Pearl's Travels 1: Hollow Shades

by Makitk

03

I woke again in the darkness, but several of the pods around me were now gone. There were still a few in my peripheral vision, but they looked to be spaced out more.

The ones in front of me were likewise spaced out further apart; I would not be able to reach out to touch them again if I had had my freedom... and human limbs.

I focused on the pod right in front of me and the former human in it; they had taken on a clear pony shape and were hanging in their pod as if they were lazily drifting in a body of water.

Their tail had grown out already, and I realized the shapes I had seen from the corners of my eyes were the fin-like structures of Changeling tails and head structures...

I ran my tongue along the inside of my, now elongated, mouth and traced it along my teeth. I focused on my incisors in particular, and opened my mouth a little to let my tongue feel along these fangs.

Ponies in the show didn't have fangs. Only Flutterbat, Nightmare Moon's guards, and the Changelings did.

I tried to tilt my head down to look at myself, but felt something attached to my forehead bump into a soft wall before I had tilted it even a little.

I struggled to come to terms with the feelings until I realized all Changelings had horns on them... Sharp ones if I could remember correctly.

I moved my head a little more, trying to judge how big my horn was, but my movements made it break through the soft wall and I watched as a split cut down the center of my vision in a split-second, like a balloon popping, and I found myself falling forward and downward not a moment later!

I almost instinctively put my hooves down under myself and braced for impact, landing amidst a splash of green liquid - which had lost about all its glue-like tendencies!

I struggled to remain standing, my wet hooves on the wet floor finding hardly a hold, but then that familiar light shone and I felt myself lifted from the floor and my predicament.

"Easy now, sister," a warm voice offered, and I tried to peer at the source through the sharp light coming from her.

Something that felt not unlike a hand or inflated latex glove rubbed over my skin, and I felt the last bits of glue-like material let go, while the general feeling of wetness was rubbed away at the same time.

I was rubbed clean in this fashion all over, before I was put down on the floor close to the one with her sharp magical glow.

Satisfied I was standing on all fours, even if it was with wobbly legs from the unfamiliarity of it, the other doused her magic and I blinked my eyes to try and get my vision back.

A stocky unicorn mare stood before me, green coat, orange mane, similar orange eyes, with a baby crib as a cutiemark. She let a green sheen flow over her to reveal her true Changeling self to me for but a moment, but then took the guise of a pony again.

I opened my mouth to speak, closed it again, then folded my hind legs and just sat down on the cold stone floor.

"While I understand your reaction, sister, I am not the one to teach you about your new life," the other Changeling in her unicorn guise offered to me in a warm voice, motioning her head over to an opening in the cavern wall a few feet away.

"You woke later than expected; the other two of your batch are already down there to get briefed."

"Batch," I repeated blankly, and got a blank stare in reply.

"I can make this wholly unpleasant for you if you don't move, sister," the mare warned, the warmth leaving her voice.

I struggled back on my four legs, swallowing strongly. "No, I... I'll figure this out in my own time, I guess."

The unicorn smiled at me as I passed her by with uneasy step after uneasy step, headed in the direction I was told to go.

"Stop thinking about it; just walk," she suggested calmly.

I took a deep breath, sighed it out, and focused on the exit, rather than my individual steps. "Right."

With the Changeling/Unicorn's suggestion in the back of my mind, I actually started to make a good pace to the exit. I turned to look at her when I reached it, but she was already looking back at the collection of pods hanging about in the room I was about to leave.

I smirked as I realized there were a few new humans among them...

I looked down at my legs, stumbled upon trying to take a fresh step forward, but then focused on just going forward rather than my hooves again.

They were whole. Whole legs. Whole. While grey as the Changelings', there were no holes in them. I had expected holes.

I was still frowning about that as I passed through the short hallway and into another room; a smaller room, with a dozen school benches set up in it. Half of them were filled by other Changelings, and one other was stood in front of them like a teacher, pointing something out on a rudimentary blackboard.

I looked over the rows of horned-and-finned heads, their blue eyes focused on the teacher, and realized one of them had a set of round jampot-like glasses set on the desk in front of them. Too small for their new headsize.

There was an empty desk near the former teacher, and I snuck over to it as good as I could with my new form. Of course I was noticed immediately by the teacher.

"Ah, a new sister. Take a seat and listen up;" he demanded with a loud voice. "You're late, so you're already a failure. You're going to need to prove you were worth saving from the Equestrians' grabby hooves."

I quickly ran over to the seat I had aimed for in the first place, and wurmed my way into it in the most awkward fashion imaginable. I had to wriggle a bit on it before I could sit comfortably; my forehooves set on the desk in front of me like the others around me had.

"As I was saying; love is what keeps us fed. Love is what keeps us alive. It's the one thing we can't share among ourselves and the one thing we need to take from the races among us if we want to survive," the teacher boomed like a drill sergeant.

"You're going to need to get used to your bodies, and fast; By tomorrow you will have ran out of the nutrients provided by your pod and will start to feel the pit in your stomach. If you don't learn how to feed yourself, if even by imitating a lower lifeform, you will start to develop holes in your legs; that is your body feeding on itself."

I stared down at my legs and realized the rest of the 'class' was doing the same.

"Don't look at your freshly hatched legs, morons!" the Changeling teacher bellowed! "Look at my legs instead!"

He moved to stand in profile, each of his legs in a different position. There were great gaping holes in them, and he stared back at us smugly.

"The more energy you use, the deeper these holes grow. The more you feed, the more you...?" He looked at us expectantly, and the Changeling one row in front of me, and one seat to the left, raised their left leg up.

"...find they grow closed again?" she asked in a hopeful manner, her voice clearly feminine.

"WRONG!" The teacher returned loudly! "They stay! They'll never fully close up again, even if the density of your legs may increase, your chitin plating may take a healthier sheen, or your magic prowess will grow! These holes are to stay! You better get used to the idea!"

Several shoulders and heads in front of me lowered an inch or two, but I could not help but reach my own left hoof up in the air.

"Yes, sister. speak up?" Teacher offered, more calmly now the others were letting his message sink in.

"How... I mean, how can you tell our gender?" I wondered, "All I see around me are identical faces, identical body types, identical... Changelings, aren't we? We're Changelings, right?"

"It comes with experience," the Changeling teacher offered up with a light smirk. "You're newly hatched, so I understand your confusion, but your brothers have slightly more pronounced shoulders, sharper facial roundings, and lower voices among other details. You'll notice them before long, and then you'll ignore them as they're just natural."

"Considering our unique abilities; gender doesn't matter too much in our Hive family," he continued. "Some of our brothers or sisters emulate targets of different gender. It depends on what's needed to feed. It's your task to find out what makes it easier for you to feed and work toward the benefit of our whole Hive."

"But you are quite clearly a guy," I offered back. "You have a really deep voice and you just look very muscular."

The teacher stared at me a moment, then flashed green and stood in the guise of a little filly with a blue coat and yellow mane. "Are ya shure, mistah?" a tiny little filly voice came from the lithe thing, as she pranced toward me between the benches.

I stared in awe, shaking my head. "I retract my question."

Another green flash and the butch Changeling teacher stood a few paces in front of me, giving me a wicked smile. "This is what I mean, class; you need to learn how to blend in with your prey in any situation. Find out what works best for you to get the most amount of love and you won't have to work too hard at it. The less time you spend hunting for food, the more you can do for our Hive, and the more you'll make our Queen proud of you."

"Chrysalis..." I breathed out, my eyes opening a little wider.

Teacher gave a quick nod. "She's not here at this outpost. This is where we take you human types and prepare you for what's to come. If you don't take my lessons to heart; you're only going to hurt yourself. I don't care if you live or die."

He took a swift turn, and walked casually back up to the blackboard, leaving me - and a few others, looking down at our desks.

This was the gimmick, then. This was the reason we were sent here. To live as, what could be called, parasites in the lands we held so dear to our hearts. To be the corrupted element that was spreading darkness into the hearts of the ponies.

I felt a tear run down my cheek and quickly wiped it away as teacher resumed his lesson.

I had to pay attention if I were to survive long enough to figure out how I could do penance for my crime of leeching and spreading copyrighted content. I had to figure out if there was a quick way to get out again, so I would not harm too many ponies in my attempts to feed myself while I was forced to remain here.

Comments

[tsaukpaetra]

I'll bet that judge is laughing his butt off at the so-called "poetic justice"....

[dyedquartz]

I guess now equestria is now earth's dumping ground now.

[hmaf43]

7549198
Just like the australia.