Eclipse gritted his teeth, returning the glare the scorpionfly changeling across the room was giving him.

A large area in the center of the room had been cleared out, nothing except for a circle on the ground to dictate where the ring was.

The bartender was in the center of the ring, while Eclipse and his soon-to-be-opponent stood on either side. Thorn was standing next to Eclipse, standing tall and proud despite his surroundings.

Changelings were all around, some drinking, some watching the two brawlers stare at each other and some simply trying their luck on other bar-goers, with varying degrees of success.

Eclipse's opponent, Whiplash, was slim, but that meant she had speed and agility. It could also belie a hidden strength. Without honesty telling him where her attacks would go, Eclipse would have to be extremely careful with his parries and blocks. Without chaos to use both defensively and offensively, it left him much more open than he would be otherwise. His only saving grace was that Whiplash was also banned from her magic, keeping the threat of laser blasts to the face at a minimum.

Taking a deep breath, Eclipse shuffled on his hooves, a bead of liquid anxiety streaking down his face. "Okay, Thorn. Like we agreed?"

"Of course." The guard replied, nodding his head. "When I see an exploitable, you will know."

"Fantastic. Let's see if your strategy really is good enough for the hive's perimeter guard."

"And if it is?" the changeling replied with a knowing grin.

Eclipse shrugged. "The princesses might still be recruiting."

The bartender who had set Eclipse in his current position cleared his throat, attracting all attention to his position in the middle of the ring. "Ladies and gentle-lings! Fellow shape-shifters of drinking age and older!" He buzzed his wings, pointing one hoof at Eclipse and another at Whiplash. "Let's watch these two hospitalize each other!"

He was met with cheers on all sides as changelings gathered to watch the show, some inches from the ring and the rest right on top of it.

"No magic, no weapons!" The bartender declared. "You leave the ring, you lose. Brawl!"

Whiplash calmly strode to the center of the ring. Eclipse, giving Thorn an unsure glance, followed suit. The two took a moment to look at each other, before Whiplash flashed a smile. "I'll make this quick."

Her scorpion tail whipped around, the point stabbing for the pony's chest. Eclipse jumped back, using one hoof to bat away the appendage.

Whiplash jumped forward, wings buzzing. Eclipse managed to turn himself around, delivering a hard kick to her face.

She recovered mid-air, sliding to the edge of the ring as Eclipse re-situated himself.

Several 'ooh''s came from the crowd, but it was mostly a confusing mix of shouting and cheers.

Whiplash's exoskeleton showed a small dent, but it was a minor injury at best. She pawed the ground with a hoof, eyes flashing with excitement at the challenge Eclipse had decided to pose.

Challenges were meant to be overcome.

Whiplash dashed forward, eliminating the distance between herself and Eclipse in seconds. He raised a hoof to block her attack, but reacted too quickly and was rewarded with a blow to the gut. Another changeling hoof came around, hitting his jaw and twisting his head around.

Eclipse moved with the momentum from the blow, avoiding the tail swipe that followed not long after. He used a series of jabs and hooks to force Whiplash back, buying him some time.

"Jump over her!" Thorn cried, just barely reaching the pony's ears.

Taking the initiative, Eclipse jumped, somersaulting over Whiplash.

He landed on his front hooves, his back ones primed to kick. Whiplash was no stranger to these tactics, having anticipated him to land behind her, but even she hadn't realized that he was already ready to strike. Her kick met his own, sending equal spikes of pain up the hind legs of pony and changeling alike.

They each took a moment to hiss in pain, putting several feet of distance between themselves in a joint movement. Eclipse stalked around the ring, trying to find the chink in his enemy's armor. Unfortunately, chitin was very high in protection unless you could get something between the plates at a joint or on the back.

Without a long and thin weapon, his options were limited. Whiplash's natural covering would let her take punishment that he simply wouldn't be able to stand. He had to be careful about this.

Whiplash charged him, going low.

"To the side!"

Ignoring Thorn, Eclipse jumped, hoping to go over Whiplash. The point of her tail opened a shallow, but long, gash in his side, a trap she had executed perfectly.

"I told you to the side!"

"You made your point!" Eclipse called back.

Whiplash reversed her momentum immediately, rushing to meet him just before he hit the ground.

She was just slow enough for Eclipse to touch the ground with a hoof and begin spinning, slapping her in the face with his tail and using his second front hoof to land a blow to her stomach.

Whiplash leaped back, front hooves still swatting away at attacks that she was now out of reach of. Eclipse charged, prompting Whiplash to dive to the side. The changeling pounced, attacking him from the air with a wing assisted jump.

Eclipse, never one for boring tactics, jumped up to meet her head on. The two collided in mid-air, spinning randomly as they used their hooves to strike time and time again. They hit the ground with a thud, Whiplash coming out on top and raising both hooves so she could slam them down in one overhead strike.

Eclipse crossed his hooves over his head, feeling what would definitely become a pair of bruises land on his hasty barrier. Whiplash raised a hoof, trying to hold both of Eclipse's hooves down with one of her own as she prepared to attack again.

Eclipse only needed one hoof to handle the distraction, using his second to land a jab on Whiplash's throat. The changeling grabbed her throat, coughing and fighting a gag reflex. Eclipse shoved her off of him, getting to his hooves in record time.

"Bite!" Thorn called. "She uses her tail, don't be afraid to use your teeth!"

"For a pacifist, you sure are good at this!"

"Just because I do not fight does not mean I cannot instruct others to do so!"

"Why can't more pacifists be like you?"

Despite still coughing, Whiplash used her tail to strike. Eclipse, even without his magic, still managed to time it correctly and bit the stinger, holding tight when she tried to yank her tail back.

Eclipse grabbed used his hooves to grab her tail further up, close to where it connected to her body. He heaved, bringing Whiplash over his head and slamming her into the ground. He spun, trying to toss her out of the ring. She kicked her wings into overdrive, adjusting course before she left the fight's restricted area.

Whiplash dive-bombed Eclipse, adjusting herself when he tried to step back and slamming into him full force. They both came out worse for the experience, Eclipse having earned a few new cuts and a bruised rib while Whiplash's chitin had cracked, which was the changeling equivalent of a cracked bone.

"Eclipse!" Thorn's voice called over the rest of the crowd. "Hit the crack! Once cracked, chitin is easily broken!"

Eclipse took a deep breath, nodding to himself as he focused in on the newly made chink in Whiplash's defenses, square in the middle of her chest.

"Use rapid attacks to spread the crack, then switch to power strikes!" Thorn's voice called again, giving Eclipse a reason to smile at Whiplash.

The changeling growled at him, venting her frustration at the realization that she might actually lose.

The two brawlers charged each other, colliding and grappling in a test of one-on-one strength. Whiplash pulled her head back and head-butted. Eclipse craned his own head back as well, avoiding her swipe and leaning forward to grip her horn between his teeth. Whiplash growled, bringing a rear hoof up and forward, kicking Eclipse in the torso. The pony wheezed, the breath having been knocked out of him. He twisted, avoiding Whiplash's tail strike and bringing them both to the ground. He planted a few quick strikes on the chink in her armor, spreading the crack a few more centimeters.

Whiplash uttered a string of clicks and clacks, likely cursing Eclipse in the changeling language.

He stuck out his tongue, the immature gesture clearly riling the changeling up and forcing her to charge. Eclipse reared back, bringing his hoof forward just in time to add her own momentum to the force of his strike.

He felt the chitin give under his hoof, grinning at the shocked Whiplash as she looked at him in confusion, both of them completely frozen in space. She looked down, seeing a slow dribble of green blood creeping down his foreleg. She watched as a lone drop of blood hit the ground, immediately accompanied by a wave of pain from her cracked exoskeleton.

She fell to the ground, gasping for breath and keeping her hooves over her chest.

Eclipse staggered back several steps, breathing heavily and still grinning as the bartender counted down for Whiplash to stand.

The changeling tilted her head to look at her opponent. She grimaced, glaring at him. "I..." she began, as though she wasn't sure she wanted to say it. "I yield."

Some of the changelings around them cheered while others groaned. Clearly, bets had been made.

Thorn clapped Eclipse on the back, then accompanied the pony to get Whiplash standing back on her hooves and headed towards a doctor.

"Well..." Eclipse laughed, rubbing his forelegs where Whiplash and struck them with her overhead strike. "I don't really want to do that again."

From somewhere behind him, a voice cleared its throat.

A beetle changeling stood there, flanked by two standard changelings. "I hope you understand that Whiplash was my investment." The beetle began, clearly having gone through similar conversations before. "I don't like it when some... Equestrian, barges in and--" Eclipse promptly fired a blast of energy into the beetle, sending him flying back.

One of his guards tried to retaliate, but ended up being squeezed between a boulder and a convenient box that read 'caution: really hard' on the side. The third changeling simply raised his hooves and backed away.

Thorn gaped, watching Eclipse crack his neck.

The pony shrugged, stretching his legs as if he hadn't used them in a while. "What? I can walk on clouds I make from my own energy, you should have known I could do stuff like that, too."

The bartender dropped the glass he had been set on cleaning, watching from his position.

Eclipse turned to him. "Right, now about Nexus hive..."

The changeling gulped, nodding.

"The northern edge of the mountain range?" Aranna asked. "Where exactly?"

"No idea." Eclipse muttered. "He just did some of that chittering the changelings use as their language and said the translation was unknown to him."

Thorn nodded. "Kisst t'u linok junng draff djol sta. That would be a literal translation of the phonemes and morphemes following the same rules as the rest of the translations between common equestrian and changeling."

"Uh, what he said." Eclipse sighed, pointing at the changeling.

Thorn sighed. "It may sound like gibberish to you, but it is a set of instructions. A map."

"Well, we can't read it." Eclipse grumbled, leaning on the bars of Aranna's cell. The griffin herself was tapping a talon against the ground, thinking.

After a moment of silence, Thorn stood up.

"But I can. I can guide you to Nexus hive."

"Oh, no." Aranna said, shaking her head. "I'm not travelling with a changeling. It's bad enough that I'm letting them keep me in a cell! I'm not letting them keep watch over our mission." She looked to Eclipse for support, but found him slowly nodding in agreement with Thorn. "You can't seriously be considering this?"

"What choice do you have?" Thorn asked, sweeping a hoof around. "There is no proper translation for the instructions."

Aranna slammed her fist into the cell bars, denting one of them. "I am not travelling with a changeling to a changeling hive."

"I have just as much reason as you to fight against Nexus." Thorn declared. "They will likely attack Blackreach if Vangar falls and I will not allow that to happen."

"We'll be fine without you." Aranna shouted back, rather vehemently.

"Oh, you understood that mess of syllables and can lead us to nexus hive?" Eclipse asked, his question shutting down any further objection of Aranna's part.

Thorn bowed his head. "I will inform Matriarch Nightwhisper. We leave in the morning." He turned towards Aranna. "Your equipment shall be returned to you then."