• Published 25th Jul 2015
  • 3,227 Views, 287 Comments

Changeling See, Changeling D'OH! (Comment-Driven Story) - Kersey475



You are a changeling stranded in the Everfree Forest after the failed assault on Canterlot. What should you do? What shenanigans will ensue? YOU DECIDE!

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Chapter 8: Making My Way Downtown, Walking Fast

1- Ritz sleep under a tree because he did not sleep too much

With Sweet Apple Acres behind you, a belly full of food, and (remarkably) both your body and your cover still intact, you walk down the street until you reach Ponyville proper. You're about to reach Ponyville when suddenly you feel groggy. You're about to question why when you remember that;

1. It was the middle of the night when you brought the Cutie Mark Crusaders home
2. You were awakened by that gorram rooster (Note to Self: Eat more fried chicken if I can find it in this land)
3. You just had a big breakfast so The Itis is kicking in

With that you decide to take a short nap under a nearby tree,

ONE NAP LATER

Erised the ink-moth's comment

Waking up feeling more refreshed, you continue on to Ponyville. You have to admit, for having the reputation of being a "backwater town", Ponyville is actually pretty decent in size. There are several blocks of houses, most of them either one or two stories tall with typical wood and thatched roof construction. Ducking through a short side ally, you come to some sort of farmers' market, with stalls selling all types of produce, and even a few selling trinkets, odds and ends, and comic books-

Wait... comic books? You love comic books! Sure, you like the movie adaptations more (usually) (1), but still!

You quickly maneuver your way through the crowd and up to the stand where a bored looking mare with an outlandishly styled mane is filing her hooves behind the counter. She doesn't even look up to acknowledge your presence.

"Ahem." you loudly clear your throat, causing her to flick her eyes upward to you.

Only now that she's taken a good look at your attire does her attention stick. "Oh- um... yes. Hello, what can I help you with good sir?" she asks, clearly trying to kiss up to you.

"Oh I just noticed you have quite a lot of quality reading material on display here, and I was hoping to browse a bit." you tell her, letting the charm flow a bit.

"Oh of course, you must be one of those Canterlot types, or perhaps Manehatten or Las Pegasus." the mare says as she pulls a few issues from the displays beside her, "I can always count on you big city types to be interested in fashion... Unlike these slobs around here."

"Fashion? Well I guess this suit is pretty nice, but I wouldn't really say I'm-" you pause in your suave rambling when you notice something distinctly off about these comic books... something horribly wrong. Where you thought you saw masked vigilantes standing heroically atop a moonlit building, you can now see that they're actually stallions in suits and masquerade masks on a spotlit stage, and the action-y announcements were actually advertisements for the latest in mare's fashion tips.

You look up at the mare who hadn't stopped talking gossip while you made your horrifying revelation. "This is a fashion magazine." you say coldly, "These are all fashion magazines."

"Well yeah. What did you think they were?" she asks you.

"I thought you were selling comic books, or you know... something horrorshow." you respond with a small wave of your hoof, to which she balks at you.

"Comic books!?" She exclaims before seething at you, "Get out."

"We are out." you gesture to the open space around you, which only makes her glare at you harder, "Okay, I can take a hint. Let me know when you wise up and start selling the good stuff!" you call as you throw the magazine right in her face and continue on your way.

"NEEEEEEERRRRRD!" she screams after you.

"Vanity obsessed merchant of shallow deception and lameness!" you retort.

3- Ritz maybe think about take out the Main Six and give them to Chrysalis.

In a sore mood after that encounter, you mind wanders to dark thoughts,

Since I'm here, I should do some reconnaissance. With any luck, I could discover the weaknesses of the Elements of Harmony, take em out, and then give them to my Queen. That'll show these ponies!

You then mentally facehoof before thinking,

D'oh! My Hive is imprisoned in some castle in Chrysalis-knows-where! And taking on all 6 of those Mares at once? What the buck am I thinking? Gah, just focus on the here and now. For all I know, the Hive is probably defunct now anyway.

Erised the ink-moth's comment

So after stumbling around the market for a while and having to admit to admit to yourself that you're completely lost, you decide it's time to get a decent layout of the town. And truly, there is only one respectable way to go about it...

"Sir! I have to insist you get down from there before you hurt yourself!" a random pegasus yells to you as you cling to the side of the town hall with your changeling hooves and the aid of your Aquilla Talon hook.

"And please do it before you break anything!" Mayor Mare yell up from the ground "We can't afford to fix the roof again this month!"

"I know what I'm doing, jeez! I'm just trying to get a look around." you snap at the ponies as you scramble up onto a flat surface near the top of the three-story building before kneeling forward. It's quite a view from up here; you can see all around the town and how it all sort of fans out in layers around the town hall, first the market and shops, then the residential district, and finally a schoolhouse and a hospital in the far distance with the Apple family orchard in the opposite direction.

"Alright you had your look, now will you please let me get you down from here?" the pegasus asks nervously.

"Nah, I got this." you tell him, and with a quick motion you take a leap of faith off the platform.

"Nnoooooooo!" the pegasus yells as he flies after you while a group of ponies gathered below gasp in shock.

You freefall for about a second towards a conveniently placed pile of hay, before you backflip, and feel the soft cushioning feel of it gently breaking your fa*Crunch!*

You stand there, frozen, screaming in silent pain as you think you broke your back.

"I told everypony we needed a better place to hide all our shiny rocks." a pony in glasses says like a know-it-all.

Note to Self: Check all bales of hay ahead of time BEFORE a Leap of Faith. you think as your about to heal yourself, but then realize that might blow your cover seeing how everypony nearby heard that crack.

"Sir... are you alright?" the pegasus says hesitantly as he flutters down beside you.

"My spine..." you whimper pathetically.

Honestly, how could this get worse?

ONE "YOU JUST HAD TO SAY IT" LATER

It's worse. It's worse!

"Nonono! Up! Fly up!" you scream in terror as you're pulled though the air in the most erratic flying you've experienced since changeling flight camp "No, not towards the trees!"

"Stop squirming around so much, it's dangerous." the bubbly, cross-eyed pegasus tells you even as she flies through an active construction zone, barely missing the steel girders. When she said she'd give you a lift to the hospital because it was on her delivery route anyway, you wondered why everypony gave the two of you such nervous looks. Well now you wonder no more! "Why did you even jump like that? We were all so worried about you when you started climbing up the town hall."

Normally you'd give an articulate response as to how you knew exactly what you were doing at the time and how it should have worked, unfortunately with your current motion sickness and fear of dying, all you can manage to say is, "I just don't know what went wrong!"

The pegasus blushes. "Yeah, I know how that feels."

"Oh no, not the circus! Anything but the circus!" you cry out as she flies you both through a circus tent and you're forced to become an impromptu addition to the trapeze act.

"Grrrahhh! This can NOT be good for my spine!"

So after Derpy, the friendly cross-eyes pegasus, finally found her sense of direction and dropped you off at the hospital (along with a shipment of teddy bears for some reason) you were wheeled into urgent care and told to wait for the nurse to see you, but now that you're finally out of sight, you simply use your healing spell to fix your broken back, albeit expending all the energy you got from breakfast that morning.

As you get off the bed, a heavyset earth pony nurse with a pink coat and striped mane kicks in the door, equipped with a healing lazer-gun, a bandoleer of syringes, and a look like she's ready to single-hoofedly fight every ailment on the planet at once.

"Woah! Woah! Woah!" you exclaim, "There has been a serious mix-up here!"

"Wait, didn't you have a broken back sir?" the Nurse asks in confusion.

"Nah, I'm just here for a Doctor's Note for my condition."

Imagine her disappointment when you tell her there's been a mix-up, and you're just here for a doctor's note for proof on your "Special" disease before she says,

"Okay. Follow me sir and I'll ask Doctor Horse to write you a Doctor's Note."

"Doctor's Note"
Added to Saddlebags

After leaving the hospital, you notice that it's barely noon. After going through all of that though, you think something you haven't though in a long while.

"I need a drink." you grumble to yourself as you set off to find the bar you noticed before you took your failed leap of faith.

BrownDog77's comment

Well, if your experience in quest arcade games is anything to go by, you can always find a quest by asking the bartender for rumors around town.
When you walk in the bar, you see a Purple Mare with a grapes & strawberry Cutie Mark behind the counter.

"Why hello sir, what can I do for you today?" she asks.

"Hello, I'm new in town and I was wondering if you knew of any rumors?" you ask in turn.

"Um... about what?"

"You know, strange happenings, people looking for jobs, stuff like that."

"Well I can let you know, if you buy a drink." she says.

"*sigh* Get me a milk," you then slap down a Bit onto the counter, "Chocolate."

On cue, a glass of chocolate milk slides down the counter out of nowhere and into your hoof.

"Not much of a drinker eh?" she asks.

"Nah, not so much. (2) In fact, I have this old wine bottle that I have no idea what to do with," you tell her taking the Old Bottle of Wine out.

She takes one look at the bottle and her eyes widen in awe.

"M-Mr... That there is a 982 bottle from the Vino Collection of Old Canterlot!"

"Uh... is that good?" you ask obliviously.

"That wine you are holding is over 1,000 years old from the early days of the Equestrian Kingdom! I thought there were only a dozen intact bottles left of it in the world!"

"Whoa! Potent stuff then huh?"

"Of course, even just uncorking it and sniffing it would cause you to get black out drunk," she says drooling.

"Dang. How much would this stuff sell for?"

"Ponies would sell for any high price you set. They'd give their limbs for that..." she says in awe.

"Really?" you ask.

"Mr. I would become your own personal anything-goes slave just to have a whiff of that liquid goodness," she says giving you seductive eyes.

Your eyes widen at that, and you quickly put it away. "OK, yeah I don't think that's necessary. Think I'll just hold on to that for awhile still," you say causing her eyes to become downtrodden.

"Old Bottle of Wine" renamed "Vino Collection 982 Wine"

"Thanks for the drink though, Mrs..."

"MS. Berry Punch," she emphasizes, "But they also call me Berryshine. Let me know if you change your mind," she says with a smile and a wink.

"Yeah... Um, do you know where a fella can get a game of poker started around here?" you ask trying to change the subject.

2-Ritz cheat in poker as he sense the emotions of the other players and have experience reading faces

Down With Chrysalis's comment

SEVERAL POKER GAMES LATER

I guess this is luck's way of making up for breaking my spine. you comment as you leave the tavern in a "huff" with more Bits in your Saddlebags.

The fact that your changeling-ness allows you to senses other's emotions helps you reveal their bluffs and your face-covering scarf combined with your training gives you one hay of a Poker Face. Combined with your previous experience working undercover at a Las Pegasus casino, you were easily able to clean house, but you where sure to purposefully lose "big" a few times as not to draw suspicion. One thing you learned as a dealer is that there's nothing more suspicious in a casino then a uninterrupted winning streak.

Seeing how I'll be leaving this place eventually, I might as well stock up on supplies. you decide and proceed to head back to the market area and go shopping with your winnings,

Used Blanket
2 Rolls of Duct Tape
2 Cans of WD-40
3 Bottles of Painkillers (While you can consume food or love for the energy to heal, your changeling physiology means you can take a whole bottle without ill effects and thus can use it to help you ignore serious injuries and keep pushing forward if you don't have enough love or food to heal. Hope fully Max Pain rules work out better than Assassin's Vow rules)
5 Bottles of Orange-Cream Energy Shots (Keeps normal ponies hyper-actively awake and alert for 5 hours before a sleepy crash, but for Changelings it just jolts them awake. Chrysalis even experimented with using Energy Shots to eliminate the need for sleep in her drones only to give up on the idea when excessive use of Energy Shots causes Changeling's livers and kidneys to explode)
7 Cans of Apple Slices
7 Boxes of Ritz Crackers (You did name yourself after them)
7 Jars of Chocolate Peanut Butter
7 Cans of Cream of Potato Soup
Added to Saddlebags

81 Bits remaining

As you walk away from the market, you hear a voice call,

"Pssst. Hey!"

You turn your head to see a shady looking pony in an alley with a trenchcoat. You're about to just move on (and prepare Aquila Talon if the pony gets aggressive) when he opens his coat and says,

"Wanna buy some smokes?"

Seeing an opening to quote the only funny part of Assault of the Clones you say,

"You don't want to sell m-" suddenly your eyes widen, "Wait, are those Shi Bàngs?" (3)

"Yes indeed. All 13 Flavors smuggled straight from Neighpon; Cinnamon, Coffee, Green Tea, Mint, Apple, Ramen, Clean Laundry, you name it."

Seeing those cigarettes trigger more memories. You remember that Equestria has extensive anti-smoking laws (there are anti-smoking ads everywhere) and flavored cigarettes are explicitly banned. However, changelings are immune to the many harmful effects of smoking due to their toxin-resistant physiology so they are noticeably popular among drones (officers preferred cigars). Quite a few changelings smoke for disguises, the flavor, the smell, or even just cause they think it looks cool. You were in the latter as you took up smoking to emulate badflank characters from Cowpony Bebop, Iron Gear Solid, and Blade Trotter to name a few... Only to discover that normal cigarettes taste horrible and abandon the idea. You then discovered the Shi Bàng brand of flavored/scented Neighponese cigarettes during a mission in Las Pegasus and they became your brand of choice (favorite flavor being Cherry-Vanilla), but even then that was only occasional as they were rare to come by. However, now you have a lighter, a cigarette case, and some Bits...

"Get me all your packs of Cherry-Vanilla."

"Sorry, only have one pack of that left. How about Tong Sui?" he offers.

"No thanks, just give me the pack of Cherry-Vanilla then." you respond with a hint of dejection.

"That'll be 10 Bits."

As soon as you get the pack, you proceed to empty the cigarettes into your "Gold Cigarette Case".

Pack of 20 Cherry-Vanilla Cigarettes added to "Gold Cigarette Case"
71 Bits remaining

"You never saw me..." the shady pony says before disappearing back into the shadows of the alley.

"Just don't sell to foals." you call after him.

"I don't anyway. They never have enough Bits." he responds.

As you exit the alley you hear a voice cry,

"Look out!"

You look up in shock only for a gray mass of fur and feathers to slam into you.

"Back so soon Derpy?" you snark as the mailmare gets off you.

"Sorry, but I have a letter for you." she says as she reaches into the mailbag and pulls out a small letter that she hooves to you.

"Thanks." you say as you accept the letter and hoof Derpy a Bit.

"Thank you. Have a nice day." she responds before flying off. You read the letter and it says,

Dear Mr. Ritz DeWitt,

Please come to Sugarcube Corner.

Sincerely,
Pinkie Pie

P.S. Don't worry I didn't tell anypony about your Secret Identity

"Okay... But I have no idea what, let alone where, this 'Sugarcube Corner' even is." you say to yourself before you notice it says more on the back.

P.P.S. Twilight reminds me that you're new in town so Sugarcube Corner is the building near the marketplace that looks like a Gingerbread House.

"Well that's convenient." you comment as you make your way over to the place in the letter. When you arrive at the front of the bakery, you can sense the emotions of several ponies inside and you swore you saw a poofy pink mane dart up to the window before quickly darting back out of sight. At this, the only thing going through your mind is,

Obvious ambush is obvious.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

Author's Note:

(1) While there are great comic book movies like Marevengers, Vice City, and Kingstallions, there have been stinkers like Iron or *shudder* The Ghost

(2) While one of the lessons in the Changeling Hive training is how to "Drink to Blend In", but you can't remember it at the moment so you decided to quote one of your favorite Time Travel movies.

(3) Shi is Japanese for "death" and Bàng is Chinese for "stick" so the literal translation for "Shi Bàngs" is "Death Sticks"



Current Loadout:

On your person:
-Saddlebags (Size of a small closet on the inside)
-47 Suit (Black suit and pants, white cuff shirt, red tie)
-Gold Fountain Pen
-Gold Cigarette Case with 20 Cherry-Vanilla scented/flavored Cigarettes
-Gold Lighter
-Red scarf (Covers the lower half of your face)
-Bowler Hat (Reinforced, fireproof, waterproof, acidproof, magic resistant, and magically modified to stay on your head unless physically taken or knocked off)
-"Ace of Spades" card (In hatband on side of hat)
-Metallic gold wristband on left arm with engravings of a lion and an eagle on it.
-Aquila Talon: Name and trigger phrase that causes the wristband to transform into a bracer with a deployable hidden hookblade (blade part is dull so you can't cut anything) that also can act as a grappling hook.

In Saddlebag:
-Vino Collection 982 Wine
-Large can of beans (dented)
-Box of Sweet Chariot sugarcubes
-52 Deck of Cards
-4 Thundercloud Orbs (Basically a hybrid of a flashbang and smoke grenade as it releases a brief blinding flash of lightning, a deafening crack of thunder, and a grey cloud)
-"The Dao of the River" book
-"Doctor's Note" (Explains why you have pure blue eyes and need to wear clothes constantly)
-Used Blanket
-2 Rolls of Duct Tape
-2 Cans of WD-40
-3 Bottles of Painkillers (While you can consume food or love for the energy to heal, your changeling physiology means you can take a whole bottle without ill effects and thus can use it to help you ignore serious injuries and keep pushing forward if you don't have enough love or food to heal. Hope fully Max Pain rules work out better than Assassin's Vow rules)
-5 Bottles of Orange-Cream Energy Shots (Keeps normal ponies hyper-actively awake and alert for 5 hours before a sleepy crash, but for Changelings it just jolts them awake)
-7 Cans of Apple Slices
-7 Boxes of Ritz Crackers
-7 Jars of Chocolate Peanut Butter
-7 Cans of Cream of Potato Soup
-70 Bits (For the sake of storytelling, 1 Equestrian Bit is equal to $2 American dollars)

Abilities:
-Chain Punch
-Short-Mid range "Force Pull" that requires focus and can only affect objects that you can normally lift/push physically (meaning "Force Pull" will not work on objects that would normally be too heavy, stuck, or large for you to physically lift, carry, or pull yourself)
-Can heal instantly, but requires burning through alot of either your food or love supplies (requires less love than food). The more severe the fatigue or injury, the more food you need to consume first.
-Can't fly.
-Can walk on walls and some ceilings
-Disguise only lasts a few seconds at most.
-Knack for “Hide and Seek” and general stealth
-Being a big film and serial buff

Party time commenters!

Oh, and yes Ritz DeWitt (you) is a smoker. Yes, I'm studying the medical field so I know that smoking in VERY deadly, but I was inspired to make Ritz a smoker due to this point-raising video (and I'm sick of how overbearing, obnoxious, fanatical, and self-righteous the anti-smoking movement is becoming).

Plus I already established changelings as highly toxin-resistant so they don't do anything to him anyway. Besides, he won't be able to smoke often due to needing to keep his face covered in public and you can have shenanigans happen when he smokes. Your call commenters, just make sure that you (Ritz/815) do NOT smoke around foals or pregnant mare. And don't expose him as a changeling either.

This chapter's question:

Who is the coolest smoker in fiction?

Let's face it, smoking is REALLY dangerous and there are hundreds of reasons not to smoke, but many characters just make it look badass and even classy. Of these characters, who rocks the deathsticks best?

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