Sunny Knight: a Pony's Tale

by TheothersideofSunny968

Changelingverse

On guard duty once again, Sunny made his rounds quickly and swiftly around the hideout for the pony resistance. Though their safe haven is well camouflaged around the lush and wild forest, danger still lurks around every corner. Sunny was confident he and his team of guards could fight off an attack by the changelings, but that was not their job. No, their job was to keep the hideout hidden from the changelings and their queen as best thet can, by any means nessisary, even if it meant luring them away in the opposite direction and sacrificing themselves to the changelings. What the changelings did with the ponies they captured, no pony knows. But no pony taken by them had been seen ever again.

"How are you holding up?" Whispered a deep but hushed voice, one Sunny recognized instantly. Emerging from the bushes wss a rather large, brown colored earth pony. Muscular and broad, with an orange and light brown patch of mane and tail to match, the stallion walked with no fear in his heart as he approached Sunny.

"I'm fine, Commander Carmel" Sunny answered, bowing his head slightly in show of respect to his commanding officer. "Everything is clear on this end. No sign of changelings, or anything else for that matter."

Narrowing his eyes out into the wild jungle, Commander Salted Carmel tried his best to sence some life moving about the surrounding jungle forest. But just as Sunny had said, it was quiet and still. Too quiet and too still. "Keep an extra sharp eye out, I have a feeling something bad is coming..."

Sunny admired Salted's intuition. To most ponies he's seem paranoid or slightly crazy. But those were ponies who were adjusted to better times. Ponies who didn't have a fear of being betrayed by creatures that took the form of their friends and family. Ponies who could run and play in the sun. Sunny had lost most of his memories, but a few were coming back day by day.

It seemed like only yesterday that he was found wandering around near changeling territory and was rescued by Zeccora, the Zebra shaman leader of the resistant ponies, and taken to a safer place. She and the others didn't trust Sunny for anything, who would when some pony appears out of the blue with no memory, and the main threat of Eauestria are changelings. But Zeccora rubbed some magical green powder on him that reveiled that he wasn't a changeling. From that day on, Sunny, who was given his name by one of the elderly mares in the hideout, was part of their resistance. He fought along side other ponies against the changeling menace and the evil queen Chrysalis.

Just then, Sunny and Salted noticed their leader, Zeccora, and a team of scouts returning from their outing, but with them a new pony. A purple alicorn mare, alongside a small purple creature that resembled a dragon. But it looked too small and cute to be a dragon, or so Sunny thought.

"Whats going on down there?" Sunny motioned to the returning party.

"Don't know, but I'll find out. Keep to your post" Salted instructed Sunny then slid back into the brush, taking a hidden rout to the returning Zeccora and her party.

Sunny kept a careful eye on the ponies with Zecorra below, narrowing his eyes, wondering if it was anypony who he knew, or anypony from his past. The new commers seemed… almost familiar, some how. Sunny cursed his shattered memory.

"Is.. is it really you?" A mare's voice chimmed, sounding shaky and hesitant, but with a thick southern accent.

Sunny immediately turned to the direction the voice came from, his spear pointed at an orange, earth pony mare. From under her stetson hat, the mare reveiled two large emerald colord eyes, watery with tears. She seemed… so familiar some how. Did Sunny really know her? Either way, he still needed to be cautious, not just for his sake, but fit the safety of the rest of the ponies he protected in the hideout. "Halt! Who are you?"

"Ya really don't remember me?…" the mare spoke softly as she removed her stetson hat. "We worked on th' farm tageather… before the changelings attacked. We all got separated. Ah couldn't find Big Mac or Apple Bloom or Granny either... But ah found you! Ah'm so glad."

Lowering his spear slightly, Sunny felt something deep inside began to stir. Memories of before the changeling attack?… no… these were… these were memories of something else. Something that should be but isn't. It was beginning to make Sunny's head spin.

Applejack began to caugh, wabble, then fell to her knees. Sunny instinctively went to her side, dropping his spear. "Applejack! Are you alright!? What happened!? What did they do to you!?"

Before Applejack could answer him, Sunny felt something wrap around his neck, almost chocking him. Looking behind him, Sunny saw two changelings, snickering as they clung more sticky saliva like webbing wrap around his front hooves, forcing Sunny to fall flat on his muzzle. A wicked laughter rang in his ears as he turned his head to the side and looked up. The mare he called Applejack was towering over him with a vile grin on her muzzle, her eyes now a sickly green as she looked down triumphantly at the bound unicorn.

"Well that was easy" Applejack's voice changed to a more sinister echoy one. In a flash of green light that engulfed her, Applejack's form changed. Her legs became longer with chunks missing from them, her body went from orange to coal grey, hard shell exterior, insect like wings emerged from her back, her neck stretched, her golden locked mane unraveled and became like flat moss that hung from a tree, and then a crooked looking horn grew from the center of her forehead, shredding her stetson hat to nothing. Sunny realized he had been fooled, now feeling a sharp pain in his chest. How could he have been so easily swayed? Did he even really know an Applejack? Why was his head still spinning. Chrysalis lifted Sunny's muzzle up with one hoof to look him in the eye taunting "Almost too easy. I would have thought Zeccora would have left a more compitant pony or two to guard her little club house."

Struggling to back, despite being wrapped around tightly in changeling goo, Sunny snapped at the insect queen "What do you hope to accomplish!? What is your end game?"

This shook Chrysalis for a moment. But only for a moment. The changeling queen and her two followers chuckled before taking pony forms again.

Chrysalis, once again taking Applejack's form, snickered with a grin "Mah game is ta win. All will bow before me, and ah will rule all. Maybe ah'll see you later, Sugarcube."

Before Sunny could get another word in, Chrysalis turned around and bucked him as hard as she could, sending him flying down a hill and into a murky lake. With a hard splash, Sunny hit the muddy water, which nearly blinded him. Shaking the muck clear from his eyes, Sunny struggled to break free, even trying to focus all his energy into a spell to cut the changeling slime. But it was no use. The changelings knew of unicorn magic and had also coated his horn in their goo to prevent him from using it. Still, Sunny refused to give up! He had to make it back to the hideout. He had to warn everypony. He had to fight! And so he faight.

Sunny refused to give in as he struggled to at first break free from his bonds. After a few moments, Sunny thought a change of approach would be best, and decided to try and climb his way out and back to the hideout. He rolled over and began kicking with his back legs, which were left unbound,, only to find that rout to be just as difficult. He couldn't get a good footing with just two hooves stuck in the ground, his other hooves still bound, and his face having no where to go but strait into the mud. Still though, Sunny refused to give up. And then it happened! Sunny got his footing just right, and was able to push himself up from the edge of the murky water and began pushing himself up hill. One step, two step, three… but that was when Sunny couldn't hold it any more and rolled back into the lake. But he refused to give up. He tried once more, making it almost past three steps, before falling down once more.

'How could I have been fooled like that!?' Sunny cused himself, frustrated more then he ever had been before. 'I don't even know an Applejack!… don't I?…'

In the short distance, Sunny heard the sounds of clashing wooden weapons, hissing and the fluttering of the changeling's insect like wings. Ponie's cries then followed, screams of fear and of strife, the sound of running hooves and of battling.

'I need to get up there!' Sunny continued to tell himself as he struggled more to push himself up from the mucky water. But try as he might, he only continued to slip back down into the mud and water. Eventually the sounds died down. Sunny wanted to have hope… but the cheers that followed were not those of pony kind, followed soon after by the cackling laughter of the Changeling queen. Tears began to fall from Sunny's eyes, mixing with the mud on his face.

He had failed to protect those who needed him. Why had he trusted that mare's image so carelessly? He had felt something deep down, possibly a memory? Or maybe he was seeing a memory where there was none, desperate to find something out about himself and where he came from. But that didn't matter… what mattered now was he had failed. And others once again suffered from his failure.

Once again, darkness had enveloped Sunny'a heart as he wished that he remained lost, wandering in the wold forest. He didn't want to live this life, even if he had escaped the changelings. A life that he had to carry on alone with the guilt of failure, of hurting those around him. It was all too much to bear … then a wave hit everything. The jungle setting, the laughter thst echoed off the trees, coldness of the muddy water Sunny was in, it all fadded, and the world once again was reset. Like somepony rewinding a clock, again, still setting it on the wrong time…