Fellowship is Madness

by Imperator Chiashi Zane

A Change of Pace, Part 1

Queen Ch’Jar’S, of the Changelings, Matriach of a clan eight thousand strong, trudged up to the forest side edge of the Berry plantation. If the information her scout had passed back through the lines was accurate, she would be met here. She looked around, already plotting how to torture the scout for false information, when she felt the touch of a heavy metal shoe on her back, right between her wings.

Her instincts launched her in an arc that brought her hoof down on where a normal pony’s skull would be, which coincidentally happened to be the shoulder of the stallion. Her chitinous hoof crunched painfully against a much harder shell, the touch natural crystalline structure of a combat unit. Her eyes widened as she was gripped in glowing crimson magic and twisted around until her blue-green eyes met the black streaked crimson eyes of her nephew.

“Or’Sen’K. Put me down this instant or I will have you flayed and salted.”

He dropped her with a deep laugh, “Auntie Ch’Jar. How pleasant. D’Jar said you’d be coming through. Left me with this list. Now, Ponyville isn’t a large town, so not everypony gets to disguise themselves as a pony. Wagons will be provided, but you should stick to the shadows anyway.”

She nodded, “And our excuse list?”

“Also here. There are a number of travelling caravans that come through every year, and I can confidently say that nopony will notice a gypsy tribe moving through in the middle of the night, escorted by several natives of the area. You of course, will be taking on the role of our Mayor.”

“I see,” a flicker of green crawled down her back, leaving behind the mayor of the small town. A perfect illusion, or near enough in the dim lighting. They would have to move fast, to keep their non-concealed hive-mates hidden. He hoofed over the two lists and faded away into the darkness, even his glowing red eyes vanishing as though he had never been there. She scowled. The Berry clan was always better at hiding in the shadows, even under the full moon. Still, she had a hungry hive to feed, and a short time to do it in.
__
Quietly, escorted by what appeared to be the six Elements of Harmony, a horde of gypsies moved through the town. Dozens of carriages rolled softly across the mud, filled with sacks of what would have felt like jewels and fabric, but were really those Changelings who were unable for some reason or another, unable to disguise themselves as any of the ponies on the list. Ch’Jar’S trotted alongside a Changeling disguised as the venerable commander of the Ponyville Garrison, who quietly counted the wagons sliding into the village, “My queen, we have seven more wagons, but we do not have enough identities for those that remain in the forest, nor enough space in the wagons.”

“Ge’Sen, Please remember who I am disguised as. What if a pony heard you?”

“Yes, ma’am. Of course. What is your plan?”

“Tuck them into any space you can find. Have them duplicate the children, everypony who can. Use them to disguise the rest of the bundles in the wagons.”

“Understood, ma’am.” He trotted off, armor not making a sound, being formed out of his carapace itself.
__
“Missus Heartstrings? What are you doing out here so late at night? Don’t you have a show in the morning?”

The Changeling, one Tu’el’S stopped abruptly, and looked down at the red furred filly on the side of the road, and blinked. It was way after this filly’s bedtime, and she didn’t smell like a Changeling either, so she had to be not one of them. Her stare pierced into Tu’el’S for a long minute, “Oh, nevermind, Missus Heartstrings, or whatever your name is. My brother probably just forgot to double check the aliases he gave your Queen.”

She choked, “I’m sorry, what?”

Blue fire flickered down the filly’s back, revealing a pair of ivory white wings that resembled her own, when she wasn’t disguised as a silly Unicorn. Almost as quickly, in a flash that made her think she was hallucinating the whole thing, the wings were gone, “Kor’el’K, at your disservice. My brother told me you might need some help navigating everypony through.”

Tu’el started trotting again, “Fine. Why couldn’t he be here?”

“My whole family was in that list. I just brought a few extra identities for the older Changelings.”

“Don’t…” her hoof instinctively covered the filly’s mouth, “You’ll give us away.”

The filly started laughing, softly, but clearly, “I grew up in this town. Nopony here would notice. Trust me on that one. I spent a whole day with my wings out and everypony thought my sister just found a new spell for harvesting from trees.”

“What exactly are you saying?”

“This town is an Earth Pony town on paper. They only make up about thirty percent of the population in all honesty. And a quarter of that is the Apple family and extension. The rest is a mix of every species under Celestia’s sun. And some that aren’t. I swear, that DJ is a vampire. And her marefriend is a lupomorph.”

“What DJ? Tu’el was actually getting nervous. She had heard that vampires could bite right through a carapace, even the soldiers. And her infiltrator breed carapace certainly wasn’t thick enough to stop it, “What DJ?”

“That one, over there,” the filly pointed at a white Unicorn with spiky blue mane and tail. Then she slapped Tu’el on the rump, “Real one’s at the Gala. Don’t worry about it.”
__
Overhead, flying on the air currents and clouds, another horde of Changelings in disguise as Pegasi and Griffon traders soared past a real Griffon huddled in a cloud. His beak twitched as he sniffed the air. He could pick out a changeling from many meters away, and knew that not a single one of these ponies, or Griffons for that matter, were authentic. The only thing that stopped him from declaring a state of emergency was his friend making conversation with one of them. Strawberry was using her magic to her advantage, making that wing spell that her sister had taught her. None of the Changelings suspected a thing. He took notes of them as they passed. Every pony he knew, he marked down on the list for later interrogation, just in case his sniffer was wrong.

One Griffon-shaped Changeling landed on the cloud beside him and looked at the notebook. He made no effort to hide it, since it was written in Griffonian Talon-Script. Impossible for any other species to interpret. At least, he thought so.
“So, did the Queen set you up to make sure we didn’t use any of the identities twice?”

He stayed silent for a moment, “Yes…”

“So why are you writing it in Talon-Script? You know you’ll just have to translate it back to proper runes later.”

“I…Need the practice?”

The Griffon sniffed at his neck, then opened her beak. He dove, wrapping his wings around her body and his talons around her beak, slamming her head into the cloud repeatedly, “Shut up. Shut up!”

After several strikes, the female started to sway, dizzily, and he looked into her eyes, “I won’t tell anypony about this. I swear. My friend is down there too. She knows too.” He left out that she didn’t know he was up there, “Just don’t scream when I let go. My name is Cuuper. Cuuper Talus.”

His talons released her beak slowly, and she whispered, “Gale Force. At least, that’s my cover name. Yes, it’s authentic. I’ve been using it since I was a hatchling.”

“Nice to meet you. Do Changeling Griffons get True Steel?”

Already to the interrogation. Ga’el’S, Gale Force, shrugged, “My father, Geist Force, did. He says it’s a pain in the flank, ‘cause it doesn’t change when he turns into other Griffons. And it shows up in his Pegasus forms too.”

Cuuper stared at her, “Uh huh,” he hadn’t even really started interrogation yet. He had just asked one question, and was already learning the history of this Changeling, “So, you don’t have yours yet. Well, we’ve got a club going here in Ponyville, and we’re all looking for our Destinies, my True Steel, their Cutie Marks. It would be nice to have another Griffon in the club, even if you aren’t really…”

This time it was her that tackled him to the cloud. He tensed against her efforts to beat him unconscious on the cloud surface, “I am too! You don’t know anything about Changelings, do you?” she hissed at him angrily.

“Hey, hey…I’m sorry. Maybe you can teach me then, if you can convince your father to let you stay here. I’m sure the Forge has an extra room for you.”

She stared at him for a minute, “I will talk to him. Maybe we can stay on our way back.”

“I would enjoy that greatly, now I have to get going before he gets suspicious,” she launched off the cloud and soared into the air.
__
Ge’Sen flicked his eyes upwards as he watched his daughter float onto a cloud. They stopped there as she didn’t immediately launch off to keep following, “Ma’am, I need to check on somepony really quick.”

“Go ahead. I’ve got this.”

Almost before he could get to the cloud to shout up to it, his daughter tumbled off the side, and soared forward. He waved her down, and looked at her as sternly as he could manage. And in this form, he had quite the stern glower, “Ga’el. Explain your delay.”

She looked up at him, large eyes watering up, “I was tired. I’ve been flying all day. It was just a little nap.”

He sniffed the air, grumbling under his breath at the inconvenience of a mere Earth Pony nose, when he instead could have come as a Griffon, as himself. But he had been advised that the three mature Griffons in the town were quite knowledgeable about the familial patterns. His daughter had been allowed to use her own form for two reasons. First, she was young enough that her ability to change forms accurately was weak. Her ability to stick to her default form was good enough, and she didn’t yet have her patterns, still stuck in the spotted pattern of a very young hatchling.

She was also clearly lying to him. “Why did you stop.”

“There was a Griffon on the cloud. Male. Natural. He was taking notes on our identities. He swore not to tell anypony. He said he had a friend who knew, who was helping us.”

“Who?”

“Uh…The red Berry filly. Talking to one of our infiltrators back there.”

Her father laughed, “That’s nonsense. She’s an infiltrator in training, not a native. None of the Berry hive is out of their homes tonight, so we can use their identities.”

“I understand, father. It is ridiculous. Still, if he believes that the Berry filly was here, she may be able to convince him that it was all a dream.”

“Still. I know you have the ability to mind-wash at least a few minutes. Go clean up your mess. I want to see the cub before he flies home. I’ll know.”

She grabbed at the sides of her head, her ear-feathers crumpling in her grasp, “Fiiine!”

She took off, darting for the cloud, and landing gently atop the cloud, next to the Griffon, “Hey.”

“Welcome back. What’d your commander say?”

“He told me I needed to wipe your memory of this event and send you home, so you would be convinced this was all a dream.”

“Oh, is that all,” he scoffed, “So what does a pony with their short-term memory wiped act like?”

She looked at him, and gave him a goofy grin as her talons lit up with blue magic and she moved them towards his head, “Kind of like a zombie. You’ll see.”

“Hey! Whoa! You are Not guh…” He faded into a dull gurgle as his scalp lit up in her magic.

“Follow,” she leapt off the cloud, and flew down to the ground. He followed her down, and landed beside her father, “See. I wiped the whole thing. The last ten minutes are drooling stupidity.”

“Yuh. Guh…Chelig…”

“Ok. I’m convinced. Send him home.”

“Go home, minion. Refresh, blank write. Erase commands.”

“Yuh. Migith…” He took off, flying wobbly towards the Forge, right up until he was out of sight of the Changelings, “Ha. Zombies. I can’t believe he fell for that. I should totally get my Steel in acting.”