[Enchanted letter, readable only by the recipient]

Dear friend,

Thank you for your extensive reports on the whereabouts of the escaped group but it seems that we were too late to stop them. Analysis of the old orphanage revealed that some kind of magic was used for travel into Tartarus and back, which means the traitors must have been able to talk to Flow and were likely recruited to help him escape.

That must not happen. There is no greater threat to our world than him. This turn of events leaves us with no choice. We must fight fire with fire.

Inform subject AAA34 that he will be released on the condition that he finds and eliminates changelings known as Three, Thirteen, and Gem, a griffon going by the name Magpie, a Corrupted called Harriet, and anyone they might have recruited to help them release Flow. He met them before and his power will lead him to them.

Yes, I am fully aware he will likely rebel so take precautions and make sure he knows his only way of not getting imprisoned in a much worse way than before is by completing his mission. Simply put, if he wants to stay out of Tartarus he needs to keep Flow in. If he's good, he might occasionally even get a death row inmate or other serious criminal to… play with. We dealt with him before, we can stop him again if he grows stronger, even if it means mobilizing all alicorns at hoof.

We can't deal with Flow, no matter what anyone thinks. We can't fight him and we can't stop him if he gets out.

Thankfully, as far as we know, the only way to completely release anyone from Tartarus is with Twilight's permission so keep her safe.

For Equestria.

[End of letter]

Thirteen has precisely zero idea how she's doing it but she's invisible. The disadvantage is that she's cold, very cold. Whatever properties her transformed chitin has, heat insulation isn't one of them.

She pokes herself and her hoof easily sinks halfway into her body.

Apparently, durability definitely isn't there either.

What is there, however, is her sight that is allowing her to track Manny out of Windy and to the south.

Yes, now she knows she's going south without a compass.

Granted, all this is coming with the second disadvantage which is feeling as if something else is in charge, leading her along like a doll on strings. Other than that, everything is dandy. All she has to do is to keep her hooves from freezing off, breathe warm air on them from time to time, and not walk too quickly so that Manny doesn't hear the thin blanket of snow crunch under her steps.

And stop herself from trembling… and don't catch pneumonia… and don't let her chattering teeth reveal her.

It's so cold…

She wanted to find Manny, her body answered with whatever this partial invisibility or dynamic camouflage was, she left the house. After all, clothes would only allow him to see her…

If mom ever tells me I'm stupid again, I'm going to answer with a HOLE YEAH!

It's been an hour and a half. Yes, she knows that now too. Accurately.

At first, Thirteen was sure Manny would either leave Windy and camp outside before taking a shot at getting to Three or Harriet just like he did to her but his course hasn't changed since he left Harriet's house.

He's after Magpie. That's the only explanation. He wouldn't just chat up a random changeling, get information about everyone involved, and leave. And since he doesn't seem to have any desire to return to Windy, there's only one trail he can be following.

I'm freezing.

Do I just go back after all this?

Having cooled down, quite literally, since leaving the house, she's a lot more aware of Manny's strength and the likelihood of him being armed to the teeth, so a direct attack-

A recent memory resurfaces. One of her being helpless, pushed into the soft sofa by a much stronger griffon. The sharp scent of chloroform returns to her nose, although thankfully this time it's only inside her head.

KILL HIM!

A haze of red descends over her, blood pounding in her ears.

She screams and charges forward.

Manny reacts instantly to the high-pitched screech of someone who isn't sure of herself but needs an outlet for her fury and there's only one in sight. His microscopic moment of surprise as Thirteen's chitin loses its invisibility powers is quickly followed by a snort of contempt and him reaching for a pistol on his belt.

She keeps accelerating but her original distance was so high that unless she could move like her mother Manny would have time to aim his pistol at her no matter what.

He aims.

He fires.

Thirteen drops, accompanied by a splatter of green blood.

"Look, bug-" Manny sneers.

The thing that pounces at him with a burst of amber fire isn't Thirteen. It can't be.

No smooth, almost skin-looking, chitin with barely visible segmentation. No flat, pony teeth showing in a nervous smile. No more shy gaze cast slightly downwards.

It's a monster incomparable with even the worst Corrupted Manny has ever seen. Claws outstretched, maw open far beyond that of any creature should be filled with long, sharp fangs, heavily segmented carapace resembling platemails from old ages covered in brutal edges. However, it's the eyes, not brown anymore but glowing amber, that make him repeatedly pull the trigger again the second his body frozen in instinctive terror at meeting the apex predator regains control.

The bullets ricochet with flashes of light clearly visible in the sunless darkness.

He reaches for the shotgun on his backpack with practiced speed. As he looks up while instinctively aiming forward, the already present black abyss of Thirteen's maw bites down, splitting the barrel of the shotgun in half with ease.

He still pulls the trigger.

Blinking the blinding flash of light away and backing off, Manny doesn't expect the punch that floors him and knocks the air out of him even through his padded vest.

He gasps for air, the maw opens again, and bites down.

No!

The bite doesn't take his head off, instead injecting him with a heavy dose of barely refined changeling venom. Thirteen's now jagged horn burns with amber fire like her eyes, and as she swings it downwards the blast of light blinds Manny completely.

However, temporary blindness is the smallest of his problems when Thirteen's magic coupled with the fresh dose of poison burning inside his veins ravage his mind.


Agent Mantra.

We ran a trace on the dead griffons found in a military resource train. Our sources within The Guild says that they were sent to recover the last free Redtalon who boarded the train in Griffonstone and was headed east. His companions are two changelings and a dragonpony. The two changelings are a mystery - one is completely unknown and any information about the other is far above both of our clearances. However, the dragonpony mare was identified as Harriet - a third party who got involved in Nicolai's secret operation several months ago. Once again, beyond our clearance. Supposedly, she's from Windy, a small border village in the northeast. Start there. We can't afford a full-scale uprising in the east so it's up to you to find and eliminate him. Our hold on the region after Altberg Redtalon's death is shaky at best and, with the unrest in the south, we don't have the resources to keep the Empire together in such a case.

The Emperor protects.


Thirteen isn't gentle as she rips through Manny's mind, she doesn't know how to be. Her body is operating on a wish and the most basic and inborn of changeling instincts. She can't pull any delicate details out of him like any even moderately skilled infiltrator could but she gets the overall gist from the stream of thoughts, images, and feelings which only confirm her original guess that Magpie was Manny's target.

Even in her strained state of self-control, Thirteen knows she won't be able to target any specific information about his mission and she has no desire to see the entirety of Manny's life so she withdraws.

The light of her horn fades and she stumbles, snow and frozen tainted grass crunching loudly under her new weight. Under her, Manny is foaming from the beak, twitching his legs at random, and his eyes are staring blankly ahead.

Her hoof is cold.

She looks down at her newly jagged and gnarly leg and raises it in disbelief. Instead of a hoof, there are long, sharp claws spread out like a minotaur's palm. With curiosity, she tries to make a fist and the claws fold in such a way they form a hoof with no visible cracks.

Open. Close. Open. Close. Claws. Hoof. Claws. Hoof. No shapeshifting or love expenditure needed.

Both her forelegs work like that but her hind hooves feel as solid as ever.

"I can't go back looking like this!" she examines her barrel and all the parts she can see, "All jagged and spiky. The griffons will come for me with torches and pitchforks and no amount of Three's hugs will help!"

Make them submit and obey! Destroy those who resist!

"NO!" Thirteen yells out loud to drown out the voice- no, instinct turned into words, "I'm not like that!"

Yes, you are.

"I don't want to be! I want to be like Gem. I don't want to hurt anyone."

A little too late for that now, isn't it?

Memories flash through Thirteen's head. Ramming a shotgun through a griffon's neck, the feeling of hot blood as she severs someone's forelegs, breaking a griffon's collarbone and throwing him under a train.

Five's broken foreleg…

One's missing teeth…

Dwarf dummy for ballistic and laser testing shredded to pieces…

"No..." Thirteen stumbles backwards and slumps against a tree. She knows the final memory that's coming. She didn't know she knew the memory a microsecond ago but it all comes trickling back.


"A true royal egg," says One with a smile and nudges the big, stumped, boss-father, "Didn't think you had it in you after all this time."

"Do you count the Hundreds as siblings?" asks the boss, glancing at the other two changelings in the room.

"Hole no," snorts Two, "Hive? Yes. Family? To a degree. Siblings? I don't count Five or Seven among those, so no."

"I don't want to sound mean," Gem smirks and looks at the ceiling, "But I gotta agree with Two on this one. It's mom. It's you, dad. And it's the two of us. Two earned it."

"Three of you," One nods towards the large egg which starts cracking.

"Comfort said the last royal eggs she knew about were Chrysalis' generals - Cryo, Shadowstep... eeeh, can't name the others without searching the hive mind."

The top of the egg cracks and a changeling head peeks out, wearing the top bit like a small helmet.

"No larval stage?" Gem leans closer to Thirteen's blurry field of view, "Intriguing. Did you know this would happen, dad?"

"Absolutely no idea..." boss walks over, sits down to the lanky changeling still mostly submerged in the egg-liquid-filler-thingy.

Thirteen looks at him. He's in charge. She knows it. She can feel the hive link connecting them.

King.

BUT I AM THE QUEEN!

The world blurs. She hears a loud crack and when she blinks, the fake king is backing off with a deep gash in his neck carapace, green blood seeping through.

Her foreleg hurts and as she raises it she finds her hoof almost broken off. One grabs her by the back of her neck, forces Thirteen to look into her eyes, and growls quietly:

"...there's one changeling who means more to me than anyone or anything else. You won't do this again..."

A flash of green light.

Darkness.


"I… I almost killed dad..." tears well up in Thirteen's eyes, "Mom knew she had to train me to control and stop myself because..." her jaw drops at the realization, "Because she knew that one day she might not be able to. That one day, no matter how much she grows… I… could overpower her."

Gasping for air, she starts trembling.

"I don't want any of that! I love all of them! Gem… Two… Eleven… Hundreds... even mom..."

Especially Three.

"Yes!" she agrees.

A new image flashes behind her eyes.

Dad and mom. A leader keeping everyone's lives together, improving them as much as he can. He might not be excessively powerful but he inspired everyone into believing their lives can be better. They all don't follow and obey him because of his physical strength, infiltrator skills, or magic. They follow him because they all respect his vision.

Well, some might also have a healthy dose of respect for his fierce and ruthless protector who is always by his side, his mate, his Queen - his number One.

Three and you could be similar.

"Not at their expense!" yells Thirteen into the darkness.

I.

Will.

Not.

Harm.

My.

Family!

Her head spins as she forces herself to stand up but she grits her teeth… and spreads her legs for balance. She won't have her moment of triumph over herself ruined by randomly keeling over even if she has to look as if she's about to lay an oversized egg herself.

"And I don't want to go back to Windy looking like this...?" she adds, the usual hesitation returning to her voice.

As if begrudgingly, the chitin all over her body smooths out again but remains far from her original carapace. Still more pronounced, segmented, and armor-like, her mouth still opens from ear to ear and is filled with sharp teeth, and her hooves still unfold into claws.

On some level, though, this feels right. More monstrous, but unrestrained, more complete, and feral.

Manny grunts and twitches. She can sense his brain isn't working properly after her forced entry and it never will again but she doesn't feel any pity for him.

"You're a threat," she says before stripping him and taking all his bags away, "Some Corrupted can eat you for biomass if it makes them happy and you don't freeze beforehoof."

Feral or not, she doesn't have it in her to kill a defenseless creature in cold blood.

But leaving him like this is worse. At least you can make this quick.

She turns back to Manny again and opens her mouth. She has no idea how long she stands there, paralyzed, before biting down.

The burning blood gets into her throat, nose, and the crunch makes her whine before everything sinks in.

She throws up, then shovels snow into her mouth to wash the taste of iron and bile out. Again and again until she can stand again. Trembling and gasping for air but still standing, alive with her enemy gone from the world forever.

Mercy has many faces. You did the right thing.

As she starts walking back to Windy, she realizes that nothing in recent months made her happier than finding this out about herself.


"Hold still, please..." mumbles Three, his beard lying in a safe distance away from a wand tipped with a red crystal held by the village blacksmith Chester and emitting a thin beam of light through a metal construction bearing several lenses made of gemstones. The focused light is melting gold coins into liquid as Three moves them under it, his eyes smoky grey and his fetlocks-turned-claws heavily insulated from the heat.

"This thing is shaking worse than a firing pistol," Chester grits his beak and his muscles bulge as sweat keeps dripping from him out of the heat as well as the mental and physical strain.

"You're doing great, Mister Chester. Just a little more," Three pours the gold into a different metal bowl and grabs the final batch of coins, this time silver to purify them under the light from the wand. The silver coins take a little longer due to more impurities in the coinage. It's still only a matter of seconds, though, "Phew, now for the delicate part..."

Three quickly moves the small containers of liquid gold and silver to a basic soldering iron, the use of which wouldn't be of any use in this situation to anyone without the precision and steadiness of a changeling, and starts fixing the circuit board of the radio, hoping that the acids Thirteen prepared before according to his recipe were enough to make anything that's not pure gold or silver evaporate out of the mix under the heat.

It only takes a few minutes, though.

"Ooookay…" Three puts everything away and attaches a set of makeshift capacitors in place of the old, melted one. Even he wasn't able to replace a machine-made part with a similar one so he had to make several bigger ones to achieve the same properties. That needed a second circuit board and some fresh wiring and will require more space in the radio itself but according to all his knowledge it should work… for some time, "Done!"

Three blows several times on the now connected boards and nods towards Chester who taps the wand twice and the beam of light stops.

"I had no idea Harriet's dad had something like this in his hoard," Chester puts the warm wand down, "How did you persuade him to lend it to you?"

"He wasn't keen on it until I promised I'd give it back immediately and Miss Harriet vouched for me. Hmmm," he looks at the still almost full containers with pure gold and pure silver, "Looks like I took far more coins than I needed. I hope Mister Hazaren won't be mad."

"That you took a bunch of basically priceless coins and made pure gold and silver out of them?" Chester snickers, "I doubt that."

"And the gems for the beam focusing array," Three nods to the flimsy construction on the table.

"I wouldn't worry about it. You told him what you'd do with it, right?"

"Yup!" Three nods, transforming his claws back into hooves and putting his beard back on.

"Then I really wouldn't worry about it," Chester shrugs and points to the circuit board, "Do you want me to take that to Raymond or help with taking everything back to Harriet?"

"Nah, you've helped enough. Thank you very much," Three smiles at the griffon, "I'll stop by at the tavern to connect this up and then I'll take everything to Harriet. If you could dismantle the array while I scrub the mess caked on my face off that would help a lot, though."

"I'll get right on it. Can I keep the lenses? I don't need to do much precision work around here but they might be useful at some point," asks Chester out loud so that Three hears him in the bathroom.

"I'll have to ask Mister Hazaren but I'll bring them back if he agrees," is the reply followed by the sound of vigorous scouring.

Chester shakes his head and mumbles to himself:

"...lives on hugs, knows tech better than any engineer I've ever met, can do precision work without robotics, makes candy out of drool, and is polite. How have these guys not conquered the world yet I don't understand..."


Thirteen spots a shadow from the corner of her eye as the door of the house she's passing by opens, a griffon looks out, gasps, and immediately darts back inside.

Yep, pitchforks and torches in 3… 2… 1…

At least the cold isn't a problem anymore for some reason. This new body is weird. Scary, useful, but still weird.

However, nothing happens. Rumors will undoubtedly spread soon, so while all she wants to do is to go home, the crazy instinct part of her tells her she should act first.

Who trusts me here the most? Harriet and Three's word won't be enough so it's either Raymond or doctor Fairfeather.

The patients know me too, know that I took care of them for a while.

Taking a deep breath, Thirteen picks up the pace and trots to Fairfeather's house.

She knocks, the door opens, Fairfeather peeks out…

...and Thirteen immediately prevents the door from slamming shut by shoving a hoof inside.

"It's me, doctor, Thirteen!" she whispers desperately, "I need help."

She pulls her hoof out. The door closes.

When she doesn't try to push through or anything else, Fairfeather opens the door again after some hesitation.

"What happened to you?" he slowly breathes out, examining her predatory body, "If it wasn't for your mane, I wouldn't recognize you at all."

"Can we speak inside? I think I scared a few griffons on the way here."

"Can't blame them," Fairfeather opens the door fully and gestures for her to get in, "Come in."

Thirteen slips into the hallway and lets out a sigh of relief at finally being somewhere safe-ish.

"So, what happened?" Fairfeather asks again.

Thirteen bites her lower lip which with her ear-to-ear mouth and sharp teeth looks absolutely horrifying but her overall demeanor conveys to Fairfeather that she might genuinely be more scared of herself than he is of her.

"...what is your opinion on Redtalons, doctor? I mean, the family itself."

"Why do you ask?"

Oh, what the hole? Apparently the griffon Black Ops already know about Magpie so what am I really trying to keep secret?

"Magpie, the griffon we arrived with and you treated - he's a Redtalon."

"I know. I saw his forelegs and I do know some recent history. Spreading info about coming in contact with one of them could land one in prison or worse these days..."

Thirteen sighs, allows herself a small smile, and tells Fairfeather about Manny and the knowledge she drained from his head.


Unfortunately for Thirteen, Fairfeather's long-term patients were far less accepting than the doctor himself and while before she could feel some faint friendship and love coming from them, now they just stared at her in horror when she came to greet them. Staying there would prove no use despite Fairfeather's reassurance that she'll win them over again when they realize it's still the same changeling who had been taking care of them for the past few days.

Discouraged, she just wanted to go home but staying alone with her thoughts felt like exactly the wrong idea so she decided on going to the tavern. Maybe the entire situation was like ripping off a bandaid - better to get over with in one painful go. Maybe she might even find Three or Harriet there.

The casual chatting around the entire tavern goes deathly silent as she enters, leaving behind only the droning of the current news on the radio.

She looks around, her ears flopping down.

"Uhh, hi. Soo… I see that Three managed to fix the radio. That's good," faced with the glares of everyone, she starts shuffling towards her table in the corner, "I'll… I'll just sit down here and won't bother anyone..."

At least no one's throwing anything.

Lowering her head on the table and closing her eyes, she nonetheless perks up her ears to listen both to the news and for anyone attempting to approach her.

"And now for some news from the east, believe it or not!" announces the radio cheerfully, "Our brave boys in black, the Imperial Intelligence Service caught a griffona-non-grata in Bloodstone - Magpie Redtalon himself, brother to the traitor Veronica Redtalon who was behind the recent rebellion against the Emperor the illegal experiments of which brought the horrors of corruption from Equestria on our beautiful continent. Listen to what the Imperial regent Silas Irongrip had to say about the situation."

The voice of the radio changes from the announcer in a deep, booming voice:

"Citizens of Bloodstone! Here's your chance to officially renounce Redtalon rulership and proclaim loyalty to the Emperor. Magpie Redtalon, the last heir to the traitorous bloodline will be on display in a cage in the Bloody plaza until the Emperor himself arrives to enact justice. You will have the opportunity to tell the traitor what you truly think of him and show that what you really want is the stability and safety of the great Griffon Empire! Loyalty will be rewarded, traitors must be punished."

As the radio returns to analyzing the situation, Thirteen is just staring at it, jaw open and brain frozen.

I… I… do I tell the others?

Magpie told us he knocked the griffons on the train out but he slit their throats.

He's ruthless and he doesn't really care about anyone but himself.

He cares about Gem.

Does he really?

He deserves this for the way he treated Three.

Does he? Death for-

Constant abuse? Yes!

He got us here. He almost got himself killed to get us here.

Only because GEM told him to do that! He didn't even want to leave Equestria.

Well, it was because…

...because…

...because he knew that EXACTLY this could happen at any point if anyone recognized him.

He got us here. He and Harriet got us here. Three and I helped a little but he and Harriet got us here.

He himself said the world wouldn't miss him!

Gem would.

THIS ISN'T YOUR CHOICE!

Was that a realization? Was there really a scream inside her head that nuked her entire train of thought? Does the voice really exist or is it just her instinct again?

She blinks. Yep, it's her instinct.

You made a choice. You don't want to rule, at least not yet, no matter what egg you were born from. You serve, whether it's fear of responsibility or desire to support someone you deem worthy, it doesn't matter anymore. Who is your boss?

"...Three..." her mouth moves silently.

Then the choice of what to do isn't yours, is it? That right belongs to your… boss. You can advise, you can complain, but you WILL obey. You chose to serve so you will do what your boss orders you to and that means giving him all the information he needs to make the decision!

Once again, she stands up like a marionette controlled from elsewhere but the second she turns around and starts walking towards the door leading out she regains control. Did she even really lose it before?

The instinct knows what's right. It erases doubts and mental barriers she keeps setting up for herself - uncertainty, self-pity, doubt.

No, right now there's only the mission and the mission is to find Harriet and Three and tell them what she just heard.

Her hive link lights up and connects to Three. It's weak because she's hungry, inexperienced, he must be too far, and Three himself isn't exactly a skilled infiltrator.

"Three! Three! You're at Harriet's cave house, right?" she mentally calls out into the empty void.

"Hey, who's this… Thirteen?! Whoah! You feel completely different."

"I need you in the tavern, I can't keep this up for long. Bring Harriet. Magpie's in trouble! BIG trouble."

The link fades and she clutches her head as a spike of pain runs from her horn to the back of her skull.

The instinct isn't intelligent. The instinct doesn't know what's right. The instinct only knows perfectly how a changeling works. It's not the end result, she's not a mindless, albeit potentially incredibly powerful, animal. It's just the beginning and that's what her mother was afraid of all this time.

Then why can't she shapeshift now? Maybe something passed on from her dad that got activated under the pressure? The warrior stuff and rough chitin are definitely from One, that's clear.

Mom, dad. I'll make you proud.

Thirteen returns to her table and sits down. There's no possible way in any of the infinite realities where Three doesn't go to help Magpie. If there was, she wouldn't feel about him the way she does.

She'll relax, she'll wait, she'll gather herself, and when Harriet and Three arrive they'll ask the griffons what they know about Bloodstone, the Redtalons, and how to save Magpie before the griffon Emperor comes to execute him.