pathetically. “We can explain, we were only trying to…”

“Can it,” Chickit hissed as the Praetorian guardstallions he’d been waiting for finally arrived. “The less you say right now, the better.”

Both changelings winced and fell silent. Chickit sighed as their shackles were linked up to a length of chain and secured to a few of his Praetorians’ armored harnesses, making an effective leash. “Now, up,” he commanded. Both obeyed. “Walk.” Again, total obedience, neither meeting the High-General’s eye as they were led away. Well, they can follow orders, can’t fault ‘em for that, the General scoffed.

The small train, consisting of the two chained stallions, five Praetorians, and the High-General himself, made its way through the dungeons beneath the Crystal Palace, passing Luna’s cell without so much as a glance at the high-security chrysalis holding her. No, they were on a mission, and they hustled their prisoners through the dungeons, passing scores of spear-wielding guards who usually couldn’t be bothered to spare them a passing look.

Eventually, they reached a dark, isolated corner of the dungeons. This was quite a feat for a corner, as most every corner of your average dungeon qualified as dark and isolated, the Crystal Dungeons being no exception; but this corner somehow managed to come across as even darker and more lonesome. It made the prisoners shiver, rattling their chains.

Chickit grinned back at the pair. “Welcome to Sombra’s oubliette, are either of you familiar with that term?”

Unsurprisingly, the prisoners shook their quaking heads.

Grinning wickedly, Chickit knocked hard on the ground: once, twice, and three times. A rectangle appeared in the crystalline floor, which Chickit pulled up to reveal a pitch-dark hole. “An oubliette is something employed by the greatest of kings against their most hated prisoners,” he explained, gazing into the deep darkness. The pair exchanged worried glances, not even noticing the Praetorians taking positions behind them. “You see, someone the late King Sombra really disliked would simply be thrown down here and left. Usually, there’s a water source nearby to keep them alive, but that’s it: the prisoner would simply be left there in the dark to die a long, slow death by starvation, with no contact from the outside at all.”

The prisoners’ eyes widened in shock and terror. One of them, Chickit hadn’t bothered to learn their names, turned and tried to run, but the massive Praetorians easily scooped him up in their magic and threw him into the hole. His wings and horn bound in goop, the prisoner had nothing to stop himself from plummeting like a rock, dragging his partner along after him.

“NO!” the second prisoner cried, his hooves scrabbling across the smooth crystal for any sort of purchase as his friend’s weight dragged him into the dark. “Please! Not like this! Please!”

“The Queen gave us orders that you be thrown in the oubliette,” Chickit replied, giving a helpful shove with his magic to hasten things along. “Orders are orders.”

The pair wailed as their tenuous grip gave way and they vanished into the darkness, landing with a couple hard thuds that came a second after disappearing into the darkness. The oubliette was not deep. It would defeat the purpose if the victims died on impact, after all.

Chickit and his Praetorians all exchanged grins and snickers. “How long this time?” The Praetorian directly across from him asked.

“Ohh, two hours, I say,” Chickit replied as he tapped his hoof again, sealing the entrance once more. “Maker knows they’ve earned it.”

The group continued in their shared chuckling as they trotted along, through the dungeons, through the palace, and back to the streets of the Crystal Empire. Immediately on hitting the streets, the chuckling subsided and the smiles turned to serious glares. They all scattered off in pairs, like squads being sent on patrol, with Chickit heading off by himself.

Today, he took his time returning to the hideout. He’d said two hours, and he’d meant it. After all, he hardly had reason to hurry back. Why, he might kill two birds with one stone out here.

Donning a disguise (a red-coated pegasus with a black mane, one of the standard guises he’d established with his forces), he rushed along the streets, expertly dodging Chrysalis’s patrols. Not that it was necessary: it’s just that if they saw him, he’d have to cower and shake in fear, and the future leader of the changeling swarm on the eve of its greatest campaign ever should not have to cower for anyone. He ducked and weaved through the regular army patrols, slipping through the blind spots he knew were there, falling through the cracks he’d personally engineered. He popped out of an alleyway across the street from his target, almost stumbling right into a couple of his Praetorian guards. For these, he cocked a smile and let a tiny burst of green flame appear in his eyes. Both Praetorians grinned back and continued on their way while he slunk across the street, keeping his head down.

Finally, he arrived at his target’s front doorstep: a nice little café, very out of the way and run by a mare he happened to know had no family. Said mare rushed to the front step as he approached, a worried hoof pressed to her face. “Oh my, you almost cut off a couple of them,” she gasped, her blonde mane quivering with every shaky motion. He suppressed a grimace. She spied a couple of the enemy across the street and immediately fell into conniptions? Pathetic. That Chrysalis had been defeated by such a weak race was just another example of her ineptitude. “Are you alright?”

Chickit let out a long, melodramatic breath. “N-never better…are you open?”

The mare smiled warmly and urged him inside. “How about we get you a free appetizer, too? We have a petunia salad that’s been rated as the best in the Empire!”

He grinned even as he cringed inwardly. Petunia salad? How did ponies eat like that!? “That’s very generous, miss, but I can’t accept that...”

“Oh, no really, it’s on the house,” she insisted, beaming enthusiastically.

He smiled back. “Well now, how can I say no to such a pretty face?”

The mare flushed instantly, huffing as she suddenly averted her eyes, though not without a little smile. “I-I’ll get that right out, sir,” she said quickly, rushing towards the kitchen.

Chickit smiled as he took his place at one of the tables. This was going to be easy.

Through sheer force of will, he managed to choke down the meal, while thanking every star that changeling stomachs allowed them to adapt to a variety of diets, even if maintaining this disguise meant a few extra hours in the bathroom later. All the while, he chatted up the mare, earning another little blush with every compliment, every thinly-veiled attempt at bedroom eyes. Finally, near the end of the meal, he went for the kill.

“Miss Lilac, this meal has been fantastic,” he said, recalling her name from early in the conversation. He leaned forward in his seat, gazing into her eyes. “I really must thank you, it was just the thing to help me recover from that awful encounter with those guards.”

That blush again. Seriously, how did this mare function if something so simple got her all flustered? “Thank you, it was the least I could do, though.”

“You simply must let me pay you back,” he said with a wink. “Perhaps, since you provided me with such a fine meal, I could return the favor? Say…my place?”

The blush reached the heat of the sky just before sunset. “Y-you don’t have to…”

“No, I don’t,” he replied, leaning forward and laying his hoof on hers. “I want to.”

“I…oh gosh, with the changeling occupation…I don’t know…”

“Think of it as striking back at the changelings,” he insisted. “Getting a little bit of our normal lives back from them. So, what do you say?”

When he walked out of the café, he held a scrap of paper with a name and the address of a nice, neutral, public space for them to meet. Unfortunately, said public space was just a few hundred yards away from the entrance to a network of alleys and hidden tunnels that led directly to Chickit’s hideaway, but Lilac Dreams couldn’t have known that, now could she? And because of her ignorance, by this time tomorrow she would be in one of the growing number of cocoons totally under the control of himself and his forces.

Chickit looked up at one of the city’s many clocktowers. Enough time had passed.

Once again, he ducked into a nearby alleyway and rocketed along, close to the ground, far below anypony’s or anyling’s notice. Even with his scarlet coat, he was barely a rushing shadow: weaving through alleyways, dodging trash and various puddles. At one point, some vagrant rummaging in a dumpster suffered the misfortune of being in his path, and he had a bit of fun by transforming his hooves back to his changeling form, using those hooves to grip the wall and run along it, then nimbly leaping off the dumpster’s lid and landing on the ground, dashing off as he heard the clang of the lid crashing back down, followed by the loud curses of the hapless bum.

Still snickering, he approached the entrance to his lair. The low, squat building which, by all accounts, appeared abandoned nonetheless sported a relatively-new door. Of course, this door was also under a dozen alarm spells to detect a breach in any way, shape, or form, but no one could know that unless they were practically on top of it.

He finally paused before the door and gave the knock: three scrapes with a hoof, then three quick taps, then two scrapes with four taps. A moment later, the door creaked open and he darted inside, slamming the door shut behind him and stepping into the pre-made circle of magic lying just inside.

As the magic in the circle burnt away his disguise, the Praetorians hiding just inside the door instantly dropped the spears they’d had levelled on him and saluted. “High General, sir!” They announced.

“At ease,” he said passively, pulling the little scrap of paper out from under his carapace, beneath his wings. “This is a pony and a place. Tomorrow evening at six on the dot, the pony will be expecting a stallion with Muscular Build #4, Cutie Mark #7, and Color Scheme #8 to be at the place. I trust you know what to do?”

A Praetorian dropped his hoof just long enough to snatch the paper up, bringing his hoof right back to his brow. “Sir, yes sir!”

Nodding his approval, Chickit stalked into the darkness of his Headquarters. As he watched, Praetorians paused and saluted him. He nodded to each and passed by, secure in the knowledge that the hooves would not drop until he was out of sight.

When he reached the back room, the Praetorians he’d left the palace with were already waiting for him, leaning against walls, joking around. They all bolted to their hooves and saluted, stopping mid-conversation while relaxed smiles were replaced with stoic frowns all around.

“At ease!” Chickit barked, and grinned as the hooves all dropped at the same time, broad, chitin-covered chests still thrust out. As he looked around, the grin spread to the soldiers around him. “Well then, let’s go meet the new recruits, shall we?”

A round of snickers made its way around the small group as the changelings stepped into the next room, then immediately spread their wings and fluttered down into a network of tunnels. They bobbed and weaved in the dark, a combination of practice and night vision keeping them from any collisions. Before long, the tunnels evened out, became more crystalline, and eventually they started passing their personal crews working to add more branches to the already-extensive network dug beneath the city. Soon, the crystalline walls grew dark and they reached an area more narrow and roughly-hewn than the other parts of the network. Chickit descended back to the ground, his hooves barely making a sound as the Praetorians followed suit, walking along behind him. The group silently cut across to a series of small rooms, branching off a tiny main hallway.

Peering through the darkness, his eyes glowing, Chickit asked: “Cell 14, right?”

“Correct, sir,” one of the Praetorians replied.

Nodding, Chickit walked along the little hall before making a sharp turn into one of the rooms. He peered around to the Praetorians standing at his back, who all immediately twisted slightly, revealing scabbards holding the short daggers they all carried for close quarters. Nodding again, Chickit’s horn ignited in the darkness and shot a quick bolt up into the low ceiling, and a massive rock slid away and gently lowered to the ground.

One of the Praetorians swooped past him and stuck his head up. His eyes narrowed in the dark. “Clear!” He announced, and immediately Chickit and another Praetorian swooped up after him, the first Praetorian pulling himself up to make room for them.

In the darkness, the three changelings could just barely make out their surroundings, even with their enhanced night vision: a trickle of water here, a particularly smooth stone marred with scratch marks there, and two changelings lying against one of the far walls, wings and horns still bound, sitting as far away from each other as the shackles still locked around their fetlocks would allow.

Chickit grinned at the pair. “Evenin’, boys. Fancy meeting you here.”

“Sir?” One of the prisoners stood, trembling so hard it was even visible in the darkness. “Sir, what…what is this?”

Chickit suppressed a grimace as one of his Praetorians stepped forward with a key ring in his grasp. “Let’s just say you two have just been recruited for some…’special operations’.”

“Spec ops?” One of the pair gasped as the Praetorian unlocked the shackles around his hooves. “Y-you mean it!? Y-you’re not gonna leave us here to die!?”

“No, Private,” Chickit chuckled. “That was just a test, and you boys passed with flying colors! You’re gonna get to take part in a very special project I’ve had cooking for a while, one not even the Queen is aware of.”

“Oh, wow,” one of the changelings whistled. “Sir, that’s…that’s great! Uhh…I don’t think…we’ve never had Praetorian training or anything like that before, though, so I don’t know what we can do for you…”

“Well shit, if you didn’t want the job,” Chickit said with a passive wave of his hoof. Immediately, the Praetorian with the key ring locked one shackle back around the prisoner’s hoof, darting low to reattach the chains he’d just removed.

“Wait, sir! Wait! Sorry!” Gasped the prisoner, holding his hooves out as far as the chains would allow. “We meant no disrespect! We’ll take the job! We’ll do whatever you want us to do! We’ll be your most loyal troopers, promise!”

Chickit glared evenly at the pair, eyes narrowing as if appraising their sincerity. Both changelings shivered and gulped, trying their best to meet his eye while the Praetorian stood by, eyes locked on Chickit, key ring frozen in midair. The pair whimpered and lowered their gazes, but then a wide grin spread across Chickit’s face. “That’s just the sort of can-do attitude I wanted to hear!” He announced happily as his Praetorian swiftly unlocked the remaining shackles. The pair sighed in relief, exchanging nervous grins as the shackles were tossed into the dark and the goop coating their wings was released. They stood there, pointedly staring at their horns as the Praetorians returned to Chickit’s side.

“Oh, didn’t you know? The stuff they use to secure magic is way tougher, we’ll need our specialists back at base to handle that,” Chickit said with a passive shrug and a chortle, as if to say ‘Goshdarnit, what can ya do?’ “Your wings are all you need right now.”

“O-of course…I knew that,” one of the changelings chortled, fanning his wings.

“You guys go on ahead, stick close to me,” Chickit said, cocking his head at the hole he’d entered through. “My Praetorians will protect our asses that way.”

“Y-yes sir!” The prisoners chorused happily, making for the gaping hole as if it were a single oasis in the middle of a scorching desert. Chickit grinned watching them go, wings buzzing with excitement. They hadn’t noticed that this positioning put his stallions behind the prisoners, ensuring there’d be no way to go but forward to wherever Chickit wanted them.

The group returned the way it came, Chickit personally replacing the rock where he’d found it to where it was totally seamless, undetectable to anyone from inside the oubliette. He joined the rest of the group, keeping the prisoners in sight as they fanned their wings and took off, bumbling along with half the care of his Praetorians. Without their experience, it took nearly twice as long to return to the hideout, but Chickit didn’t mind. There was no rush on this part.

Finally, he spied the familiar, eerie green glow in the distant dark, and while the prisoners hesitated and slowed in their flight, the Praetorians pressing from behind and urged them forward. “S-sir?” One of the prisoners mewled. “If it’s okay for me to ask, what is that glowing up ahead?”

Chickit pasted a grin on his face, one that exposed far too many teeth, including all four of his impressive incisors. “Y’know the communal gathering ponds Chrysalis established under the Palace to harvest the Empire’s love?”

The prisoner nodded, then after a few moment’s more than Chickit would have liked, his eyes darted wide open. “Sir…you!? You have one too!?”

Chickit maintained the grin and returned the nod. “For what we got planned, we’re gonna need a lot of love.”

The group flittered to a stop, pressing through a large wooden door where the glow was just barely contained. Instantly, the entire hallway was bathed in the glow, and the prisoners’ jaws dropped. Before them was a massive cavern that towered over their heads, containing a pool that looked like it could comfortably host the Equestria Games’ swim matches, with enough room leftover for a whale aquarium. A path circled the entire room, around which were dozens of cocoons holding the vague outlines of pony-shaped shadows. Unlike most changeling holding cocoons though, these had a series of tubes at their base which occasionally belched a run of green fluid into the pool.

“I-I recognize those,” one prisoner gasped. “I saw them in a book once a long time ago…that’s an interval-based extraction unit.”

“Good eye, private,” Chickit cooed as he walked to one of the cocoons. He held up the end of one of the flexible, fleshy tubes, giving it a pinch in his magic. A moment later, more of the green fluid oozed out over the floor, flowing towards the pool. After a few seconds, the pony-like shadow inside writhed and struggled within its prison, then suddenly went limp again as the fluid grew a paler green. After a while, it flowed completely white, and Chickit released it and motioned to his Praetorians. The massive stallions nodded, then drew their daggers, slicing neatly through the moorings holding the cocoon to the wall and hoisting it up on their shoulders, holding it just long enough to drop it right into the ooze bubbling away before them.

The prisoners watched, ears folding back. “F-funny,” one of them mused, “I don’t remember seeing anything like these back in the Hive.”

“They were outlawed years ago,” Chickit explained passively. “Apparently, wringing every last drop of love from a pony all at once was considered too inefficient in the long run, given that you get one long burst of love before the pony dies, though that’s not the real reason they were discontinued. The real reason is that Chrysalis is a soft-hearted fool who is unable to use every tool at her disposal, even when it is the perfect intimidation tactic against the enemy.”

The changelings shivered, but nodded enthusiastically, like good little lapdogs. This time, Chickit did not bother to disguise the distaste on his face. He waited until the enthusiastic nods petered off, then grinned. “You boys are brighter than you look,” he cooed mockingly.

The first prisoner nodded. “Sir, what did you bring us down here to do?”

“Well see, if I’m going to take on Chrysalis, I’m going to need a lot of love,” Chickit replied, ignoring the flabbergasted stares to look passively at a bit of fractured chitin on his hoof. “Not only to add to my own strength, but to formulate a few surprises capable of levelling the playing field. To get that love, and fast, I’m gonna need to find out a few things.”

“Like what?” One of the prisoners asked, unaware of the trio of guards forming a wall behind him.

“Which is more efficient for extracting love from undesirables: these cocoons, or slicing the Trapezian structure?” Chickit asked.

The prisoners stared at him with arched eyebrows. “But sir, the Trapezian structure isn’t on ponies, it’s what carries love in change--”

He didn’t even get to finish his sentence before a dagger blade slid effortlessly along the side of his neck, making a single incision. He gasped and whirled around to see the Praetorian standing there passively, a stopwatch ticking away in his hoof. Then he tripped, falling flat on his back. His hooves clawed fruitlessly at his neck as the green fluid flowed out of his body, bathing the ground beneath him and flowing into the pool. His partner watched, jaw hanging wide open as the changeling wheezed and struggled, trying to sit up, only to be pressed back down to the ground by the general himself. Then two powerful sets of hooves clamped on the remaining prisoner’s shoulders.

“No!” He exclaimed, trying to fire off a bolt, only remembering the glop on his horn suppressing his magic when it was already too late. He was lifted bodily by the changeling pair and hoisted, still kicking and screaming, into one of the vacant pods. The moment they dropped him inside, the pod let off a satisfied smack as its lips sealed the opening around him. His struggles were muffled immediately as fluid filled the pod, and then they too slowly faded away as his body went limp and floated.

On the ground, the first prisoner had stopped moving, the green fluid ebbing to a light trickle. Eventually, Chickit grimaced and hoisted him over the pool with his magic, shaking him up and down like someone with a stubborn ketchup bottle. When a few moments passed without any more dribbles, he dropped the body and turned to the Praetorian hammering the stop button on his stopwatch, not even watching the corpse splash down.

“Five minutes, sixteen seconds,” the Praetorian said, producing a small notepad and jotting down the number.

Chickit frowned. “I was hoping for something closer to four.”

“Once we get Praetorians better trained on extraction, that number should be more realistic, sir,” the Praetorian replied. “Engineering is reporting a change in love levels by 0.68 Thoracians.”

Chickit pondered that number. “Alright, not bad. At least these boys weren’t skimming off the communal supplies on top of everything else.”

“Yes, but the scanners report he had a total of 0.83 Thoracians when he walked into this room. That’s a loss of nearly 18%!”

Chickit grimaced and scratched his chin. “18? And we already know the cocoons can get it all…damnation,” he let out a long-suffering sigh. “Alright, get the other one’s cocoon started and time how long it takes to wrench it all free. Maybe the time saved is worth the loss, maybe not, let’s reserve judgment for when all the numbers are in.”

“Of course, sir,” the Praetorian nodded and trotted over to the cocoon, restarting his stopwatch while running a hoof along the extraction tubes. There was a quiver, a belching sound, and finally more green fluid started flowing out. After a while, a series of struggles renewed from within the cocoon, accompanied with loud cries of agony.

“Report to me with all the final figures within the hour,” Chickit instructed. “I also want our moles within the dungeons to maintain their positions.”

The Praetorian looked over at Chickit with a blank expression on his face. “Sir, if you don’t mind my asking, for what purpose?”

“Well, science is all about repeatable results,” Chickit replied with that toothy grin. “Isn’t it?”