Eclipse skidded to a stop, turning a corner and beginning to run again.

Aranna and Thorn were right on his tail, the latter buzzing his wings for extra speed.

They took several more turns before Aranna grabbed the other two and flew up to a building attached to a wall of the cave, quickly moving inside as several changelings came up from behind. Hiding out of view, the trio waited as the initial wave of changelings came to a stop, investigating the area for any clue as to where their prey had gone.

Thorn pointed out a door that lead into a backroom of the building. Following his lead, Eclipse and Aranna ducked inside.

The walls of the room were solid stone, suggesting that this area had been carved out or found and used as an extra room of the house, likely storage.

Lining up against the side of the room with the door on it, the group waited for any sounds to come from the house. Hearing nothing, Aranna looked through the door's lock, trying to check if the room was clear. For the most part, it was empty, though some changeling had already poked his head in through a window and left again.

Thorn shook his head. "We will not escape Witch that easily. She was a tracker."

"So?" Eclipse asked. "We'll switch hiding spots."

"She has likely already found us."

Aranna chuckled. "Not a chance, room's empty." She moved back to the edge of the door. "Give it a few minutes and we'll be clear."

"Then what is that?" Thorn asked, tilting his head to listen.

Falling silent, the trio noted the sound of crying, slowly growing louder.

Clamping a claw over her beak, Aranna pressed herself against the wall, as did Eclipse and Thorn.

The sound lasted for another minute, when a faint yellow glow suddenly burst from the lock on the door.

Eclipse's eyes widened even as he pulled every ounce of his magical power to the surface.

The crying suddenly stopped, as did the yellow glow from the lock. Confused, the trio waited for another indication that the changelings had left.

One minute passed. Two.

Eclipse dared not make a sound, but he did begin to reach out his hoof to touch the door. Before he made it that far, however, the tip of a scorpion tail bust through the wood. Eclipse would have yelped in surprise had Thorn not covered his mouth with a hoof, resulting in the sound being muffled to a barely audible "Mmph!"

Enraged screaming pierced the air as the door was attacked time and time again. The wood splintered, several green beams occasionally burst though and finally, after what felt like an eternity, it stopped as a white changeling eye peered through one of the many cracks in the door, growling.

Since they were lined up along the same wall as the door, Eclipse, Aranna and Thorn were not seen, angering Witch and through her, every changeling in the hive mind.

Giving up with and angry huff, Witch and the other changelings with her stalked away. It was only long after the sound of hoofbeats had faded and the yellow light from firefly changelings had gone that Aranna, Eclipse and Thorn allowed themselves to breathe.

No words were spoken, as each was painfully aware that they would not have lasted long should they have been spotted. Instead, Eclipse, Aranna and Thorn shakily stood up, opened the door and fled as silently and as quickly as they could.

Some minutes later, they came across a cave, allowing Thorn to sigh in relief. "Here. If memory serves, as I pray it does, this is our way out."

Aranna stopped the changeling before he advanced. "Why aren't their changelings around? Some guards to keep us from leaving?"

"Why did you have to ask that question?" Eclipse moaned. "We never need to worry about stuff like that until someone asks the question!"

Thorn paused, thinking. "Guards would need to confront us, make noise for other units to hear and come assist. But a hive mind would merely need one changeling to see or hear us, then reinforcements would come running." He swallowed. "We have mere seconds."

Eclipse turned and fired a beam of energy, but it went wide of any changelings. Instead, a scorpionfly fired it's own beam of magic at him, several yards to the left of where his attack had struck. Aranna jumped between the projectile and its target, using her shield to block the attack.

Thorn scurried to cover, keeping an eye out for any more changeling reinforcements.

His jaw went slack at the sight of the horde.

A basic changeling pounced him, chittering. Thorn recognized the speech, though it was somewhat garbled and raspy.

"We know you. You are in memories of ours."

Thorn snarled, chittering back. "You may know me, but you have no idea who I am."

The changeling laughed, wrestling Thorn to the ground. "Son. Dizzo. Thorn. Coward." The changeling reared up, slamming its hooves down just as Thorn moved his head. "You suffered for failing to fight, once. Suffer again for the same."

The changeling's horn began glowing green, charging up a spell that would either kill, or render unconscious for assimilation into the hive mind.

Eclipse charged through, knocking the changeling off of Thorn. "Outta my way! Chaos pony, comin' thorough!"

An array of fireworks followed him, dazzling and blinding changelings all around. Eclipse himself was holding a pair of roman candles, using them as ranged weapons as several changelings were shot in the face, abdomen, face, out of the air and in the face.

Thorn smiled. "I need not fight when my allies are more than willing to."

Eclipse grinned. "I take it you had a conversation with the gravem-- I mean, hive mind, right?"

"Just threats and bad memories."

Aranna was practically glowing, her body giving off enough thermal energy to heat her armor and burn any changeling that touched it. "Come on!" She screamed, swinging her sword. "I'll impale you, cook you and serve you up like kebabs!"

"Great work, if the human torch is ever decommissioned, the fantastic four will call you." Eclipse said, rolling his eyes. "Exit's waiting for us. Let's go!"

Thorn jumped forward, dodging around several changelings as he made a break for the exit. Eclipse followed not long after, but Aranna was getting bogged down by enemies. She swung her sword a few more times, but the changelings were only kept away from her, not kept from blocking her path. Eclipse looked back, taking a moment to grimace as he fought to make a decision.

"Son of a--" he sighed heavily. "I knew I should have gotten that conscience removal surgery."

Aranna knocked away a changeling that had come too close, when she was suddenly picked up and tossed through the air. Eclipse aimed several energy blasts at the roof of the cave, closing the exit with several tons of falling rock.

Eclipse grinned victoriously. "Now we can get out of here and never come back. Right, Thorn?" He turned to the changeling next to him, chuckling. Then he did a double-take when the changeling's eyes were white instead of blue. Looking around, Eclipse found that he was surrounded by changelings, all of which were staring at him.

"...I am such a jackass."

Aranna and Thorn stared at the wall of rock that separated them and their friend, as well as the horde of changelings that had been after them.

Aranna swallowed. "Did... did he...?"

"He did." Thorn stood up. "Come, we should alert Vangar and Blackreach. Prepare a proper assault on nexus."

Aranna grabbed him by the neck. "Hold on. He's still in there!"

"And fighting a horde of changelings, valiantly trying to buy us time to escape."

Eclipse's chainsaw claimed another victim, even as it's owner was screaming in fear and running for his life in the closest direction that was the opposite of the largest group of enemies.

"Unless you want his sacrifice to be in vain, we shall organize our allies."

Aranna sighed. "You're right." She said with a final nod of her head. "Let's go..."

Thorn buzzed his wings as Aranna took off, flying through the tunnel and eventually emerging into the open air, several hours later. The pair nodded to each other as they began the first leg of their journey to Blackreach. The hive would need to mobilize quickly if they wanted to join Vangar in a united attack on Nexus.

Meanwhile, as the two broke into the chill night air, Eclipse was beginning to stir, trapped in a gelatinous substance and stuck to a wall.

He struggled for a minute, finding that the substance was very strong and that no, you couldn't eat it.

Trying his chaos magic, Eclipse instead felt pain lance through his skull, almost as if his head was being split open.

Soon, a much larger changeling than normal strode into the room, at least as tall as Chrysalis had been. The main difference was that this changeling was male, and as such didn't have a long mane. His tail, however, was a dark yellow.

"Welcome to my home." It said, speaking slowly and clearly. "I am Nexus. Sovereign Nexus. You've already been acquainted with my hive, I believe?"

Eclipse frowned. "You mean your little welcoming party? Yeah, I passed 'em on the way here. Really came for the massages over anything else."

"Of course." Nexus replied, smiling. "However, I thought you'd want to know that I'm letting you live. After all, a perfectly good tool such as yourself? I could challenge any being I desired with you at my command. Hmmm. Even with the spells I had put into place to keep you from your power, I can still feel it. Chaos magic is such a... rare encounter."

Eclipse moved his head away from Nexus. "That's creepy. Let me tell you now: That was creepy."

"Relax. Thanks to some experiments in the field of magic, you'll not need to worry about that much longer."

"Dude. Seriously. If the world were rainbow and mint, you'd be the color flower. That sentence's amount of not making sense is less than your creepiness. Now let me go so I can promptly tear your spine out. My spine-tearing muscles haven't been exercised enough, lately."

Nexus smiled down at Eclipse. “Daughter!” He called. “He’s got fire in him!”

Another changeling appeared, this one younger, female and with a light blue mane and tail.

“Put it out, would you?” The sovereign laughed, slowly leaving the area.

The sovereign’s daughter approached, her horn glowing a vile green.