//------------------------------//
// Earn Some Down Time 
// Story: Ofolrodi 
// by Imploding Colon 
//------------------------------//

"Blast it, brrotherr!"  With a grunt, Kepler used his meager strength to shove Wildcard back down onto a cot along the edge of the common room.  "Forr Goddess' sake!  Stay put!"  He huffed and continued applying bandages to the stubborn Desperado's arm.  "As much as you wish to, you simply cannot be everrywherre at once!"

Wildcard sighed heavily, frowning beneath his beak.  He laid on the cot in protest, holding his right arm out for the wyvern to mend.  His goggles reflected a prismatic shape trotting into focus.

"Listen to Keps, dude," Rainbow Dash said.  "You're on mandatory R&R for the next foreseeable future."

The griffin's tail flicked in protest.

"I mean it!"  Rainbow pointed with a frown.  "You've taken the bullet for the Herald enough as it is!  Heck, you're still recovering from the freakin' slobberknocker back in the Gondola!  If you wanna make yourself—and Bard—proud, then take five... or more like five thousand."  She huffed.  "You'll be of waaaaay more use to me and the rest alive, don't you agree?"  She cocked her head to the side.  "So—barring the appearance of more random bug-ponies—you're out of the fight until Flynn fixes you a new arm or something.  No arguing." 

Wildcard sighed again... but eventually nodded.

"Good," Rainbow grumbled.  "Lie down.  Eat some bleakweed.  Sleep and... erm... dream of sexy cat birds... or something."

The Desperado chuckled breathily, his tail flicking with a soft curl this time.

"Now that is one way to lay down the hammerr!" Kepler remarked.  "Ha-hah!"

"Yeah..."  Rainbow slumped against an overturned bench and rubbed her forehead.  "Now if only I could do something about the hammer laid down on my skull."

"You took a solid thrrashing as well, I suspect," Kepler said.

"We all did," Rainbow said.  "I feel like it's my fault somehow."

"You did all you could, Rainbow," Ariel said, flying over to the scene.

"Yeah..."  Flynn arrived next, rubbing his bruised body and nodding with a wince.  "The creatures on this edge of the plane aren't anything like the Light Side."  He shrugged.  "It's no big surprise that your ghost-buds couldn't sense it."

"Well, to be honest, it's the first time they've been consciously 'with me' during a changeling encounter period," Rainbow muttered.  "For all I know—they would have had trouble with the ones back in Val Roa and Stratopolis."

"Soooooooo..."  Ariel fidgeted in mid-hover.  "Were all the shapeshifters you met back west so... uhhh..."

"Broken?" Flynn spat.

"For your information, no," Rainbow said with a slight glow.  "I'm not kidding, guys.  This..."  She shook her head with a weary breath.  "This was something new."  A gulp.  "Even for me."

"What were the changelings you encountered before like?" Ariel asked.  "I mean... assuming they ever dropped their diguise—"

"Oh, they did," Rainbow said.  "And they... they had a lot of tricks of their sleeves for sure."  She cleared her throat, gazing across the dimly-lit room.  "They could imitate almost any quadruped.  Just like their Queen, they were all mind-readers... which means they could dig into your head and drum up faces from past memories... and emotions."  A shuddering sigh.  "It's how they feed, y'know."

"So that's why..."  Ariel grimaced.  "...I-I heard my mother's voice..."

"It's more complicated than that," Rainbow said.  "For all intents and purposes, the changeling who grappled was your mother.  By that, I mean your mother as put together by your collective memories and feelings."  She shrugged.  "Heck, it might even go deeper than that.  Something spiritual, perhaps... like detecting the 'soul'-residue of past ponies on your spirit or some crap.  I dunno.  The changeling queens were once alicorns themselves, so the sky's the limit."

"Yes, but..."  Flynn squinted his one good eye.  "Could any of the changelings you met split into two or mimic elements—?"

"Or friggin' explode?!" Ariel's voice cracked.

Wildcard sat up, gazing at Rainbow curiously.

Rainbow gulped.  "Not any of the ones I met," she explained.  "Once, a whole bunch of changelings in Stratopolis formed together like a nest and morphed into a giant fascimile of Queen Chrysalis' face in order to help her communicate with me from... like... an entire continent away."

Kepler whistled.  "That's quite the imprressive feat."

"Yes.  But none of the changelings could do any of that crazy stuff on their own," Rainbow said.  "Oh!  In Val Roa!"  She sat up straight, gesturing.  "There were three high-ranking leaders of the government:  Sharp Quill, Fishberry, and... and... erm..."  Her eyes crossed and she shook her head.  "Ugh!  I forget.  Too many fight scenes ago.  Anyways."  She looked at the Heraldites again.  "Basically, the Noble Jury and I found out that all three of them were split portions of the same Changeling Queen—Chrysalis—split into separate doppelgangers, each subconsciously following her will in self-contained fugue states."

"Whoah..."  Ariel blinked.

"That is... alarrming," Kepler said.  Wildcard nodded.

"It took a crazy-coordinated effort on our part to... like... gather the three doppelgangers and throw 'em together in order for Chrysalis to be made manifest," Rainbow said.  "But when it happened, she had nowhere left to run.  She was sapped of power and at the end of her rope.  So she gave up and Val Roa was saved."

"Way to go, Rainbow," Flynn said.

"Heh... yeah..."  Rainbow smiled lazily.  "If only all of my adventures went that well."

"When you faced the drreaded Queen Chrrysalis in herr final forrm, she didn't put up a grreaterr fight?" Kepler asked.

"Like I said, Keps, she couldn't," Rainbow said.  "She was divvying up her power to mind-control an entire army of defenders that she intended to turn on the Val Roan populous.  It was her last ditch gambit to take over the continent of Alafreo."  She shook her head.  "Didn't work.  The Noble Jury made sure of that—with a lot of help, of course.  Couldn't have done it without Arcanista or Seclorum."

"Wow..."  Ariel smiled.  "You've met a ton of ponies!"

Rainbow sighed.  "Yeah..."

"It appearrs as though the changelings of the Light Side rrelegated all of theirr powerr to theirr brrood motherr," Kepler said.  "Perrhaps the crreaturre we stumbled upon herre was one of Tcherrn's morre loyal guarrds."

"No."  Rainbow shook her head.  "I don't think so."  She gestured.  "This thing was like an infant.  A baby.  Ariel and I found where it had hatched in here."

"Yeah..."  Ariel squinted.  "About that.  How did it even get inside Darkreach?"

"Maybe it's rresponsible for the expulsion of the Emerraldinians?" Kepler suggested.

"Or... ... ..."  Flynn stroked his stubbled chin.  He glanced at the others.  "...the vents."

"You mean the ones attached to the air system in here?" Rainbow asked, ears twitching.  "What about them?"

"Well, the changeling we ran into has a lot of tricks up its sleeves," Flynn said.  "Maybe whoever... uh... 'laid' it found a way to shift into a pure gaseous element and breach the vents built into the side of the mesa."

Ariel raised an eyebrow.  "Tchern?"

"Beats the Hell out of me," Flynn said.  "I'm just saying—now that we've got a taste of what these creatures are capable of, then maybe it explains how they were able to get into Darkreach with it sealed off to normal ponies like us."

"I was just thinking of something," Rainbow muttered.

"Wanna fill us in?" Ariel asked.

"Chrysalis returned to the Light Side because she felt that her and her sister were getting their thoraxes kicked in the Trinary War," Rainbow muttered.  "The sheer effort it must have taken to cross over—avoiding Verlax in Rohbredden and eventually finding her way into Xona—probably involved centuries of struggle and planning."

"In other words..."  Flynn cocked his head to the side.  "Chrysalis was distracted."

"Right.  But Tchern wasn't."  Rainbow's brow furrowed.  "She's had hundreds of years of putting her mandibles to the grindstone of the Trinary War to hone her talents... and—by proxy—the talents of her hatchlings."

"Yeesh!"  Ariel grimaced.  "Are you saying that every single changeling on this side of the plane can split into halves, turn into elements, and explode?!"

"Just think back to what we've witnessed," Rainbow said in a tired tone.  "Even without all of its faculties together, this single bug-horse could take us all on."  She looked at the wounded griffin beside them.  "Sure, Wildcard wore it down some... but it still wasn't enough."

Wildcard gestured with his good talon.

Flynn looked at him.  "Well, yeah.  It's a good thing it's blood isn't made of acid."

"Hrrrrm..."  Kepler rubbed his hairy chin.

Ariel looked over.  "What are you 'Hrrrrm-ing' about, Kepler?"

"I am currious..."  He adjusted his spectacles as he asked, "Did any of you obserrve this crreaturre's blood glowing?"

The room fell into silence.

"Not even in the least?" he added.

Ariel, Flynn, and Rainbow shook their heads.

"And yet..."  Kepler pointed at Wildcard's bandages that still had faint luminescence.  "Ourrs burrn like gold underr a spotlight."

"That's... really fascinating," Flynn murmured.  He looked at Rainbow.  "Got any theories?"

"Changelings'... farts glow?"

Ariel shook her head.  "Never change, Rainbow."

"Dudes... I've got no clue," Rainbow said with a shrug.  "But... y'know... that poor thing was hatched here on the Dark Side."

"Could that be the difference, then?" Ariel asked.  "Those who were born under the blessing of Harmony and those that weren't?"

"It would make forr keen study," Kepler said.  "Given the cirrcumstances wherre we could afforrd such."

"And we can't."  Rainbow stood up and began pacing.  "Right now, we've cleared Darkreach of all its crazy explodey spiders."

"Here's hoping—" Ariel began.

Rainbow held a hoof in her face.  "And..."  She looked at the others.  "I think it's time for a rest."  She pointed about.  "Get this place powered up.  Patch up our wounds.  Make Wildcard a new friggin' arm.  Catch our bearings."

"We should keep things at half-power for a while to rest the leylines from the ventilation overload earlier," Flynn said.  "But we'll be able to juice the place to full capacity later when the time's right."

"Flynn and I shall worrk swiftly on fashioning a new prrosthetic forr ourr most gifted fighterr."

"Right."

"Oh!"  Ariel brightened.  "Downstairs, Big Show and I found a bunch of leftover files and manuscripts from the Emeraldinian expedition!  It might shed some light on what the ponies here discovered before they cleared out!"

"Yeah... Wildcard and I found some stuff too that needs explaining."  Rainbow blinked.  "... ... ...where is Logan, anyways?"

"He went to the HQ," Flynn said.  "The upstairs room with the map.  I think he... needed to cool off."

"That's fine," Rainbow said.  She then squinted at the group.  "You guys have been with him through thick and thin.  Have any clue what the heck happened right before the changeling went kablooey?  Like—just who were those ponies who appeared before him?"

"I... I-I haven't gotten a clue," Ariel said.

Both Wildcard and Flynn shook their heads.

"I'm afrraid he's neverr taken the opporrtunity to explain to me his past life," Kepler said.  "He cerrtainly had many a converrsation with the Mountain Mattron.  Alas..."  A soft sigh, and he smiled limply through his tusks.  "Morrtuana took countless secrrets with herr to the Harrmonic Plains."

"I get it," Rainbow said with a nod.  "Still... I sure hope there's no unwritten rule of the Job Squad that says you've gotta keep secrets from each other—"  She jolted slightly, looking perturbed.  "What is it, Applejack?"  She looked to her right, blinking for a few seconds.  "Huh?"  Another few seconds passed, and Rainbow looked sharply in Flynn's direction.

Flynn avoided her gaze, looking deadpan towards the floor of the room.

Rainbow looked at him for a prolonged period, even squinting.  Eventually, she sighed.  "Whatever.  Break time.  Let's all get some rest.  Get some food.  Get some..."  She looked into the far end of the room.

Seraphimus lay limply on the floor, handcuffed to the pipework.

"... ... ...some sanity," Rainbow muttered, then trotted off on her lonesome.