“So...who are you anyways?” I ask. We’d been driving across empty roads for a bit over an hour now with little else to do I’d caught myself stealing glances at the new ‘partner’ that I’d been assigned. She had been sitting around, staring at an intricate cylindrical-cone device with dozens of small switches and levers that she had been grasping like you’d expect a religious fanatic would.

“Let go of the wheel” she says casually while eyeing me curiously. I’m a bit skeptical myself, but I figure why not? It’s a relatively empty road after all, and you have to give trust to get it. Personally I was intrigued by this enigma I’d been saddled with, codename Nova, yet what little there was of her file was heavily redacted. Even so I very slowly start releasing the wheel bit by bit only occasionally glancing in her direction, but not letting go fully. I’m a little startled though, when a faint turquoise colored light envelops the wheel, turning it gently back and forth. It only covers a small piece of it no bigger than my hand. Sparing a glance I stare at her, her eyes closed in concentration, her device giving off a faint glow in the same color. After a few seconds, and with what appears to be no small amount of effort she snaps out of it, wiping a little sweat from her brow.

“You’re a fucking witch?” I spout without thinking, quickly taking back control of the wheel as her little aura dissipates. She just rolls her eyes and slides the device into a leather strap on her belt, pushing it in with an almost religious reverence as is clicks into place. “You’re telling me we’ve had magic all this time, kept away from the public and for what? How has that not gotten out yet?”

“I’m not a witch, I just happen to have a rare genetic mutation that triggered when I was attacked during the first invasion. My immune system was compromised and the magic I was exposed to just...merged a bit. Not enough to do anything on my own, certainly not as strong as those creatures were, but with proper artifacts I can, for lack of a better word, cast a few spells.”

“Wait are you say--”

“And no, before you say it, it’s not something that we could repeat. Whatever they were using, magic or whatever left some effects. Those that were exposed to it got sick, our bodies treated it like a foreign invader. Some of the elderly died of exposure. You either died or your body fought it off. I’m here because I’m one of the only humans alive that can sense magic. That’s why I’m here Mr. High and mighty special agent.”

Well, that’s more than enough to send my head spinning, though I still feel like she wasn’t telling me the full story. This very well could be a suicide mission. Last I’d heard we don’t have a good defense for this kind of biological weapon. We’d have to handle the targets with extreme caution, though at least they’d stated we would have military backup if all hell broke loose, yet I had a bad feeling their involvement might involve one type of plane given the nature of the biohazard. We were here to learn what they were doing, where they were hiding, what they were capable of, and to run information suppression so that the discovery doesn’t get out before we as a nation were ready to handle it.

“You know this mission is sending me all the wrong vibes. The amount of authority we have here. Military strikes, data blackout, full access to all posts and internet history.” Nova pokes in.

“You joined the wrong job if that disturbs you. We’re not here to play petty politics, we’re here to gather intel on a very real, very dangerous enemy as you’ve mentioned. We don’t have the luxury of considering what might offend some people. You don’t want it to be abused? Then don’t abuse it. Having these options isn’t a bad thing.” If she thought that was disturbing she definitely wouldn’t have liked what else I’d had in my briefing about keeping her under control. I brush a hand against my sidearm, gritting my teeth a little. Whatever it takes to defend our nation, life stopped being black and white years ago.

I sit above the Crystal Empire’s castle, watching the changelings scramble about in response to the princess’s distraction, their Queen joining her troops soon after. I’d been appointed her royal advisor when it came to conflict and defense, though I couldn’t imagine any other pony that could come close to being as fit for this job as I. A country so long at peace forgets what war can really look like. I look back over my old armor, sculpted with the dark irons of the Storm King’s legion, his logo replaced years ago by Twilights more...diplomatic...symbol.

Needless to say, that is the only diplomatic thing that we’ll be having tonight. I grin at the prospect. The princess had always been so slow to conflict, the exhausting limitations of her pacifism had me rolling my eyes more than once. Yet it was a strength I’d come to admire. A great many years of peace by her side had allowed me to see the world a little differently, not to mention the gift of a prosthetic horn, making me feel as whole physically as she had helped me become mentally. To wipe the blood from my hooves and take up a life of service and defense. Tonight...it was like going back home to my old life, with a squad of soldiers I had trained personally, ready to fight a war the princess could not talk her way out of.

I couldn’t deny I was excited to once again put my skills to use.

“Forces have cleared, I want dive formation. We have one purpose. Get to that portal and I will lead our strike team to the other side. Squads 2 through 7 you will guard the portal while reinforcements arrive. If we are overrun you are to sabotage the portal, move it if you can, destroy it if you can’t. Some of us won’t live through this night. Some of us will never be the same. Yet Equestria will live on, better than it is now, with a future born of your sacrifices!”

They nod and clasp their weapons to the sides, their loyalty to Equestria hiding their terror for the briefest of moments.

“Begin the assault.”

We charge through the streets in tight clusters, our destination keenly in our minds. More than once a civilian will spot my armor and runs away screaming. Not all had forgotten my transgression so many years ago, but forgiveness was earned. I could only hope tonight will make a few more aware of my repentance.

The first of the guards goes down with a kick, before the other three quickly follow as their comrade is thrown against them into the wall, the impact of the hit injuring many of them. The others in my squad are slow to follow, their magic sputtering out as they enter into the radius of the Queen’s throne. Their over-reliance on their magic is something I had attempted to drill out of them, clearly I wasn’t as successful as I had hoped.

As we charge through the next door, entering in towards the main hall, a beam of green light bounces off of my dark-iron armor, burning a hole into the ground. The changeling that had fired it looks at me in surprise, then terror as the rest of the crew comes in. I just smile in return as they start to back up.

“Oh? Giving up already?” I dive forward, knocking their hooves out from under them then launch them upwards with myself before smashing them with a sickening crunch against the floor with their comrades. I look back seeing the rest of the changelings frozen. “Here’s the deal bugs, I want the portal, give it up nicely please.~”

Needless to say they didn’t. These creatures are much weaker than the ponies and hippogriffs I had fought before. Their magic struggles to find a weak point in my armor, typically deflecting right back into their allies. Their carapaces crack like eggshells under the clubs of the strike team as we make our way towards the basement, no small amount of our allied changelings struggling in the fight against their brethren, in more ways than just physical. The thrum of the portal guides us through the halls, and the yells of the other squads making their way through the castle assure us that the attack is going well.

The door is locked, but that hardly holds us for long as we buck through the wall. The room is dark and reeks of changeling byproducts. What’s most disturbing are the walls, lined with cocoons of ponies put into stasis to be fed on. Even the Storm King hadn’t resorted to such vile methods. Though stealing their magic wasn’t all that nice either.

“Oh Goodie...and here I was getting bored.”

What? No...it couldn’t be! We had seen her leave! As one our group looks upward, on the ceiling, we see the Queen herself lurking among the cocoons hanging from above. She drops into a dive, landing with enough force to make the floor tremble. Engorged on love after years of feeding freely, she and her army had grown in might to become more than the late Celestia’s equal.

“Y-you left! We saw you go!” One of my followers trembles with fear, already starting to retreat. A coward at heart it seems, but their weakness doesn’t stop the rest of our forces from continuing to pile into the room.

“Or perhaps you fall for simple deception while expecting your own to work.” The Queen chuckles. “You think your little incursion could stop me? That you could end our conflict with a singular battle fought by hoof?” She stares at me curiously, stalking around the portal. “I’m just glad you took all this time to gather all the loyalists for me. So much faster to kill the rest of your insurgents here instead of hunting you all through that accursed forest.”

“I’ve taken down four princesses and a king. What’s one more Queen on that list?” I launch myself forward, raising a hoof to block her laser blast, my other legs crouching and digging in as she pushes me back, the armor straining under the might of the queen, its resistive properties making it heat up until I can smell the burning of my own fur and skin underneath.

“Grraaaaaugh!” I groan with the pain and force of her blast as I take it whole. When she stops to stare at her handiwork its in awe as she sees me still standing, only slightly winded from her spell, the rest of my squad cowardly huddling away from her might, leaving me to face her alone as I slowly limp closer.

“How could you…?” She starts off before I pounce forward, knocking her head to the side with a savage kick, grinning with satisfaction as I see a tooth of hers hit the far wall. She staggers back in a daze from the hit, spitting a few globules of slime in my direction, albeit with an incredibly sloppy aim that seems a bit odd for her.

“You have a lot to learn about Equestria, imposter.” I growl. Her horn glows to ready another blast, but it is silenced as I grapple with her, knocking her blocking foreleg out of the way and landing a firm hit to the base of her horn that makes her energy sputter out like a candle. She goes forward for a jab, but I move to the side only to slam my entire body down on her extended leg and feeling it snap as she screams in agony.

Her horn glows again as she moves back, keeping out of my reach by retreating instead of fighting me directly. I hear a bang and yelp, feeling hot blood drip down across my cheek, my jaw snapping on one side. I can barely raise my hoof to block the rest of the strange spell, feeling the sting of its projectiles like hornets against my skin. When I hear and feel the onslaught stop I gaze forward. Dangling in her magic is a long black weapon, akin to a crossbow and making a clicking noise, evidently out of its demented arrows.

“You haven’t won! I’ve got your young, and your future! There is no outcome where you come out on top!” She crawls towards the portal on her remaining functional legs, her magic sloppily fumbling with a pile of more of what I could assume were more arrows to her strange crossbow. I slap it aside as she tries to levitate it towards herself.

As we close in she leaps through the portal. I try to yell something to get her to stop, but my broken jaw makes it come out as a bloody garble. My head starts to feel dizzy, blood loss starting to kick in as the adrenaline wears out. I stagger back towards the battalion, nearly a hundred of my soldiers patrolling the building to keep it clear. One of them steps forward holding a potion which I gratefully take, trying to swallow as much of it as I can with a bit drooling down my shattered side.

They stare at me in horror, only those from medical positions ever having seen gore up close before. And with my jaw hanging halfway off my face along with the smell of seared flesh in the air from my leg, they have good reason to. As the potion starts to mend my injury I give them my creepiest smile despite the pain. “Thith ish war.” I slur as I feel it pop back into place, though it is still a long ways away from fully healed. Time however, wasn’t a luxury we could afford right now. “It isn’t pretty, and it isn’t nice.” I look around trying to spot my strike team. “Form up, we’re going in.” I command.

“Tell me again about the attack”

The soldier had been under scrutiny for the past few days since the target’s assassination, having been subjected to a toxin made of alien compounds, and his companion had been encased in the creatures slime. This attack though, stood out simply by the fact that the assassin had had every opportunity to kill the two operatives, but didn’t, instead only killing the changeling mark with a stolen rifle, which they hadn’t even kept while leaving the two soldiers relatively unharmed.

Obviously, given the most recent attack it was assumed they’d been planted as sleeper agents that couldn’t be trusted, no matter how many blood tests they went through. For reasons of national security, they were unofficial prisoners under watch.

“The creature was smaller than the ones you showed us. It lacked the thicker carapace seen in others of their species that’d been displayed. You know, if we’d been made aware that we’d be fighting fucking aliens it might’ve made our job a little easier. I was scouting the edges for human targets as I’d been trained.”

His companion nods in affirmation. “I think I managed to wound its leg, if that means anything for diplomatic relations. Though what the hell else should I have done? The damn thing near choked me to death and the fact it was just over my knees is a real slap in the face to my training!” He unfortunately had a family that he had to be separated from while maintaining the secrecy of the whole affair, making him a bit upset with the whole situation.

“Your country thanks you for your service, and we may have a few options available to you...off the record if you are interested…” This new member in the Pentagon had been recruited shortly after the first invasion, and the pin and designation on his shoulder wasn’t familiar to either of the soldiers.

“Practically anything would be better than being here.” One of them states, while the other nods, both curious at what could be going on.

“I, as you might’ve guessed, represent a specific organization. The Bohemian Club as casual media knows of it.” He smiles, pulling a device out from his belt, an odd looking gauntlet that he slips onto his hand. The soldiers both look intrigued, even more so when he pulls a small silver knife out of his belt, holding it out towards the both of them, hilt first.

“You know those aren’t allowed in here.”

“Take it.” He states plainly. He opens his palm, but instead of falling to the floor it hangs suspended in a red aura, before floating weightlessly over to them. As they watch in fascination at the act, both wave their hands above and below in a futile search for wires. One of them gently pushes it away.

“I’m here to offer you a rare opportunity, our world is on the brink of changing in ways you can’t imagine. Levitation, healing, death. What if I told you that the magic you witnessed has been around since before the first invasion? That you could help your fellow soldiers, and keep its perks long after the conflict ends? A perfectly safe pinprick on a sterile knife and I could transmit this ability.”

One of the soldiers hesitantly grasps the knife out of the air. “And what do you want out of it? I doubt you’re doing this out of the goodness of your heart after all. If magic has existed all this time, why have you kept it all for yourselves?”

“Because until now we didn’t have a good source to take it from. We can’t generate magic on our own, and precious few have possessed the rare ability to both handle magic and cast it. You track down one of these beasts, alive, and we’ll extract its magic. For all of us to share, including you.”

The soldiers eye the cultist warily before one of them speaks. “I can’t get into something like this, I got a family to worry about.” The other sits patiently waiting for the cultist’s response.

“It’s an offer, and we’ve gotten you cleared. You’re free to head home to your family. I have no need to mention that if you feel off in any way we’d like you to come back immediately.” the soldier nods then takes his leave, eager to return to his wife and kid.

“I take it this is official and cleared by our commanding officer? Last I heard they couldn’t decide whether to attempt a diplomatic or offensive stance.”

“They have a team out right now, for surveillance of the targets. However we have resources that are a bit more accurate on how to pinpoint the creatures. Only military personnel are authorized to interact with the scene, obtaining one of the targets is controversial, but I assure you that it’s authorized. We had hoped to have the both of you, but with a strong enough tranquilizer it shouldn’t be an issue. You can pick your own squad from the soldiers we’ve vetted for the operation. As you’re the only one with experience you’ll be leading this operation.”

The prospect of hosting his own mission, making history by interacting with an alien species, and the potential of gaining abilities few other humans had ever possessed was too good an offer to refuse.

“I’m in.”

“Hold it together,” Tarsus instructs. As soon as I got used to the basics of just trotting around he had made me start practice shapeshifting. A steep learning curve if ever I’d seen one. The process itself came incredibly easy though, despite my earlier protests. It wasn’t long before I figured out the reason for his urgency.

I was starving.

Not the ‘Oh I missed breakfast’ kind of starving either. The ‘Oh my god the slime I’d just emerged from would be amazing right now.’ You know...if I could eat it. Our bodies weren’t made to digest most physical food for our own sake, but that of our prey. That hadn’t stopped me from eating an absurd amount of cheap soup though, which I’m sad to say did nothing to stop my mind numbing hunger. Especially as I’d vomited it all up within the hour in a half digested changeling goop.

“You want to eat, you have to shift.” He reminded me once again, clearly unhappy at the prospect of having to deal with my deteriorating mental state. “I couldn’t hope to feed a queen’s appetite with what I can harvest from these humans.” He spits with distaste, before going back to watching his absurd television show.

Changing back into my old self was fairly easy, if a bit disorienting. The body I’d worn for all of my life that I could remember no longer felt familiar, my small, vaguely equine body straining to match the size of my human one. He’d assured me that with practice my body would become more flexible, for now though I could only hold it for around a minute at most before my form snapped back like a rubber band.

“In your world, you tell me the ponies are at least similar to size and shape. You have to have something I can eat. Please, I’ve never been this hungry in my life.” I’m desperate, begging with him at this point. “What about that honey? You said it can help with the hunger pains.”

“Me? Give you honey? Unless you are wanting to get incredibly drunk on it and as addicted to it as I am you don’t want it. It’s the devil’s bargain kid. I couldn’t live with myself if I got you in on it too. There isn’t anything else we can do. You’ll have to wait and go back to school tomorrow. That’s where the ponies are, there are two of them. A unicorn and a pegasus, the unicorn goes by Artemis as a human. I don’t know the other one well enough, but they’re probably together.”

“I need some NOW!” I beg, my voice taking on a reverb, my body seeming to take on a mind of its own as I stare at him, my eyes dilating as the world turns to shades of gray. That is...except for a warm pink glow in the creature in front of me. Without even knowing what I’m doing, I find myself pulling at it, tearing it from the fleshy prison in which it is stored.

Then my vision snaps back to normal, my mind becomes my own as I realize what I’d been doing. I instantly cease the tugging, watching it pull itself back into them like a wounded animal. I stagger back, terrified at what I’d just done.

“I...I didn’t know…”

“Get out.”

“I-I’m so sorry!”

“I said, GET OUT!” He screams, baring his teeth and spreading his wings, my new senses feeling the combination of rage, fear, and hate blending together like tin foil and acid. I retch at the taste, trying in vain to spit it out to no avail. I shirk towards the door, hoping for a diplomatic option, a chance to make things right.

“Wha--what happened to me?”

“If we don’t sate our hunger, our hungers become us.” He all but whispers, moving slowly further away. “Sate your hunger elsewhere. Get out of here before you kill me.”

This time I don’t stop.

I grumble for the I-can’t-even-count-that-high-eth time. I’d been feeling really better! Honest! I stare at my empty pudding, having already licked it clean a long time ago. I press the button on the wall again, grumbling at just how bored I was. Within a few minutes one of those nice ladies comes in, but she hadn’t been as nice the past few times I’d pushed the button.

“What is it Tina?” She asks me tiredly, checking all those beeping machines and hurting my eyes with their light. “Bored again?” I nod, pulling at the uncomfortable blanket. “The doctor will be here any minute, okay? We just need to take a scan to make sure you’re getting better, okay?”

“But Miss Arnessy you said that last time!” I whine, and she smiles, putting on a mask and gloves before moving to sit on the edge of my bed. “I really feel better! Really!” She looks at me a bit curiously, taking on that tone the grownups always use when they’re trying to hide something.

“Your treatment must be really working then.”

“Tina?”

Doctor Adams peeks in the door. She was always poking me with the needles and putting me in the loud machine, though she always brought some candy that she let me have if I behaved. She disconnects the machines and all the wires with miss Ar-nes-toes help, I move to stand but she pushes me back. “I know you say you’re feeling better, but we need to be careful, Okay?”

I grumble in protest, but they only give me that annoying smile at my pout. I sit back with a huff as they push my bed down the hall, into the room with the big noisy machine. I don’t protest as they lift me onto its plastic bed, its cold touch rather uncomfortable.

“Now remember not t--”

“Not move, I know.” I whine. “I’m not a little kid! I’m a big girl!” I really wish they’d treat me like a grownup. They get to have all the fun and drink all the medicine they want. Mommy was really funny after that. I wonder if I could have some of Dad’s happy juice then too.

“Tina...hold still please.”

“I’m trying!” I insist, laying back and trying not to move. It was hard though! I’d done nothing but hold still all day long and the machine was really loud and I wanted to run around and play. I wanted to go to school! I have to be a big girl though, so I really try to hold still.

“...You seeing this Mary?” The doctors are talking again. I listen eagerly, happy to have a chance to listen into a grownup chat. They must be pressing the button still. “This is the MRI results from last week,”

“Uh huh.”

“And here it is today.”

“Bullshit.”

“Mrs Arnessy? Mommy says that's a bad word!”

“Fuck I left the--” the microphone cuts out rather abruptly as I tilt my head. Now that was a new one. I’ll have to ask mom when I see her again what that word means. I hear the machine start to go quiet as it powers down and they let me out of the big noisy machine.

“You’ve been a big girl Tina. You want a sucker?” Doctor Adams pulls a red one out of her coat pocket and passes it to me. I take it and just get up and start walking back to my room, both doctors just watching me.

“Uh Tina? Y--” But the doctor quickly shushes her.

“What Mrs. Ar-nes-toe?”

“Nothing, you still feeling okay?”

“Mhmm! What were you both talking about with the M.I. thing?”

“You’re getting better.” This time Doctor Adams speaks. “We’re going to have to run a few more tests and speak with your parents but you’ve been really good.”

I like the sound of that, so I take her hand and walk with her back to my room.

SPLAT!

“Ah damnit! That was a big one!” Charles groans at the sight of the giant splatter on his windshield. Only to have a few more of the bugs splatter against his windshield moments after, forcing him to pull over from lack of visibility. He turns on the sprayers and windshield wipers to max as it gets to work scrubbing it odd.

Looking out his window though he gets a good look at the things he had just ran into. Dozens of colorful, little, round bugs are buzzing around in the air. Then they seem to spot him, charging in through his window before he could close it. He’s only momentarily relieved when it passes past him, but then he sees it opens its mouth wider than it should be able to by all known laws of biology before swallowing the entirety of his burger, wrapper and all. Dozens of the other little pests quickly eating everything even remotely edible. Then they vomit up a furry ball that almost instantly becomes another one.

Fearing for his life he opens the door and runs for his life, screaming, while dialing 9-1-1.

Author's Notes:

A special thanks to Alsey, publisher of Five Score: A Prench Tale, for editing and feedback!
Go check them and their story out!