It’s been three weeks since we had to leave our hive. I asked boss few times about the bad things we supposedly did, and he’s always shared a little bit, but he always says he doesn’t know enough to make a clear picture. As far as I know, the super baddie boss calls Flow blackmailed our hive to help him mess up some powerful spell used by princess Celery-sun… no, that’s not right. Celestia, that’s it! See, booksy? I can remember smart stuff if I give it some time. Anyway, Seven did that and the spell blew up a lot of zebras. Boss said some really big numbers that I couldn’t count up to on my hooves, and I tried for hours before he told me to stop.

The second thing we did was open a gigantic void rift. He said it was even bigger than the one we closed with the help of princess Cadance using the Crystal Heart ages ago, much bigger. I don’t know what happened next, because miss One threw me so hard I landed near Rift and all the minotaurs who live there. I mean, miss One’s really strong when she needs to be. I almost dropped you too, booksy. But don’t worry, I caught you, and now you fit perfectly into the cupholder in my foreleg. I mean, there’s no other reason why we changelings used to have holes in our legs other than the lack of love under bad mom, right?

Anyway, after all that, the pony princesses are supposedly really mad at us and we can’t show our faces on the surface anymore. I asked boss if we could fix it by saying we’re sorry from the bottom of our hearts, but he said it wouldn’t be enough.

Don’t worry, booksy. I might not be smart like the boss, but I’ll think of something.

Three stops scribbling into his journal, and puts it away into a hole in his foreleg which tightens around it. A similar hole in the other one serves to store Three’s crayons and a pencil. The drone does have a small saddlebag on his back, but that’s too inconvenient to quickly reach in case he gets an idea that needs to be written down or drawn. His movement doesn’t remain unnoticed by the much bigger changeling on whose back he’s lounging. The changeling king only known as the boss glances Three’s way, making the drone beam back at him and sit upright.

However, what stopped Three’s journal entry wasn’t him running out of things to ponder, but rather a living bolt of lightning surging in front of the boss and revealing Two, a changeling infiltrator mare whose short, bright red mane and tail sharply contrast with everything else in the dimly lit underground tunnel. And there is a lot of everything else. Boss, Three, and a muscular changeling mare with wine-red mane styled into an undercut who is bigger than the boss himself are slowly leading a seemingly unending procession of dwarf ponies, basically earthponies who are about Three’s size in general and whose national garb is a full plate armor, through the underground tunnels. There are thousands of them, and Three knows that there are many more groups being led by ancient tunnels parallel to this one, the entire dwarf migration of hundreds of thousands being coordinated by high-tech mobile communication stations operated by engineers designated to each split group.

Two quickly falls into the walking pace set by the boss who asks:

“How are things on the surface?”

“If I say ‘worse than we could have ever imagined’, will it be enough?” Two frowns.

“I can imagine some pretty nasty stuff.”

“Worse,” Two shakes her head, “The sky is gone.”

“Honey, how about you stop with the pauses for dramatic effect and just report properly?” boss ruffles Two’s short mane which makes the infiltrator grumble to herself.

“Fine, dad,” she rolls her eyes, “Well, as I said, the sky is gone. Sun isn’t there, moon isn’t there, stars are gone too. Everything is pitch black. I know you were hoping that things would get better with time, but my working theory is that the void rift we opened swallowed the entire universe with the exception of Equus. Why that’s the case, your guess is as good as mine.”

Boss sighs.

“And how are the ponies dealing with it? Any news from Rift or our hive?”

“Rift is on lockdown. Twilight sent some unicorn diplomats to arrange a permanent oversight unit inside Rift, which warlord Sinew and the minotaurs laughed off, and by laughed off I mean they threatened to send the unicorns back to Canterlot in a box, a small one on top.”

“Twilight won’t let this go without an answer,” boss shakes his head.

“Twilight has enough problems of her own since, you know, the sun is gone, the world temperature is dropping, there won’t be any harvest without sunlight, and I heard some theories about running out of oxygen in the near future. All in all, I know we avoided blowing up the universe, but it looks like the kind of situation where the quick end might be preferrable.”

“Am I correct in assuming that ponies are panicking?”

“Strangely enough, no,” Two shakes her head, “At least not in Vanhoover or the Crystal Empire. Crystal Heart shield is helping against the dropping temperature, and there are Hex Guards keeping peace in Vanhoover. I suppose the situation will be similar everywhere. Other than Zebrica, I mean.”

Here comes the part of the report which everyone was dreading, but also the one which Three wants to know the most.

“What went wrong there?” the boss quickly corrects himself, “I mean even more wrong.”

“I caught a radio broadcast, and they said it’s a mess down there. The refugees who previously escaped into Equestria returned, only to find quarter of the continent turned to molten glass thanks to Seven. There are few pockets of sanity in the states of the Northern Coalition, but anything south of the coast is a no pony’s land. Fighting, looting… the permanent darkness has made the place unfit for life, especially when most of zebra technology runs on solar power. They don’t have water pumps running, no sewage systems, no food.”

“That’s horrible...” Three breathes out, poking the back of boss’ head, “Can we help at least there? I mean, even if ponies hate us now, zebras can’t know we’re responsible. Dwarves have technology to grow food in darkness, and power generators that… that...” Three realizes he knows next to nothing about the inner workings of dwarven energy infrastructure, “that make things move and go sparkly even without the sun. And, you know, since it’s our fault, we should make amends,” he pleads.

Two looks at Three, and then looks away, unable to face a sorrowful stare that would make a puppy begging for snack give up and look for a different job opportunity as a maximum security prison warden.

“We’re heading south,” boss says, his voice slow and heavy, “The first old Silversmith outpost we know about should be on the way. If the fragmented information from the ancient archives is right, there are tunnels even under the ocean which lead to Zebrica, so we might get into a position where we can help eventually. At the moment, we should keep focusing on not losing any dwarves or technology.”

“Aaand?” the warrior mare silent up until this point speaks up.

“I know, One,” boss sighs, “I still have to figure out which of our changelings will lead the split to the west while we head south.”

“My vote is for Seven,” One looks boss straight in the eyes, ”He hasn’t been taking his role in the apocalypse well. Getting away from everything while being responsible for protecting others for a change might do him good.”

“It’s not that simple, One. Seven isn’t a leader, and I don’t think I can send anyone with him. I need proper infiltrators for that, and I have a different mission for Two. I wanted to send Gem since she loves exploring, but she hasn’t contacted me since we left the hive.”

“A new mission for me?” Two definitely can’t let a mention like that pass without a comment.

“All in due time, Two,” boss smirks at her, but his expression quickly turns grim again, “So I take it there’s no good news at all?”

“We’re not dead yet, so I guess that counts for something,” Two shrugs.

“Then I hate to have to ask this of you again, but I need more information. Can you go back to the surface and observe how ponies continue to deal with the situation?”

“Dad, if I had to stay here with you, I’d die of boredom. Aside from the occasional flame spider, these tunnels are empty. That’s great for the dwarves, I mean, but for me it’s just walking, and light cardio like that bores me. Do you want me to look for Gem while I’m at it?”

“No,” boss shakes his head, “You wouldn’t be able to find her anyway if she didn’t want to be found. Just keep an eye on the situation.”

“Will do!” Two salutes and disappears in a flash of lightning again.

At that point, boss notices that Three has been tapping his hoof against his back for a while now.

“Three?” he asks, looking backwards at the drone.

“I want to help,” says Three simply.

“I wouldn’t expect any less of you,” boss smiles at Three.

“No, boss, I mean it. I will help, and the first step is to give ponies the means to get food and air,” Three scrunches his nose in a show of determination.

“You know what Hard Reset thinks about us sharing dwarf tech with the surface.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Three hops off of the boss’ back, “I’ve learned a lot about diplomacy from watching you.”

One clears her throat.

“Umm,” Three scratches his head in response, “I’d rather not use your type of diplomacy, miss One. I don’t think I can bend someone’s legs backward, shove them back in through their anus so far they could use their own hollowed out bones as drinking straws. Maybe if you drew me some pictures… with those pointy arrow diagrams...”

“Don’t use One’s type of diplomacy on friends, Three,” boss smacks snickering One over the back of her head, “Just be yourself.”

“Okay,” Three nods with enthusiasm and buzzes off as quickly as his small wings can carry him to find the head of the dwarven ruling council.