//------------------------------//
// Changeling Aftermath 
// Story: Avenging is Friendship 
// by Boltstrike58 
//------------------------------//

(Takes place immediately after "To Where and Back Again")





Equis, Our Town

Vision gently touched down outside the small mountain village, setting Wanda back onto her feet. The Sokovian woman hadn't wanted the synthezoid to carry her, but Wanda wasn't capable of sustaining her flight for long, and the idea of power-hopping across the Equestrian countryside was too ludicrous. At least Vision was strong enough that Wanda's weight amounted to little more than a feather.

The two Avengers took a brief glance around their new surroundings. The village certainly didn't have the vibrant colors of Ponyville, but it seemed pleasant enough. The houses were arranged in completely straight, uniform rows, and the darker colors were offset by the streamers, party banners, and balloons crossing over the town. Not quite on the same scale as Pinkie's "Equestria is Saved and We Now Have Extraterrestrial Friends" party from their first time in Equestria, yet clearly effort had been put into the festivities. Ponies drifted across the middle of the town, where the heart of the party seemed to be. Wanda's eyes quickly found the pony who'd extended the invitation, as Starlight devoured a fresh piece of cake.

"Wanda! Vision!" exclaimed a familiar, perky voice. Vision chuckled as the blob of bright pink bounced over to them, Pinkie digging trenches in the dirt as she stopped herself from slamming into Wanda's legs. "You made it! We missed you!" The pink pony jumped up, throwing her forelegs around Wanda's neck, nearly cutting off the woman's oxygen flow. Pinkie then released Wanda before administering a similar hug to Vision, who thankfully didn't need to breathe, as Wanda wheezed.

"Glad to—hack!—make it, Pinkie," Wanda coughed.

Pinkie's outburst caused the ponies of the small village to take notice of the otherworldly beings in their midst. As far away as the town was from the center of Equestrian society, even they'd heard about the Avengers and their service to the country, but most of them hadn't seen the heroes in the flesh. Sugar Belle and a few others shyly backed away from the strangers, but Starlight, as well as the rest Princess Twilight's group immediately moved to greet the pair.

"Miss Maximoff. Vision," Luna said, warmly. "A pleasure to see you again. You are always welcome in Equestria."

"We're grateful, Princess Luna," said Vision, slipping into his 'etiquette mode.' "Starlight informed us of the Changeling invasion, and we're happy to see you're all okay."

Luna opened her mouth to reply, but a familiar popping sound cut her off. To the surprise of nobody, Discord teleported right next to the two Avengers, covered in thick, white bandages, and leaning heavily on a pair of crutches made out of ice.

"Oh, it was so dreadful, Miss Maximoff!" he moaned, playing up the whining in his voice as much as he was physically capable of. He fell onto his mismatched knees, throwing one arm in front of his face. "Chrysalis' throne cut off all of my wonderful chaos magic! And then the changelings forced me into that dreadful cocoon! I don't know if I'll ever be able to sleep again!"

"Discord," Twilight grumbled simply, well aware of the chaos spirit's 'drama queen' act. The rest of the group glared at the draconequus, annoyed.

Discord stopped his groveling, before his eyes rolled back in their sockets, his pupils vanishing from sight. He snapped his fingers, and his bandages and crutches vanished, leaving him as the healthy spirit he truly was.

"None of you have any appreciation for suspense," he complained, floating off to the desert table.  

Fluttershy sighed. "I'm sorry, he just does that. You know him by now."

Vision gave a small chuckle, but re-iterated that he wasn't offended.

Wanda felt a small tug on the back of her jacket, turning around to find a unicorn she hadn't met before staring up at her. Her coat was a shade of blue, with a silver mane, and a stereotypical magic wand for a Cutie Mark. She also wore the typical purple 'wizard' hat, along with a cape, dotted with stars. She stared at Wanda, as if measuring the human up.

"So, you're the human who Starlight speaks about?" she asked, her voice haughty and confidant. "The one with the psychic powers?"

"Um, yes," Wanda replied, finding this particular pony odd. She ignited the familiar red glow around her hands to demonstrate, pulling a cupcake out of Discord's claw over to her own hand. The draconequus sighed, before snapping his talons and making his own food.

The pony studied Wanda further. "Well, Starlight says you are a powerful hero. On this basis, the Great and Powerful Trixie deems you worthy of being her friend as well. No need to thank me, I assure you." Trixie ignited her horn as well, using it to telekinetically give Wanda a tip of her hat, before turning around and rejoining the party, strutting with her head held high.

Wanda blinked. "That's...Trixie?" she asked Starlight, too confused to even begin eating the cupcake she'd taken.  

"Yep," Starlight answered, nonchalantly. "Now you see why I couldn't describe her in writing. She's...eccentric, but she's a good pony at heart. Without her, we never would've made it out of the hive."

Starlight used her own magic to levitate over a drink of fruit punch, and a pair of chairs. She motioned for Wanda to joined her. The Sokovian did so, Double Diamond passing her a drink as she did so.

"So...nice village," Wanda mumbled, unsure. Starlight had relayed her story in greater detail to Wanda through the journal, and Wanda didn't want to tear straight into such an emotional subject. She'd avoided talking about her own troubles around the unicorn for as long as she could, and Wanda was no hypocrite.

Fortunately, Starlight was quick to assuage those fears. "The village that I took over, brainwashing over a dozen ponies, taking their Cutie Marks, lying to them about it all the while? Yep." She chuckled lightly at the surprise on Wanda's face. "Don't worry, I've learned to deal with it. No need to beat around the bush."

"Good for you," Wanda answered, refusing to allow her relief to cross her features. "It wasn't easy to come back, was it? Because everywhere you look, you remember things you did. Things you'd rather have eternally forgotten." Wanda certainly knew what that felt like. Every time she saw the crater that had once been Sokovia, a place she made an effort to visit at least once a year to honor Pietro, she felt her sins crawling up her spine. Ultron's plans, without her assistance, might've never managed to progress as far as they had.  

Starlight noticed Wanda's plight, and took sympathy on her.

"You're right. I was so scared, I ran away from this place the first time I tried to visit. I've done terrible things...and not just here. It comes in Ponyville, too. Remember how I told you I stopped Dash's original Rainboom? Twilight told me about all the alternate futures she saw because of me, and...Nightmare Moon won, imprisoning Celestia, Chrysalis was slowly conquering what was left of Equestria, Tirek was destroying everything in sight, Sombra forced all of Equestria to be mobilized into war industry just to take him on..." The unicorn lowered her head in shame. "And the only one I saw, where everything was just...dust. No towns, no ponies, everything gone. I did that. Sure, you can make the argument that the timeline was restored, so technically, I never hurt anypony, but still. I created those futures. Even if it was temporary, I still caused immeasurable suffering. And I have to live with that."

But Starlight raised her head once more, placing a friendly hoof on Wanda's arm. "But what Twilight's taught me is that everypony—or everybody—has the capacity to do good. They have to accept offers of mercy and friendship, but they can. And you have to forgive yourself, because you can't work to make up for your mistakes if you're falling apart over them. And beating yourself up doesn't fix anything."

Wanda smiled warmly. "That's a beautiful philosophy, Starlight," she replied. Wanda may not have believed that everyone was truly redeemable (she hadn't believed it when Ultron killed Pietro, and she didn't regret tearing the closest thing he had to a heart out of his chest), but it was an ideal she respected. "I'm sorry that Chrysalis didn't accept your offer. I'm guessing, after what you went through, that must've felt like a massive setback."

Starlight gave a glum nod. "Thorax proved that she didn't need to devour love. That the changelings didn't need to be Equestria's enemies. But she couldn't see it. I just don't understand..."

Wanda did. She'd seen it before. People who had the potential to be great, to be noble, and they threw it away. Ultron did it because he was cynical, because he believed any positive qualities humans held were vastly outweighed by their flaws. However, what Chrysalis had done reminded her more of their last foe, Sombra.

"Pride," she answered, simply. "Chrysalis wanted to be in charge. To have power over Equestria. To take your hoof would've been equivalent to surrender, at least in her eyes. But that's her problem, not yours." She patted Starlight on the back. "And, like you said, in order to become good, somebody needs to accept that chance. You can't force it on them." She pointed to Discord, who was busy eating a rolled-up napkin. "Look at him. He was given a chance, and he realized how foolish throwing it away would be. Just because one person refused, doesn't mean friendship isn't worth fighting for."

She patted the unicorn on the shoulder. "I'd say you're another good example. And look at me. I joined forces with a homicidal A.I. just because I didn't like the Avengers." Wanda looked down at her hand, forming the familiar red nimbus between her fingers. "My problem was lack of perspective. I hated them because they enforced their will all over the world. Because they acted like Big Brother, like they were subjugating us for our own good. Maybe I had some good points, but that didn't make anything I did with Ultron right. I should've tried to work with the situation instead of trying to ruin them. But now, I've learned my lesson. And I'll spend the rest of my life making the world that much better. Fair enough, don't you agree?"

Starlight smiled peacefully. When she'd approached Wanda that day at the edge of the Everfree, she hadn't anticipated just how much they had in common. It was a comforting feeling, knowing neither of them were enduring the journey alone.





Vision blinked, unsure exactly how to respond to his current sight. He'd just been greeted by a creature that could only be described as a green, insectoid moose. The voice was familiar, though. A quiet and calm one, though the last time he'd heard it, the owner had sounded far more stressed...

"Thorax?" he asked, realization hitting him like a lightning bolt. "Is that you?"

The newly-crowned king of the changelings gave a small chuckle. "I wouldn't blame you for not recognizing me, what with all this," he gestured to his new body. "Man, it is going to be weird looking in mirrors from now on. Same for the rest of the changelings."  

"Starlight wrote a little bit about this in the journal," Vision recalled. "So you don't need to feed off love anymore?"

"I'm not one-hundred percent sure how it works," Thorax admitted. "I think what happened is that we started sharing our love amongst each other. To be honest, I've never felt so full in my life. It's like...let me put it this way. The way we used to feed off love from captives was like drinking molasses through a straw. This is like having my jaw open for the first time in my life and eating a three-course meal."

"Interesting," said Vision. While the synthezoid had never truly been an emotionless machine, emotions themselves, including his own, even after two years, were still baffling, yet intriguing to him. It was embarrassing to him, not helped by Tony sending him children's books about feelings. "Can you...I don't know how to describe it. Can you tell me about your feeding process? How exactly do you process emotions into sustenance?"

"It's hard to put into words," Thorax admitted. "It's like...it's like you have a second stomach, but it's not in your physical body. Like this hole inside you that you need to fill, or else it'll drain you dry. We still eat normal food, like everypony else, but we need love, too. When Chrysalis would drain other creatures, it was like she was sucking out the compassion and caring they had for living things. But her magic would leave them withered and dead. I can't explain why, it's not like living creatures have a finite pool of emotion they draw from."

"True," Vision replied. "I've always considered emotions to be responses to what's going on around an organism. But sometimes...they're just baffling."

"Don't worry," Thorax encouraged him. "You'll figure it out." Then, a wide smirk appeared on his face, and Vision was suddenly unnerved. "One of the perks of feeding off love is that we sense it. And you..." He gestured with his horns toward Vision, then towards Wanda, who was still talking with Starlight.

Vision responded by grabbing onto one of Thorax's horns, pulling the changeling down so they were face-to-face.

"Not. A. Word," he ordered, glaring Thorax right in the eye. Thorax just laughed.

"Maybe I spent too much time around Discord."