//------------------------------// // The Arrival // Story: Times of Change // by Geno Chaosdragon //------------------------------// It was a beautiful day in Ponyville, with all the ponies going along their daily chores. The Cakes were baking their sweets with Pinkie Pie helping them, Twilight was busy with her books and princess duties, Rainbow Dash was taking care of the skies, and Fluttershy was caring for her animals. On Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack was busy harvesting apples with the help of her siblings, Big Mac and Applebloom. In her shop, Rarity was working on her clothes to sell to visitors and townsfolk alike. In the middle of town, not too far from the Castle of Friendship, there was an empty house. It had been sold to an unknown pony that was supposed to move in that day, and Pinkie was setting up her Welcome to Ponyville Welcome Wagon. She was determined that this pony was going to have the best welcome he could possibly have. That's all they knew about him. He was a stallion. While she was preparing her welcome wagon, a newcomer was walking through the town, causing all the ponies who saw him to run and hide. You, see, the new resident of Ponyville was a Changeling. He was one of the few changelings who didn't feed off of love, so he decided to leave the hive and hivemind and to go live wherever he wanted. So, like any changeling that was unfamiliar with the outside world, Shattershell decided to go to the worse possible place where a changeling could be. He was clueless about the danger he was in, however. He honestly thought that the place was rather nice and was eager to find his house. He was using his magic to levitate the luggage behind him, but was very confused as to why the ponies ran and hid. He shrugged it off. Maybe they were nervous of newcomers. He got to his house and looked up at it proudly. He was the first Changeling to own a house and not be disguised. It was a rather big house as well, but he managed to get enough money from working around the kingdom at various jobs. He had experience in a lot of fields, but he wasn't to keen on some of the jobs he had taken in the past. Taking the key out of his saddlebag, Shattershell unlocked the door to his house and went in. He set the luggage down in the first room, which he saw was the living room, and decided to explore the house to get a feel of navigation. Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie and the rest of the Mane 6 were outside the house, ready to greet the new neighbor. Seeing the door was open, Rainbow decided to let herself in. Twilight, however, stopped her. "Rainbow, you can't just walk into somepony's house, that's rude!" Shattershell, who was currently in the upstairs area, decided that the room he was in would be a good work area. He went downstairs as Rainbow went back outside and used his magic to grab one of the boxes and bring it upstairs. Rainbow was able only to see the box glow with a magical aura and disappear from sight. "Hey, looks like we have a unicorn! Let's hurry up and go greet the new guy." Unable to stop her, Twilight could only watch as Rainbow zoomed in the house. She sighed and decided to follow with the others. Shattershell was setting the box on the floor and thinking how he was going to do this when Rainbow zoomed by. She quickly came back to the room Shattershell was in to confirm what she had seen. Yep, a changeling. In Ponyville. She was about to attack when Twilight grabbed her and shushed her. "Let's see what he does. Maybe we can find out something about Chrysalis from him." she whispered. Rainbow wasn't happy about the idea, but saw the logic in it. The rest of the ponies watched as the changeling opened the box. Shattershell took out a typewriter and set it on the floor. "How am I going to use this thing if I don't have a table?" He decided that in order to get started on his work, he had to get a table from one of the other rooms. "Ok, take one table from the other rooms, then I'll just use it until I buy a proper table for it." Walking out of the room, he went into the dining room and took the table from there. He didn't see the girls spying on him, but he wasn't exactly paying much attention to anything but getting his house set up. Bringing the table into the room, Shattershell placed the typewriter on top of it. Nodding in approval, he went back downstairs and got his boxes and started unpacking, all the while the girls watching. Eventually, he could feel their gazes on him and looked around. They managed to hide in time, but now Shattershell was nervous. "Hello?" No one answered so he went back to unpacking his cups and plates. He was rather uneasy now, however. He kept feeling somepony watching him. He kept turning around, looking for anyone that was watching him. When he finished unpacking, he put water in a kettle and set it on the stove. While that was boiling, he would deal with finding out why he felt like he was being watched. Looking around the house, he was unable to find anyone. The girls were doing their best not to be found by the changeling, and so far they were succeeding. Eventually, Shattershell shrugged it off and went back to the kitchen to remove the screaming kettle from the stove. He sighed as he poured steaming water into a mug and put in some tea leaves. "This is gonna be a long day…" Rainbow was getting impatient with the waiting. She wanted some action. And just watching a changeling doing some simple things wasn't very exciting. She decided to give it five more minutes before she decided she was just going to jump the changeling and make him tell them what he was up to. Right now he was just sitting there. He was completely open, no disguise on. Was he really that confident? One thing was different from what she had seen on most changelings with him, however. His chitin was covered in crack scars. It would seem like his chitin had broken and healed before. This meant one of two things since they knew next to nothing about changelings. Either his chitin was stronger than usual or weaker than usual. Wouldn't matter to her either way. All she needed to do was pin him down and they would get their answers. But what he was doing now confused them all. He had gotten out six more cups and was filling them with water and tea leaves. "I know you're there. Come on out." He was looking towards them. They decided that they might as well go from scouting to fighting, so they came out, prepared for a battle. But they never got the battle. "It's sorta rude to sneak into a neighbors house, ya know. I'm pretty sure that's called breaking in." He didn't look very happy, but Rainbow didn't care. "You mean how you and your friends broke into Canterlot?" Shattershell sighed in frustration. "And of course, you use that incident. Ok, first of all, I wasn't part of that. I was against that. But the queen was desperate. And two, we were starving. So while you and your fancy ass friends were having your bucking tea and crumpets, we were dying." "That still doesn't excuse what you did." Twilight replied. Shattershell decided that he didn't really like these neighbors. "Ok, star ass, what would you do if you and your family were starving and a free source of food was right in front of you? You'd take it! But you guys live the high life, but the changelings that have to eat love to live have to starve, is that it? Because you guys are to bucking selfish to share your love with the poor 'Parasites' as we're called. Why don't you guys just go buck yourse-" It was at this point the Shattershell had to duck from Rainbow flying at him. "And another thing! Not all changelings are bad! Ya racist motherbuckers!" It would seem that this changeling was someone who just didn't give a buck. As he kept ranting, the girls came to the conclusion that they would need to try different methods to bring him to justice.