The slow walking never stops, although this time there are three more changelings walking side by side with boss, One, and Three. One of them is is a visibly nervous infiltrator distinguishable from standard infiltrators only by him wearing a pendant and several bracelets around his fetlocks.

“Are you sure, boss?” he asks, faint tremor in his voice betraying his battle against nervousness.

“Seven, I thought about it long and hard, and I know you’re not the right changeling for it,” he says, which makes the infiltrator breathe out in relief, “At least not on your own, which is why Five and Six are here too,” he nods to a female changeling warrior with a short, white mohawk and deer-like cropped tail, and to a standard template changeling drone walking next to her.

“Wait, what?” Six rushes ahead to look up at the boss, “You mean-”

“That you three will be leading the migration to the west. Hard Reset and the rest of the council have already figured out the least painful split for the dwarves, and he’s sending away the more adventurous types. I, of course, couldn’t force Five and Six to be away from each other and, despite everything, you three have the most experience in working together while still covering all three major changeling breeds. One-Three, One-One, One-Eighteen, and One-Fourteen will be coming with you. That way you have two more drones, an infiltrator, and a warrior with you in case you need lingpower. Take anything you feel comfortable using as well as as many love-filled crystals as you need. Holes know we have enough. Standard survival and building devices will be provided by the dwarves. There will be roughly a hundred thousand of you, so if you manage to find any outpost of their Silversmith ancestors, you should be able to turn it into a full city with ease.”

“That’s...” Five shakes her head, “That’s big...” she looks into the dark distance of the endless tunnel, “I’ve never been away from the hive for long. I mean, neither of us have. Boss, I serve the hive, I don’t lead anyone.”

“You three are leading, not just you. On top of that, I’m giving the final say in all undecided problems to Six. He’s proven more than any of you that he can keep a cool head under pressure,” boss smiles as Seven and Five actually wipe their foreheads in relief. Changelings can’t exactly sweat, but the gesture is unversal to all nervous species, it seems, “Now go pack up and say your goodbyes. I’ll tell the others via the hive mind, but I wanted to tell you three face to face.”

“Someone should hold Six up then,” Five snickers, and when Six softly kicks her fetlock, she only lowers her head and nuzzles his cheek.

“And meet us back her in an hour. I want us to say proper goodbyes to each other.”

“Orders received!” Five salutes with a smile, but the heavy look in her eyes shows that despite being a warrior under orders, she’s facing a task she wasn’t ready for.

“I… boss, I’m the wrong choic-” Seven’s objection is stopped by One raising her foreleg faster than anyone can react and closing his mouth.

“You have your orders, lazy ass. You can’t lounge around all day and study those old dwarven books and those electronic memory storage things,” she says.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Seven,” boss pats his shoulder, “If I thought that keeping you here would help your conscience, I would happily have you around, but I don’t think you can understand how much I can feel from how all of you are. I know that the massacre in Zebrica is something you’ll never come to terms with, but I think you’ll have the best shot if you have something to protect with the immense magical power you have.”

“Boss, I’m not powerful! I know possibly more than anyone else, but I’m not- mmph!” Seven objects again, and this time he bites down on One’s hoof in his mouth.

“Knowledge is what?” she asks sharply, “Knowledge is power,” she pulls her hoof out and smacks Seven’s forehead, “No go pack.”

“Yes, One...” Seven lowers his head in defeat, and teleports away with a pop.

“Six?” asks boss, looking at the drone clearly waiting for his turn to speak.

“Are you sure you can handle things without me?” he asks, making One’s eyebrow raise up, “I mean, I’m the only one with more than just user knowledge of dwarven technology, and they’re all about that. Even Three’s method of hug a hammer to fix it only works in about one in ten cases.”

“I’m getting better,” Three pouts at Six down from boss’ back, to which the other drone only responds with a smile, “but my legs are too short to wrap around the big thingies.”

“Aaand that’s what the second least technologically challenged changeling of your hive just said, boss,” Six shakes his head.

“I know,” boss pats Six’s back, “but Seven needs friends, not just underlings, and as I said, I’m not splitting up you and Five, that would be cruel. We’ll have to figure something out, but we can still use your knowledge stored in the hive mind. Now run off to pack. I know you have a lot of stuff you want to take with you, and it’s going to take some time.”

“I won’t fail you, boss.”

“Don’t fail Seven,” boss nods at him, “He needs the right kind of help more than I do.”

With a quick nod, Six rushes off.

“Should I go pack too?” asks Three.

“Yes,” boss shakes Three off of himself, “Hard Reset has the blueprints ready for you, so pick those up while you’re at it.”

Three flies over to boss’ ear, and whispers:

“Should I help Thirteen pack?”

“I’ll do it,” he shakes his head and whispers back, “She could use few words after a bit of One’s parenting.”

Three peeks at One who is looking away. She must have heard it even with the noise of the dwarves echoing through the tunnels, though. Warrior senses are top notch.

To boss’ surprise, Three buzzes over to One who tilts her head as Three boops her.

“Don’t worry, miss One. Thirteen will be okay.”

“If you run into anything dangerous, throw her at it and escape while it’s chewing. That’s an order,” says One.

Boss just sighs, fully aware that Three would never even think about that, and Three buzzes away above the heads of the dwarves.

The voices of the travelling underground city are still echoing through the tunnels, but all the dwarves have gone ahead, leaving only a crowd of changelings standing on the fork in the road trying to hold their tears in.

Seven bows before boss and One.

“It’s been quite the ride,” he says.

“It’s not over, Seven,” boss shakes his hoof and then hugs him, “You’re all acting like this is the last time we’re seeing each other,” he pulls away, “You have the maps leading to the old Silversmith outposts. Who knows? Your guys might find the first one you reach suitable, and dwarves might be settling down even before we’ve reached the coast.”

“Can we return back once we deem the dwarf situation safe?” asks Five.

“Of course, although I’d like some of our changelings to settle there as well as a reminder of our good relationship. The last thing we want is for dwarves to completely isolate themselves again like it was in Brauheim under the dark priests. I’ll be happy to see you again, and I’m sure everyone will want to share stories about what happened,” boss looks around at everyone, “But this isn’t the only thing I wanted to say here. I wouldn’t have brought all of you here if that was the case. Everyone leaving west, I want you to say goodbye to Two, Cryo, Eleven, One-Two, One-Four, One-Ten, One-Thirteen.”

Two looks up at her dad, head titled. A towering changeling mare more than a head taller than One and over twice as broad with a light blue secondary plating around her barrel blinks in shock as well, and everyone else mentioned exchange glances, but no one says anything.

Boss continues, answering their concerns.

“As I hinted before, I have a special mission for you. Despite everything we unwillingly did to Equestria and the world, I still want to maintain a presence here. While we were being blackmailed by Flow and his proxy Desert Shade, I had access to her recently updated maps for a while, and I noticed she had discovered several Silversmith caches around the southeast coast of Equestria. Of course, she could only access the occasional vault, but she didn’t understand the dwarf marks in the photos she took. I, obviously, wasn’t stupid enough to tell her everything, but after consulting my findings with the dwarf loremasters, I think there might be a lost Silversmith city under southeastern Equestria, so you will be splitting off in two weeks with another group of dwarves. Hard Reset is already halfway through planning out the dwarfpower and tech needed to explore the place. There will be fewer of you, only about fifty thousand, and you’ll get the quick transports. We don’t need those in the long run, but if you don’t find anything, I want you to rejoin us. We will mark our route.”

Two, with her jaw still dropped open, is just breathing heavily.

“The reason for me not settling in Equestria is...” boss looks at the floor and kicks some dirt left by the dwarf migration around, “...is that I want to go to Zebrica. Seven’s mission on my orders turned that place into a lawless Mad Mares hellscape. Dwarves have their clue from the old archives to follow, but I want us to help wherever we can. Other than One, I am sending my best of the best away to make sure you stay as safe as you can be because, as far as I know, corruption has started spreading in Zebrica as well in addition to everything else, and zebras have no experience with it. And speaking of sending my best away,” boss’ dark blue eyes tear up and he wipes them, his voice cracking, “I want you to say goodbye to Three and Thirteen...” he breathes out quietly, “...fuck… I never thought I’d have to say that...”

Aside from One, Three, and Thirteen, everyone is now staring at him with mouths open.

“Three and Thirteen are going to help the ponies here in Equestria in their darkest hour, the hour I caused and don’t know of a way to fix it. I had to use my ruling authority to make the dwarves share blueprints for technology that might help ponies survive under the black sky. I know most of you haven’t heard any rumors, and there was nothing about it in the hive mind because I didn’t want to bother you, but the situation up there is dire. The problem is that ponies know it’s our fault, and will either kill or imprison any of us on sight.”

“How will they distinguish us from Chrysalis’ lot?” asks a drone in the back.

“They won’t have to. We don’t have the time to leak the technology and wait for someone to build it and help. We’re going straight up to Cadance. She’s the closest ruler, but she also knows us the best, and will understand to whom the guys coming with technology unknown to the rest of the world belong. That’s why I picked Three and Thirteen as the two most able to find a line of possibly not hostile communication that would be closed to anyone else, especially if they’re coming with tech that just might help save everyone.”

There’s complete silence for few moments, and then all changelings rush over to Three and start hugging him of shaking his hoof. Thirteen shuffles behind boss with two saddlebags of love crystals filled to bursting, some gold and gems, camping gear, and anything the two might need for a comfortable trip to the Crystal Empire whether by the underground tunnels or on the surface.

Boss turns around, sits down on his haunches, and hugs Thirteen.

“Hey, dad?” she mumbles into his chitin, and pulls out the mangled figurine, making One wince in the process and brace for another shouting match with boss she can’t win, “This was supposed to be mom, but I’m too dumb to make hers properly, so I changed the colors and painted a smiley face on the front.”

Boss grabs it, and chuckles.

“I don’t have that bendy legs, or do I?”

It doesn’t even cross Thirteen’s mind to say that’s because One stepped on it earlier. Instead, she says.

“My tongs slipped, and I didn’t have time to fix it, because I had to pack for the trip. Sorry, dad.”

Boss pats her head, spreads the figurine’s hind legs and bends its forelegs into a circle which he uses to fasten it atop Thirteen’s head by her horn.

“I don’t need it, I have a mirror, honey, but considering how good likeness of me it is, and because it’s possible we might not see each other again for some time, you’ll always have me watching over you like this,” with an encouraging smile, he stands up to his full height, and rubs Thirteen under her chin, “You can find and read dwarf laser marks, and we have been making those all the way. Seven’s group will hve done so too, and same goes for Two. If I’m wrong, and ponies are much more forgiving than I could ever hope, you’ll always have a way to track us, a home to return to, and a dad to comfort you.”

Thirteen lowers her head.

“Dad, how can you be so sure I’m useful? I’ve failed at everything I touched since I hatched. Mom knows it, everyone knows it.”

“Honey, I was a drone who could only dig holes until the point where I wasn’t anymore,” he pats her head, “You’re comparing yourself to giants who have made their name a legend thousand times over, that’s why it’s so hard to see your own worth. And look at where we are now,” he shook his head, “All those ‘great and powerful’ changelings have almost caused the end of all things when we were unable to face an enemy with even greater power. You are someone who knows how to act with limits, which might make you more useful than everyone else.”

“Yeah,” Three adds his two bits to the conversation, now finished with all the hugging and goodbyes, “And boss was just a drone like me and he led changelings to the best times ever while bad mom was still being hunted by everyone.”

“Exactly,” boss nods, “There’s one thing I’ve learned from my own experiences and from having been there while all of you were growing up. You have no idea how strong or weak you really are until you have no other choice. I believe that, and good mom surely agrees with me,” he raises his voice a little for One to hear it clearer, “that you have the potential to outgrow us all.”

“I wish I could believe it,” says Thirteen.

“Then you’ll just have to live it, honey,” with a kiss on her nose, boss looks into the empty tunnel leading back north where they came from, “Time to go.”

Thirteen sniffles, hugs boss’ leg again, and then follows Three through a corridor of all saluting changelings of the hive.

Author's Notes:

Everyone's leeeeaaaviiiiiing!