Earth to Twilight

by terrycloth

Chapter 5: Call to Adventure

“Twilight!”

As Fluttershy’s toboggan settled to the ground in front of the library, Twilight Sparkle hopped off into the snow – not very deep under the tree’s branches – and let out a relieved breath as she took in her home. “Thank you, Fluttershy,” she said. “Your flying really is getting much better.”

“It’s always easier when I’m helping somepony,” Fluttershy said, glancing at the purple dragon latched onto Twilight’s neck. “And this time I got to help two of my friends!” She leaned forwards and nuzzled Spike.

“I was so worried, when you didn’t come home, even after I’d cleaned up everything,” Spike said, climbing onto Twilight’s back but keeping a tight grip on her mane. “I didn’t know what to do!”

“I kind of figured you’d go sleep over at Rarity’s,” Twilight said, nosing open the door and wrinkling her nose a bit at the faint smell of ammonia.

“Well, yeah,” Spike said, “but I mean aside from that.”

Twilight paused on the threshold, then turned her head back towards Fluttershy. “I’d invite you in, but I’m not sure this place is habitable yet. The weather’s scheduled to be clear today, right?” Fluttershy nodded. “We should open all the windows and let it air out,” she said, stepping inside and going over her mental map to plan the most efficient division of labor for one earth pony and one dragon to open all the windows, and for one earth pony, one dragon, and one pegasus just in case Fluttershy volunteered…

“It’s okay. Rarity was having me over for lunch anyway …” Fluttershy said, tilting her head to cover her face with her mane.

“Do you think she’d—“ Twilight started, then cringed and stopped herself short. Inviting yourself to a private get together? Bad Twilight. Although it would be nice to see Rarity again.

She turned to take in Fluttershy’s expression, but it was never easy to read the quiet pegasus, so she decided to work from first principles. While she was fairly certain that Fluttershy did genuinely enjoy helping ponies, even she had her limits, and her lunch dates with Rarity were a chance for her to recharge and be a little unkind for a change. Specifically, to gossip. Rarity knew everypony’s secrets, but the biggest thing that Fluttershy could bring to the table right now was news about Twilight herself, which meant that under no circumstances could Twilight show up without ruining everything.

Rats. Twilight could use somepony sympathetic to rant at about yesterday’s events, and nopony was better at acting sympathetic than Rarity. Spike would feel compelled to play the devil’s advocate, and since Twilight wasn’t actually sure she was in the right, that wouldn’t do at all.

“Nevermind,” Twilight said. “Can you let her know I’d like to get together with her at some point? I’ve really been neglecting all my friends since I came back to town.”

“If you want to come, I’m sure she’d be happy to see you,” Fluttershy said, looking at the ground and poking at the snow with her hoof.

“No, I think I need to finish cleaning up my mess here,” Twilight said, forcing a smile as she added, “I can go whine at Rarity later.” She had a thought. “Spike, do you want to go?”

“Uh uh. I’m not letting you out of my sight!” Spike held her mane tighter.

“Or your claws, apparently,” Twilight said, wincing as they dug into her spine. Spike didn’t let go. “Come on, then, let’s see if we can get this place presentable before the book club meeting.”

===

“BWA HA HA HA HA!” Rainbow Dash rolled on her back, one hoof covering her face, the other pointing at Twilight.

“Apparently,” she said tersely, “Spike is joining the book club.”

“I told you I wasn’t letting you out of my sight,” Spike grumbled, reading through the first chapter of Changelings of Canterlot as he sat on her back.

“Seriously. Where did he even get that?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Was it from Rarity? I can totally see Rarity keeping one of those around.” She paused, then shivered. “Ponyfeathers! I didn’t really want that mental image. I mean, at least with an egghead like you I know you have no idea what it’s meant for.”

Twilight poked a hoof at the bridle, but the tiny clasps remained too small for her to work with her hooves. “I’ve had it since I was little. It’s a toy.”

“She made me guide her around Canterlot and keep her from running into other ponies while she was too busy reading to see where she was going,” Spike said, then tried to sound out a word. “…ess-pee-oh—nayg?”

“Espionage,” Twilight corrected. “Spying.” She turned and stared at him as best she could with him firmly planted on her back. “Are you still on the first chapter?”

Spike dragged her head back forwards with the reins. “Come on, this is way above my reading level!”

“It’s for young adults!” Twilight complained. “You live in a library! How can you not –“

There was a knock on the door. Spike kicked his heels into Twilight’s sides as she started to move, eliciting a warning growl from her as she trotted over to the door and welcomed in… “Rarity?”

“Hello, dear!” Rarity said, smiling happily for about half a second before her expression froze. “Why are you wearing –“

“Spike slipped it on me while I was distracted,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes. “Are you here for the book club meeting? Now that I think of it, Changelings of Canterlot does sound like the kind of book I can see you reading.”

“Oh, I simply adore it,” Rarity said, levitating a copy out of her saddlebag, and clutching it to her chest with a hoof. “The mystique! The passion! The magic! If only the real changelings hadn’t turned out to be such uncouth beasts.” She shook her head as she walked inside and joined Rainbow Dash at the table.

“Yeah, I kind of skip past those scenes,” Rainbow Dash said. “What’s so romantic about somepony pretending to be your lost love? It just seems kind of rude.”

“Did you miss the part where they were spies?” Twilight asked. Rainbow Dash stared at her. “Why did you think the Royal Guards kept showing up and chasing them?”

“Because it was awesome?”

“I missed something awesome? I knew I should have come early,” said a voice from the door. Twilight jumped forwards as it bumped her lightly on the rear, pushed open by Seaside’s nose. The pink pegasus waved with her wing as she squeezed through the gap, then did a double-take as she saw Rarity. “Ditto? I thought you weren’t coming today.”

“My name’s Rarity, dear,” she said, turning to face the newcomer. “And you are?”

“Oh, right,” Seaside said. “He’s got – well, not your mane, but it’s the same color. More or less. Hard to tell in this light, you know. Sorry about that! I know I’d be pretty angry if somepony mistook me for a colt.”

“Why?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Ponies mistake me for a colt all the time.”

There was a moment of silence. “And that doesn’t make you mad?” Seaside asked.

Rainbow Dash laughed. “I think it’s hilarious.”

“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity proclaimed, scandalized. Then she smiled impishly. “But if you must impersonate a stallion, Rainbow, I do have a line of suits and pants that would look positively adorable on you.”

Twilight stared silently at ‘Rarity’ as she and the pegasi shared a laugh, and quietly picked up the teapot and poured out tea for everypony. When Rarity lifted her cup to drink, Twilight looked carefully at the color of her magic. Blue. It was definitely blue. A slightly greenish blue, made a little greener by the rich brown background of the library’s wooden décor, but definitely not the bright green a changeling would have.

“Seaside!” Twilight said, belatedly remembering Rarity’s question. “This is Rarity, one of my dear friends.” The bridle pinched at her muzzle as Spike tugged at it. “And the overprotective little dragon on my back is Spike, who has apparently declared himself my knight in shining armor.”

“I was wondering about that!” Seaside said. “Oh, and Ditto’s not coming, I guess,” she added, looking at Rarity again, then quickly looking away. “Some big emergency at work I think. He works way too hard.”

“That’s a shame,” Twilight said. “I hope he’s able to come to the other meetings. It’s a lot more fun with more ponies here.”

“So, what does one do at a book club meeting?” Rarity asked, levitating her tea and delicately taking another sip. This time, it was backlit by her gray coat, and wasn’t very greenish-tinged at all.

“Talk about the books, mostly,” Rainbow Dash said. “It’s not as boring as it sounds.”

===

Twilight sat on the floor, the polished wood smooth against her skin, the warm air full of the scents of tea and cookies, books and ponies. Spike leaned against her neck, as he read from the book open in front of them. “Lago… morphic?” he said, sounding it out.

“That’s right,” Twilight said. “It means ‘like a bunny’.”

“Lagomorphic re-sill… re-silly…”

“Resilience. It means being tough, basically.”

“As tough as a bunny,” Spike said, staring at the somewhat purple prose. “That’s, um, kind of weird, Twilight.”

“Well, it is describing how well she jumps,” Twilight noted. “It’s mainly just using fancy language to put you in the right frame of mind, though – the viewpoint character of this section is supposed to be extremely clever, so they try to subtly suggest it by using large words to describe everything.”

“She rebounded off the variegated cobblestones of the cul de sac with lagomorphic resilience…” Spike repeated, then continued reading the story quietly as Twilight looked up at the other ponies in the room, pleased that they were able to carry on a conversation without her.

“I just don’t get what all the drama is supposed to be about,” Rainbow Dash said, circling idly in midair over the table. “I mean, they’re obviously in love, they both want to overthrow Celestia, but she keeps acting like he’s the enemy. Except that at the same time that she’s all terrified that he’s a changeling, she keeps asking him to convert her?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Rarity said. “She’s worried that his emotions are false, and that he’s only trying to drain her of her love to fuel his own powers. That’s why she keeps asking him to change her – then he wouldn’t be able to drain her love, and she could be sure that he wanted to be with her legitimately.”

“I’m kinda with Rainbow Dash here,” Seaside said. “What’s so illegitimate about feeding off her love? It’s not like it hurts the ponies he drains.”

Rarity scowled. “You don’t see the difference between true love, and one pony using another to satisfy their own needs?”

“So… what?” Rainbow Dash said. “You can only really be in love if you don’t get anything out of the relationship?”

“I wish she’d just go on and convert already,” Seaside said.

“Yeah, I know!” Rainbow Dash said. “It’s not like you don’t know she’s going to. The title is ‘Changelings of Canterlot’, plural. Not ‘changeling and changeling wannabe’.”

“It’s not the sort of thing that one can just rush into,” Rarity said. “Really, you two. If you were in her place, would you give up being pegasi without a second thought?”

“Uh, let’s see,” Rainbow Dash said. “The changelings in the story fly faster than any pegasus, use magic better than any unicorn, regenerate from any wound in seconds, read minds, see in the dark –“

“Live forever. Can’t forget that one,” Seaside said.

“He only has all of those powers because he’s fed on so much love,” Rarity said. “He’s not supposed to represent a typical changeling.”

“Still, who wouldn’t take that deal?” Rainbow Dash asked. “Especially since she’s just an earth pony. Um, no offense, Twilight.”

“None taken,” Twilight said. “In the context of the story, earth ponies are pretty bad off. No inherent advantages of any sort, and treated as second class citizens by a tyrant Celestia.”

“So would you do it?” Seaside asked. “Would you get turned into a changeling?”

“If I lived in the Canterlot depicted in the story? I think I’d have to,” Twilight said. “Earth ponies in the story have no magic, and my cutie mark almost requires me to work with magic in some capacity.”

“Speaking of earth pony magic,” Rarity said, looking over at Twilight curiously. “Have you unlocked its secrets yet? I remember you said that was one of the things you wanted to do before turning back into a unicorn.”

“I’ve made some progress, I guess,” Twilight said. “I don’t think I get to turn back into a unicorn after I figure it out, though – it’s not like I was transformed into an earth pony for the sake of writing a research paper.”

“Of course not,” Rarity said, smirking. “Still, how hard could it be? You were turned into an earth pony essentially by accident – if you set your mind on being a unicorn again, I’m sure we could work something out.”

“Are you talking about that thing you were talking about with Trixie?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Indeed!” Rarity said. “Between Rainbow Dash’s sonic rainboom, Trixie’s skill at redirecting magical power, and my own gem-finding spell…”

“…you could get super-rich and pay somepony to turn Twilight back?” Seaside guessed.

“Nah, she wants us to go after the lost wishing star,” Rainbow Dash said. “Ponyville’s wasn’t lost all that long ago, so it might still be somewhere nearby.”

“I suppose hundreds of years ago isn’t that long in geological time,” Twilight said. “It’s probably still gathering dust in some dragon’s hoard. But it’s not a gem, it’s a living creature. And it wasn’t all that powerful – none of the wishing stars were.”

“Twilight Sparkle was powerful enough to turn itself into a unicorn,” Rarity said.

“Twilight Sparkle?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Twilight shook her head. “Rarity…”

Seaside blinked. “Oh, yeah, I’ve heard this story. Some silly filly wished Canterlot’s star into a unicorn eight hundred years ago, and the unicorns haven’t had a wishing star since.”

“I know I was shocked to hear our little Twilight was actually a wishing star!” Rarity said. “I can’t believe you never mentioned it!”

“My distant ancestor was a wishing star,” Twilight said, cringing. “At this point half the unicorns in Canterlot are probably descended from her.”

“So… how many wishes do we get?” Seaside asked.

“I don’t grant wishes!“

Seaside shook her head. “I mean, if we went and found the real wishing star, would we each get a wish? Or is it first come first served?”

“From what I remember,” Rarity said, “at the Winter Wish Festival each pony would get a single wish, until somepony asked for a difficult wish, at which point the wishing star would attempt to grant it and then go back to sleep for another year. But after 300 years of rest, it probably has a great deal of power saved up. We’d have all the wishes we could ever wish for! Twilight could be a unicorn again, Rainbow Dash could join the Wonderbolts --”

“Cherry Berry might actually learn some good jokes,” Twilight suggested.

Seaside leapt into the air. “Let’s do it!”

“Guarded by a dragon,” Twilight reminded her. “Not a gem.”

“They cancel out,” Seaside replied. “Dragons have plenty of gems! Rarity can find their hoards, and we can just keep checking until we find the right one!”

“Or until a dragon eats you,” Spike grumbled, looking up from his book. “And you’d deserve it too, for going around raiding their hoards.”

“I’m not afraid of any big stinking lizards,” Rainbow Dash said. “We’ve faced down dragons plenty of times!”

Twilight shivered as she remembered the dragons she’d seen close up – the sheer scale of the beasts, the sheer, impenetrable scales, the glistening teeth, the uncaring eyes – even Discord had had more mercy in his gaze than those dragons. “And we didn’t win. We always had to run away. The only pony who ever actually won against a dragon is Fluttershy, and I don’t think guilting it into moving into a different cave is going to work if it catches us robbing its hoard.”

“Mmm,” Rarity said. “Actually, that one did catch me robbing its hoard.”

“Rarity!”

“And I was this close to getting my hooves on those diamonds,” Rarity said. “Really, the way that dragons lock their gems away where nopony can see them is a crime against fabulosity.”

“You can’t be serious!” Twilight said, covering her face with her hooves. How could they be so stupid? Rarity at least was usually more sensible than… she suddenly looked up. “You’re not serious, are you.”

Rarity and Rainbow Dash looked at each other, then both started laughing. After a second, Twilight joined in with a little giggle.

Seaside looked around the room, and pouted. “Aww.”

“It’s more of a Daring Do-themed adventure anyway,” Rainbow Dash said. “Now, if we wanted an adventure based on Changelings of Canterlot…”

===

That night, Twilight lay awake in bed. She’d finally gotten the bridle off using a fork strapped to her hoof as a lever – it had meant looking into a mirror, and for the first time she noticed that, yes, her reflection in the bathroom mirror still had a horn. Pinkie Pie must have gotten into her bathroom at some point and warped her personal mirror along with all the others in Ponyville. The mirror-image Twilight stayed well behaved, at least, not using her magic and struggling right along with her to pry loose the tiny, delicate latches, and the mirror Pinkie Pie (that she was sure was in there somewhere) stayed out of sight, although Twilight imagined she heard her giggling softly from out of frame.

If she turned into a changeling, would her mirror-selves also turn? Without Pinkie Pie’s interference in Canterlot, were there even changeling refugees in mirror-Ponyville to do the conversion? Could she detect changelings by holding up one of Pinkie Pie’s subverted mirrors and seeing who didn’t reflect? No, that was silly. The mirror-Pinkies must have some way to make the mirrors reflect properly most of the time, or everypony in Ponyville would know about them.

Unless that was another one of the silly little Ponyville secrets that nopony ever got around to telling her about until it was too late. At least this latest one – the story of the wishing star – was one she’d already known. How many other magical artifacts were lying hidden nearby, just waiting to cause trouble for some unsuspecting explorer? Probably quite a few, given the town’s location.

“Not that Canterlot is any better,” she grumbled, flipping over in bed to try to get comfortable. Time travel spells hidden in the library, a huge abandoned crystal mine right under the castle, Luna’s bat-themed barracks at the top of the mountain... and let’s not forget the city-destroying super-weapons on the moon. And changelings, apparently living undetected for generations.

She was so sick of secrets. The only good thing about them was uncovering them, holding them up to the light, and making the world a little more sensible and consistent.

And when she put it that way, turning into a changeling wasn’t really an option, was it? It’d be another stupid secret for her to keep, forever, or else get locked in a dungeon with all the other changelings, who’d been too comfortable lying to everypony to let anypony know that they’d been there all along, and now it was too late. And to make it worse, those stupid stupid bugs had told her their secret, and now she had to keep it for them, because betraying a friend’s secret was… just not right, even if she could almost convince herself she’d be better off without them as friends.

She turned over the other way, tangling herself in the blankets. Was she really trapped in their lies? Maybe there was a way to untangle the web of deceit. Surely if she explained their situation to Princess Celestia, she’d understand that they… had an apparently insatiable urge to impersonate other ponies even when they didn’t need to, for ‘fun’, and the best you could hope for was that the only damage they’d do was accidental. Twilight could live with that, but what about everypony else? Celestia would want them to change, to behave, and they’d try, or claim to try, and fail, and then what? Twilight’s imagination was all too happy to fill in the blanks.

Twilight sighed. Maybe Princess Luna? She was, as far as Twilight knew, still looking for unicorns to help with her secret project. Changelings might be close enough. She’d been willing to protect the moon ponies, who weren’t even from Equestria – would she be open minded enough to take the changelings under her wings? They were creepy, and scary, and deceptive – right up Luna’s alley. It seemed like a done deal. The only problem was that she hadn’t helped. It’s not like she didn’t know about the changelings locked up in the dungeon.

There was a crash across the room, and a blast of chill air. Twilight sat up in bed, a bit awkwardly because of the tangle of blankets, and stared across the pitch black of her bedroom at the now-open window swinging back and forth as the snowy wind howled past outside.

Something rustled, just outside her field of view. “H-hello?” she said, her voice seeming to echo in the late-night silence. She tried to focus on the least menacing possibilities. “Spike? Was that you?”

A dark mass rose from beyond the foot of her bed, occluding the window. It smelled like snow, and feathers, which lent itself to one obvious explanation. “Rainbow Dash?”

The pony spread her wings and leaped atop the bed, pinning Twilight down beneath her blankets, her face held inches away. “Guess again,” she said softly, in Rainbow Dash’s voice.

“Oh,” Twilight said.

The changeling nodded. “I expected you to be a lot more scared.”

“Should I be?” Twilight asked, shifting uncomfortably.

There was a brief, blinding flash of green fire, and a changeling in its natural form stared down at her with blue glowing eyes. It bared its fangs, inches from her nose. Twilight stared back at it. A long, snaky tongue extended from its mouth, flicking a glistening tip across Twilight’s nostrils.

“Stop that,” Twilight whispered, wrinkling her nose. “You’re being gross.”

“What’s wrong with you?” it hissed, in a sort of crackling, buzzy voice. “I have you in my power, and you feel nothing?”

Twilight turned her head to the side, bit down on her pillow, and whipped it into the changeling’s face. As it recoiled, she rolled off the bed to shed the blankets. The changeling tried to keep hold of her, and ended up getting slammed to the floor underneath her, with two of its perforated legs tangled and trapped. There was a brief, chaotic struggle, that ended with Twilight Sparkle perched atop the changeling intruder, pinning one delicate wing under a hoof while her forehooves held her pillow down over its head, keeping its fangs and horn at bay. “Say auntie,” she said. “Say it!”

“Owwww…” moaned the changeling.

“Thirty,” Twilight said. “I took down thirty changelings in the battle for Canterlot, and they knew how to fight. I’ve fought dragons and manticores and held off a three-headed hydra while my friends ran to safety. I am way out of your league. Now stop being an idiot and give up before we wake up Spike.”

“Twilight?” Spike said drowsily, from behind her. “What’s going on?”

“You’re dreaming,” Twilight said, rolling her eyes. “Go back to sleep.” There was a brief glow of green spilling out from under the pillow, but she stomped on it hard enough to disrupt the spell.

“Okay, okay, I give up,” whined the changeling.

“Good,” Twilight said. “Now let’s go talk like civilized ponies.”

===

Downstairs, Twilight slowly ate a daisy sandwich, one bite at a time, focusing on the fresh flavor of the daisies and the subtle wheaty taste of the bread, letting it take her back to her childhood. Her mother’s daisies grown in the back yard garden plot, tossed into the simplest possible dishes to avoid wasting time preparing food. Time that could be better spent unlocking the mysteries of science. Simple to eat, too – no trip to the kitchen required. A thousand sandwiches eaten while poring over books, or working on assignments for school. Cadance had always been her favorite foalsitter, because they’d go out and play, and have fun, but it was her mother who’d always understood what Twilight loved best – solitude and a lack of distractions.

She finished the sandwich, and slumped to the table, exhausted. Across from her, Ditto licked his lips. “That was delicious,” he said. “I should break into your room more often.”

“I’m never going to get to sleep the night, am I?” Twilight remarked. “Now. Explain.”

“Applejack knows,” he said, simply. “Why did you tell her?”

Twilight’s fur stood on end, and she was suddenly awake again. “What do you mean? How much does she know? What did she say?” Ditto leaned forwards and touched his horn to her forehead, and it flashed…

She was sneaking through the apple orchards in Rainbow Dash’s shape, flitting from tree to tree and staying under cover. Something big had happened the day before – a pillar of fire that the Apples had tried to wave off as a rogue lightning strike, but she’d already talked to the weather squad. No lightning scheduled that day, and Derpy hadn’t been anywhere near the farm.

No, this was that ‘earth pony magic’ that Twilight was studying, she was sure of it. With thoughts of the purple earth pony in her head, she took her form without thinking when the burnt remains of the barn came into view. She appraised the damage – the building was a total loss, but all the loose debris had been moved away. The shell of the back half of the building sat there, sagging slightly, with its contents – dozens of snow plows, piles of spare parts, what looked like a folding table, and a wheelbarrow full of fertilizer or something – spread out on a tarp.

Her hooves clopped across the wooden floor of the destroyed barn as she searched for ground zero, but there was no sign of an explosion – nothing physical, anyway. Something felt… off, but she couldn’t place it.

“Twilight?” Applejack asked. “I thought I saw somepony sneaking around out here, but I didn’t expect you to be back so soon.”

“I just wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help,” she said. “After the, um, the incident.”

Applejack narrowed her eyes suspiciously, the suspicion rolling off her in tangible, if inedible, waves. “Uh huh.”

“So… what happened here? I mean, exactly. Obviously I was here and saw what happened, right?”

“You burned down my barn,” Applejack said. “Can’t rightly say much more than that.”

“That was magic, right? I used earth pony magic?”

Applejack snorted. “Used up a whole year’s supply.”

That answer was just confusing. “I don’t understand. How does it work?”

“You know, you’re awfully chipper for a mare who stumbled out of my kitchen not two hours ago, saying she wanted to go home and sleep,” Applejack said. “You don’t look tired at all.”

“I’m too tired to sleep?” she suggested, smiling nervously.

“Ditto,” Applejack said. When the changeling wearing Twilight’s skin flinched, Applejack gave a nasty little smile, and her suspicion turned to deviousness. “Come on back to my place, Twi. We’ve got a niiiiice comfortable bed for you to rest up in, for as long as ya need.”

When Ditto transformed into Rainbow Dash and flew away at top speed, there wasn’t even a flicker of surprise from the mare she left behind.

Twilight pulled back as she returned to the present. “You could have used a Flashback Window for that,” she grumbled.

“I’m better with memory spells,” Ditto said. “How did she know I was a changeling? How did she know my name if you didn’t tell her?”

Twilight winced. “I… may have called her by your name the morning before last, when she stopped by the library. I didn’t think she thought anything of it, I was pretty out of it at the time.”

“Well, thanks for that,” Ditto said. “Now I get to leave another town. I’d already be gone, but I needed to let Seaside know, and she wanted to stay for the book club meeting since her cover wasn’t blown yet. It will be, though – all my friends are going to be scrutinized, and she barely has an identity at all. Mine might have held up, but she’s not even in the town census.”

“Oh, shut up,” Twilight snapped, holding her head, which between the life-energy drain from the feeding, and the memory spell with no warning, was starting to ache. “You were the one skulking about as me without knowing the first thing about what I’d been doing. If you’d picked any other pony she wouldn’t have caught on.”

“Fine, it’s all my fault, I don’t care,” Ditto said. “We’ve still got no choice but to leave town. So I’m here to make a final offer – do you want to come with us? It’ll take a couple days for the hunters to find our cave. We still have time to convert you.”

“No,” Twilight said, without hesitation. “I’ve got a better idea. We’re going to Canterlot.”

Ditto stared at her. “What?”

Comments

[EpsilonWinter]

I am delighted that you have updated, I always enjoy reading this fic.
In terms of criticism, comparatively this chapter held little in terms of plot against the other chapters, perhaps the drama of Twilights' choice could have been played up a bit more. Right now the pain of losing her horn is dulled by hope and the alienation from her friends is diluted, giving greater balance to the scales so to speak, and in turn more potential for personal conflict.
Of course, there is possibility that perhaps Luna may instead reject the Changelings entirely and strike out at Twilight, probably letting the whole of Equestria know that she held with the changelings at the time and perhaps resulting in her being seen as a traitor, resulting in further shunning and destroying the second chance of sorts she has with her friends. In the case something along those lines occurring then this chapter will have been a nice build up to that.
The book club discussion was an interesting tibit, perhaps Twilights' resignation to becoming a changeling in that scenario was a bit of foreshadowing? I like how you have given Twilight multiple alternate paths, there is the possibility of the wishing star to change her back, if not the star there is witchcraft to guide her back to her horn, and even they both fail Twilight still has the temptation to make a deal with the devil or sorts to regain her magic. It may be the case that witchcraft is simply too alien to her, or not a sufficient enough replacement for her unicorn powers, Of course, witchcraft depends on whether or not Applejack is willing to allow her to learn in the first place now that she knows about the connection between Twilight and the changelings, she isn't stupid, so she'll be confronting Twilight as to why she was calling out for one sooner or later, and their relationship is certainly not so close again as to keep such a secret for Twilights' own sake.
Anyhow, theorizing aside, I will say once more that I have enjoyed the chapter and await the next one with great anticipation.
BlackWinter

[Harwick]

“I’m too tired to sleep?” she suggested, smiling nervously.
“Ditto,” Applejack said.

While it seems clear that AJ knew she was dealing with an imposter, it's amusing to me that this exchange leaves it questionable that she guessed Ditto's name at all. Regardless, if the changelings didn't keep showing up at Twilight's place wearing her friends' faces, then she wouldn't have made the slip in front of the real AJ anyway.

There's an interesting ebb and flow to the relationships with her friends. Here, most of them are apparently on the upswing, while admittedly she's at least in a spat with AJ (that'll likely grow more interesting as the fallout from the changeling revelation gets going.) At least the heat of that disagreement shows a care at the center of it that's better than the awkward disconnect and isolation Twilight was feeling from her friends before.

I really wish we could have been in on that conversation about Twilight between Rarity and Fluttershy. Honestly, I'd love to hear the honest thoughts of the all of the Elements about her.

[Kalmeira]

and held off a three-headed hydra while my friends ran to safety

if you are referring to the scene from "feeling pinkie keen", the hydra had four heads.
http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/Ursa#Hydra

[terrycloth]

1745541 Doh!

[ColdGoldLazarus]

1744279 What he said.

[Rowyn]

Yay! Expose ALL the secrets, Twilight!

[terrycloth]

1750125 How else will you become a crazy prophetess shouting prophecies of doom from atop a roadside soapbox?

[ColdGoldLazarus]

1750028 Ah, gotcha.

[LittleSallyDigby]

“Live forever. Can’t forget that one,” Seaside said.

And this is where I got the joke. Ehehe.

[LittleSallyDigby]

Twilight turned her head to the side, bit down on her pillow, and whipped it into the changeling’s face. As it recoiled, she rolled off the bed to shed the blankets. The changeling tried to keep hold of her, and ended up getting slammed to the floor underneath her, with two of its perforated legs tangled and trapped. There was a brief, chaotic struggle, that ended with Twilight Sparkle perched atop the changeling intruder, pinning one delicate wing under a hoof while her forehooves held her pillow down over its head, keeping its fangs and horn at bay. “Say auntie,” she said. “Say it!”

...
She can't dress herself without her horn, but she can kick ass at this level?
Twiley.
Go see your brother. I'm sure he has some job openings.