Our little group dispersed into two smaller ones, with Deadbolt choosing to give the keys we would need to Crook for safekeeping.
We had decided that Forsythia and Burst would be in charge of keeping our family members from breaking out of their cells in a disorganised scramble, by clobbering them over the head if need be.
Glottis, given his somewhat extrasensory perception, was in charge of figuring out which of them were going to be a problem once we had them out in the open.
Cubitus and Crook would keep back to ensure none of them wandered off from the group and could potentially make their way through the main hallway to find our pony friends.
Which left me, standing around awkwardly in the middle of the hall, facing the door to the first group cell.
The door was larger than the ones in the first and second sections, clearly designed to allow bigger creatures through, or a couple of us at the same time.
The cells had the same sound dampening magic on them as the other ones, meaning we had no way to tell what was going on inside of it, except by peering through a small hole which was obviously used to pass food through.
Forsythia had taken it onto herself to flip this hole's cover open and was peering inside as the rest of us watched from our respective positions.
"Move back a bit, guys," she spoke into the opening. "It's just us Changelings out here. We'll explain it if you come out in an orderly fashion."
"Are they keeping back?" Oval wondered, standing next to Forsythia.
The larger of the two turned her head to peer into the hole again to check.
"Looks it," she agreed. "It should be safe to open the door without getting rushed."
"Let's hope none of them get any weird ideas. We're all Changelings out here, so they should be able to contain themselves," I sighed, that knot in my stomach tightening as the moment neared where I had to speak to the ones currently still in the cell.
Glottis placed his right forehoof against my left shoulder. "Calm down or you'll give yourself heartburn."
"I'm trying," I returned to him, taking a slow, deep breath in an attempt to calm my nerves.
"Well," Crook suggested, walking over with the small bundle of keys he had been given, "let's open her up, then."
He put the key to the lock, turned it with his magic, and paused.
"Wrong one?" Burst suggested, staring at Crook.
"Wrong one," Crook admitted, taking the key back out again and trying another one. "It's not like they're labelled."
"Do you want me to give it a try?" Burst offered.
"I can do it, big bro," Crook huffed, putting another key to the lock. He turned it with his magic.
Nothing.
Burst stared at her little brother, slowly tilting her head sideways to the left.
Crook quickly swapped keys again and turned the new one once it was in the lock.
The cell door finally opened up, and he pulled the key back out to return to his predetermined position near Cubitus.
Burst used her left hoof to push the door open and peered into the large room beyond. "Okay everyone, come on out into the hallway. We're still locked into the jail proper, but we're working on that."
"And let us know if you feel like you might lose control over yourself before you do, or I'll have to knock you unconscious," Forsythia added.
A group of confused Changelings started to file out of the cell, looking curiously at the six of us standing there waiting for them.
"How many of you are in there?" Burst asked of the first few. "Can you line up in rows of five, facing Pearl?"
"Who's Pearl?" one of them asked, and instantly got a nudge from Forsythia's hoof.
"She's the one with the necklace," Forsythia pointed out.
I watched as the rows of Changelings started to line up in front of me until there were five rows total; four of them with three each in them to count up to twelve, but then only two in the last row to make a total of fourteen.
I gave a side glance at Glottis. "What do your elf eyes see, Legolas?"
He didn't get the reference, and raised an eyebrow.
"It's a thing from my homeworld, forget I said anything," I spoke with no small measure of embarrassment.
"Well, if you're asking me about who to be wary off, I can't tell you. They're all nervous, confused, tired, and hungry," Glottis listed. "Not too dissimilar from how the rest of us are feeling."
"But they were supposedly thrown in there because they attacked Deadbolt, in a more severe way than the rest of us. Let's be glad they're not trying that with us," I mused.
"So," I spoke louder, now addressing the group in front of us, "as you all know; Canterlot's ponies have thrown some anti-transformation barrier up around their city. This is preventing all of us from taking on our guises, and is the reason we are all here right now."
The group in front of me nodded, some of them with angry, others with sad expressions on their faces.
"We all know how the ponies think about us; they're scared we might do unspeakable things to them and can't see past their fear," I continued, to more nodding.
"Some of you had been in your guises for years, I know. A lot of you are worried you won't be able to return to those lives," I brought up. "It's not fair to us. It's not fair to those of us we engaged in relationships with. It's not fair to our friends and families among the ponykind, who are now going to be doubly worried; Did we replace the pony they think they knew, or were we always a Changeling? What were our reasons for being there among them?"
"They won't get a satisfactory answer if we don't do something which I know a lot of you are going to think is a very naive idea; we will wait for the barrier to come down, and then return to those very lives as if nothing happened," I decided.
There were confused glances, then murmuring from the group, and finally clear protests.
"I told you you would think it a naive idea, but hear me out," I spoke louder to overpower the protests coming from them.
"They will think we have replaced their loved ones. They will assume those loved ones were captured, taken somewhere, held prisoner the same as we are held prisoner now," I explained. "It's the most simple explanation they can come up with, and it's what they will more readily believe than that we have been Changelings all along. They won't accept that they might have had relations with us from the very beginning."
The dissenting voices lowered in tone, but the group still looked around one another and had some back-and-forth of ideas on this strange notion.
I knew it made sense. It was Occam's Razor, after all; The simplest explanation is more often the correct one.
"When the barrier comes down, and it will, the ponies in this town will attribute it to their pony princesses having done something they are not immediately privvy to, as is the case with all of the weird events which have happened in Equestria over the years," I spoke to reinforce the idea of the ponyfolk seeking the most simple explanation for things.
"They will think that the barrier has come down because we Changelings have been defeated. Perhaps they will see Princess Twilight Sparkle and consider that she and her friends have saved the day yet again," I chuckled. "They won't need more than that; they have an almost blind faith in their princesses."
The group chuckled a little and nodded their heads again. It was a known fact that the pony princesses were revered to the point where they were elevated to a kind of godhood.
"So, when the barrier comes down, those of you who have lives here will just wander back into the city with that idea in mind; you will keep those disguises you have had before, and just say you were held captive just outside of town," I proposed.
"The ponies you know will just go on with their lives, happy to find their loved ones returned to them," I painted the picture for the group before me. "They won't think twice about it. Those who do, could be easily made to believe they're just needless worrywarts."
There were some smug smiles in front of me, and I knew that this group would accept my plan. It was plausible enough, I had built it up enough, and they could see how it would work out.
"There's just one problem," I broke through the sudden excitement. "We do need to get out of here, and that's going to take a bit of restraint from all of you."
The group hushed again, looking curiously at me.
"I know you're hungry," I said, then held up my right foreleg. "I'm still young; only a Hatchling fresh out of the Hive nearby, but you can see the others around you. They know the hunger. They know how you might be overtaken by it."
The group looked around again, their faces a mixture of emotions.
"In order to get out of here, we need to put our trust in a small group of ponies who are aware of us, and are our friends," I stated, then raised my voice and emphasized my next words again. "I can't stress this enough; they are our friends. They are not food, they are not to be attacked, they are to be protected because they are our only hope of coming out of here before we all lose our minds from hunger."
The group fell apart in protests again, almost half of them decrying that we couldn't possibly trust ponies, but an almost equal number had thoughtful frowns on their faces and were clearly overthinking it.
"Some of you," I shouted over the noise, "were present in the nearby Hive when Starlight Glimmer and Pinkie Pie urged our Queen to think twice about attacking this city again. To keep her from making the same mistake that was made months ago. Those were ponies who we could trust because they wanted to keep the peace between our races. This situation is no different!"
Some of the group quieted down again, considering my words in earnest now.
"If we don't accept their help and do what is needed to get out of this city, we'll end up succumbing to the hunger and become a ravenous horde, destroying all that we have built up over the past years. There will be no going back to your previous guises, no returning to the pony lands. They will use this to set up permanent barriers against us," I warned.
"There is only one way out of this, and all you have to do is keep the peace. Listen to us, listen to the few ponies we'll point out are our friends, and do as we say," I listed quickly.
"So what's it we gotta do then?" one of my brothers in the group called out.
"We're going to free the rest of our family from these cells here, and repeat this what I just told you. We'll gather up in small groups, and then make our way out of the jail, out of the palace, and out of the city," I started.
"We can't transform ourselves, so we'll need to rely on our pony allies to misdirect the guards above so we have a free path out to freedom," I explained further.
"Some of you know how to stick to the shadows and walk quietly; help those who don't. Some of you know how to fly undetected; help those who don't. Some of you know the places around this city where we can hide away; help those who don't," I pressed onto them. "But the most important thing is; Don't attack the ponies. Stick to the plan; escape from this city so they can't throw you back in here."
"And you think that's going to happen without a fight, do you?" another of my brothers wondered.
"It might just; if we file out while they're changing guards," a sister in the group suggested.
"Yeah, and we can fly close to the mountainside so they won't see us against the sky," another spoke up.
"Is it night out? It should be night out; we'll blend in with the night's sky more easily," yet another suggested.
"Now we're getting somewhere," I sighed in relief, but had to raise my voice again to draw their attention back to where I wanted it. "We're going to have to bring the others in on this plan, and keep one another from going feral in the mean time. Keep an eye on your brothers and sisters and keep them from losing it while we get the rest up to speed."
"If you want to help out with the other groups," I spoke to them again, "we have a few different roles we need help with. Talk with Forsythia and Burst if you think you can help with keeping the next group from rushing the door when we open it. Talk with Glottis here if you think you can see when someone is about to lose it and go feral. Talk with Cubitus over there if you would rather stand back and cordon off the area so they don't try to run for the exit which, as I said before, is still closed."
"Why is the exit closed? How did you get in then?" one enterprising sister wondered.
"Our pony friends have let us in, and our pony friends will help to let us out again once we have everyone sorted here. But not before then," I stated simply. "The only way we're getting out of here is with all of us staying calm and collected. At the first sign of any one of us trying to storm the ponies, it's over; they'll lock us in and throw away the key."
"So, clobber any of your brothers or sisters when they look like they're getting ready to pounce a pony for a quick meal," Forsythia stated from the back, holding up her right forehoof. "Or I will."