Sally was panting hard, her muscles burning. "Slowing down, little drone!" Sweet gave her the most 'come hither' look the human had ever seen on a changeling and kept going.

"Damn it all to hell and back…" Her legs got her back in stride again and her lungs heaved. It wasn't that she wasn't in shape, it was bloody ponies that could run hard nearly all day. "Get your flank back here you… you…" Her knee still hurt, it sent a shock through her leg with every step but Sharp had done her work well.

Sweet and Sharp were both waiting for her at the end of the impromptu running track that had been set up. Sally was ready to growl and take them both on until she saw her queen with them. Somewhere she found more energy and kept her pace right to the end where she fell down, rolling to the ground and stopping at Queen Fangs' hooves.

"Not the usual way I like my drones groveling, but from you I will accept it." Her hoof raised and pressed down, gently, on the center of Sally's heaving chest. Sally's eyes dilated a moment as she felt a rush of energy, it was like a frozen lake poured over her and through her.

"The…" Sally stopped herself from actually cursing, but her queen's smile told her she had been treated to something magical. "Thank you, my queen."

The hoof lifted up and off her. "Your manners, even when nearly running yourself to death, are impeccable. I would not have you waste either of our time by panting and gasping for the next twenty minutes." Fangs' sounded jovial and had every right to be. Her hive was eating better than ever, not only were the new rabbits swelling out her drones with vitality, but the griffons were a feisty snack she rewarded the best of her changelings with. "Although word around my hive is you three do that already, and for much longer than twenty minutes and loud enough to be heard many caves away."

The other two mares blushed at this but Sally grinned. "Our hive boasts the best of everything. Queens, drones and leaders." The compliment hit home on all counts.

"And humans." Sweet Bite stepped over and offered glowing magic for Sally to grip. Her little group had discovered, at last, how the human had been deflecting their spells. She could see magic.

"Quite." Fangs trotted around Sally. "You appear to be getting stronger, or so my children tell me. You are training more changelings, do you expect us to need an army?"

"Expect? Yes. Bigger is better. We are comfortable now but who is to say a bigger hive doesn't move in?" Sally unselfconsciously lifted her poncho up and wiped her face. If there was another human around she might have cared about baring so much flesh, but there wasn't so she didn't.

Sharp looked surprised at the presumption but Fangs showed off her namesake. Sally's good knee trembled a little at the sight and she knew her queen had intended such. "Astute, a queen doesn't even mature fully unless her hive is not only strong but prepared. Word through the wilds has it that one queen thought to attack the main pony empire. She lost the majority of her hive, not in the attack, but her leaders leaving her incompetent flank." Fangs looked to Sharp and stepped closer. "Little daughter, learn more from this human, she plans and she has the taste of blood. Believe me when I say, if the two of you had a foal I would step down and give them their own hive just to see the mania she would create."

This got a blush from Sally and a sudden worry. She had been doing some fairly wild things with the two mares, both as mares and… stallions. Could she get pregnant like that?

Sharp Mind stepped up a little straighter. "I will learn everything she can teach then, that you might see me worthy of that honor instead."

There was challenge there, in both their eyes. But it was the kind of challenge to be risen to, not to cut off at the fetlocks. Sally cursed herself silently for slipping into more pony-terms.

"You best believe, my daughter, that I look forward to that day." Fangs bared her namesake once more and the two stood there. "I might even let you take your lovers with you."

Sharp shrank a touch and glanced at Sweet and Sally. "You had better, or I might have to come and take them."

Sally decided she didn't want anyone to say something that might be regretted and walked over, she knelt between them. Her thoughts were hard to wrangle, but Sweet had made it much easier, of late, to be able to return to thinking of what she loved. "I think our drone is telling us to shut our mouths." Fangs was the first to lean in and drink, well, sip. Without the protection the pods gave, Sally could not be drunk from too heavily without harm.

Sharp Mind looked torn. She had drunk from Sally before, but not like this, never like this. But she knew she had to, the look Sally gave her, as Queen Fangs rested her snout against the human's ear told Sharp her lover needed support. She stepped up and pressed in much more forcefully, embracing Sally's core and slowly, gently, sipping.

The threat in the room seemed to fold in on itself. It was hard for two well-fed changelings, still high on a snack they had both enjoyed, to maintain their anger. "Go now." Sally's queen waved a hoof at the three. "But be ready, if nothing happens by week's end we will hit the weakened hive, take whatever they have remaining."

Sally got to wobbly feet, she would need a good meal after that. If Fangs hadn't pumped her with energy earlier, she might not have been able to survive the dual embrace.

It was the day before the deadline. There was nearly thirty changelings now working under her group. Each of her five had taken a hoof… handful of students. Sally was pleased with progress, it was slower per changeling than she had gotten, but on the whole they would have a backup for her strike-force by the due date. It was a surprise, then, when Fangs stepped in right behind Sally. She could feel the presence of her queen now, she just knew where she was. "Prepare, you leave tonight."

Sally got a tremble of excitement and the queen caught her mood easily.

"You cannot wait, can you?" Fangs stepped into her back, pressing her chest against Sally. "You have plans to invade a hive already?"

"Of course. You knew I had this planned." It was an easy accusation for Sally to make, Fangs knew everything that happened in her hive. "The question is, are we hitting the weak hive to the west, or the stronger one to the south?"

Her queen's laughter stopped every changeling dead in their tracks. "My little drone, your wit and cunning know no bounds. If my daughter wasn't bedding you already I would surely try to sire a foal on you."

Sally blushed, it cost her nothing to let Fangs feel the surprise the comment had caused. "My queen honors me, I am sure. She didn't tell this lowly drone just which hive we will hit."

"The weak hive has little we need." It was all Sally needed to know, this would be a grand push then. Estimates from their spies, that Sally had bribed with some particularly focused happiness, had them at nearly two hundred strong. But that included the workers and breeders.

"How do you wish it handled, are we to cut the head off the hive?" Sally pressed back now, her queen's head leaning in against the side of her head, fangs brushing her ear.

"That would be the quickest way, you would need to hit hard, fast." The nip of Sally's ear lobe caught her by surprise, but the sudden rush of endorphins had her more hyped than ever.

"Tomorrow. I have just the changeling I need for this." Sally thought to the trainee who had slipped into the rank of her elite group, who had been indistinguishable from most of their number until they tripped up. Sally almost had them in her bed, as Sharp, before she worked out the mare she was with was not her new partner. Easy Slip had been the slickest and best infiltrator Sally had seen, she had mimicked not only the forms of her squad but also their mannerisms, some of their abilities.

"Come to me." Sally's knees trembled, was the queen going to ask her to… "Tomorrow. I will bore into your mind even more than normal. You may find yourself against another queen and I mean to make your mind's carapace as hard and thick as I can."

The queen was gone before Sally could even stop her tremble.

Sharp was first to approach. "We are preparing?" Sally nodded. "I know that look, I am going to be walking funny into battle, aren't I?"

Sally's mind snapped back from her battle plans. She focused on the mare and nodded. "Very, very likely." She flashed her own teeth in a smile.

Sally looked at the newer knuckles she had made with Sharp. "They help, but they aren't really anywhere near the level of force multiplication that magic and feeding can cause."

Sharp Mind blinked at the odd phrase. "What do you mean by that?"

"With a well trained magic changeling, one drone can do the work of ten, or twenty, in subduing enemies." Sally explained her thinking. "So that magic, as a honed tool, is a ten times multiplier."

Sharp tilted her head a little. "Your training has, when spread out, easily surpassed that. And your planning."

Sally reached over and rubbed Sharp's ear. It had become far too easy for the human to fall in with her and Sweet Bite. The leader reminded her of herself, pure and simple, narcissistic of her maybe, but that mind of Sharp's could cut steel. Sweet was something else. Sally had never thought of herself as masculine before, but the third part of their little clique was more feminine, even when 'male', than Sally could ever see herself being. Her power had awoken something in both Sally and Sharp, something that only needed a kick-start to get rolling.

"Nice of you to say, but the strength of a squad falls to its weakest member." Sally had some charcoal and was trying to design a sword for Sharp to copy in hardened slime.

"Weakest? You tackled a griffon and came out with a minor bite!" Sharp Mind bit at the scar herself, reminding Sally of it. The mercenary-turned-drone had found the mare quite admired scars. She certainly liked probing the various scrapes and marks bullets and worse had left on Sally over the years of her profession.

"I got wounded in that fight. I shouldn't." The human worked at the blade design. "I need this part here to be round, the rest flat, this section," she poked at the cross-guard with the charcoal, "I need that like a solid bar a bit thicker, so my hand doesn't slide up it."

Sharp examined it a few more moments before reaching into the wooden bucket with a hot rock in it. She started lifting out the warm goop within with her magic, shaping it and starting to form it more and more into the shape Sally had shown her.

"Still working on weapons?" Sweet's voice came from the entry to their little cave. The mare trotted in, her eyes softening as soon as she saw Sally and Sharp, nuzzling the former and extending her horn's grip to give the latter a squeeze. Sally leaned up into the attention. It was like getting a kiss from a girl, something she had gotten a few times in her life. This was orders of magnitude more special to her.

"Of course we are. Why should I spend time punching things until they stop moving, when I could cut them and leave them unable to move right away?" Sally's voice had a growl and the excitement that was always there when she knew a battle was coming.

The tone hit a switch in Sweet Bite, she leaned a little more and felt Sally's strong frame support her. It was such a little thing for the mare but when she saw how violent her human lover could be, when she just thought about it, she could feel nothing but safe in her presence. "Or I can drink their will to fight from them, welcome them into my fangs…" Sweet leaned down and clamped that bite around Sally's neck.

The human didn't shake at all anymore, Sally trusted Sweet to have her moments. When the changeling drew back from the bite she saw more than love in Sally's strange, non-segmented eyes. Running all day wouldn't have the mare's heart beating as hard as it was right then.

"Wow, you two…" Sharp Mind was smiling, no hint of any distress at their antics. "I would tell you to get a cave, but you got mine." The sword was hard now, it would need an hour to cure fully. This was harder even than what Sally had on her knee. Sharp reached over to the mass of crystals Slimey was crawling over, dusting the surfaces with his favorite snack.

Sharp turned back to her best friends, Sally was behind the mare, head under her tail. Sweet's face was contorted into the most odd expression. "My turn next, if that is even half as fun as it looks…"

Sally got up. She couldn't sleep. She walked with the slightest of trouble, over to where the short sword had hardened. There would be a battle today, if they made good time. At least a skirmish with scouts. She picked up the sword and began to file the few rough edges off it, working the blade to a sharp edge.

Author's Notes:

Yay, the slug finally has a name! Woo! *does a dance*