Chauffeur had awoken from his horror-induced unconscious state long before the morning sun rose over the changeling kingdom. He could get up and move if he really wanted to, but for the next few hours, stiffened with shock at his unbelievable situation, he chose to remain where he laid on his side facing the wall. He couldn't draw his eyes away from his hooves; off of the horrible, nightmarish transformation he had undergone. That strange rock on the necklace he wore was also something he kept looking to, but he dared not remove the alien object without knowing what consequences could occur.

He nearly jumped and screamed when the feeling of a hoof suddenly tapped rapidly against his chitinous shoulder some time later. "You awake?" came that same voice he heard in the night.

"Y-yes," he shakily responded. Rolling over, the first thing he saw was Lacewing's peering face right in front of his own, though it was upside-down since she was currently poking most of her body from the bed overhead. Lacewing pulled it back and hopped from her perch, landing swiftly onto the ground.

"Better get up and get those joints stretched and wings buzzing because we're both going to be moving in a few minutes," she advised, stepping toward the middle and much more spacious part of the room.

As he began to stir, Chauffeur took in a deep breath and stared back to his hooves for the eightieth time since he first regained consciousness. "How did... how did I get here?" was the question he asked. Lacewing paused what she was doing and turned her head to him again.

"I was one of the drones assaulting Canterlot yesterday, and from what I recollect, you were the pony I was currently attacking," she revealed, returning to her activity. "The absolute second I pounced at you, some sort of blinding explosion of magic came from the castle and blew all of us away. When I came to my senses, I saw most of us changelings were thrown completely back to the changeling lands from its force. Since I was still holding tightly onto you as I was doing just before it happened, you must have come with me."

Chauffeur put on a face of utter dejection and looked away when Lacewing concluded with her story. "After that, I dragged you back to my cell before anyone else could notice," she curtly finished, stretching her legs and wings out and about as she prepared for the day.

"But why'd you do it?" he decided to ask next, leaving his bed and approaching her with a hint of bewilderment. "You said you were attacking me. You were trying to take and eat my love. Why'd you save me instead?" To this, Lacewing let out a hum and scratched her chin.

"Call it 'pity' or whatever you ponies feel, but I... guess it looked kind of unfair to see someone like you get dragged from your home to a place you had zero hope of surviving in," she said. "Wanting to know how I did it is the real question you should be asking."

"Yeah, I guess I kind of do..." he spoke, motioning a hole-filled hoof to his chitinous hide. "How am I... like this?"

Finishing her exercise, she pointed to the item resting on his upper chest; dangling from the thread. "You see that stone I put around your neck?"

"I might have noticed it..." he answered.

Lacewing took in a deep breath. "When a changeling dies of old age or another cause, we inter them in the old catacombs far below the ground level of the hive. They may be dead as dust, however the residue of our natural changeling magic will still be active for some time after they're gone. Because of that, a certain type of rock made of solidified changeling magic will occasionally sprout out from where they were buried like a stalagmite. We call that 'wyrdstone'. It's what some parts of the hive are made from. That's what your necklace is made of."

"It's a... rock?"

She rolled her blue eyes. "Not a 'normal' rock, but yes, it's a rock. That necklace you're wearing is a chip I scraped off one of them."

Chauffeur lifted the minuscule object into his hoof and examined it closely. Lacewing continued after he refocused his attention back onto her. "Anyway, there's a documented legend my people speak of about how this kind of rock, if placed onto a pony like one would put on a necklace or bracelet, will transform them into another changeling when worn. It appears that old stories are true, because when I did it to you, you transformed into one of us."

Chauffeur gulped, his heart now pulsating in his dry throat. "S-so... I'm going to be like this... forever?"

Lacewing shook her head. "Well... not exactly."

"What does that mean?" asked he.

"It's a bit complex," said she, pawing the stone ground anxiously. "The tales go on to say that if the necklace or bracelet containing a wyrdstone is not taken off a pony after twenty-four hours, they will stay a changeling forever. However, if taken off before those twenty-four are up, they will return to being a pony. You've only worn that thing for about ten so far."

Chauffeur sighed the deepest sigh he had ever produced in his life, exhaling a long breath of relief that seemed to fill the entire cell with the sound of his euphoria. "Thank Celestia..." he murmured.

"Yeah, thank whoever you want, but here's the deal. Seeing how there's no way to get you back to your homeland as of now, you're going to wear that thing for the whole day when we're out foraging for food or guarding places around here, and when we get back here at night you'll take it off for a little bit before putting it back on."

Chauffeur's brow lowered. "Foraging? Guarding?" he questioned.

"Yes, foraging and guarding," Lacewing confirmed. "I'm a soldier drone, and those two job descriptions are part of what we do. Since there's no other way to keep you by my side the whole day and out of trouble, you're my new partner, buddy."

She walked past Chauffeur and approached his berth before putting a hoof under it, where a good-sized hole was burrowed in the wall's stone; an area that the once-pony hadn't noticed until now. Digging through the small stash of items held underneath and within it, she pulled out bits of what Chauffeur quickly recognized as armor of sorts. It bore a dark phthalo blue coloration, and had a surface very similar to the wing-shells resting on his and her backs.

When the last of the set was in a pile at her feet, Lacewing picked up the helmet of it and looked to her new colleague. "Put it on and let's go. I don't want to get chewed out by the captain for being late to report in because of you."

"Do I really have to?" he asked her back hesitantly. "I'm perfectly content with just sitting here away from sight."

She managed a chuckle at his words. "I don't trust you to be by yourself, and besides, we need as many working hooves as we can use after what happened at Canterlot. You know what they say: It's the roving bee that gathers honey."

Chauffeur tilted his head to the side. "I don't get it."

Lacewing ended her tittering with a single wry and flat "Hah," before tossing him his helmet, which he caught in his forehooves in reaction. "Well, too bad. Put the armor on and get set to fly, pony-boy."

Looking back to the smooth, reflective surface of the helmet he held, Chauffeur sighed. Lifting it and placing over his head, he pressed it down and it snugly fit on. Approaching the rest of the set, he began to put the pieces on as well. Having never put any sort of armor on before in his life, he immediately noticed that it felt lighter than he thought it would, but the overall weight was still quite noticeable.

"You all set?" she asked, having fetched her own armor and donned it in half the time it took him.

"I think so," he responded, tucking his wyrdstone and the rest of the necklace away from sight under the folds of his gear.

"Good," she continued, trotting over to the entrance of the cell and beckoning him to follow. He did so, and once he got to its edge he could see out over the vast, chasm-like area of the hive's interior. Before he even noticed just how high up he was standing, he realized his knees were shaking.

"Now keep your wings going, and don't stop," sternly ordered Lacewing. Truly afraid in his paranoia that she would push him off if he failed to comply, Chauffeur did just that. Before he could stop himself, his droning wings had lifted him up and out of the cell, and soon he was hovering outside of it. Yelping in terror, he began to slowly soar away aimlessly after Lacewing left the small chamber in pursuit.

Chauffeur, unable and unwilling to control himself, looked like he was going to fly straight into a stalactite, only for a small pat on the side from Lacewing to direct him into the desired direction. The female changeling, now flying closely beside him, gave a warm smile.

"That's it! Just keep those wings buzzing and you'll be fine, so long as you don't get caught in any strong winds."

"Are you sure?" inquired the still-terrified Chauffeur, holding his hooves to his eyes out of pure and abject fear. "How do I know that I won't suddenly plummet to the ground and... and...?"

"Trust me," was all Lacewing lightly replied with. There was a truthfulness in her affable tone that Chauffeur sensed, and it eased him just enough to remove his hooves from his face and open his eyes. He could see the walls, luminous green sacs of some kind of substance he didn't recognize hanging from them and the ceiling like lanterns, and other changelings that happened to pass by. Even the ground far, far below he could vaguely make out.

"I'm actually flying..." he spoke breathlessly, still more full of fear than excitement as he started to guide himself. "I'm actually... flying?!"

"Feels better than walking, right?" Lacewing said.

"I-I don't know about that..." Looking to the hole-strewn walls, rock formations and winding passages surrounding the two, to Chauffeur's surprise and confusion they looked like they were... moving. As if rearranging themselves and morphing about. He thought it was merely some cheap illusion or hallucination brought forth from his thrill at this flying he was performing, but after a few seconds of soaring through the dark, winding place he knew what he was seeing was real. Some of the entrances of the walls and levels even closed, only to reopen in the same way just a few feet from their original position. "Why are the walls doing that?" he finally asked out of an annoyed desire to know what this queer phenomena was.

"It's a changeling hive," Lacewing casually stated as they rounded a corner and actually passed through one of the holes, to Chauffeur's rightfully-perturbed worry. "Thanks to having wyrdstone embedded in them, and no small part due to our magic, that's what they do. You might have a hard time navigating through them when walking or flying around, but I know my way around as well as any other drone in the hive."

"Weird..." Chauffeur mumbled as they exited through a last large hole and finally entered the bright blue sky outside. Looking about, the landscape surrounding the tall and twisted 'castle' could only be described as very similar to that of the walls of the hive, and was barren; save for the fact that it was littered with dark and jagged rocks. It was here when Lacewing started to drift down near the hive's guarded ground entrance, and he followed as best as he could.

While Lacewing landed quickly and gracefully, Chauffeur took his time touching down with a heavy caution in his stride. Walking off, where she took him next was a particular changeling who was currently yelling something to five other armored drones standing in front of him as unarmored workers busily went about in the background behind them.

The changeling who stood before them was perhaps the single bulkiest creature possessing any sort of equine shape that Chauffeur had ever seen. His short-snouted face, curled into a grouchy sneer, was an expression Chauffeur could only compare to a bulldog that was chewing on a wasp. As soon as he finished barking an order to the five drones, he noticed Lacewing and Chauffeur's presence and looked to them right off.

"Report your designation!" he roared when they were close enough.

Lacewing instantly saluted without so much as a hint of fear on her being. "Lacewing, reporting for duty, Captain Tarsus."

Captain Tarsus, as Chauffeur now knew, proceeded to focus his attention onto himself next. "Who's this grub?" he growled, stomping up to and butting his comparably thick head against Chauffeur's, effortlessly pushing it back when it met no resistance. "Looks a bit scrawny in the chitin to me. 'Didn't know you got yourself a new one, Lacewing. I hope he doesn't disappoint the hive as bad as that Tegmen fellow. What's your name, drone?"

Chauffeur could only let out a nervous squeak, and Lacewing, seeing his predicament, instantly answered for him. "He's... Chafer! I got him assigned as my new teammate," she said, trotting beside Chauffeur and wrapping a hoof over his armored shoulder as though he was an old friend.

Glaring at Chauffeur for a few seconds longer, Tarsus finally brought his head back and coughed into his hoof. "'Chafer', eh? Alright then. Listen up, cause I only have time to say this once, and it's important. Your two's duty's to go out like the last few patrols I sent out, find as much love as you can store in the surrounding area, and bring it back here. Everyone's famished after the invasion botched up, and we still have a great many workers and soldiers unaccounted for since the explosion, so we need as much as we can get. You got it?"

"Yes sir," saluted Lacewing, obediently.

"Oh, uh... yes sir," Chauffeur also agreed in turn. Tarsus snorted before turning away and fluttering his wings. After he took off into the air and headed into the direction of the castle, Lacewing also began to fly away, but in the opposite direction. Chauffeur, with a heavy sigh, buzzed his wings and hurriedly began to follow her.

As they flew off together, a peculiar question came to Chauffeur's mind. "I beg your pardon, but who was 'Tegmen'?"

Lacewing thought for a moment before answering. "He was my last partner. He wasn't the sharpest knife in a drawer to begin with, and I didn't know him for too long before..."

"Before what?"

She chuckled uneasily. "Um... Let's just say you should never pick arguments with Tatzlwurms."

Author's Notes:

G'day, you all! If you're still reading, make sure to hit that thumbs-up button if you like what you see!
Also, here's a note I need to add, but it has a barely-noticeable/important spoiler for the final episode of the season (I succumbed to my urges and watched it a little while after posting this story, so look over it if you dare.) I added the shifting/changing walls within the hive as a way to keep it closer to the canon. I made up that 'wyrdstone' stuff, though.