Equestria Noir Case 10 "Pinkie Party"

by Jacoboby1

Chapter 4 "Changelings?"

Chapter 4

“Changelings?”

I simply looked at Swarm with wide eyes as he transformed back into his unicorn stallion form. His green eyes looked at me as if he confessed a great wrong. He spoke in that same almost robotic voice of his “We were looking for Pinkie Pie…”

The Doctor looked at me then at the changeling “How do you know Miss Pinkie Pie?”

Swarm sat on his romp and spoke “Twelve years ago the hive felt something strange in the air. Somebody performed a sonic rainboom which hasn’t been done in years. We were assigned by the lieutenants to investigate the effects it would have on the pony population…”

“You were spying on us?” I said my voice laced with suspicion

He nodded “Yes, we were assigned to the rock farms which was an always a dark and dreary landscape. We searched but could find no difference in the environment…at least until we found Pinkie Pie”

“What do you mean?” I asked

“When we arrived at her farm we found that there was joy and laughter. Emotions you hardly find at a rock farm. We found them intoxicating so we went to investigate. We found out that Pinkie had thrown a celebration for no particular reason I could discern. Joy just sprouted out of her and we were drawn…”

“I thought Changelings only fed on love” I pointed out

The Doctor shook his head “They feed off any emotion, anger, lust, sadness. But Love is to Changelings like sugar is to ants. They find it intoxicating and can’t resist its draw”

“So you found Pinkie then what?” I asked the changeling

He nodded and went on “We observed Pinkie Pie and reported our findings back to the lieutenant. Unlike other ponies who seek and crave love Pinkie was tossing it around everywhere. She brought joy to others without payment or anything. We did not understand her reasons at first”

He looked up at the sky, his green eyes in a distant place “We watched Pinkie Pie for years…watching her spread joy and happiness to the once dreary farm. We began to question whether or not we should feed upon the love she gave. But after a while we began to feel stronger. Instead of having to literally feed off her we gained strength by simply being around her…we did not understand”

The Doctor spoke up “This can’t have gone on forever. At some point your superiors might have found out what you were doing”

I nodded and looked at Swarm “Have you been watching her all this time in secret?”

Swarm shook his head “No, after five years of watching her, the lieutenants asked us to stop. They said that the emotions we were feeling were not right for a drone to feel…we agreed and decided to stop watching her”

“Why would you agree?” I asked “Didn’t being around Pinkie make you happy?”

Swarm looked thoughtful for a moment. He then simply spoke “We were afraid…”

“Afraid of what?” I pressed on

“We were afraid because Pinkie Pie was chaos. Order rules in a drone’s life, we do what we are told and nobody questions it”

The Doctor shook his head in sympathy “Yet another victim of dictatorship…even here it’s prevalent”

Swarm ignored the Doctor’s comment and went on “We tried to forget about Pinkie Pie. But that only made us work slower and the lieutenants noticed it. The queen decided to assign me a mate so that I could forget…”

“You are assigned mates?” I asked curiously “But shouldn’t you mate with the queen in order to have more changelings?”

“Purely reproductive mating is done only by the lieutenants” Swarm explained “Drones are not allowed to even go near the queen unless he asks. No, I was assigned a mate…number 2183…she was pleasant but…”

“You didn’t love her” I deduced “She wasn’t Pinkie Pie”

Swarm shook his head again “No, despite her best attempts to help us…she couldn’t help us find peace. We ventured to the surface a year after we left. We found out that Pinkie Pie was about to leave her farm to see the world. We…were saddened to see her leave…but then…”

“Then what?” The Doctor asked

“She saw us…” Swarm confessed “She saw us in the woods and she just…smiled. She did not fear us or try to draw attention to us. She just smiled and went on…we did not understand”

I guessed “not understand” was going to be his favorite word. I moved on “So Pinkie Pie knew about you? All this time?”

Swarm nodded “She found out about us. We are not sure how or when but somehow she knew who we were and where. It was like she could sense where we were and she knew us. We cannot explain it”

The Doctor thought for a moment “Maybe Pinkie deduced somebody was seeing her. Over time she just got used to it and when you left she noticed it. When you came back it was like she was seeing an old friend”

“Okay” I said moving on “What happened after that?”

Swarm went on “For four more years we lived as a normal changeling would. We did not inform our mate of our meeting Pinkie Pie again. Over time we became more and more conflicted over this. Half of us wanted to forget about Pinkie Pie and go back to the order we once had. But…the other half wanted to find her…”

“Which you did” I said “At the wedding”

The Changeling nodded “We decided to settle this once and for all. When the time came for us to launch the assault on Canterlot we volunteered to fight as well. We wanted to find Pinkie Pie and conclude this chaos within us”

“Did you find her?” The Doctor asked

He nodded “During the battle we found Pinkie Pie among the chaos. We tried to intimidate her by transforming into her friends. Only it had the opposite effect, she laughed at my changing like that. She even asked me to…” He transformed into Pinkie Pie again to imitate her “Do me! Do me!”

He changed back to his normal form “When we did she just gave us this odd expression” Back to Pinkie Pie “Eh, I’ve seen better” Back to Swarm “Then she grabbed Twilight Sparkle and shot magic everywhere…except at me”

The Doctor laughed “I heard about that, such a humorous picture using Morning Glory in such a fashion”

I gave him an odd look “Don’t you mean Twilight Sparkle?”

“Whatever” The Doctor said “So what happened after the whole love explosion?”

Swarm sat back down on his romp and continued his story “After the battle we were knocked far away from Canterlot. The Queen was quite angry about her failure to conquer Canterlot. She took it out on several drones and we still bear some marks from the experience” He rubbed his side a little. I’m sure in his true form there were probably scars there.

“So what happened to you?” I asked

“We…we realized that love was not simply food. We…felt something here…” He gestured to where his heart was “We realized….we loved Pinkie Pie…”

A changeling falling in love? To say this surprised me was like saying the sky was blue. Part of me still held a grudge towards the changelings thanks to Zazz. I still remembered how sick and eager he was to replace me during the case. But I couldn’t let that color my opinion of Swarm.

The Doctor spoke again “Your superiors probably didn’t like that”

Swarm shook his head “The week after we approached the Queen when she calmed down. We…asked her a question that caused us to want to leave…”

“What was the question?” I asked

Swarm sighed and looked at me with those deep green eyes of his. His answer was earnest; I can imagine this was how he asked the Queen “Can this drone love a pony?”

“That was your question?” The Doctor said “What was her answer?”

“She laughed” Swarm answered frankly “She called us a fool and told us to get back to work…we didn’t go back to work. Since then we’ve been desperately searching for Pinkie Pie. We weren’t able to find it until…” He looked at me “You killed Zazz”

“That was how you found Pinkie Pie?”

“Not so much how we found her, but it gave us courage. To a drone the lieutenants are as gods, you made a god bleed so we no longer feared finding Pinkie Pie” He smiled a little “We never liked Zazz, he was far too cruel a master”

“Thank you” I said smiling “So how did you find Pinkie Pie?”

“We learned that you were staying in Ponyville at the time. Through that we found the town ledger and saw that she lived here. We then crafted this form” He gestured to his regular unicorn stallion form “So that she would not be frightened by our appearance. Today was the first time we spoke to her…”

“At the party, she pulled you onto the dance floor” I pointed out

Swarm blushed, only his blush was a soft green instead of red. I guess it came from being part insect “Yes, when she came to us we were very nervous. But she encouraged us to come out…it felt…wonderful to not have to hide from her”

“You still don’t have to hide silly!”

All three of us looked up to see Pinkie Pie hanging upside down from a tree. I let out a yelp at the sight of her “When did you get here!?”

Pinkie dropped down and landed on her hooves “Well, I was wondering why you were taking so long to find Time Turner. Then I saw you pull Big Mac and Fluttershy aside for something. Then I came out here and saw you talking to Swarmy here” She gestured to Swarm who was blushing even more at having been referred to by his name. “So I came around and listened to the story”

Swarm looked at Pinkie “You know what we are then…” He said sorrowfully

Pinkie hooped to him and smiled “Of course silly! You’re my secret friend that I’ve been waiting forever to meet! I remembered there always being somepony watching over me while I made party stuff. No predators attacked out farms since you came! I’m so happy to finally meet you Swarmy!”

She then embraced the changeling and for a minute the changeling reverted to his true form. He quickly fixed himself and looked at the Pink pony. “You don’t fear us?”

Pinkie shook her head “Of course not silly, I knew it was you when the wedding happened. My pinkie sense told me that you were the same guy who was looking out for me”

The Doctor looked over at me “Pinkie Sense?”

I rolled my eyes “Some kind of precognitive ability that Pinkie has. Supposedly she can predict the short term future- what are you doing?”

The Doctor stopped writing on the notepad he had out “Sorry, something to file away for later study”

I shook my head, he was about to have as much success of figuring out the Pinkie Sense as Twilight.

Swarm smiled a little “We are happy you do not fear us…”

Pinkie smiled in turn “Well Swarmy I’m happy when I make ponies or changelings happy”

I walked up to Swarm “So let me ask another question, what happened after you danced with Pinkie?”

Swarm looked at me then spoke again “We moved about the party for a few minutes and saw Pinkie and Balboey arguing. But Balboey was long dead…we suspected something was up”

_______________________________________________________

“Something is definitely up” Forceps said as he examined Balboey’s body “Her blood was red but after some tests…it isn’t pony blood”

I looked at Forceps, I left the Doctor and Pinkie outside and Swarm was beside me. We were lucky that Forceps worked so late at night otherwise we’d never get the body examined so fast. “Changeling blood?”

“Yep, it’s a female…” Forceps threw some powder on the changeling and Balboey’s violet coat gave way to the black of a changeling. The only real difference between Swarm’s true form and this was shorter wings and a longer horn. She was also a bit more lithe then Swarm.

Swarm and I walked out after that and met up with the other two. Pinkie put a hoof around Swarm’s shoulder for comfort.

Swarm’s eyes laced with sorrow “It was 2183…we knew it was…”

I looked over at Swarm “What exactly happened in there?”

Swarm went on “We saw Balboey argue with Pinkie Pie and push her into the storage room. We ran inside and saw 2183 change into her true form. She told us she was going to kill Pinkie Pie…we told her that we…” He looked at Pinkie Pie and flushed green again. “Anyways she didn’t take it well…she said she would die for her queen…we ran out of there to try and find help but…then we heard a quiet scream…then Pinkie Pie was about woke up...we left in a hurry”

“She committed suicide” I concluded “I thought the angle was odd…”

“Swarmy I’m so sorry…” Pinkie said looking at Swarm with big apologetic eyes “If I didn’t…I didn’t mean to cause…”

Swarm shook his head “Do not blame yourself…we didn’t mean to get you involved…”

The Doctor then spoke up “Something else doesn’t add up…”

I looked at him “What do you mean?”

“I found powder belonging to teleportation spells on the floor in the bathroom after you left detective. Somepony else teleported inside…”

“But Vinyl would’ve heard somepony teleporting inside…but wait…”

“What?”

“Vinyl never mentioned seeing Swarm leaving….”

Comments

[DarkSkyz]

Ugh, so much shit going on inside my head now. I should have a conspiracy notice board on my wall, linking pictures together so I can figure this case o-aaand plot twist throws my idea off balance.

One grammar mistake as far as I can see, ' "Something is defiantly up" said Forceps' should be definitely.

[Jacoboby1]

1354828This chapter was a bit rushed, I tried to get it out in time to send it to you guys, I'm going to edit it tonight, if college let's me that is

[DarkSkyz]

1355124 I hope you're not feeling obliged to write these for us, write whenever you feel like it!

[RainbowBringer33]

1354828
if all else fails turn you notice board upside down

[dbanksischillin]

NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! VVINNNNYYYYYYLLLLLLLL?!!!!!!!

[BarryTheFlashAllen]

media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxf4pmVMw01qeeain.gif

[Jahbraz]

1354828
Hundreds of good fics have that error. It sucks. Definitely, NOT defiantly!