Chapter 10
"Better is open rebuke than hidden love."—Proverbs 27:5
Since they kept baker's hours, the Cakes woke well before dawn, and made their way downstairs to look over the bakery. All the ovens had been shut off, depriving the kitchen of its usual inviting warmth. Most of Pinkie's remains had been cleaned up, but they still hadn't gotten all the bloodstains out of the woodwork, and thus the place still stank of blood. They definitely wouldn't be reopening anytime soon. Moving to one of the front windows, they parted its curtains to find the window itself coated in frost. They each wiped a section of the window clear and peeked outside. The streets were deserted but the fear and tension emanating from the other houses was so strong the Cakes could almost taste it.
Letting the curtains fall back in place, they started to turn away from the window...
When a lion's paw and eagle's claw seemed to emerge from thin air in front of them and clamped over their faces!
"Guess who!" a gleeful baritone jeered a moment before the Cakes were plunged into darkness.
Fluttershy watched Screwjob nervously, wondering if he would buy her explanation, when the tall stallion suddenly looked away and lowered his head, massaging it with his hoof.
"Are you all right?" she asked, hurrying to his side.
"It hurts," he groaned. "Oh, how it hurts."
"You mean your head?"
"Affirmative."
She quickly offered him a shoulder to lean on, and guided him back to the main room. As they entered, Highflyer looked up from sponging Dinky's forehead with a cold cloth.
"Jobs—?"
Screwjob took his hoof away from his forehead and thrust it out in a gesture for silence. "Headache," was all he got out before pressing his hoof back over his forehead. Highflyer watched anxiously as Fluttershy steered his friend over to the couch. The tall wrestler leaned back, groaning with his hooves pressed over both his bandaged eye and his exposed one.
"Is the light bothering you?" Fluttershy asked.
"Uh-huh."
She picked up the blanket she had wrapped him in earlier, and draped it over him so that it now covered his head and upper body.
"Hank you," he said, his voice slightly muffled by the blanket.
"I'll get you a cold pack for your headache." Fluttershy started to turn away from the couch and almost collided with Highflyer, who had come up silently behind her. As the tiny wrestler skipped nimbly out of her way, Fluttershy noticed that not only had he put his now-dry shirt back on, but that it was almost completely ripped down the back with only a scant inch or two of material at the neck and hem holding it together. "And I'll see if I can find you some more intact clothes to wear," she added.
His eyes darted over her and a wry grin twitched across his mouth. "I don't think you have anything in my size, but you're welcome to look."
Going to the stash of supplies that she normally would use on her injured animal friends, Fluttershy found a cold pack, then added a roll of bandages just in case Screwjob still insisted on rewrapping his forelegs. Carrying the supplies to her bedroom, she was about to look through her clothes when she noticed the letter she had written to Discord lying on the floor. She must have dropped it when he had startled her earlier.
Setting down the supplies, she moved to pick up the note. There was still no visible evidence that just a few minutes ago her former partner had turned himself into an illustration on that paper to speak to her. Now as she gazed at her written words, her throat went tight. Her earlier euphoria at hearing from him had faded to be replaced by anxiety and uncertainty. Where was Discord now? He had said he would come back soon, but...
Looking up from the letter, her eyes landed on the scarf she had knit for Discord lying among her blankets.
...But he had also said he would be waiting for her to come home, only for her to come home and find him gone with that very scarf thrown in the trash.
"Wakey-wakey! Eggs and bakey!" The baritone voice, now sounding obnoxiously over-cheerful, yanked Mr. and Mrs. Cake back to consciousness. Then a bright light snapped on above them, making them flinch. They tried to put their hooves up over their eyes, but couldn't move their forelegs. Blinking painfully against the light, they started to lower their heads to see what was hindering their movements, but froze when they felt ropes press into their throats. They heard a moan to their left and both cautiously turned their heads in that direction to see a tan-colored pegasus in a rumpled Wonderbolt jacket. He was tied up with a noose around his neck just as they were, and looked every bit as frightened and confused as they felt.
"You didn't even try to guess who earlier," said the baritone voice in a falsely petulant tone. The three ponies looked about wildly, taking care not to pull against the nooses around their necks, but also desperate to find the source of the voice.
At first they could make out nothing in the darkness beyond the bright light that shone down on them, but then as their eyes adjusted, they noticed a faint glow in the darkness. They focused on the glow and realized it was coming from a barbed tattoo circling the wrist of a taloned hand with a candy stick pinched between its first two fingers. As they made out the shape of the arm connected to that hand, they saw that it was dangling over the armrest of a high-backed chair facing away from them.
Suddenly the arm moved itself up out of sight, and the chair turned slowly to reveal its occupant.
The three ponies' eyes widened at the sight of the long serpentine body. Its tattoos were glowing a deep sinister red just bright enough to reveal the mismatched limbs and a black leather jacket covered in rivets.
But the most frightening thing was the face above that body.
It was covered in white paint that caused it to stand out starkly in the darkness. His glowing yellow eyes were ringed in black that made them appear even more sunken in than normal. The piercings in his face and ears were all smeared in red as if they were oozing blood, and a brilliant crimson stripe stretched across the ghostly mask that was his face from the left ear down to where his single fang protruded from the right side of his mouth.
He looked nothing short of demented.
"Quick!" Mrs. Cake shouted to her fellow ponies, while at the same time trying to free one of her bound hooves. "The charm! Smash it! Smash it!"
"Ah-ah-ah! Keep those hooves right where I can see them." Discord snapped his claws almost lazily and three hooves bearing charms promptly shot out in front of their owners. The ponies each tried to lower their hooves but the appendages remained frozen in midair. Then three oven mitts marched into the spotlight on their cuffs, leapt into the air, and slipped themselves over the extended hooves. A roll of duct tape soon followed, wrapping around the mitts and securing them in place.
"And don't bother trying to call for help," the draconequus added, studying the claws on his paw. "Where we are, no pony can hear you scream. But it will annoy me. You wouldn't like me when I'm annoyed. After all, you've all seen firsthoof just how quickly and easily I can kill a pony..." Keeping his head lowered, he looked up at them from under his blood-matted brows. "You don't want to give me an excuse to repeat that performance, do you?"
Three mouths clamped tight shut and three heads shook furiously.
"Gooood." Discord leaned back in his chair, which had suddenly morphed into a recliner. He started to take a draw on the candy stick, only to pluck it from his mouth and frown at it. He turned it around in his fingers a couple of times before snapping his fingers, causing a flame to appear on his thumb. He held the flame to the end of the candy stick before taking another long pull on it, this time jetting a large cloud of cotton candy from his nostrils. The three ponies' eyes widened as the flame on his thumb continued to burn, spreading to the rest of his paw, but the draconequus didn't seem to notice or care. Not even when the flames reached his jacket sleeve and the smell of burning material filled the air.
Turning his attention back to the three ponies, he pretended to do a double take. "Oh, don't be so stiff and formal on my account. Relax."
He snapped his claws and the ponies' chairs suddenly slid backwards out from under them. Despite their earlier resolve, the Cakes and Haystings all let out involuntary screams, expecting the nooses around their necks to draw tight. But instead they all floated up into the air and hovered there like balloons, the nooses around their necks holding them in place. At first Mr. and Mrs. Cake each felt a rush of relief that they weren't dead, but this swiftly wore off as they realized they had no way to control their movements as they floated about in midair. In fact this lack of gravity was actually even more unsettling than being tied up on chairs. Beside them, Haystings was no better off as his wings were bound tight to his body.
"Why are you doing this?" he wheezed at the draconequus below them.
Discord turned his head slightly as he exhaled another cloud of cotton candy, causing it to drift over his burning paw. The cloud caught fire and dissolved in a shower of sparks that lit his painted face up horribly.
"Well," he began conversationally. "It seems that according to the three of you, I murdered Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. But the odd thing is..." His voice suddenly went from jovial to sinister. "I don't remember doing it. Think you can explain that? Mm?" He cocked one crimson-coated eyebrow expectantly, but was met with only silence as the three ponies darted fearful glances at one another.
"Well, if you want to play it that way..." Tossing his candy stick aside, the draconequus raised his right arm, and, paying no attention to the flames still climbing up it, pulled on his paw as if it were the stem of a banana. Suddenly his right arm split into two arms. He repeated the pulling gesture on one of the paws and that arm also split into two, leaving him with three burning right arms. "How about I just go poking about in your little pony brains?" Without getting up from his chair, he reached those three right arms out toward the floating ponies.
The Cakes and Haystings felt the blistering heat of the flames, and tried to squirm away, screaming in panic. Discord seemed impervious to those flames, but there was no way to know if the same could be said for them. Especially with the way his jacket sleeve was being consumed. As they screamed and struggled, Discord just yawned into his eagle claw and let his right arms stretch out like rubber. The flames got hotter and hotter as the paws got closer and closer to their floating targets.
Then just before he reached them, pale blue light flashed from the three ponies' foreheads and shoved Discord's paws back, forcing his three arms into an upraised position!
Discord's eyebrows went up, then as he grunted and pushed back against the auras now encasing his paws, his mouth stretched into a triumphant grin. "Well, isn't that interesting?"
"Nice scarf," Screwjob deadpanned when Fluttershy returned to the main room with Discord's scarf wrapped around her neck, and a cold pack, bandages, and a blue winter vest tucked under one wing. Screwjob's earlier bout of light-sensitivity must have faded because he had pulled the blanket down enough to peek out over the top of it. "Will you sell it to me?"
Fluttershy's hoof flew to the scarf. "No!"
Highflyer, who was sitting next to Dinky's cot again, looked up at her sharp exclamation. "Hey, what's with that scarf anyway? It's not that cold in here. And with all due respect, that particular scarf doesn't really seem to fit your style. I mean, it stands out more than most of the stuff I wear, and that's saying something."
Fluttershy fumbled uneasily with the scarf as she mentally scrambled for an answer. She couldn't very well say: This scarf used to belong to my former partner, who everypony but me now thinks is a murderer, and I'm using it to secretly carry a letter he talked to me through. "Well, it might not feel that cold to you, but it does to me. And this scarf may be gaudy, but it's also comfortable." Looking back toward Screwjob, she added, "And it's not for sale."
"Hm. Shame. If I swaggered into the ring wearing that, I'd outrage every fashionista in the audience. Talk about drawing heat."
"If we even have careers after this," Highflyer muttered darkly. "Getting busted up when we were supposed to be taking it easy."
Screwjob snorted. "The company's not going to throw out a couple of cash cows like us." He pulled the blanket up to his forelock, and continued with his voice coming out slightly muffled. "Why do you think they put up with all of Phenom and Brimstone's antics? Their sparkling personalities? Or lack thereof? No. It's cause they rake in the bits. Pure and simple..." His voice trailed off, and the hooves gripping the blanket loosened.
"Highflyer, could you please see if this vest fits you?" Fluttershy asked, turning back to the masked stallion, and pulling the vest out from under her wing. She had noticed earlier while bandaging him up that even though Highflyer was shorter and smaller than her, his tiny frame was also bunched with enough muscle that he was proportionally much bigger in the shoulders than she was. However she was hoping the sleeveless vest would cancel out this tailoring problem.
"Hey, it's the same shade of blue as I've got on my mask," Highflyer commented as he took the vest. "Nice."
While he stripped off his torn shirt and began easing the vest over his splinted wings, Fluttershy moved past him to the couch and lifted the blanket to peer at Screwjob's face. He seemed to be asleep and she debated whether to still put the cold pack on his head. He doesn't seem to have any bumps, she mused as she gently parted his black mane to peer at the skull beneath it. Yes, despite getting his head slammed into a stone wall, Screwjob strangely had no lumps like the one Derpy had gotten courtesy of a falling coffee thermos, nor like the one Fluttershy herself had gotten over a year ago via a tree branch. Suddenly she remembered how he had faked an injury back at Sugarcube Corner. Would he try to pull a stunt like that again at a time like this? She didn't like to think so, but...
"Highflyer?" she asked uneasily. "Do you think Screwjob's really asleep? You don't think he's—?"
"He's not selling an injury," said Highflyer as he finished tugging on the vest. He couldn't fit his splinted wings through the vest's wing slits, so it bulged out at the sides, but otherwise fit him surprisingly well. He moved over to join Fluttershy beside the couch, and reared up to get a closer look at his fellow wrestler's face. "I know a Screwjob Sell when I see it..." He lifted one of Screwjob's limp forelegs, as if feeling for a pulse. "...and this conk out isn't an act."
Fluttershy felt both relieved that Screwjob wasn't trying to pull some sort of cruel joke, and at the same time even more worried about his condition. She could remember getting headaches on and off for several days after getting a tree branch slammed into the back of her head, but they hadn't been as debilitating as the ones Screwjob seemed to be getting. What if ... what if the reason he didn't have any lumps on his head was because all the swelling was happening on the inside of his skull rather than the outside?! And then there was the way he would be awake enough to carry on a conversation one moment only to drop off into unconsciousness the next... Was that normal for an injured wrestler? She had never paid much attention to the sport but didn't it involve getting hit with chairs and slammed through tables on a routine basis? Did that kind of treatment make Highflyer and Screwjob tougher physically than most ponies, or far more vulnerable to injury?
I really need to get him to a doctor. She glanced from the two wrestlers to Dinky, who still lay unmoving on her cot, a washcloth covering her forehead just below her horn. I need to get all of them to a doctor.
But what about those changelings that might still be out hunting for them? Fluttershy looked toward the cottage's tightly shuttered windows. Even if the windows had been open, it would have been almost impossible to see any changelings in their semitransparent state, and her house guests—both conscious and unconscious—were in no condition to run or fight for their lives if they should encounter said changelings.
Then her eyes darted toward the front door and she noticed a bundle of camouflage-patterned material. The coat Skywishes lent me. Maybe she couldn't get her three patients to the hospital, but maybe she could sneak there alone and bring back help. In the dark, that camouflage coat might help her stay unnoticed ... but if she waited until daylight, there would be a much better chance of spotting the changelings' semitransparent outlines.
While she was still weighing these two options, Discord's words suddenly came back to her. Stay put and don't let anypony in the house until you hear from me. She reached into the scarf around her neck and felt the folded letter she had tucked into it. He said he would come back soon... But even as the feel of that paper brought cautious hope, so the feel of the scarf's much softer texture raised nagging doubt. If Discord could go from seeming awestruck at her gift only to fling it in the trash later, was it that much of a stretch that he would promise to come back, only to never return? Oh, she wanted so much to trust him, and believe he would return but she just couldn't shake this growing distrust.
And on top of that, there was also the welfare of Highflyer, Dinky, and Screwjob to consider. Could she keep them here, dependent on her guesswork to treat their medical needs, while she waited for Discord to show up? Was it really fair to jeopardize their wellbeing because of her conflicting feelings for her former partner?
"We'll talk, alright!" shouted the three ponies, or rather the three disguised changelings. "We'll talk! Just keep those paws away from us, and stay out of our heads!"
The draconequus retracted his three right arms, grasped them by the wrists with his left hand, and twisted them together like a couple of wires, causing them to turn back into one single limb. Then he grabbed the tips of his burning fingers and tugged on them as if they were the fingertips of a glove and pulled the fire off his arm in the same manner. The fur revealed underneath wasn't even scorched, though the jacket sleeve on that side had been reduced to ashes.
Each of the disguised changelings let out an audible sigh of relief when the flames disappeared, but tensed up again when the draconequus turned his attention back to them.
"Well?" he drawled, folding his arms over his chest, and eyeing them expectantly.
The three prisoners exchanged uneasy glances.
"Come, come," he said briskly. "Don't keep me in suspense. I am on pins and needles." And with that, he leaned back and his chair promptly transformed into a bed of giant pins and needles that he floated an inch or two above. At the same time a carpet of pins and needles also burst through the floor right below the three floating prisoners, who whimpered nervously at the sight. If Discord suddenly decided to bring back gravity...
"I'm waiting!" the draconequus growled.
"We lied about seeing you murder those ponies!" said the Mr. Cake-changeling, who had apparently opted to act as spokespony. "We killed them! Or rather our queen did."
"How?"
"We captured the Cake family while they were on vacation. Then we snuck back to Sugarcube Corner disguised as the parents, surprised Pinkie Pie late Tuesday night, bound her up with changeling webbing and smuggled her out of the bakery in a cart. I hid in the cart with her to make sure she didn't break through her gag or the webbing."
"That skew-eyed mailpony saw us coming out of the building," muttered the Mrs. Cake-changeling, "but I managed to get her away."
"When we got Pinkie Pie to our queen," the Mr. Cake-changeling continued, "she cast this spell that turns ponies inside-out, but it was a special delayed action version of it. That gave us time to smuggle Pinkie Pie back to the bakery while she was still intact and right-side out, so we could plant her there and make it look like the spell had happened right inside the bakery. Then we just waited for customers to show up, and put on a big performance of grief and shock when they did."
"It was the same situation with Rainbow Dash," said the Haystings-changeling. "We captured this pony," he aimed his eyes down at his own body, or rather up at his own body as he was floating diagonally. "Because we needed somepony who could come and go among the Wonderbolts but who wouldn't be missed if he suddenly didn't show up. I used him to get close to Rainbow Dash, knocked her out, and tied her up. Then some of my fellow changelings smuggled her out of her home while it was still dark, and brought her back later for me to plant the evidence. We can't take your shape, but I was able to force my hoof into the shape of your paw long enough to write a message on the wall in Rainbow Dash's blood, so the tech-ponies would find your prints in the crime scene."
Discord squinted one eye thoughtfully. "Why all the smuggling? If you wanted it to look like the spells were cast right where the bodies were found, why didn't your queen just fly herself to those places and do the spells there?"
"That wouldn't work, she's not strong enough to do that kind of spell."
Discord arched one pierced brow, and the changeling scrambled to clarify its earlier statement.
"What I meant is, she's not strong enough to do that kind of spell alone. None of us changelings are. But when a large group of us are together, the queen can draw power from all of us and combine it to do spells she wouldn't ordinarily be able to do. But she couldn't just fly the whole swarm into Ponyville because even if we can go almost invisible, that large a group of us would risk attracting attention."
Discord floated up into the air as the light suddenly snapped off, leaving only the dull sinister glow of his tattoos to illuminate things. He circled the floating changelings, sticking his ghostly face almost muzzle to muzzle with each of their frightened ones.
"And what exactly was the point of framing me?"
"To ... to throw Equestria off the trail. To get them so focused on you as a threat that they wouldn't notice us snatching ponies and replacing them with changeling doubles until it was too late."
"And why kill Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie specifically?"
"To make ponies despair! To fill them with the kind of emotions we can feed on through our windigo essence. Pinkie Pie to take away their ability to smile and feel hope, and Rainbow Dash to take away the trust one builds through loyalty."
"Why did you wait so long to do this?"
"Because the ponies were all on alert for us last winter. And it turns out animals can sense our windigo essence. Even if they don't understand it, they try to flee when we're nearby. So we needed to wait for winter to come again when there would be fewer of them out."
"And what about Derpy's family? Why go after them?"
"I don't know."
Discord raised an unseen paw in front of him, and it burst into flames.
"I swear I don't know!" the Haystings-changeling screamed in a panic.
"He doesn't know! None of us do!" shouted the Mr. Cake-changeling.
"Maybe it was because you spent that night at their house!" the Mrs. Cake-changeling babbled. "We don't know! Chrysalis didn't tell us! She only told us to frame you for the murder of Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie! That's all! I swear that's all we know!"
Both the flames and Discord's tattoos went out, leaving only his glowing eyes and painted face visible.
"And what about the other Element Bearers? Any plans for them?"
"No," the Haystings-changeling said hesitantly. "But ... that might change. Chrysalis still has a grudge against Twilight for foiling her plans back in Canterlot, and taking out the remaining Element Bearers might satisfy that nicely..."
"Well, she can just rethink that idea," Discord sneered, and his prisoners tensed as the Cake-changelings felt his hands slide over the back of their necks just under the nooses, and the Haystings-changeling felt the tufted end of Discord's tail brush the back of his neck. Both the hands and tail left behind a cold sensation that sent chills down their spines but quickly faded.
Then the three prisoners suddenly plunged toward the unseen floor!
They screamed, expecting to either be strangled or dashed against spikes, but instead they landed gently on something soft. They heard Discord's amused chuckle above them before lights suddenly snapped on. Squinting as their eyes tried to adjust, they saw that they were bound to chairs in Sugarcube Corner.
Then Discord, still wearing that rivet-covered jacket, touched down lightly in front of them and walked over to a water barrel. (Had that been there earlier? the Cake-changelings each wondered.) He stuck his head in the barrel and made quite a production of gurgling. His neck arched back up into a vertical position but his head didn't come up with it. Then after gurgling and splashing about for several minutes, he fished his dripping head up from the water and jammed it back on his neck. He knocked the side of his head with his paw, and water shot out the opposite ear with the force of a firehose before he turned back to his three prisoners. All the paint from earlier was now gone, and his piercings looked cleaner, albeit still painful. The soaking had also plastered his shaggy eyebrows down and turned his beard into scraggly spikes. In theory, this more clean-scrubbed appearance should have made him look less intimidating, but it did nothing to ease his prisoners' apprehension as they watched to see what he would do.
What he did was hold out his paw and cause a flute to flash into it. He played five quick little notes on the flute, followed by two louder ones, and the nooses around the three changelings' necks suddenly untied themselves, and dropped unceremoniously from the ceiling onto the bound changelings' heads.
"Just play that tune again, and it will untie the rest of your ropes," said Discord.
"You mean you're ... you're letting us go?"
"Mmmmm, only on the condition that you skedaddle back to your queen and inform her..." His tone promptly went from cheerful to sinister. "...that the Master of Chaos doesn't appreciate being framed. And don't think you can get out of telling her that, because I'll know if you don't." He stuck his face right down in front of theirs. "Know what I mean?"
They nodded fearfully.
A smile far wider than his face could normally hold came to Discord. "Excellent." With that he straightened, turned, and dropped the flute in the middle of the room, in a spot where the changelings could reach it, but not without a little work. Then a motorcycle flashed into existence beside him, and he mounted it before slipping his sunglasses back on.
"Toodles," he called over his shoulder to the three changelings before he and the motorcycle vanished in a flash of light.
For several moments the three changelings just stayed where they were. Then when they felt fairly certain the draconequus was gone, they all exchanged small self-satisfied smiles. Granted the interrogation had been frightening while they were going through it as there was no way to predict quite what move the draconequus might make, but in the end they had played their cards right, and come through unscathed.
"I can't believe that actually worked," commented the Haystings-changeling, keeping his voice low as though from fear that the draconequus might pop up unexpectedly behind them.
The Cake-changelings swept furtive glances around the room, obviously thinking the same thing, before they once again shared small, victorious smiles.
Just one more step on the ladder toward the Hive's ultimate goal.
Fluttershy was still trying to decide what to do when she heard a soft moan behind her, and turned to see Dinky stirring. She started towards the cot but Highflyer was quicker. He darted forward and lifted the washcloth off the unicorn's forehead. Seconds later Dinky's golden eyes slowly flickered open.
"Whhhaa..." she groaned, squinting up at the ceiling. Then her gaze slid over onto Highflyer and she flinched away.
"Woah, woah, don't be scared," he soothed, gently putting a hoof on her shoulder. "It's okay."
Dinky simultaneously relaxed and frowned at the sound of his raspy voice, as if she felt she could trust it, but wasn't sure why. She looked down at the hoof on her shoulder, saw the tattooed limb connected to that hoof, then looked back up at the stallion's masked face, squinting in disbelief.
"H-highflyer?"
"Yeah, it's me, kid. How you feeling?"
"I, uhh..." Still looking confused, she reached up toward his face, but stopped a few inches away, her hoof trembling uncertainly. Highflyer leaned forward a fraction, silently granting her permission to touch his mask, and after hesitating a moment longer, she traced one of the falcons that flanked his cheeks. Her eyes widened as she seemed to realize she wasn't just imagining the wrestler at her bedside. "How can you...?" Then she noticed the second pegasus there as well. "Fluttershy? What am I doing at your house? And why's Highflyer here?"
"You collapsed from the strain of using your magic to lift yourself, Highflyer and Screwjob out of Ghastly Gorge," said Fluttershy.
"Not that surprising," Highflyer muttered, pressing the back of one hoof against the side of Dinky's forehead to check her temperature. "Considering Jobs and I aren't exactly what you'd call featherweights."
I can vouch for that. At least regarding you. Fluttershy thought, remembering her own experience carrying the small but solid wrestler. "Then after you collapsed, the two of them brought you back here."
Dinky nodded absently at this, but still looked confused.
"Do you remember anything about what happened?" Fluttershy prodded gently.
"I—?" At that moment Dinky caught sight of Screwjob lying unmoving on the couch behind them, and it must have triggered something in her memory because her eyes suddenly went wide with horror and she seemed to be having trouble breathing.
"Dinky?"
"Kid?" Highflyer put his hoof under the unicorn's chin and turned her face back toward him. Dinky's breath stuttered out as her gold eyes met his blue ones.
"Highflyer..." she croaked. "Do you know...?" Tears welled up in her eyes. "What happened to my mom and Amethyst?"
He lowered his gaze. "I'm sorry, kid. I don't."
Dinky's face crumpled and she rolled over, burying her face in the pillow.
"Ohhh, kid, I'm sorry," Highflyer crooned, wrapping a tattooed leg around Dinky's shoulders as her body shook with her muffled sobs. The sight made Fluttershy long to cry out: Dinky, your family is alive! But how could she possibly explain knowing this without mentioning Discord?
Then she flinched as one end of her scarf suddenly flipped itself up into the air and draped over the top of her head. The movement should have caused the scarf to tumble off her head, but instead it just clung to her, pressing itself against her ear ... where she heard his voice.
"Fluttershy..."
Discord! She darted quick glances toward the other ponies, but Screwjob was still out cold, and Highflyer seemed too focused on comforting Dinky to notice her scarf's odd behavior. Still, she should probably get away from them before trying to talk to Discord.
"Highflyer?"
He glanced up at her, but if he noticed that her scarf had changed positions, he didn't comment on it.
"I'm going to go get Dinky something to eat. Can you stay with her?"
"Of course."
Fluttershy hurried into the kitchen, and once she was sure the other ponies wouldn't see her if they happened to look in that direction, she took the letter out of the scarf, and smoothed it out on the counter. Immediately the portion of the scarf stretched over her head loosened, and the illustration of Discord flashed into existence on the paper. Fluttershy gazed down at him, the ache in her heart from earlier now gone. He had returned to her just as he had promised!
But now was not the time to celebrate.
"You'll have to be quieter this time, Discord," she whispered, putting her face near the paper. "Screwjob heard you talking the last time."
The illustration popped a piece of gum into his mouth and chewed furiously for about ten seconds before blowing a bubble. Words appeared in the bubble: Is this better?
Fluttershy considered. That would solve the problem of the other ponies hearing Discord, but what would they think if they overheard her? "Could you make it so that they can't hear either of us?"
He shrugged and snapped his claws. "Try calling them."
Fluttershy crept to the doorway, and peeked out at the other ponies. Screwjob was still asleep, and Highflyer was still stroking Dinky's back, his masked head down next to her exposed one.
"Highflyer?" Fluttershy called out softly, but the masked pony didn't look up. "Highflyer!" Still he didn't look up. Satisfied that she and Discord could now talk without being overheard, she returned to the letter on the counter, and its illustration proceeded to tell her what he had learned while questioning the disguised changelings.
"Discord!" she exclaimed, shocked at his interrogation methods. "What if they had been the real ponies?! You—"
He snorted. "Please. I never intended to actually hurt them. Just throw a good scare into them to see if my suspicions were correct. And they were."
As he said this, Fluttershy belatedly remembered how he had tested whether Apple Bloom and Big Mac were the real ponies by chucking a fireball at them that turned out to be harmless.
She also gasped when he revealed the news that animals could sense the changeling-hybrids' windigo essence. Her mind flashed back to when her animals had gone crazy over a year ago. Now it suddenly made sense! Then she remembered how Tank had acted at Rainbow Dash's house. Had he really been searching for his owner, as Not-Haystings had said, or had he been trying to get away from the disguised changeling? Then there was also the way he had struggled in her forelegs when that one pony had opened the gym room door, only to go limp again when the door shut. She had thought the opened door was prompting him to make a bid for freedom to continue his search for Rainbow Dash, but now she wondered if that pony had been another disguised changeling whose proximity had triggered Tank's instinct to get away.
"That was their plan," Discord concluded. "To keep everypony focused on me while their pony-snatching goes unnoticed."
A chill ran through Fluttershy at the realization that she had unknowingly run into at least three, possibly four, changelings in the past three days. How many more ponies out there had also been replaced by changelings?!
Oh, what if I'd gone to the hospital, and brought a changeling disguised as a doctor back here?!
"Fluttershy?" Discord's voice snapped her back to reality.
She looked back down at him, still shaken at the idea of how close she might have come to handing the three ponies in her care right back to the changelings out to kill them. She unconsciously fumbled with her hooves and felt the charm attached to one of them. The same charm that so many ponies were now waiting to use at the first sight of Discord. Unless...
"Discord..." She swallowed. "About the changelings trying to frame you... This is hard to say, but I think..."
The draconequus leaned forward, his illustrated ears perked up and his illustrated eyes extra-large.
Fluttershy drew in a deep breath. "You have to give yourself up, Discord. It will be all right. I'll explain—"
"I am not going to go crawling to the Princesses over a crime I didn't commit!" he spat indignantly, then added under his breath, "I probably wouldn't even go crawling to them over a crime I did commit."
"Discord, listen to me. You can't stay hidden forever. Sooner or later somepony will see you, or hear you, or ... notice you some other way. And when they do, any of them can smash their charm to alert Princess Celestia, and—"
"And what? What is your 'Oh-so-Powerful Princess,'" he made sure the words came out oozing sarcasm. "planning to do?"
"I don't know, Discord! I don't know, but the way she talked, it sounded like she had something planned! Something that could hurt you!" Fluttershy felt tears in both her eyes and her voice. With a colossal effort, she held them back and forced herself to speak more calmly. "But if you turned yourself in willingly, I think she would be open to hearing why."
He cocked an illustrated eyebrow. "And suppose she doesn't?"
"Then I'll vouch for you. I'll ... I'll demand that she hears you out. I'll—"
He chuckled. "As entertaining as that would be to witness, you'd better forget it."
Fluttershy felt her ire rise at his brushoff. "Discord, will you listen—?!"
"I said forget it!" he snapped, no longer sounding amused.
"Let me help you, Discord!" Why couldn't he understand that?! "You saved my life, and now I'm trying to save yours!"
Then she flinched as his mocking laughter burst out all around her, seeming to come from everywhere but the illustration.
Save my life?! Discord mentally howled. My dear girl, don't you realize that thanks to you, my life is already more or less over?! He wasn't really laughing at her words so much as this whole strange situation he now seemed trapped in.
"Discord, I'm not your enemy!"
At these words, the laughter promptly died in his throat. Oh, why did you have to say something like that, Fluttershy?! he mentally groaned, feeling unexpectedly touched that she still seemed to care about him even after all their time apart. And yet at the same time, this actually made things worse. She might care about him now, but would she still stand by him so steadfastly if she knew how callously he had thrown their relationship away?
Fluttershy stared down at the now silent illustration, wishing she could read his expression. Then the illustration suddenly blew another speech bubble. This time he popped it, and as the bubble burst, the draconequus vanished in a flash of light.
"Discord!" Fluttershy screamed, but already knowing she would get no answer. He had left her once again!
That's when she noticed there were words in the splattered remains of the speech bubble: You're the only friend I've ever had. And the only one who believes in my innocence. Thanks for being my friend.
Fluttershy felt her heart skip several beats at the sight of these words. She couldn't fully explain it but there seemed to be a chilling sense of finality in them. A sense of saying goodbye—
"Ahhh!"
Fluttershy almost jumped out of her skin as a loud wordless screech suddenly rang out from beyond the kitchen walls. This was immediately followed by more yells and the sounds of scuffling.
"Get the legs, High! Get the legs!" she heard Screwjob shout as she raced back into the main room.
Highflyer and Screwjob had vanished, while Dinky was still huddled on her stomach on her cot, peering over her pillow at the wide open front door.
"Ow!" a female voice shouted from outside. "What are you trying to do?! Break my shoulders?!"
"No, just separate them!" Screwjob grunted.
By then, Fluttershy had reached the open door. However, she couldn't go much farther outside because the path was being blocked by the two wrestlers and a third pony they had pinned face-down on the ground between them. A third pony hidden under so much bulky mud-stained material that it was impossible to tell if it was a unicorn, pegasus, or earth pony.
"What—?" Before Fluttershy could finish the question, something smacked into her forehead. A something that hooked two papery wings over her ears, two more around her head, and began nuzzling her. Feeling a sudden wave of déjà vu, she slowly reached up, and peeled the thing away from her face.
There on her hoof was a six-winged two-headed parrot made entirely out of paper! Albeit now much more ragged and dirty than when she had last seen it. Now the thing began turning around and around on her hoof as if trying to find the most comfortable spot.
"Well, I guess that means you're the real Fluttershy," grunted the female voice from earlier, and Fluttershy looked up from the parrot to see that the pony Highflyer and Screwjob were holding down had managed to shake her bulky clothing back from her head enough to reveal a mud-caked face, a shock of pink-and-purple streaked hair, and a familiar set of dark green eyes.