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// Cockatrice's Revenge 
// Story: Going Rogue 
// by MidnightBlaze 
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Twilight was walking along on an barely visible, overgrown path through the Everfree Forest. She was on her way to visit Zecora because she had found a couple rock thistle blossoms, which she now had in her saddle bags. They were a rare ingredient that she had heard Zecora needed for a special potion. The potion was supposedly able to make ponies immune a cockatrice's Petrification Spell, and since Twilight had already experienced being petrified once before, she had decided that it was in her best interest to not let it ever happen again. Ever.

As Twilight was walking, the events of the past couple weeks were all rushing through her head. Distracted as she was, she failed to notice that she was being watched, closely.

As she came to a rocky clearing, she noticed that it looked very familiar. Then she realized that this was the same place that she had been attacked by a cockatrice a while back. She tried to hurry through to the other side as quickly as possible, but as soon as she reached the middle a cockatrice came out of the woods just ahead of her. She gasped and tried to turn around and run away but the cockatrice flew over her head and landed directly in front of her with it's back turned.

After Twilight's first encounter with a cockatrice she had studied several spells to counter their Petrification Spell, so this time she was prepared, or so she thought. She started to cast her Petrification Ward, "Your not getting me this time!" But just as she had almost finished casting her ward the cockatrice suddenly spun around and hit her in the face with it's tail. Which affectively broke her concentration and caused her ward to fail. The force of the blow made her stumble backwards and drop her saddle bags.

Before she could right herself and try again the cockatrice wraped its tail around her neck and pulled her head up to stare into her eyes, which started the Petrification spell. Her body began to slowly turn into stone, starting with her hind legs and moving forward to her head. As the process reached her midsection the her front legs started to petrify as well. Twilight tried to cast an Interference Spell to disrupt the process, but the cockatrice saw what she was doing and simply accelerated it's spell to turn her horn into stone, preventing Twilight from using any magic. If a cockatrice could smile, this one would have.

"You get away from her!"

Suddenly, an unusually large changling flew out of the forest to twilight's right and plowed straight into the cockatrice. Leaving Twilight standing with her entire back half, most of her front legs, her horn, and part of her mane all turned to stone. "Oh great! First a cockatrice and now a changling! How in Equestria do these things keep finding me?"

The changling was crouched down, keeping a close eye on the cockatrice as it got up. "I don't know how it found you, but I've been trying to track you down for over a week. You're surprisingly hard to find"

"And let me guess, you're going to get your revenge on me because we beat you back in Canterlot, right?"

The changling turned to face Twilight, "Actually, I came to thank you." He had barely finished talking before the cockatrice body slammed into his side. "Augh, I look away for one second!" By the time he had stood up the cockatrice had already begun to charge him again, but this time he jumped over it, snapped open his four wings, flew over to a tree, and clung upside down to the trunk like a squirrel. "Oops, you missed me!"

The cockatrice had all but forgotten about its original prey for the time being and was entirely focused on chasing down its new tormentor. Meanwhile Twilight was exeplifying the word confusion while she tried to sort out what had just happened."Thank me?"

The changling was currently hovering just out of reach of the enraged cockatrice. Who was squaking and hissing furiously. "Yeah, you saved my life back in Canterlot, so I thought I'd at least say thanks."

"What? When did I save you?"

The changling had begun dive bombing the cockatrice. "Well, I was in the first wave that attacked and had changed ino you. You ended up tackling me and using some spell that forced me back into looking like myself. It turns out that whatever that spell was, you must have really let loose with it. Because now, I can't change at all."

"Wait, you can't? I didn't know that was possible."

The changling dove at the cockatrice again, but this time it ducked under him and hit him in the face with its tail. Causing him to ram into a nearby tree face first. After a second he got up and shook his head before looking over at Twilight. "Neither did I."

"But, how did that save your life?"

The cockatrice had jumped on the changlings back and coiled around his wings, preventing him from flying while pecking at his head. He attempted to buck it off but was unsuccesful. "Turns out that Chrysalis had been using some kind of telepathy to make us belive everything she said. That way we'd follow her without any questions. When you blasted me with that spell it must have knocked her link out of my head or something."

"So you don't follow Chrysalis anymore?"

The changling suddenly had the brilliant idea to preform a graceful back flop to rid himself of his annoying passenger. Unfortunately his attempt at gracefullness was an epic failure. Resulting in him getting the breath knocked out of him. Fortunately the rest of the manuever worked perfectly. He landed on top of the cockatrice, which stunned it and made it relinquish its hold on his wings. He rolled over off of the dazed cockatrice and attempted to breath, with limited success. "No way! After I saw what a crazy tyrrant she really is?"

The now recovered and furious cockatrice started to charge at the changling again. The changling was obviously not looking forward to another round with the creature. "I've had just about enough of you!" The changling reared up on its hind legs and slammed down its forehooves into the ground, each sending out a green tinged shockwave towards the cockatrice. When they reached the cockatrice the ground itself seemed to rise up and grab it, stopping it in its tracks, and encasing its entire body in a rocky shell except for its head.

The surprised look on the cockatrice's face was mirrored by both Twilight and the changling. Twilight was the first to real in her slack jaw. "How did you do that?"

The changling was next to gain control of his voice. "Wish I knew. That was cool!"

"You mean you've never done that before?"

"Nope."

"Can other changlings do that?"

"None that I've heard of."

During this exchange the cockatrice had been struggling to break free but now, after finding that it couldn't, it started screeching, anouncing it's defiance to the world. The changling cringed at the deafening sound before launching a small glob of green ooze from his horn at the cockatrice's beak. "Oh, be quiet already!" The ooze hit the cockatrice's beak and instantly stuck it together, effectively silencing it's shrieks. "Thank you!"

"Now what?"

The changling looked over at Twilight. "What do you mean?"

"Now that you found me and said thanks, what are you going to do?"

"I... don't know........... Ha. First of all I'm gonna figure out a way to get you out of there." He started walking towards Twilight.

Twilight was apprehensive as the changling approached her. It WAS a changling after all! And hadn't they just attacked Canterlot a few weeks ago? How could she trust one of those, well, monsters! But it's not like she had many options at the moment. She decided that she would have to risk trusting him. Partially. For now. "I think I might know a way."

"How?"

"There's a zebra named Zecora that lives in a hut nearby. If you follow this path for a few minutes you'll find it. She should be able to make a potion that can free me."

"Oh, well that's convinient. But how can I get her to believe me? I don't exactly look very trustworthy."

Twilight took a while to think of some way to convince Zecora to trust somepony that she herself didn't entirely trust. "Well, if you tell her something that only I would know that might work."

"Like what?"

"Like... Oh, back when we first met I thought that she was going to eat AppleBloom!"

"Wait, what?"

"Long story. But I was so embarrassed afterwards that I didn't tell anypony else. That should work."

The changling turned and started to run down the path. "Ok, AppleBloom, got it."

"Wait a second!"

The changling skidded to a stop and turned around to look at Twilight, confused. "What?"

"What's your name?"

The changling chuckles and smirks. "My name's Rogue." With that he galloped off towards Zecora's hut. Which left Twilight alone with her thoughts. And of course the imprisoned cockatrice who was still grunting and struggling, to no avail, against its rock cocoon.

"I hope he was telling me the truth."