They're EVERYWHERE!

65536: 1

Changeling drone 65536 is leisurely strolling through the hallways of Canterlot castle. All of the nasty iron-wearing, pointy-speared guard ponies are gone, the queen is in the throne room, singing something victorious. It's like when 97889 tried to do a drone radio station through the hive mind back home before it was told to stop wasting love or be shoved into a crusher. This song is a bit too evil for 65536's taste but it still livens the feed otherwise filled with orders and map updates.

In general, now that the fighting is over, the situation calls for warriors and infiltrators to find and mop up the resistance while the drones are left to wander or simply stand around like the new weird, experimental ones the queen made specifically for the invasion.

65536 shudders. Those new, silent drones are creepy.

"This day has been just perfect, the kind of day-" the drone mouths quietly to the queen's singing, nodding its head to the rhythm, "-of which I've dreamt since I was a grub..."

Its quiet sing-along gets interrupted by multiple sets of galloping hoofsteps as a group of drones rush towards 65536.

"Hey, guys. What's going on?"

55684 stops abruptly by 65536 with wings buzzing, looks around in a conspiratory fashion, and says quietly:

"Didn't you hear? 11581 caught a real pony! One of the non-pokey or magic ones."

"Oh my holes, really!" 65536's jaw drops.

"Yeah! It wants to make the pony love it so that it can get fed and beat the high score!" 55684 bounces on the spot, grinning with excitement.

"Woooooow!" 65536's eyes go wide, "I wish I had a pony too... I could feed it, and give it all the headpats and scritches, and I could even dig its own tunnel. Small, obviously, or one of the high-ranks might come and ask questions."

"Do you even know what ponies eat?"

65536 quickly glances out of the window overlooking Canterlot castle gardens as well as part of the gold-decorated city.

"Eeeeh, those yellow... shiny... things?"

"No, dummy. We had the briefing, remember? They eat, umm, leaves and stuff, right? And they make other things to eat from... flowers. Rainbow-colored ones specifically," 55684 nods victoriously.

"Well," 65536 scratches its head, "Tough to find that back home, true, but... hey, I remember! I was on egg duty once when a real mare the infiltrators caught was laying some eggs. She didn't look too starved, so there must be something ponies can eat in the hive."

"Pfff! Queen probably had warriors bring leaves and grass for her all the way from the Everfree forest. That's like... imported, you know. Top-notch stuff."

66536 shudders.

"That place is scary..."

"Agreed! Now come on, you wanna see 11581's pony or not?"

"Sure I do! I wanna see the power-up too. Any bets on what score 11581 gets?"

"34112 is in charge of the pool. I got one shiny rock and a twig from my little bush on rank 1154 or less."

"Yeeeah, about your bush. I think I saw something the warriors called a hydra while we were flying here and it looked suspiciously like a really big version of your bush."

"What? Nooo..." 55684 shakes its head, "Bushy's no hydrant."

"I had my suspicions the first time you showed us. I was pretty sure that bushes aren't supposed to crawl around and have scales, teeth, and spit acid."