//------------------------------// // Back to School // Story: Once Bitten // by Damaged //------------------------------// "Wake up, grubs." The voice had the slight insectile feel that Chitter's had, but it was definitely not that enigmatic changeling. Vinyl opened her eyes and, as she did, she watched the soft green glow before them turn blue. Lifting her head up, she realized the cave was much easier to make out, details were no longer hidden in shadows. "Welcome to the hive, you are the last for our latest pail to be trained. I am your pledge leader, Thorax." Thorax looked down at the four little pony-changeling mutants. "When you can walk, follow me." Vinyl groaned and climbed to her hooves. Looking down at them, she saw the small black appendages and chirped her wings together in frustration. Then she froze in place and chirped them again. 'And now I have wings too.' She took a deep breath, having to fight her modified behavior to direct a question at Thorax. "We will do what you want, but can you ease up on making commands… at least to the fillies?" Apple Bloom climbed to her hooves and looked into Vinyl's eyes. "Wow, you dun shrunk a lot." She shook her legs, working them to get ready for walking, as she had been instructed. "If I don't give you instructions, someling will notice and I will be replaced with someling who does." Thorax gave a sighing-hiss through her mouth. "You will have to pretend like you are going along with everything." "Yeah, pretend…" Sweetie Belle proved her adept knowledge of mockery well. She felt so strange now she doubted she looked anything like a pony anymore. "Why should we pretend?" "Because I told you to." Thorax almost recoiled from the harshness of her own voice. "Look, we tell that to all the new nymphs, if you go along with things it just makes the training go faster. Fighting it… is not worth it." She turned and stepped out of the cave. All four fillies felt the pull of the earlier command. All four fillies started marching out of the cave. "Wow." Scootaloo looked around the cave, changelings like Thorax crawling everywhere. "What's a pail? Oh, and what is our pledge?" "A pail is a large group of changelings, in this case it will be the group you are training with. Your pledge is just you four, smaller in number than a pail, a pledge is usually a tight-knit group." Thorax led the way through the hive. "What is this all about? Why did I shrink like this?" Vinyl had questions, lots of them, some more would be about why the other fillies... 'Other fillies? I am not a filly, buck it.' She shook her head and listened for Thorax's explanation. Leading the way into a side cave, Thorax gestured to the group of nearly thirty changelings. "This is your pail. I am not only leader of your pledge, but I will be teaching your first class. You shrunk because the grubs re-pattern the host to be a changeling nymph, not an adult. This, is all about teaching you, and the immature changeling growing in you, all about the hive." Vinyl became herded in by the other three fillies, the similarity between the room and the Ponyville classroom too much for the three to resist. "Hey, you three relax. We aren't here to learn how to be good bugs, or anything like that. We are only waiting until we can escape. Ignore what they said, don't 'go along with it.' " "Now that our pail is all gathered, welcome to the hive." Thorax gestured up and around. "This is literally the best place to live. All your family is here, you can do everything you want—" "Except leave." Vinyl couldn't resist it, she had to interrupt. "Please be quiet while I speak, watch, and learn." Thorax glared at Vinyl. "Now, let me go over what is happening to you all now, and what will happen." She reached up with her magic and pulled down a blackboard that had been stolen from an Equestrian school. "Many of you will remember the eggs, and the grubs that hatched from them, but some of you won't, so we are starting there." Thorax drew an egg, and then a little changeling parasite-grub. "This is the first stage of changeling growth. The grubs will literally burrow into a pony host however they can. At this point they aren't even intelligent, they are just a bunch of directives. Once they attach to the spine of a host, they start to grow their own intelligence, as well as release chemicals and magic that will begin the pony's transformation. You," Thorax pointed right at Sweetie Belle, "come up here." Her eyes wide, Sweetie trotted up to the front of the class, her little wings rubbing together with worry. Standing where Thorax pointed, she turned nervously at her direction to face the pail. "Now, this is an example of a superficially complete nymph. Note she has the wing-structure, a horn, and even the fins of a changeling. But inside, she is mostly pony still." Thorax tapped Sweetie's horn. "This won't even be fully working yet. If she was a unicorn before, the changes to her horn will have, by now, rendered it useless, and her changeling power is not yet active." "Please try to buzz your wings." Thorax's voice was even, she lifted a hoof to Sweetie's back. "Watch how little strong control she has over her wings. She can chirp them, or even rub them together to make other sounds, because those are fine-muscles. Only once more of her internals are converted will she have the larger muscles needed to fly properly." Stroking the filly's back, Thorax leaned down. "You can go back now." Vinyl tried to tune out, tried to block the speech being given from her thoughts, but the earlier command held strong. She learned about all the ways her body was changing right now, and what things to look for as it progresses further. "Any questions?" Thorax knew what was coming, what was always coming with such a new group. Every single changeling nymph raised a hoof up high. "Okay, starting at the front, but I am only answering questions in regard to your body." Her ruse worked, half the hooves lowered. "You, little miss loudmouth." "How long does this take, for us to become changelings?" Vinyl pulled her leg down, acutely aware of how much this really did feel like school. "It varies. For example, your group was all parasitized at the same time, yet the nymph I used as an example—" Thorax gave a soft sigh as she was cut off. "Sweetie Belle." Vinyl glared at the changeling, daring them to refute the filly's name. "As I said, the nymph I used as an example seems like she is days ahead of you." Thorax pointed to another random nymph. "Yes?" "What about the… the other me… the one in my head?" "That is a good question, but it is one that I will answer next time. Don't be angry at your twin, it isn't their fault all this happened to you." Thorax took a slow, deep breath. "They are in this just as deep as you." Vinyl's eyes shot wide, her memories suddenly started spilling over. "Shining?" She whispered the word softly, it was thankfully drowned out by the next question—that she was ignoring. Memories of her dreams, of curling up in the big stallion's grip, or wrapping his forelegs around Vinyl, assaulted Vinyl's head. By the time the parade of memories stopped, Vinyl realized that Thorax was walking for an opening in the wall that had suddenly yawned wide. "I will see you tomorrow, pail." Thorax marched out, and a changeling that looked almost exactly the same entered. "Greetings and all that. My name is Glimmer Wing." Glimmer looked around all the faces that gazed up at her. "Blah blah blah, oh woe is me. Forget all that, you need to learn as fast as you can, but you are lucky, Thorax, myself, and others will tell you everything you need to know." The change between the two teachers was astounding. Glimmer seemed to be constantly talking down to them, but when she said, "Listen to what I have to say," there was nothing any of the foals in the room could do, but listen. "So, I get to teach you about our hierarchy. It would be easiest if I just told you, 'Keep out of everyling's way, they can stomp you without warning.' And while that is true, I have to teach you everything, from top to bottom." Scootaloo had her foreleg up in the air, but their teacher seemed to be completely ignoring her. Eventually, she leaned over to Sweetie Belle. "What's a hierarchy?" "It means who is in charge, and who isn't." Sweetie leaned over to her friend. "Ah thought it meant a tall doorway?" Apple Bloom looked between her two friends, then over to Vinyl. "Sweetie is right, hierarchy means 'leadership structure.' " The moment Vinyl said the words, she knew what was coming. "Well, it seems someling knows this already." Glimmer pointed right to Vinyl. "Get your buggy-plot up here and explain it for everyling." The wild heart within Vinyl railed at the teaching method, wanting to jump out of her seat and kick her table over. I should really take advantage of you, big guy. Shaking her head, letting the control of Shining Armor pour over her, Vinyl's features faded into a more stiff look. "Sorry, Glimmer Wing, I was trying to help my pledge understand what you were saying." Glimmer's blue eyes narrowed. "You aren't lying now? You were the last batch in, what am I saying? You are still mostly pony." She almost spat the last word. "Okay, so starting with the queen." Shining Groaned, she wanted to just shift her focus to other things, ignore the lecture, but the command kept her odd little ears pointed toward Glimmer. Queen was at the top, she had Overseers who took care of major sections of each hive, they had their workers, and all the way at the bottom was their group. Shining Armor thought about the system, what she could do to disable it. 'Obviously, cutting off the head would be the best way to gain advantage. I don't know what this Queen is, but she can be… subdued.' It took a few moments to realize the second instructor had left, and another changeling entered the cave. "My name is Articulate, and I am going to teach you about lying." Articulate was already bored, even before he entered the room. "So, I am a pony from Manehatten, and I work for an up-and-coming fashion shop. I have a mare waiting for me, two foals, and we have a third on the way." Articulate gave what—on a pony—could be a very loose interpretation of an honest smile. "Just yesterday I was making this fabulous dress for Princess Celestia. We don't fit her in the shop, of course, we have to…" Articulate grinned, a real smile this time. "The secret to a good lie, is preparation. The secret to a great lie, is details." "A lie is about overwhelming your target with a pile of facts they cannot verify, so that they don't realize there are ones that they can. So each of you, I want you to come up with a cover story, what you do, where you live. But in your story you are not allowed to use the town where you lived, you can't use your old profession, and you can't even use your old gender, go." Articulate looked around at all the shocked faces. "You." He pointed right at Shining. "Uh," Shining almost recoiled from the request, this was very much a Vinyl thing, "I am a pegasus weatherpony from Cloudsdale…" She fumbled for more. "I don't have a wife, but I am in the market…" 'Cady, please forgive me.' "And I was, just this morning, spending some time with a mare from… Canterlot." "A first try, and a good one." Articulate pointed to another nymph. "Now you, where are you from and what do you do?" After three more nymphs in Shining's pail gave their stories, Articulate pointed back at Shining. "Can anyling here tell me what her job was, or what they did today?" A whole pile of blank faces stared up at the teacher. "Perfect. You had facts in your story, but they weren't the kind to stand out. That is exactly what it takes to make a good cover story, as a changeling." 'But I don't want to be a good changeling...' Shining stood proud, but on the inside she trembled in fear. A foreleg reached out and pulled her into a hug. "It'll be okay, brave vamponies always live on." Apple Bloom squeezed Shining Armor to her side, not realizing quite how much the hug was pulling the former stallion back together.