//------------------------------// // The Changeling Express // Story: "Somepony! Help! Princess Celestia Has Lost Her Memory!" // by Kevin Lee //------------------------------// “Pappy? Alika?” Marshal Mustang Mack called out to the two EUP Secret Service agents before they boarded the train. West’s eyes bugged out when they turned and saw who all were accompanying him. “Whooooaaaa!” Gordon whispered in horror. “Having all those changelings onboard was bad enough, but this—!?" “Mack!?” West inquired, looking up at who walked alongside the marshal. “Given all the weight of all those track rails you guys are going to have to move, I figured you all could use some help,” Mack said, looking up at his friend. “I talked it over with him, and Mongo’s agreed to go along and help. He, and his pack.” “Hiya, West and Gordon!” Mongo greeted them with a toothy grin. “Long time, no see.” “And. He talks. Too,” Gordon fearfully muttered, gulping during his pauses. “Marshal Mack says you friends with Pretty White Pony,” Mongo told them. “Need Mongo’s help. Mongo happy to help! Bring whole pack to help friends of New Alpha.” “We could certainly use the help, Mack, but we don’t want any trouble,” West demurred. “Well, it turned out that Mongo and his pack just like to play a little rough,” Mack explained. “When Celestia beat him fair and square, Mongo accepted her as their new alpha, and is following her lead now.” “Mongo always like Marshal Mack and Pretty Black Pony. They fight good,” Mongo explained. “You don’t fight so good. But Mongo still like you. You clever ponies.” West and Gordon both nervously shuddered at the complement for some reason. “Mongo always wanted to be friends. But Old Alpha hated you. Old Alpha was very clever pony, but you more clever.” “We only got lucky all those times we had to deal with him,” West replied. “Loveless is a certifiable genius, but he’d always overlook some tiny detail that we were able to exploit. That, and a giant ego the size of the planet.” “Whatever happened to that Shetland?” Gordon inquired. “We’ve not had any run-ins with him for quite a while.” “Old Alpha always unhappy about you,” Mongo told them. “Died of ulcers.” “Oh, that’s too bad,” Gordon sighed. “I always hated that he’d do all those crimes, but to be honest, I’m sorry to hear he’s gone. His inventions were always beyond incredible and quite ingenious. We were always impressed. We were almost looking forward to what he’d come up with next. Not really, but almost.” “Too bad we couldn’t afford to let him know, that,” West agreed. “His ego was his biggest weakness, but we could never afford to stoke it, as much as he truly deserved such praise. It was the only way to beat him. “But just think of all the good he could have done with those inventions,” he added. “For example, imagine how we could have utilized that sonic device to transport ponies in and out of pictures. I’m sure if he had worked for the betterment of Equestria, he would have eventually figured out how to tie two distant paintings together and then use his sonic key to create a long-range teleport system.” “Wouldn’t something like that eventually make trains like yours obsolete?” Mack chimed in. “I seriously doubt it, Mack,” Gordon protested. “Supplement them, perhaps. And like any new technology, such devices would certainly redistribute the workload, but trains would never go obsolete. No more than railroads made wagons obsolete, or than wagons made sidesaddles obsolete.” The train’s engineer came walking up to them from the engine. “The train is ready to go whenever you are,” Tumbleweed said, reminding them that it was time to board, “and will wait on your pleasure, Mister West. But daylight won’t wait for us, sir.” “Right you are!” Gordon replied, laughing. “How are you feeling, Tumbleweed?” West asked him. “I’m doing great!” the engineer happily responded. “It’ll be good to see the old girl doing her runs, again! Oh, and Marshal Mack?” “Yes, Tumbleweed?” Mack inquired. “Please extend my apologies to Miss Kitty,” he said. “If we can get the railroad back into operation again, I’m afraid I won’t be as frequent a customer as I have been. But my future absences isn’t intended to be a complaint against her or the Long Tree. They’ve always treated me very well there.” “Believe me, Tumbleweed, she’ll be very happy to hear it,” Mack gently told him, smiling. “Everypony in town knows how much this has hurt you. We’re all happy to see you finally back at doing what you’ve always loved.” Mack then turned and left them all to board the train. ******************** “I’ve finally got Twilight to agree to sleep for tonight, Auntie,” Princess Cadance told Princess Luna as the Night Diarch prepared for her duties. “I hope you can help her with those bad dreams she’s been having. And also help her get over this obsession she has.” “I’ll do my best,” Luna assured her. “She claims she has accepted what happened? But that her—mind—won’t let go of that night?” “I—I can’t really say,” Cadance said, sighing. “Part of me believes it to be so—but—I can’t be certain if that’s all there is to it. She certainly thinks there was something more. Something that was missed. She worked really hard to make a compelling argument. But even Twilight says she isn’t certain, and without that missing element—that even she can’t identify—she’s insisting she just feels there’s something there. Although, it may be nothing more than wishful thinking of a sleep-deprived pony.” “That could be true,” Luna agreed. “Intense sleep deprivation can make ponies imagine all sorts of scenarios. With Twilight Sparkle being such an exceptionally intelligent pony, a sleep-deprived genius can still sound quite lucid and in full control of her faculties, thus create very compelling cases.” “If only Celestia could—” Cadance began. “I know, dear Cadance. I know,” Luna softly said to her. “Sadly, that’s not possible.” ******************** Queen Chrysalis entered the Long Tree, and after quickly spotting Filly and Mack at the bar, headed their way. They paused their own conversation at her approach. “Hello, Chrysalis. How are you this evening?” Filly cheerfully greeted her partner, even though her emotions prepared her for another confrontation with the Changeling Queen. “You need not worry, Filly Rustler,” Chrysalis snapped at her. “I find no fault with your performance.” She paused to look up at the sounds of heavy thumping coming from the ceiling. “What—is she doing!?” Chrysalis demanded as her ears laid back. “Tap dancing, so far as we can tell,” Mack replied. “SHE—has absolutely NO rhythm—whatsoever,” the Changeling Queen complained. “And with anvils. Tomorrow morning, I’ll send the regular crew to reinforce the upstairs—again—just to be safe.” She looked back at Filly and Mack. “Celestia’s the reason for my visit,” she began. “It’s—hard to put a hoof on it—but I feel there’s something not right about her.” “In what way?” Mack inquired, suddenly perking up his ears. “Could she be an imposter?” “She’s NO changeling!” Chrysalis instantly snapped back at him. “So, what’s the problem?” Filly asked. “Like I said, it’s a very difficult matter to lay a hoof on it,” she grumbled her replied. “As a changeling—we can get an instant reading on pretty much any creature we come across. We can decern the likes and dislikes, all the elements of the personality, the emotional state—” She broke off to stare at them staring at her. “WHAT!?” she angrily demanded from them. “You make it sound like something to be proud of,” Filly muttered. “We are,” Chrysalis acidly responded, arching an eyebrow back at her. “We’re changelings. Such abilities just come with the territory. They’re necessary because infiltration is how we earn our bread and butter. To do that, we had to develop the ability to disguise ourselves, and to successfully do that, we had to quickly pick up on a creature’s emotional states and mental processes, otherwise such disguises would be worthless.” “I thought we were talking about Princess Celestia,” Mack spoke up. “Or if she is Princess Celestia.” “She is, and she isn’t,” Chrysalis fumed. “That’s the problem!” “That sounds a lot like the old ‘Radioactive Cat’ riddle,” Mack muttered. “’Is it dead or alive? The answer is it’s both until you look at it, then it becomes one or the other’.” “But we’ve all seen Princess Celestia!” Filly objected. “Right!? She’s here!” “Like I said, she is and isn’t,” Chrysalis repeated. They continued to stare at her with questioning looks. “You forget, I had to infiltrate Canterlot,” she explained. “Give a changeling an hour or two with any other pony, like one of you, and we’d pretty much know everything about you and your lives so well, that we could fool your parents, your siblings, your spouse, even yourself! You’d finally end up simply convinced that you were born a twin, had a brain fart, and just forgot for a moment that you always had one. “But I was with Celestia for several days!” she emphasized. “And believe me, I’ve never had a target that was so hard to get a reading on. She was extremely tough!” “We’re not talking about reading minds, are we?” Filly nervously inquired. “No,” Chrysalis replied tiredly. “We’re not telepaths. Although, we simply can read your body language so well, you can easily be excused to believe we are. With all your involuntary twitches and tells, you ponies are virtually yelling out every single thought you have at us. “We’re not even empaths, for that matter,” she went on. “We’re emotivores. We can’t mentally read your emotions, but we can and do is taste them. After all, that’s where we get our nourishment. And we can read your body language. But that’s about the extent of it.” “I see,” Filly said. “Anyhow, the Celestia I knew,” Chrysalis said, resuming her comments, “she was the most tightly reigned-in pony I’ve ever encountered. In many respects, she and I are much alike. Both long-lived, and both sovereigns of our charges, therefore we both must keep our emotions and thoughts very tightly hobbled.” “And this Celestia isn’t like that at all,” Mack acknowledged, nodding in understanding. “Indeed,” Chrysalis quickly stated. “Plus, there’s the amnesia. That’s—a complicating factor. Given that we are changelings, having intimate experience with such mental disorders also comes with the territory. “Such severe memory loss, like what she’s suffered, is usually due to either an extremely intense emotional shock, brain trauma, or both. With the clear personality difference, I can immediately rule out emotional shock by itself as being the cause. If it was due to brain injury, then depending on what part of the brain was impacted, then it is possible that her personality was rewritten.” “Maybe Doc needs to take another look at her,” Filly suggested. “He might be able to find something.” “Remember, simply being a changeling, I’m far more experienced with those who’ve had traumatic brain injury,” she growled at them. “Even most cases that cause memory loss, it’s the prefrontal cortex that had to be impacted, but that would not affect her basic personality. An introverted pony simply losing his or her memory would still be an introverted pony. “But for a personality shift at her level, it would have to be her cerebellum that was affected. However, that would not explain the amnesia, as the new personality should still have access to all the information stored in the prefrontal lobes.” She paused as she considered any other alternatives. “What if both the front and rear of the brain was injured?” Filly asked. “True, that could do it,” Chrysalis said, agreeing with the question. “The thing that makes this possibility unlikely with her, is that when both areas of the brain were impacted, the pony is very close to dying at any moment. Even if the pony were to heal up and be out of danger, there would still be hundreds of other tells that would point to such. However, those tells are completely absent in her.” The Changeling Queen paused, reconsidering the last probable case before laying it out for them. “There is one other possibility that I can think of: that this is some other creature. However, even I find that hard to swallow,” she said, spitting. “Only a changeling could copy her form so perfectly. Except that no changeling could ever match the power we’ve seen her do. To be able to stand up to Mongo like she did? Or stomp on anvils and mold them into her own horseshoes?” Chrysalis looked up at the ceiling again, listening to the thumping coming from above. “One thing I’m sure of, that is definitely Celestia. I’ve seen her dance during my infiltration, and nopony else can be that uncoordinated, not even a changeling imitating her! Although I’ve heard that Twilight Sparkle comes in a close second. “It’s very puzzling,” she finished, frowning in frustration. “I really should have paid more attention to those reports about her after that Nightmare Moon purge incident,” she whispered to herself as she shook her head, recalling how she had failed her mission in Canterlot. “What if—” Mack began but trailed off. “You have an idea I haven’t already considered?” she demanded, snapping at him. “Well, maybe,” Mack replied, steadily looking her in the eye. “You mentioned earlier that you both are sovereigns, and therefore have to keep yourselves on tight reigns. Only—here—she’s not, anymore—is she?” The expression on Chrysalis’ face show that this was a new factor to consider. “The—environment—has changed—!” she whispered in shock. “Dry Gulp. The town of Second Chances. Her bit, bridle, and reigns—they’ve not only come off, but have been burned up in fire and buried in that desert. Chrysalis looked up in awe, almost on the verge of tears. “Then—perhaps—for the first time in her life, Celestia—is fully and truly—happy.” “And—what about yourself?” Filly inquired. “Are you happier here?” “My reigns—have not come off,” Chrysalis growled, quickly blinking away the moisture in her eyes. “But perhaps they’re—a little looser?” she prompted. Chrysalis suddenly developed a long-range stare and faced toward the east. “Perhaps they are, at that. But not so loose as it would help,” she murmured. “They have reached Bugtussle.” “You’re feeling them through that Hive mind we’ve heard rumors about?” Mack asked. “But didn’t you say your kind aren’t telepath or empathic?” “You have little understanding of how our link works!” Chrysalis snapped. “It’s not like we communicate real thoughts across it, or even emotions. It’s more—an instinctive connection we have with each other.” “So, how are they doing?” Filly asked, genuinely hoping for the best. “They are…” Chrysalis began. Fear. Rage. Terror. Desperation. The emotions of the four vibrated the lines they had connecting them to the Hive and her. “…not happy,” she finished with a shudder. ******************** “I seriously FUCKING HATE parasitic soul-sucking emotivores!” Xerox screamed, slamming his hoof into the face of the creature he was fighting. “I couldn’t agree more!” Doup LeQat yelled as she jammed the table leg through the chest of the one that she faced. “It goes double, for me!” The changelings were all in the fight of their lives, isolated and forced into a corner of the cantina that stood at the center of town, so to limit the direction their enemies could attack them from. “Try not to move, too much, Klauxn,” Phauxtaux told him as she finished bandaging him. She then turned to picked up her hammer and stood to join the rest of their comrades in the fight. “You remember what the Queen told us! We’re all expendable,” Klauxn protested. “Leave me, if you must, but someling has to get through to Canterlot!” “We’ve got better chances of surviving to get there if WE ALL go together!” Xerox yelled back as he lifted the gas-powered jackhammer. During one of the few lulls in the series of pitched battles, they had modified it so that there was a wooden stake in place of the normal steel bar. He revved it up and drove the tip of the stake into the chest of yet another vampire….