[Seven's teleporter experiment report]
We didn't account for one crucial thing. The dwarven teleporters must have been built or set up after the Living End project, which means they were meant for cargo or mechs like Stompy.
Test 1 (radio waves) - There's a lot of interference but we successfully contacted Five on the radio by the other exit. The generated portals are two-way.
Test 2 (light-encoded information) - Works exactly like the radio, even with the interference, which means the energy required for teleportation messes up any kind of signal we can muster.
Test 3 (packet of dried food) - Arrived as a pile of ash and plastic.
Test 4 (packet of dried food in a standard wooden cargo box) - box scorched, contents hot but intact.
Test 5 (packet of dried food in a metal cargo box) - box hot, contents untouched.
Test 6 (baby flame spider) - carapace burned to crisp, eyes exploded. Crying little dwarf whose pet it was pacified successfully… eventually.
Test 7 (Restored dwarf mech) - arrived without issues. The istrium chassis seems to protect one completely from the energy overload, cementing my post-project theory.
Test 8 (Five) - Five volunteered after she heard that one of the Hundreds wanted to give it a shot. With some rather basic physical enhancements, we changelings can use the teleporters without issues.
Summary: Comms are okay. Changelings, sealed cargo, and mechs can travel without issues. Non-changeling living subjects are prone to extreme soft tissue damage. All in all, the White Tail outpost is now successfully connected with the city Two's expedition discovered.
[End of report]
Thirteen thought she was being smart when she decided that, like a true hunter, it would be a much better idea to remain hiding not inside Bloodstone fortress itself but rather on the roof of the house across the street from the bookstore where the tunnel led to. At least throughout the first day. After day two, however, her enthusiasm was all but gone. She didn't see or sense anyone entering or leaving the bookstore other than the occasional turning of lights on and off on the upper floor where the owner presumably lived.
And so, Thirteen admits defeat and flies down from the roof. She would stay longer but she was hungry even at the start due to not being able to refill from Three and now she's certain that if she keeps going her instinct might take over and do something less than helpful to her and Three's position in the city. As soon as she passes through the gate of the fortress, unhindered but closely watched by the GIL soldiers stationed there, her internal map reveals Three's location.
"Armory? That doesn't sound like him," she mutters to herself.
When she reaches the underground level, her ears start detecting something akin to constant machine gun fire which, as she gets closer to the armory, proves to be exactly the case, intersected with constant, panicked yelling.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
The yelling proves to be Three backing away from an automatic sentry turret firing at him the projectiles of which he's deflecting with the energy shield projector wrapped around his foreleg.
"Owowowowowowowow!" he shuts the shield off while jumping to the side behind a block of concrete.
Having lost its target, the sentry turret aims at Thirteen but doesn't fire.
"You okay, Three? What's going on?" she calls out to the sudden silence interrupted only by quiet clicking as Three shakes his somewhat numb foreleg from blocking all the rubber projectiles.
"Hi, Thirteen! Mind pushing the red button next to you?" he waves at her and as his foreleg rises above the cover of the concrete block, the turret blasts a projectile its way immediately, making him withdraw it, "Eep!"
Thirteen pushes the button on the wall right by the entrance and the humming turret goes completely silent. Three stands up and shakes himself off.
"Wooo, that was fun!" he beams at Thirteen, "Wanna try?"
"Try what? What was that all about?"
"Oh, the turret? It shoots fake bullets for practicing moving from cover to cover."
"I get that," Thirteen kicks the nearest rubber projectile lying on the floor, "I did this with Five a bunch and certainly not with rubbers. What I want to know is why you are getting your cute scrunchy muzzle booped by a chaingun."
"I'm not," Three scrunches his nose at her, "I'm blocking and deflecting all of it but if I forget myself for a moment it makes my foreleg go numb from all the shaking. But hey, it's better than having it broken by a Corrupted in one hit like last time."
"I meant - why are you here in the armory, training, instead of helping griffon engineers build the food growers?"
"Oh that? We're all done with that. Griffons are so much better with technology than ponies that I only needed to explain a few details about the blueprints and the individual components and they started doing everything on their own," Three shrugs, "I've been looking for you yesterday so I asked Mister Magpie who told me about some new trouble with Black Ops and that he sent you to investigate the changeling tunnel. I couldn't find you so I decided to test the shield thingy out again in case we run into some trouble. I'd love to solve everything with tried and tested huggery but it doesn't seem to be working too well these days. But hey, that's why the boss sent me this shield. He's super smart like that. Anyway, how did your investigation go?"
Thirteen sighs.
"Bored myself to death for two days with zero result and I'm starving," she looks down at the floor, "Wish I could feed myself here but with all the griffons wary of us and me looking like the offspring of a pony platemail and a blender I doubt I'd find one with monstrous changeling fetish or something."
Three's eyes light up for a moment before he launches himself at Thirteen and latches to her like a backpack but from the front.
"HUG TIME!" he starts nuzzling her neck.
Thirteen rolls her eyes with a growing smile as the warmth of Three's unconditional love reinvigorates her like a hot bath after a long day. Relaxing, she sits down and wraps a foreleg around Three's barrel.
Hello darkness, my old friend.
She takes a sharp breath and opens her eyes, realizing she must have dozed off. Three looks up at her, clearly unbothered by her falling asleep.
"Better?" he asks.
"A lot better," she admits after a quick self-check, "Far from full but not hungry anymore. How long was I out?"
"Seventy-four minutes. Does it matter? Were you in a hurry?"
"No, no. I'm just… thinking. Any ideas how I could catch a changeling who's probably much better than me at infiltration?"
"Eeeeh… I don't think the power of friendship is much use if you can't find someone to befriend in the first place," Three scratches his head, "I might have to leave that one to you. Buuuut… I gave it some thought while you were asleep and I might have an idea on how to help your hunger problem in case I'm busy."
"Oh?"
"It's simple, really," Three lets her go and starts heading out of the armory, "Keep your ears perked," he rushes off.
Thirteen breathes out and scrambles back onto all fours.
She leaves, unsure what to do now, and wanders through the halls towards the ground floor of the fortress. That is, until she hears the hiss of the loudspeakers all over the fortress and the city followed by Three clearing his throat. In a moment of clarity, she realizes she picked exactly the one wrong changeling for anything requiring subtlety.
"Hi, everyone in Bloodstone! I'm Three and, as you might know, I'm working with Mister Magpie on a way to feed you all. I have a small problem and that is that my changeling friend, Thirteen, is worried about asking any of you for hugs or adult hugs because she thinks you might be scared of her. We need affection, love, or lust to survive like you need food."
"No no no no no no..." whimpers Thirteen.
"I can't blame you, she does look a little more bite-y than most changelings but she's super nice and gentle and doesn't bite at all unless you ask. If anyone is interested in a pleasant evening and maybe more later, please don't hesitate to visit the main entrance checkpoint in an hour," Three's cheery voice continues to broadcast the message to the entire city.
"Whyyyyyy?" she lies down on the floor and hides her muzzle under her forelegs as a pair of GIL soldiers pass by, snickering.
"She's a bit inexperienced so she'd prefer individuals but groups are okay too!" the intercom shuts down with a click.
Thirteen realizes she's trembling and a surprisingly small part of it is shame and fear.
"I trust him, I love him, but the next time Magpie offers to tie him up and feed him to something big with loads of teeth I'm gonna be there with the strongest chain I can find! AND I HOPE THE TEETH ARE DULL SO THAT IT'S SLOW AND CRUNCHY!"
Magpie's eye twitches as the loudspeaker message interrupts his new GIL military advisor briefing him about the results of the expedition sent to the Black Ops position which expanded all the way east to the Grand Scar, a massive mountain range separating Chineigha from the Griffon Empire.
"Please tell me you didn't hear anything right now and I'm just going insane..."
"I regret to inform you, Your Lordship, that everyone in Bloodstone must have heard the grand opening of your changeling's matchmaking service," replies Castor with a stone face. Of course Crimson did tell him about Magpie's attitude towards his new appointees, why wouldn't she?
"Is there, in your professional opinion, any chance someone's going to show up?" Magpie facealons.
"Why should I be familiar with griffon-changeling intimate dealings?"
"You can't tell me that none of the GIL soldiers under your command would agree to a quickie with a changeling. Especially those far from home, if you know what I mean."
"Your Lords-"
"Think very carefully before you give me any of the usual bullshit, Castor. Those two saved me and by extension this city from starving under the Irongrips and are now working as hard as they can to feed this part of the Empire."
The griffon stops, takes a breath, and tries again under Magpie's steel stare.
"I doubt anyone is going to respond to a public proclamation like that, especially with the meeting place being right at the main gate of the fortress. If I may speak freely, sir, I would actually be extremely wary of anyone who would."
"Good answer. Now back to the report."
"Yes, sir," Castor salutes, all personal issues thrown out of the window for now, "None of the spots we examined revealed any signs of Black Ops agents but our trackers report disturbed and expertly covered areas equally distant from each other every five kilometers, stopping thirty kilometers away from the Grand Scar."
"So the Black Ops operation was far more extensive than I guessed based on An Shen's story. That also means they couldn't have just been monitoring us. They wouldn't need so many locations. Any idea what they were doing if not setting up comms and observation?"
"No, sir. Broken branches, disturbed ground-"
"Digging?"
"No, sir, only the traces of walking around. As I said, we have no clue what they were doing, if anything. However, if I may suggest something?"
"Yeah?"
"Perhaps your changelings might spot something we missed."
"Hmmm," Magpie rubs his chin, "Might be worth a shot. Alright, dismissed."
"Yes, sir."
"No Lordship?"
"I believe we might have crossed that line with that little insight into the love life of your closest subordinates."
Magpie rolls his eyes.
"Just go."
Thirteen lets out a sigh of relief when the time set by Three for her… feeding comes and there's not a single griffon standing at the fortress entrance checkpoint.
"Awww," Three pouts, standing by the first floor window above the main gate right next to her, "They just don't know you."
With the situation thankfully not escalating, Thirteen decides that throwing Three out of the window can wait. However, it doesn't change the fact that while being around Three sustains her, she's not going to get anywhere near full without a proper feeding and the main thing preventing her from doing so is her inability to shapeshift.
Closing her eyes, she slips into the darkness of the hive mind.
"Alright, me, what happened to my shapeshifting? And, before I hear any more excuses, I can starve myself to the point where my 'instincts' take over and I attack someone. Once that happens, I'll have a city of griffons on my ass and not in the good way."
She blinks and finds herself facing her monstrous form, its fangs bared at her.
"You're not in full control of yourself," says the instinct, "The true power of a queen mustn't fall into the wrong hooves. Any other hooves than yours, that is."
"And WHO is the threat here?"
"Your guess was correct. Your sister is, and if you can't force me under control, you definitely can't get rid of her influence."
"Gem is leagues more powerful than I'll ever be. She doesn't NEED me."
"You must be completely in charge of your decisions, no fragment, no lingering presence, nothing must stand in your way."
"I. AM. GOING. TO STARVE!"
"Hmph!" the instinct scowls, clicks its claws against the invisible floor, and fades.
"Hey!"
Her nose starts itching out of nowhere and, as she closes her eyes to sneeze, her entire world distorts. When she opens them again, she finds herself staring out of the fortress window.
"Cool!" Three's looking at her with eyes open wider than usual, "You're back to normal. Though I liked the toothy form too but I'm sure griffons will be more comfortable around this one."
Thirteen raises her foreleg and can't help cracking a smile when she notices she's got hooves again. After a quick pat-down, she's certain she's looking almost exactly like she used to before her instinct locked her into the scarier form. Almost is the key word. She feels stronger and possibly a little rounder. It'll have to wait until she finds a full-body mirror but she thinks her current body might be a little more on the shapely and fit side than her original fragile one. Still far from the well-defined muscles and almost scaly-looking carapace of the feral form.
"Well, at least some good came out of all this," she breathes out.
"I gotta get to the radio and tell everyone that you look much less scary now and-" Three hops several times on the spot until Thirteen's hoof on his head stops him.
"Let's leave that for some other time, okay?" she smiles down at him, "I think I could use a moment of peace."
The intercom of the fortress hisses and clicks before Magpie's voice echoes through the hallways:
"Three, Thirteen. If you're here, come into my office immediately."
"Oops," Three chuckles nervously, "Are we in trouble for using the city broadcast for feeding?"
"What do you mean we?"
"Ummm-"
"Just kidding," Thirteen scratches Three behind the ear which makes him purr like a cat for a second, "No, I don't think we're in trouble, at least not for that. If it was about that, we'd have been in Magpie's office an hour ago. Let's go. Do you want a pony ride?"
Three's eyes go wide and his runes start glowing brightly before he even says anything.
"I'll take that as a yes," Thirteen giggles, "Hop on."
"No," says Three.
"What?" Thirteen leans her head back at the unexpected reply.
"What?" Magpie does the same.
"We're not going anywhere. Not until Thirteen has had a chance to feed herself."
"Three, I'm in charge-"
"Not of us!" the little drone flies up and crosses his forelegs on his chest.
"Gem asked me to-"
"To get us to Windy. I think we repaid that by saving you from the baddies and we're now helping griffons here because we don't want them to die of hunger," Three keeps hammering the point in. The worst part is that Magpie knows he's absolutely right.
"Three, this isn't a game! Whatever the Black Ops agents did in the north can be a much bigger threat to us than hunger or cold."
"You think I don't know that?" Three glares at Magpie, "But you don't listen when I try to use hugs so I have to go all hard-butt on you!"
"I can have you both locked up."
"And whom would that help? Thirteen wouldn't be able to feed herself, big change from now, woop woop."
All Thirteen can do at the moment is to observe the verbal hoofball between Magpie and Three, absolutely stunned by the drone acting so tough.
"Fine, I know how this goes," Magpie sighs, "What do you want?"
"Find a way for Thirteen to feed. Lust, love, anything that would mean she can sustain herself."
"Deal. I'll talk to Crimson. She knows the griffons here much better than I do. She might be able to find someone who is interested but couldn't handle the subtlety of the 'mating call' you tried."
"Okay," Three smiles.
"I still need you to take the airship and leave immediately to investigate the Black Ops locations."
"Okay," Three shrugs.
The lack of further objections takes Magpie by surprise and makes him reevaluate the situation.
"The crew will be ready in a few minutes. Go," he breathes out, "...please…?"
"On it!" Three salutes and simply floats out of the office, followed by Thirteen.
Magpie closes his eyes and leans back in his armchair.
"He really means well no matter what. A creature who genuinely doesn't have an evil bone in his body. How do you argue with that? How do you force someone like that to do something without feeling like a total anus?"
He breathes out and grits his beak.
"Get it together, catbird, there will be enough time for feelings when you're dead," he pushes one of several buttons on a panel on his desk and the built-in speaker above it says in Crimson's voice:
"Yeah?"
"How do you feel about playing a matchmaker?"
"For your changeling girl? I like a challenge but this might be a bit too tough."
"If you want them to keep helping us, and we need them to keep helping us, you'll find someone who will be nice to her, who will be genuinely interested in her, at least physically, who will take her to dinner or something, and who will give her a proper dicking afterwards. Can't fake it, lings feed on real emotion."
"Why don't you do it yourself if it's so important to you?"
"It would take too long to explain. Short version - I'm something changelings call 'a loveless'. That means I literally can't feed a changeling love unless it's under very specific circumstances and there's only one changeling who can get me there and Thirteen isn't her. As far as lust goes, I don't find her particularly attractive and I had my balls and head screwed by minotaurs so hard that my drive is a little different. Look, just find someone who won't crap their pants if they touch her. Male, female, doesn't matter."
"Ugh, fiiine..."
"And one last thing regarding this."
"Yeah?"
"If you do a half-assed job and find someone who will hurt her in any way, I will flay that griffon personally and broadcast it over the city loudspeakers so that you can hear what's going to happen to you next."
"That was unnecessary..."
"I just wanted to make my point crystal clear."
"We'll hover here," says the airship pilot, pointing at the holographic map hovering above the right side of the control panel, "The first location is right below us. I suppose you're both okay with flying down on your own. The scanning gear is in the back."
"Got it," Thirteen nods, "I don't think we're going to need the equipment. You guys know how to use it better than we do and you didn't find anything. We'll just go down there and see if we can't sniff something out with our buggo noses."
"Alright," the pilot nods and returns to watching the blinking control panel, "Stay in contact and call if you need lights on something."
"Will do!" Three salutes and flies out of the ship's bridge, followed by Thirteen.
The changelings land on the ground and have a quick look around the area lit by the reflectors from the captured Black Ops airship. As reported, because that they know what to look for, they can easily spot the stomped down ground and the leaves scattered over the tracks to cover everything that happened.
"Got anything?" asks Three, sniffing the ground, "I can smell griffons, serious griffons, but that's about it."
Thirteen takes a deep breath.
"Instinct, got anything?"
Flashbacks of travelling through the corrupted territory near Windy cross her mind, bringing with them the wet and slightly moldy scent of corruption.
"I smell corruption," says Thirteen, "And I can hear… a beating heart? A new life?"
"Umm, Thirteen, are you okay?" Three buzzes closer.
"Yeah... yeah..." she shakes her head, "I'm fine. It's just… follow me," she lets her eyelids drop and follows her nose to a cluster of trees some distance away from the lights of the ship, one of them broken by the wind, "We should check these out."
Three flies around, only his glowing eyes and runes illuminating the area, until he stops right above the broken tree.
"I didn't know trees were hollow," he scratches his head, "And there's something inside, something squishy. Let me have a look..." he lands on the top and starts crawling inside the trunk.
Thirteen hears a faint squelch.
"How's it going, Three?"
"Uhhh… I booped something and it started wobbling. It looks like an egg- eep!"
"Three?" Thirteen flies up herself.
"I think it's mad at me!"
Thirteen reaches into the tall stump, grabs Three's flailing hind legs, and heaves, pulling the drone out.
A bulging black mass bursts out, rising up the hollow tree like dough, small tentacles grasping for anything in reach.
"That can't be good. What do we-"
The instinct inside her screams: "RUN!"
If the powerful and terrifying part of her is yelling at her to disappear right now, Thirteen's going to ask for details later.
Her foreleg answers to her mind for once and snatches Three from the air just as her wings start buzzing and taking her up.
The black thing makes the tree bloom and open up like a banana peel.
Faster!
A fresh, loud squelch makes her look back only to see something akin to a black blooming flower with tentacles spreading through the ground, devouring and twisting the natural forest into corrupted biomass.
The tentacles bulge and time slows down for Thirteen. Despite the darkness, she sees something travel through the tentacles towards the blooming flower which tenses up in a way that reminds Thirteen of a pump shotgun being primed.
As the center of the flower coughs up the first particles of black smoke, the world stops along with a spike of pain running through Thirteen's brain.
"What's happening?"
"I stopped time for you," says the instinct, "The plant is expunging corruption in the form of the black stuff. You're not quick enough to get to the ship before the cloud reaches you."
"What's going to happen if it does?"
"No idea. Now, your body and mind are not strong or efficient enough to keep the dilated perception of time up for long. Decide what to do quickly."
"I'm going to need you to stop blocking what I can do, or at least let me focus love like mom taught me back home. Just for a few seconds."
"Deal."
As Thirteen senses the gears of time starting to move again, she does three things.
One, she taps her ear piece connecting her to the ship.
"W-" the voice has no time to ask before Thirteen's yells:
"PUNCH IT! BACK TO BLOODSTONE IMMEDIATELY!"
Next, she squeezes Three.
"THREE, BRICK MODE NOW!"
And finally, she pours the vast majority of love she has left into the foreleg holding Three and lobs him at the ship some fifty pony lengths away.
The black cloud rolls over her just as Three breaks through the reinforced glass of the turning airship's bridge.
His hive link to Thirteen cuts off as the acceleration hits and makes him roll under the control panel.
"What the heck is thaaaaaaat?!" screams the pilot, completely drowned out by the rushing wind as the airship burns it towards Bloodstone. He gives the holographic map a quick glance and a chill runs down his spine as he sees some kind of distortion run over its surface spreading out not only from the area they were in but from others further and further to the east.
"Corruption bombs like during the uprising… those bastards..." whispers a second griffon crewmate watching out of the side window in horror, "They want to wipe us off of the face of the Empire."
