At ninety miles an hour, boilers redlining, polished stainless steel hide reflecting back the dirty orange firelight glow, her whistle howling like the approaching roar of Satan himself, Leviathan plowed into the brown and red brick of the grain silo that the Changelings had cunningly dropped across the rails in an attempt to stop her. To derail her.

It failed.

An explosion of brick dust billowed out, obscuring the great steel monster for a fraction of a second before she punched through. Just as her titanic nose erupted from the clouds of vaporized masonry, the shotgun blast of bricks propelled forward by the impact tore into the waiting ranks of Changelings and traitors. A tsunami of five pound stones propelled to match Leviathans insane speed and their accompanying cloud of lethal shrapnel made the first kills of the liberation of Canterlot. Limbs were severed, chests were stove in, heads were torn clean off as the cloud of death tore through the assembled and waiting force.

Such was the unexpected destruction of the Changling horde, whose drones had been at the vanguard of the trainyard ambush, that, for a moment, the sudden synaptic backlash through the Hivemind at the loss of so many in so short a time stunned the Changelings throughout the beleaguered city.

That one moment of pause, a scant few seconds of hesitation was seized upon by Canterlot's desperate defenders. As the Changelings stood dazed, scores many more drones were struck down as constables, chefs, architects, roofers, tailors and all the brave denizens of Canterlot rallied in defense of their city, fighting with renewed vigor in a grand, raging battle that they didn't know they were a part of. In small bands, formed ragtag in the swirling chaos, or struggling alone against their innumerable foes, Canterlot's denizens wouldn't be so easily overwhelmed this time. They stood. They fought.

Brave past the point of sanity, without training, with only improvised weapons, without command or discipline, atrociously many civilians had died in this battle and continued to die with every passing moment, but they were taking more then their fair share of drones with them as the streets ran deep with red and green blood alike.

And through it all, Leviathan kept on rolling.

The yard buildings, hangars and bays, warehouses and sidings had been taken down, blasted apart by powerful magic. A huge mound of blasted stone and piled earth lay heaped at the head of the main line, directly in her path. Hunched atop the debris like some great demonic crab, glowered the midnight dark, six legged, scythe limbed beast of another of the Changeling Guards, the brute who had been tasked with preventing any help from coming to the Capital by rail.

He, too, failed.

Her gleaming steel wheels finally left the tracks as momentum took Leviathan up the broken hill. She shed speed quickly as she climbed. Her powerful, heavy wheels gouging deep troughs through the loose packed masonry and pavement. She slowed fast, but not quite fast enough.

Its menacing, reflective black form was still standing there, dazed, static in shock and surprise, when a hundred tons of steel took the creature full on in its chest. As imposing, as lethal a beast as it was, it was nothing compared to Leviathan. Leviathans proud prow shoved the creature up the hill it had created, the Changelings armored sternum cracking, painting the nose of the locomotive with jets of its vibrant green, acidic blood. It sizzled and popped, discoloring the gleaming steel with a chemical patina that shifted and ran with all the colors of the rainbow, but as potent as the acid was, the steel was stronger. Leviathan held firm.

It was then, in a move of unthinking savagery, or, perhaps, panic, that the Changeling Guard made the most dreadful mistake of its life. And the last. Jabbing and slashing wildly, its massive scythe-like forelimbs flailed and sliced, scoring the metal in bright shining streaks, buckling and gouging the thick steel. One such blow found a weak spot on the massive cylinder, slipping between two plates and popping the weld. A jet of super heated steam shot out from the minuscule breach, like a geyser from its geological vent, dozens of feet out at a right angle to Leviathans finally slowing forward motion.

The jet of super heated water only lasted a few seconds, but in that time it was carried over a mixed group of Changeling drones and massed cultists. The cultists tumbled away screaming, those that could, as their coats were flashed burnt away in a blink, the flesh beneath boiled and ruptured. Figures whose left half, or front half, or face, or legs were reduced to a monstrous mass of featureless swollen pink flesh, tumbled down the mountain of scree, shrieking their unimaginable pain to a pitiless, smoke filled sky.

The drones met a different fate. As the cloud of vapor swept over them, it super-heated the fluids encased within their chitinous exoskeletons. While the ponies cooked from the outside in, the heat had no such way to dissipate from the drones.

They exploded. The drones unlucky enough to be caressed by that narrow geyser detonated like black powder charges as their own bodily fluids were super-heated within them. Without any room to expand, as thermal dynamics demanded, the result was inevitable as it was horrific. Each individual drone became a bomb, adding the chaos and destruction of their own explosively fragmented bodies to the sudden madness.

All of this, from the moment where the Changelings blade had first pierced her steel flank, had taken place in the span of a scant few seconds. The high pitched screaming whistle growing louder and more shrill. Higher and higher pitched, the sound grew past the point of painful. Leviathan, noble and strong as she was, couldn't withstand such a breach, such a high pressure vent for long.

From the cab, and in turn from each of the six carriages it pulled, spheres of magical luminescence blossomed into being, like glowing, multicolored pearls in a necklace. They sprang into being half a second before the twenty five thousand gallon tank of Leviathan's primary boiler blew.

The tumbled wreckage of what had once been a train yard vanished. The embers of magical fire that had brought the entire depot low were extinguished. The staggered, haphazard ranks of cultist and Changeling alike disappeared as a tide of steam as swift and deadly as an avalanche flowed over them. Many dozens more died, their screams buried in the heavy white clouds.

Screams and chittering shrieks echoed up out of the ground bound cloud, muffled voices of those trapped within the billowing steam cloud.

Quickly, however, it faded. Leviathan's whistle gave one last, long, drawn out funerary note, tapering off to silence as the last vestiges of steam escaped from her rent frame. As the echo of that sound died, the steam had already begun to settle. It fell quickly from heavy, fat clouds that appeared as nothing so much as grounded cumulus, to thin, drawn and running shapes more akin to cirrus, only pooling and deep in the deeper holes, craters and valleys blasted into the mountains of debris.

From within the swiftly dissipating cloud came a series of muffled metallic clangs, half a dozen all told. The sound of metal striking brick and cobble debris, but still, nothing could be seen.

The head of the Changeling Guard, standing taller than the locomotive, was the first thing to rise from the steam. It's massive, sloped head and broad hunched shoulders rose from the fog like the peaks of some ancient, weathered smooth mountain range. The more of its grotesque shape that swam up from the depths, the more obvious it's fate became.

No longer was the massive beast the inky black of its kin. The light no longer played across it's surface casting back a rainbow of colors, like sunlight on oil. Now, it's inches thick chitin hide was dull and drab. A lifeless, rust brown, uniform across it's entire surface. Like a lobster in its shell, the great monster had been cooked inside its own armor. It stood now, silent and motionless. A silent testament, a statue to the death and destruction the beast had wrought...and had suffered in turn. Although it was no smaller in size, it seemed...lesser, somehow. Diminshed by the means of its death.

With the death of the Guard, as had happened in the Everfree Hive, the drones close at hoof lost their connection to the directing hive mind of the Changelings. Without that link, without direction, the drones that hadn't been slain by flying rocks or super-heated steam went mad. Some froze, unmoving. Some plummeted out of the sky. Others went animalistic, attacking the closest living thing to them, be it cultist or fellow drone. Still others took flight in straight, ballistic lines, without aim or adjustment, some flew at full speed into buildings, into billowing flames, or simply off towards the horizon, disappearing into the billowing smoke on a terminal path.

It made a wondrous mess of things.

As the last of the steam was torn away in tatters and wisps by the fire driven wind, the seven magical bubbles were laid bare. Six from the passenger cars, one, smaller, a darker hue, enclosing the cab of the locomotive itself. The magical barriers themselves blinked out in rapid staccato, the over pressure and ozone stink of discharging magic swallowed by the heavy, constant wind.

A single figure stepped down from the locomotive. Long legged and lithe, almost feline, it moved with effortless grace over the tumbled rock and brick, now made treacherously slick by the condensing steam. Rivulets and streams ran down hill, the air heavy and humid as she stood there alone. Her brilliant, glowing turquoise eyes swept the yard, half lidded with a look of disdain bordering on boredom as she surveyed the chaos her arrival had wrought.

The armor she wore was beyond ancient, forged in forgotten millennia long past. Smooth, seamless plate across her chest tapered back to a narrow band tracing down her spine, between her wings, and flaring again around her haunches. The rest of her frame, stomach, legs, neck, were all enclosed in darkly gleaming chain mail, links so small, so perfectly woven, that it held the quality of a second skin, matching her every slightest motion. It was impeding her not in the slightest, granting her full freedom.

The helm was passingly similar, reminiscent of that of Nightmare Moon in its shape, but there was more to it. The plate of the helm, just as featureless and smooth as the chest plate, fully encased her head, even her horn, at the very tip of which there was embedded a large, dark gemstone, which pulsed with an internal light in time with her heart beat. Only her eyes were free, even her muzzle covered in an armored grate, made of the same immaculate chain link as the coif that ran down her long, slender neck and met with the chest plate.

Behemoth stepped down from the cab, clad in his old Captains armor, the repaired puncture wound through the sternum that had killed him was plain to see, along with the dozens of other scratches, dents and breaches. They had been roughly patched over, but no attempt had been made to hide them. They criss-crossed the plate in a mad spiderweb of interlocking lines, a pattern-less pattern leaving almost no stretch of armor unscathed. His wing blade, the last surviving creation of Solstice and his weapon of choice for half a decade, had been lost in the Everfree Hive, in it's place he had adopted a paired set of full leg blades, hinged at the knee, that covered his forelegs from the barrel of his chest all the way down to his armored hooves.

He strode forward, stopping next to his Princess as she surveyed in silence. When, finally, she spoke, her voice was steady, clear and low, made crisp and heavy by the extreme humidity.

"Into them."

There was no dramatic, overly theatrical roar of blood lust, no heart stirring speech or proud, rising battle cry. The Lunar Guard charged out of the six converted passenger carriages without a sound save hoof falls, wing beats, and the puff of their breath. Earth ponies lead the all but silent charge, lending their enhanced muscle mass and bone density to the brute task of smashing into and through the staggered, already reeling cultists and drones who were just now, finally, slowly, having their Hive Mind restored.

Pegasi went out and up, spreading high and wide, taking the sky with quick and brutal efficiency, forcing those few airborne opponents to earth, or slaying them outright. When they had taken the air, they swept down like birds of prey, harrying and isolating their ground bound opponents. Using perfectly orchestrated hit and run tactics, they never allowed themselves to get drawn into a protracted fight where their hollow bones and spare muscle mass would put them at a disadvantage.

Last out came the unicorns, horns glowing, magic building and discharging as each joined the fight in a fashion most fitting their particular talents. Some struck directly, cutting beams of coherent light bisecting rampaging drones, rapid fire bolts of magical energy tearing into clusters, hitting a dozen times in half as many seconds. Some protected their comrades with barriers and shields, others tore their foe to pieces with summoned gravitic anomalies or smashed them to the earth with hurricane force winds, still others projected blasts of pure, magical fire, cutting wide, conical swathes of destruction through cultist and drone alike. Many of the Celestial Order ran screaming off into the fire choked city, adding their own fire and smoke to the heavy blackened skies as they were ignited, burning alive head to tail.

The Lunar Guard moved with complete autonomy, choosing their fights and enemies seemingly at random. They moved quickly, but never alone. Where there was one, there were two others always close at hoof, each trio working together like a series of well oiled machines. One would parry, opening a foes guard, and his compatriot would slip in, delivering the killing blow. A massive, incredibly armored earth stallion would draw the ire of a cohort of Changelings, deflecting their assault with a tower shield the size of a barn door, and shrugging off the few blows that actually managed to reach his armor. While he held the Hive's attention, two pegasi, in alternating circles, passed within a feathers breadth of each other at such speed as to put the Wonderbolt's to shame. They orbited the melee, their blades opening throats, slashing across the backs of knees and ankles, hobbling and maiming those they didn't kill outright. The beast of a stallion advanced steadily, using his brute size and strength to force back a foe that outnumbered him dozens to one.

Behemoth, Shade and Dusk Shield formed one such trio. Dusk held back, close to the train and the Princess. All of the hidden catches along the spine of his armor were open, and his full arsenal of twelve kinetic blades were making their presence felt. Four orbited his head at the ready, like planets in a solar constellation. They struck out at any cultist or Changeling that dared stray too close to Her Highness, the perfect flying blades punching through chitin and exoskeleton as easily as they sliced through flesh and bone. The rest were with Behemoth and Shade, two off each of their wings. It was a brilliant display and a silent testament to the skill, experience and masterful focus of Dusk.

Behemoth ducked and dove, racing through the blooming battle as fast as his damaged wing would allow. Banking and rolling, he led a hissing contingent of a dozen Changelings around and through the swirling chaos of the battle below, weaving around and through raging, pitched battles that flashed by in a blink. At every high speed maneuver, the kine blades at his wings never lagged, never lost him, slashing out, biting and carving, but always returning to formation with Behemoth.

The first Changeling, hissing and snapping its translucent fangs at Behemoth's heels, met it's fate when the scarred veteran dove sudden and fast, rolling his wings around his body as if in protection. In a perfectly aimed ballistic ark, he passed between the front and rear legs of a brute of a earth pony cultist, wrapped head to tail in golden yellow prayer wrappings. Most of the Changelings were fast enough to evade, flaring hard and banking around the seemingly mummified, roaring mountain of psycho. Most. One, in the middle of the pack was closed in on all sides by other drones, it had no room to maneuver and tried in final desperation to follow in Behemoth's path. Two of Dusk's blades found in it mid dive, driving into its back, pinning its wings to its spine.

The drone struck the ground a glancing blow, enough to turn its desperate dive into an out of control tumble. Hissing and shrieking in fury, it lashed out with bladed forelimbs and teeth as it cartwheeled. The wrapped cultist saw it coming, and tried to move, far too slowly, far too late. The drone, gnashing and biting and flailing its razor appendages slammed into the side of the cultist, ricocheting off his flank and down, the impact breaking the drones neck, but not before those razor legs opened the cultists belly, spilling its guts into the mud. Fat, yellow ropes of intestines slithered free, pooling around her hooves. The cultist collapsed, screaming a horrific, echoing howl that was quickly drowned out in the tumult as the battle carried on.

While the cultists compatriots balked, recoiling from the horrific death of their colleague, the drones showed no such distraction at the death of one of their own. They rallied and redirected, and were vectoring back onto Behemoth's tail just as the two kine blades rejoined him. Through this all, unnoticed even by himself, Behemoth was grinning. He rolled back down low, running hot and fast scant inches off the ground, weaving once again through the fight. Pebbles of broken rock and brick and powderized masonry were sucked up in his wake, swirling after him as he sped.

Every now and again, he would strike out with one of his foreleg mounted blades, taking off a leg, or wing, or head in passing as he careened on. He was waiting, waiting for what rose up to meet him. Ahead, a dot of black, a flat and unmarred shadow was turning and climbing, coming around to a head on bearing with Behemoth.

Behemoth rolled right, Shade left. They passed so close to each other that their chest armor met and released a bright cloud of sparks. They were past each other in a fraction of a second. Putting the unique nature of his wings to use, Behemoth broke hard, bringing himself to a full midair stop whiplash fast, and turning one hundred and eighty degrees in the process. In the blink of an eye, his evasive flight had ended, and he was facing his pursuers down in mid air. The Changelings, hissing and shrieking their blood lust, were a bare hoof-full of seconds behind him, glass-needle like teeth bared, ready to tear into the flesh of one who had vexed the Hive time and time again over far too many years.

Shade hit them first. So complete was their focus on bringing down Behemoth, the Hive didn't even notice the shadow shape until it was within their formation, until three drones had been cut down. The remaining eight faltered and broke, turning back to face the suddenly new threat in their midst. A forth fell to Shades twinned blades as they turned to swarm him. Just as their teeth and organic blades were about to hit home, he vanished in a sucking pop and an ultraviolet flash of discharged magic. Shade reappeared a dozen feet above them, and blasted another apart with a shot of magic the very second he re materialized.

As the seven drones pivoted to bear down on Shade again, Behemoth hit them from behind. The drone that had led the pursuit of Behemoth since the begining was hit first. The cumbersome, leg-length blades hit its back in a 'T', splitting the drone open along its spine, and perpendicular to that wound, cutting the top half of its torso clean off between a set of exoskelital ribs. The drone fell to the ground in three pieces, its insectile internal organs splashing and hissing as they dropped into the red-brown mud.

Behemoth was through it and on to the next before those pieces hit the ground. An uppercut swing took off a drones wing and foreleg below the knee, the other leg-blade took the top half of the drones skull. Shade ducked a lunging bite, crystalline teeth snapping shut inches over his head. He replied with a point blank magical snap shot that hit the Changeling in the throat, blasting and melting the chitin, fusing its trachea. The drone fell from the sky, flailing and choking on its own melted throat.

As the rapidly diminishing group of drones recoiled and turned to the new threat, Shade hit them again. His matte black blades, almost invisible in the dim and wavering fire light, bit into another Changeling as it turned against Behemoth, slicing parallel lines down its spine and opening the drones back along its exoskeletal vertebrae. Behemoth met the hissing, headlong charge of another, his leg-blade driven into the creatures face by its own forward motion, splitting it open, chin to crown. Then Dusk joined the fray.

The grizzled old veteran, with no small amount of assistance from the Princess herself had cleared a swathe of the battlefield nearest the train, buying himself the moment needed to commit his telekinetic blades in earnest. Behemoth moved in, blade raised to take the head off of the last drone, when, swift as lighting two kine blades flashed in, each piercing one of the creatures multi faceted eyes. With a quick, circular rotation they liquefied the creatures brain, then punched through the back of its chitinous skull, seeking new prey. They'd found it in a trio of Changelings, coming too late to reinforce the flight that had just been eliminated. These three fared no better then the last twelve.

Four blades moving in tandem sought out a drone that had launched itself at Shade, smashing itself into the young Guards breastplate, its glass like teeth snapping and straining for his face, white-green spittle flying in its fury. One blade came in, right over Shade's shoulder and drove into the drones, the force of its impact granting the colt a short respite and pushing the drone back off of him. Three more, hitting its vertical frame with all the subtlety and grace of a sledge hammer, struck the beast from above, smashing it down, driving it into the ground in dramatic and final fashion.

The final two, turning in to dive at Shade, were distracted by a loud, piercing whistle from Behemoth. They redirected to face him. Behemoth was the higher priority, the greater threat. He had been present for or struck the killing blow against now three Changeling Guard, the rare elite of the Hive, as well as their King. He was known to the Hive. They wanted him dead. The two drones, heedless of the danger, charged him at full speed hissing and shrieking the Hive minds rage into the hot, humid and heavy air. He hung there in mid air as they screamed in at him, a toothy grin spread across his one eyed visage. The drones, dread focused in their blood lust, paid no attention to the dozen dully gleaming metallic reflections that flanked the large blue pegasus.

The drones continued to ignore the kine blades as they charged. The blades split into flights, six in each group. Between them, flanked by them, Behemoth hung in mid air, weapons down, still smiling as the drones bore down on him. The blades turned side on to their targets, swapping the piercing point for their wide, razor sharp long edges. Twenty feet. Fifteen. Ten. The blades moved as one, blossoming into six pointed stars that met the final two Changling's faster than the eye could follow. Their heads simply ceased to be. As the spiraling blades, connected at one tip and flared out evenly at the other flew into their faces, the blades spinning fast enough to draw a low, whirring moan from the heavy wet air. The drones died without a sound, decapitated in spectacular fashion by Dusk's darkly gleaming blades.

Behemoth watched as the headless bodies collapsed to the rubble a half dozen yards below him, then turned back to face Dusk and Luna, an unconscious smile still decorating his features.

"Not bad at all, old fellow, seem you still have a little-"

He was cut off as a shadow of motion flickered at the edge of his limited, monocular vision. Something had come around the nose of the train, slithering between the frozen legs of the statue of the dead Changeling Guard that would ever after stand silent sentinel on that spot. It wasn't a drone, it wasn't a Guard, it was something else. It moved in silence, without disturbing the tumbled scree and broken rock under its hooves. Passing through a puddle of condensed steam without causing so much as a ripple. It moved in a flowing gait smooth as silk, slipping through the soft, dulled shadows cast by the still imposing locomotive.

It was, quite clearly, a Changeling, but not of any sort Behemoth had ever seen. Long legged, thin, thin to the point of seeming emaciated, and unmistakably feminine, it stalked forward. It was all but invisible in the shadows, scant as they were. For a fraction of a second, the dull orange light caught and reflected back. The creature was carrying a long, narrow and wickedly curved blade, almost a scythe in form. It glowed ever so faintly from within, the same sickly, pulsing green that lit the interior of the Hives. A shimmer, a distortion of light, a twisting of the fabric of reality itself billowed around this blade, like a heat shimmer on asphalt in the middle of summer. The figure tensed, winding up to pounce. It's focus and murderous intent plain to see. It was going for Luna.

Behemoth was moving even as he opened his mouth to shout a warning. A jagged stone of horror and dread dropped into his guts. Fast as he was, this...thing, was faster. There was no way he'd get to her in time. It was in the air, silent as a tomb, silent as death, coming at the Princess, unnoticed from behind before he could even shout a warning. It was fast, ungodly fast. A barely there blur moving with such speed that it seemed that even the light couldn't keep up with it, it's sickle raised, aimed for a perfect strike at the back of Luna's neck, just below the rim of her helm.

Somehow, in the dark depths of intuition he could never comprehend, Behemoth knew that her armor, as ancient, as perfect as it was would provide no protection. That Luna's own unfathomable vitality, beyond a match for any mortal weapon, would be snuffed out by this sickle. This damned blade.

The creatures flight, it's attempted assassination was cut short by the swift and direct intervention of a coal shovel to the face. The force of the blow was astounding, halting the unidentified Changeling full stop, and dropping it in a tumble of limbs into the mud and debris with a resounding clang. Dusk and the Princess were caught unawares, slow to respond to the new threat. From the darkened cab, Dusty, still wielding the coal shovel, which was now split clean in half along the face of it, hopped down to square off with the new foe, his eyes wide in surprise, but his jaw was set, he was determined to hold his ground.

Scrabbling back to it's hooves, the Changeling, it's stealthy attack no longer an option, shook its head as if to regain its senses. The chitin of its muzzle had been smashed, cracked like a broken pane of glass and leaking glowing green blood. It lowered it's head, it's multifaceted vision locking back on Luna, who was only now turning to face the new threat. The creature hissed a spine tingling challenge, and tensed, its lethal blade raised to attack again.

Closing fast as he could, Behemoth watched as all of this transpired, still too far away to do anything but watch. Shade was drawing even with him, in another second the younger colt would overtake him, but still, they were crossing that distance far, far too slowly. There was another flicker of movement from the cab.

A flash of brown, and the compact wall of thick muscle and dense bone that was Reggie put his shoulder into the chest of the Changeling, hitting it just before it could pounce with all the fury and power of the locomotive he had just guided so masterfully. His impact picked the creature clean up off its hooves. His momentum carried it back halfway down the length of the locomotive before he started to slow. Hissing and snapping, daze by the sudden, brutal impact, the suddenly very frail looking creature flailed, trying to bring its smoking blade to bear on the engineer. Reggie's blood was up, and he saw this clumsy attack coming and batted it away with a casual back hoof...breaking the leg that held the blade just as trivially.

The creature regained just enough of its senses and for just long enough to realize this wasn't a fight it would win, and tried to scrabble backwards, dazed and concussed. It's long, black legs slipping and sliding out from under it in the mud and debris. It didn't get far. A monster of a hay maker smashed the Changeling into the stainless steel hide of Leviathan, splattering its glowing green blood across the mirror polished stainless steel surface. The force of the blow had lifted the creature off the ground once again, and Reggie's right hoof came in, holding it there, a few inches off the ground. His left, like a piston, struck again and again and again, raining bone quaking blow after blow into the side of the Chageling's head, smashing it over and over again between the unstoppable force of his battering hoof, and the unyielding object of Leviathan's wide steel flank.

By the time Behemoth, Shade, Dusk, Dusty and the Princess herself gathered around Reggie, the creature quite simply didn't have a head anymore. The engineer stood over its decapitated frame. leaning against Leviathan, breathing heavily. It was, after a few moments of trepidation, Dusty who stepped forward, the first to speak.

"R-Reggie...are you...it's dead, you can..."

He spun around quickly at the sound of his name, the fire of fury clear in his eyes. It faded, dimming as he saw that it was the Princess, the Guards, and his protege that stood around him in a half circle. He flushed, embarrassed at the sudden attention, and the act that had gathered it. He took a deep, steadying breath, closing his eyes as his barrel of a chest expanded. When his eyes reopened, they sought out Luna. His response was as taciturn as ever.

"Sorry, Highness."

She smiled at him reassuringly, a gesture conveyed by the tone of her voice, as it wasn't visible through her armor.

"Quite alright, sir. In fact, I should thank you, this creature had managed to sneak up without me noticing it..."

She looked down to its limp form, her smile dissolving into a frown, only visible in the way it scrunched the skin around her eyes, the only part of her face visible.

"...A feat that should not be possible. The constant emission of the Hive's controlling influence is a buzz I am well versed in splicing from the aether. This...thing, put out no such trace. I am not too proud to say, that I was completely unaware of its presence."

Reggie stepped away from the Changeling, clearing the way for Behemoth and Dusk to kneel around its broken form. Shade stuck near the Princess, watching her back as her attention was elsewhere.

As he examined the corpse, using his medical talent not to inflict harm for a change, Behemoth spoke to Luna, his attention staying with the body he was examining.

"You couldn't sense it? At all? You can pick up on any living thing, tree's, birds, hell, I've felt you pick up on particularly shiny rocks, how is it that this thing is a blank to you?"

"I don't know. Perhaps, this being was bred for that single purpose. Perfectly created, and equipped, for one, all encompassing goal."

She strode up next to Behemoth, and as he turned, caught his eye. When she spoke, her voice betrayed none of the surprise she felt, none of the dismay. Behemoth felt it all, however, echoing through their connection into his mind. The first time he'd ever sensed in her something that might've passed for fear of ones mortality. Shade, behind her, kept a close eye on the fierce battle that was wrapping up. The last few drones were being struck down, and those few cultists not wise enough to turn and run were being cornered and ruthlessly put down. No prisoners would be taken. Not today. She spoke as the distant noise of battle slowly died off.

"To kill me...or, at least, to kill beings such as myself. That would explain the weapon. I had thought the last of them to be destroyed many centuries ago."

The blade sat where it had fell, shimmering darkly, its form little more then the vague suggestion, attached to a flexible metal loop that allowed swift and sure attachment to a leg. It was hard to see, obscured by a cloud of something like smoke, or a heat shimmer mirage that distorted its form in an ever shifting field. It was a amorphous form that denied description. Around it, the earth was parched, cracked and desicated, as if all the moisture from the boiler detonation had been baked out of it. Brick had powderized, broken spars of metal jutting from the debris had rusted and rotted away in seconds from its merest caress. Anything the blade touched, the blade destroyed.

"A thousand years ago, such a thing was known as a Shadow Blade, although I have also heard the term Smoke Knife, Night Harvester and a half dozen other equally dramatic terms used for it and its kin. In this case, I prefer the term Reign Ender. It has a more...theatrical ring to it. The weapon is, in essence, a eldritch blade designed and created for one very simple goal, to kill that which cannot be killed. As for the creature..."

The group attention moved back to the corpse, and as they looked on, it's form softened, its already emaciated body shrinking, collapsing. As they watched, this new Changeling threat dissolved into a fetid, stinking puddle of steaming grey goo. In seconds, it held no more solid form, and trickled down the slope that Leviathan had charged up, an almost sad, anti climactic ending for a being that so shortly ago had shown such lethal potential.

"Well, that's a new trick. Makes sense though, no body left to study, a smart thing to breed into an assassin. It annoys the ever living shit out of me the way the Hive keeps adapting. Every time I think we've got a handle on these fuckers they throw something new at us."

With a sigh of annoyance, Dusk stood, stepping away from the bubbling puddle as he spoke. Behemoth, gingerly, taking great pains to avoid the edge, picked up the blade, studying it's design carefully before replying.

"Yeah, those bug bastards, don't they know they should remain constant and predictable to make killing them easier for us? But no, chitter-shits gotta be all difficult an what not."

Dusk grinned, watching as Behemoth removed his large, cumbersome leg blades and slid the Reign Ender on in their place.

"Exactly. Knew you'd see it my way."

Behemoth tested his new weapon with a few slow, deliberate swings, getting a feel for the weight of it. His one eyed attention was fixed on the blade as he spoke the next.

"Shade, have the medics move the wounded into one of the carriages, and seal it back up. We can't spare anyone to Guard them and we can't have them slowing us down."

"S-sir, I don't...we're just going to leave them behind?"

"Yes. I don't like it either, but if we don't get to the Palace grounds as fast as possible, they're all dead anyways."

Behemoth finally looked up from the blade and met the eyes of the closest thing he had to a son. Though he spoke in a deadpan tone devoid of emotion, the look in his eye was clear to read.

"I don't like it either, the idea of leaving them behind...it disgusts me. But remember what happened to Manehatten."

Although he had no face, per se, to show emotion, Shade's hesitance was clear to read in his silent motion as he set off. Dusk spoke next, to the approaching group of Guard officers, among them Shining Armor and his six personal Guard.

"Rally the squads and prepare to move out. This fight ain't over yet."