//------------------------------// // The Destiny of a Changeling part 2 // Story: Project Change // by The One With The Crystal //------------------------------// When everypony and dragon had settled down and after the fillies' weapons were put away, they all sat down to talk. Iolite answered any and all of the fillies's question to the best of his ability. Then he got some of his questions answered too. While he was answering some more questions he was also writing in a journal that the fillies weren't sure where he got it from. "So what are you here for? Are you going to take love from somepony and bring it back to your queen?" Sweetie Belle asked. Iolite stopped writing for a brief minute and gave the unicorn filly a weird look before returning to his journal. "I thought you girls trusted me?" he asked. "We do..... its just that.... you have to have reason to be here. From what Twilight says if a changeling comes back its just to gather enough love that so that Queen Chrysalis can get stronger." Sweetie Belle said. "Well....... I have to get that mare some credit. She's half right." Iolite responded. "Ah ha! I knew you were up to something! What until Rainbow hears......... wait did you say half right?" asked Scootaloo. Once again Iolite stopped writing in his journal and this time he closed it and took a deep breath. "Once again I will tell you to best of my ability. From what I can tell if a changeling is in an area it is to take love, but not for the Queen alone. The love is shared amongst every changeling and even that isn't enough. So scouts are sent to multiple town to get love and bring it back to the hive. Also you fillies have met a changeling more than once in your life time " "What?" asked the fillies. "Look outside. There are some changelings outside right now that you didn't notice until now. Applebloom, Sweetie Belle, and Scootaloo went to the nearest window to see if what Iolite said was true. When the looked outside they couldn't believe their eyes. Some of the ponies outside and a light blue glow to their eyes. It was faint though, very faint. If somepony didn't look closely they would miss it, but even if they did see the blue light it would instantly vanish. It would make ponies think it was a trick of the eye. It took the fillies a couple of tries to see what was happening. The crusaders didn't know what to think. How could they miss something like that? Then they turned back to see Iolite staring back at them with a light green glow in his eyes. "I though you said that there weren't any changelings in Equestria?!" Scootaloo said in an angry tone. "Well let me rephrase myself. There aren't any lethal changelings in Equeastria. The ones outside are just scouts. And from the looks of it they took on a whole different pony. So nopony has gone missing, thats good. And to answer your question about the glowing eyes a changeling's disguise is good, but its not.... how you say........ perfect. If one was to stare long enough without blinking they could see the light you just saw." he said. "But we didn't stare that long! We didn't even stare for two seconds! It was just there!" said Applebloom. "Yeah could you explain that to us?" suggested Scootaloo. "Well thats going to be hard, because I can't even explain that. I guess you going to just going to have to wait until a personality that does know what's going on can tell you." Iolite said as he closed his journal for now. Scootaloo stood in front of him with a really angry face. "No you don't! Your going to tell me what you just did you us, right now!" Scootaloo yelled. "Well if you really want to know what happened to you I can tell you one thing, but I don't know the meaning behind it." Iolite said as he felt the tug. "What is it?" asked Applebloom. The light blue flames slowly came into view. Scootaloo backed away from the changeling as he started to change back. "Your eyes are open." Iolite said before the flames completely engulfed him. Once the flames died down the pegasus colt Pyxis had returned. He was glad to be back to his normal self, but once he looked up he wish Iolite had stayed. Staring at him were two confused fillies along with a very annoyed one. He could feel the uneasiness in the air and it made him shiver uncontrollably. Though Scootaloo eventually calmed down. "This is going to happen all the time around you isn't it?" asked Scootaloo with a sigh. "Umm.......... pretty much." Pyxis replied. "And tell me why I shouldn't go get Rainbow Dash or Twilight on you and your changeling buddies?" "Because I know you like an adventure and here is one right in front of you." said Pyxis jokingly as he nudged Scootaloo. The pegasus filly soon gave into the changeling's joking antics and pushed him away. She went to get her saddle bags and opened the door. As she was about to walk out she saw her friends looking at her with concern. "What? I'm not going to tell on him....... well not until he does something bad. Its just that I need some time to clear my head and I think I know just the way to do it." Scootaloo said. "How?" asked Sweetie Belle. "Vinyl and Octavia are still giving out music lessons." Scootaloo said as she prepared to head to the music shop. Soon her friends joined her and together the four of them headed towards the music shop. Though they had to stop every once and a while to let Sweetie Belle catch up. She was trying to read the journal that Iolite wrote, from the look on her face it was pretty interesting. Once they arrived at the shop the walked in and were greeted by the sound of Octavia's cello. The crusaders and Pyxis walked in and sat down to listen to the musician's music. Well almost all of them. Sweetie Belle was still wrapped up in the journal. She was so into it that she didn't even notice that the music had ended. Octavia and Pyxis started to have another lesson and the music started up again. "That journal must be really good Sweetie Belle." said Applebloom. The white unicorn filly didn't hear the farm girl's comment and continued to read. Applebloom tried again to gain her friend's attention, but failed. "Here let me do it." said Scootaloo as she took the journal away from Sweetie Belle. "Huh, give that back. I was reading it." said an upset Sweetie Belle. "It's that good? What is it about?" asked Scoots. She turned the journal around so that she could read it, but found out that Sweetie Belle had already gotten to the last page. "Its kind of sad. Its about this mother who has a lot of children and they all have super special talents. Some can do magic even though their not unicorns, some can see into the future, there is one who knows a cure for almost every disease, and then there is a couple that can feel the emotions around them. Due to these gifts other ponies see them as monsters or something like that. The whole family is bullied, robbed, and eventually evicted from their own hometown. They travel throughout the land in search for a new home, but the same thing keeps happening. Word leaks out about the family's gifts and once again their evicted. Soon the family has nowhere to go so they build a new home for themselves and things go smooth for a little while." said Sweetie Belle. "What happens next?" asked Applebloom. "Their food eventually runs out and the mother is caught between two decisions. You see there will be a massive celebration in a town close by the following weekend and everypony would be outside have fun. While the ponies were distracted she and her children could sneak into the houses and take what ever food they could find and return to their home." "Wait if they can do magic why don't they just grow their own food?" asked Scootaloo. "Well the funny thing is that nopony in the family has a green hoof. If any of them tried to grow a plant it would just wither away." Sweetie answered. "Anyway back to the story. The mother had a choice either let her children starve or risk the chance of being exiled to feed her children. She took the risk. That weekend after days and nights of planing and practicing they entered the town and their job began. The cleaned out a house in two minutes flat and then moved to the next one without leaving a single trace. They kept going until they were almost done. Then they came onto a large house that looked like it belonged to a very rich pony. The house would be their last one for when they went in they didn't expect for there to be anypony in there, but inside was one small filly. A very scared and frightened filly. Once the filly saw who broke into her home she screamed to the top of her lungs and ran as fast as she could to get help. Within minutes the family was caught and exiled from the country." "After they were exiled they stayed as a family until their mother grew weak from starvation. With barely any food to keep all of them alive the mother told her children to leave her and go on into the world and they did. Except for one small colt. He stayed behind. The mother smiled softly and whispered to the colt. "Go. Go on. Go out into that great big world and enjoy life. Oh and make some friends while your at it." she said as she closed her eyes for the last time." Sweetie finished. As she looked back at her friends she could see that Applebloom was on the verge of tears and Scootaloo was already crying, though she tried her best to hide it. "Iolite wrote that?" Applebloom asked. Sweetie Belle nodded her head. "Thats so sad. That can't be how it ends. It just can't be." "Thats where it stops. Except for six words at the bottom, but I don't know what it means." Sweetie Belle said. "What were the words?" asked Applebloom. "A Changeling's Destiny. Now you know." Sweetie Belle answered. It took a minute for the words to sink in. It took even longer for the fillies to understand why Iolite wrote the story. Then all three looked up towards Pyxis in concern. They thought they were going to see him depressed and sad, but he wasn't. Instead he was looking right at them with a smile on his face. It was as if he didn't know what Iolite had written. It was as if....... he didn't remember what had happened. It was like he was untainted, pure, from his past and now the fillies were lost and didn't know what to do. Though seeing Pyxis's happy smile cleared their heads they knew that they were going to need some help with this, but for now the fillies listened to Pyxis's music and relaxed.