They're EVERYWHERE!

65536: 17

"What h- ah shit..." even usually calm Sharp grits his teeth, "You didn't move them all somewhere else, I suppose?"

Celestia shakes her head.

The cell is bereft of all changelings and, unfortunately, contains a young, dead Royal Guard unicorn lying in a pool of coagulated blood on the stone floor, his throat torn open.

"They... did that?" 65536's jaw drops.

Celestia's horn lights up. Magic gathers inside the cell and temporarily changes their surroundings, making the body vanish and setting a different scene.

Incorporeal forms of the changelings are lying around, exhausted as always, until the small drain in the corner of the cell lets in several flies. The flies burst into green flames, transforming into a group of changelings. The prisoners raise their heads in surprise and give the newcomers questioning looks. However, they don't have the energy to do anything else.

The biggest of the new changelings, a warrior mare by the looks of it, uses her saliva to dissolve the edges of the drain cover. A different changeling, almost identical to 65536, walks from prisoner to prisoner, seemingly giving them hugs which make them able to stand up while the big mare ushers them towards the hole. The door suddenly slams open and two guards rush inside. Before they, or even Sharp, Beacon, or the EIS agent can react, the mare is holding one guard by his neck with her mouth, his eyes slowly closing as he sits down and remains staring blankly at the wall even after she lets him go. The second guard finds himself punched by her against the wall, suspiciously near where the dead body is lying now in the real world. Another small changeling, only slightly taller than 65536 but significantly thinner and overall spindlier, walks over to the guard groaning after a punch that knocked his helmet off, and puts its open mouth around his neck.

One by one, the prisoners shapeshift into larger insects and disappear down the drain but, so far, everyone is alive.

As they're almost done, the dazed guard turns his head and screams for reinforcements, and the spindly changeling bites down. The guard thrashes again, and the changeling gets thrown off, but the damage is already done and made much worse by the guard's movement.

As the changeling stumbles backwards, eyes wide and spitting out blood, the vision ends, leaving behind only the empty cell with one Royal Guard corpse in the position now corresponding with the vision.

"Have you ever considered a side-career at the EIS, Your Highness?" asks the EIS agent, "This kind of reconstructive spell would be invaluable to us."

"It only works here inside the castle," replies Celestia dryly, clearly not seeing any amusement in the situation. Then she looks at 65536, "Do you know who the changeling intruders were?"

"That mare was a top rank," 65536 sits down, staring with tearing-up eyes at the dead guard, "The one hugging everyone was a drone and it was feeding them. The one who... killed the guard was a female infiltrator. I... I think she was younger than I am."

"How could you tell?" asks the EIS agent with genuine curiosity.

65536 opens its mouth as wide as it can at him and points to its fangs before closing it.

"Drone teeth aren't sharp enough to cause that," it points at the shredded neck, "At least not by accident like what happened here."

"Ahem," Celestia clears her throat, "What I meant was if you had any idea who in particular those changelings were."

"Uhh, no?" 65536 looks at her, "I can recognize a top rank because... they're big and scary, but that's all."

With a sigh, Celestia looks at Beacon.