//------------------------------// // The truth is free... well, only five bits. // Story: Living the lie // by Damaged //------------------------------// "No, get back from her!" Scoop's brain was screaming at him to run but there was something in the little earth pony that wouldn't leave his friend to the evil clutches of Chrysalis'… tender… mercies… The changeling queen had put her fake fangs aside and had found another scrape on Snap, treating it with a wet cloth to clean it. "I simply won't leave her in pain. Do you have any idea what negative feelings have a tendency to do in a hive of changelings? Pretty soon everypony would be feeling down and we would have ponies wanting days off work to cope with it and… no, no I won't allow it." Chrysalis busied herself, humming reassuringly to Snap and leaving the mare looking more than a little dazed at the kind care of the 'evil queen'. Scoop parked his flank and watched, unable to make out what he should really do. Technically the queen was helping his friend, but something didn't seem right. This wasn't how she was meant to act! "Okay, now that is taken care of, how did you two get here?" Chrysalis levitated the timidly smiling pegasus up onto the soft couch and found her own seat. "I can take a guess that Princess Celestia left her own mirror-gate somewhere careless, like in her bedroom, and you scurried through it?" The earth pony shook his head, this was all too odd. "No, she had it hidden in a dungeon, I thought she had changelings down there?" Scoop pulled his little notepad out, this wasn't the conspiracy he had expected but his cutie mark was practically on fire, there was a story here. "She better not, that wouldn't be nice at all, and after I let her new princess win this time!" Chrysalis settled down in a nice pile of pillows, getting comfortable. "Let her win? But the Elements of Harmony battled your hoard while Princess Cadance broke the spell you had on Shining Armor and their love blew you and your drones away!" Snap had shaken the comfortable feeling and cut in on the conversation. "Oh, sure, from one angle it would look like that. Hay, why don't we get another angle, if you don't trust me. Cadance?" Chrysalis smiled and lifted her head to call out. Princess Cadance, wearing a cute little hat and a surprise, trotted in from another cave. "What is it Chrysy? Oh, we have guests?" "Your auntie left her mirror laying around again. I swear, why doesn't she lock it up somewhere?" Chrysalis gestured to the pair. "Tell them what happened, they think the last play was all some big battle!" "Well, it sort of was." Cadance trotted to a cabinet and rummaged around in it with her magic. "The ponies of Equestria need a little shake-up every now and again, monsters, beasts, changeling invasions. One of these things is not like the others. Ah, here it is." A heavy, bound tome of loose papers landed before Scoop. The Changeling Invasion of Cadance and Shining's Wedding Snap reached a hoof out and turned the page over, a table of contents… or more, it was scenes. The pegasus started off reading through it. "This is a script!" "It sure is, took us all a year to study it up. I think you really were the star, Chrysi." Cadance sat herself down beside the changeling. "You up for another game of hoof-ball?" "But, this can't have all been a script, your fights, the Elements battle with the drones in the streets." Scoop batted a page where it clearly listed adlib by Cadance to encourage Twilight to help her. "No… but wait, why all this game? Why the charade?" He couldn't possibly be believing this, could he? "How did the ponies of Canterlot react?" Chrysalis produced another copy of the script and flipped through it, pointing at one bit with a hoof. "Oh, that was so fun! Our two-part aria was great!" Cadance clopped her hoof and lifted her voice in song. "This day is going to be perfect!" "The kind I wished since the days that I was small…" Chrysalis had burnt in green flame a moment, becoming a copy of Cadance so she could sing the perfect duet. Both ended up giving a happy sigh as their memories recaptured the moment. "They… they were overjoyed… their princesses had won, the Elements did their part…" Scoop's world was tilting and listing all over the place. If this was a lie, what else? "Exactly!" Cadance replied and then got a bop on her head from the other Cadance, before burning in fire and becoming Chrysalis again. "Ponies have thankfully short memories, Celestia makes sure not much is recorded about changelings and nothing about the invasion and, in another few hundred years, I will come in again, beating down the defenses of the city and get thrown out or win. I love winning, we get to pretend to be evil dictators until some heroes show up and defeat me!" This made the earth pony pump a hoof in the air excitedly. "There was a cover up! I knew it!" Two sets of eyes focused on the pony, Cadance and Chrysalis both giving a sigh and turning to each other. "Nothing for it." Chrysalis raised her shoulders with a shrug. Cadance nodded. "Yup, you have to stay here now. You know too much and if you ever got word of this out… well ol' sunbutt would flip her lid." Shining Armor stepped into the room. "Hay Cadie, Chrysi, you coming back out-" He stopped when he saw the two ponies. "Hi… uh, what's going on?" The pegasus threw her hooves in the air. "He went and did it big time. In the past it has been snakes, zebra, breezies, then the last time it was Celestia and her cakes. Scoop Story, you have really taken the cake this time, now we are trapped in this stinky hive and we can't go home!" "My hive is stinky?" Chrysalis looked shocked but got a reassuring pat on the shoulder from Cadance. "A little, but you get used to it." Shining smiled, taking the heat out of his words. "But yeah, you can't go back now, I know that look. The first pony you see and you will be screaming about crazy changeling conspiracies and you know what, somepony might just believe you." "But… but my story…" Scoop was heartbroken. His purpose, his destiny. It was all being threatened to be stolen from him. "Write it." Chrysalis was the first to move, empathy was built into changelings, if a pony felt sad they felt sad, if the pony was happy they were happy. She moved over and knelt before the little earth pony. "Write your story, please, I would adore there to be an actual written testimony to this." Scoop, strangely, didn't feel intimidation from the 'dread queen' crouched before him. "You… you mean that? But who would read it?" Hooves raised. Cadance lifted hers, Shining too. Chrysalis looked to Snap who reluctantly raised her own. "Only because nopony ever wants to edit his scrawl." "Hay, I don't make mistakes! I just get caught up in the writing…" Scoop looked at the mare beside him and couldn't stop a smile. "Okay, I will do it. But I am going to need to do it properly. I need to investigate both here and in Canterlot, I need to have the freedom to see and talk to who I must." "And you won't give the game away?" Chrysalis already believed that he wouldn't, but she figured he should at least say it. "No, I won't." The earth pony took a deep breath. "But you have to promise that the book will get published and anypony who wants to read it can." "Uh, Chrysi, we can't-" Cadance sounded unsure but the queen shook her head. Chrysalis grinned and booped the journalists, each, on the nose. "Sure we can, it all comes down to the spin." Excitement stirred in the stallion again, Scoop feeling his destiny swirl and move him again. This was right, this was what he was meant to do, uncover the biggest conspiracy in Equestria! The Secret History of the Changelings Scoop had a foreleg around his special somepony. It had taken them quite a while but he and Snap had finally gotten the book not just written but published. Life wasn't so bad in the hive, the changelings were pretty chill on the whole and they loved to hear crazy stories about Canterlot. Snap flipped the book open and giggled at there being a foreword by Princess Mi Amore Cadenza herself! This might be a work of fiction, but gentle readers, you will soon be so immersed in the secret world of the changelings and their long-held pact with Princess Celestia that you won't care a bit. I read this story to my filly and now she wants to be a changeling when she grows up. Thank you, Scoop Story, for crafting the most devious and thrilling plot of all time. "You aren't even mad that everypony will think it a foals tale?" Snap leaned a little more against Scoop. "Nope, haven't got time to. I just got the most amazing letter from a pony who only signed it K Sombra. I think I have a new story brewing already!" Scoop gave the pegasus a hug and they started reading.