“I’m better at this than I thought.” The blue pegasus colt grinned as he laid the coin-purse on the seat between himself and his companion.
“You robbed Sweetie Belle’s parents?” The Pink unicorn filly protested, “We used to be friends! Not close friends, but still! Dammit Charlie!”
“Heads up, you’re not Diane, and I’m not Charlie,” the colt scowled in reply, before taking a softer tone, “We’re fugitives, Shortbread. We broke out of Tartarus. You had a good plan, you got us a ride, but we’re gonna ditch this train at the next stop.”
“Sweetie was my friend!” The filly argued angrily, “She was there when… when mom died…”
“And it’s hard,” The colt’s eyes grew hard. “I know. But we’re not taking enough to hurt. And we both know you can’t go back there. We’re escaped criminals. The best we can expect is that by the time they realize your gone, we’ve got a new gig set up. We were never going back to Ponyville.”
“Look, Ch… I mean ‘Dayglow’,” the unicorn responded in a state of agitation, “I get what you’re trying to do, really. But THIS isn’t the way. If we’re going to start over, can we at least start over as not-criminals. Look, I’ll take the coin purse back to Sweetie Belle’s folks and say we found it in the aisle…”
“That sounds like a pretty good start.” The two were interrupted by the voice of a young unicorn filly. “And maybe you can tell me who you two really are, because I’ve known from the start that you aren’t Pinkie Pie’s niece and nephew. Pinkie has two nieces, both adopted, and both changelings.”
“S-Sweetie Belle!” The pink unicorn shuffled in her seat. “Look, I’m really sorry about the coin purse… Dayglow’s not a bad pony but we needed the bits and…”
“Save it, missy,” Sweetie responded flatly, “We already agreed you found the coin purse in the aisle and returned it to me. I won’t even tell mom and dad you were involved at all… IF you come clean and tell me who you really are, and why you lied about it.”
-=-=-=-=-
“Heh, well if it isn’t big bad ‘Princess’ Diane.” A bloated, spider-bodied changeling scuttled in front of a terrified, and terrifying spiny mockery of pink changeling filly. “What’s the matter, ‘princess’? Did Tartarus take some of your edge off?”
The filly was flanked by two other malformed, fly-headed changelings, one red and one blue, all huddled in a gently swaying baggage car. The blue changeling stepped forward boldly, “The Fetlock pony said she wouldn’t remember everything quite right. She said we have to remind her who she really is.”
“Those danged ponies scrambled her head good, Ah recon,” Red replied with a thick country twang, “She thinks she was part of some human human family! They even changed her name, Night!”
“Oh, that’s rich!” The bulbous changeling known as Night Shift rocked back on her boated haunches in laughter “How the mighty have fallen, Diane, the Canterlot Mangler, cowering in fear and can’t even remember her own name!”
“Please,” The spiny filly begged, “I’m not who you all think I am! I’m a human girl! My name is…”
“Oh shut-up!” Night shift silenced the filly with hoof to the face, “I thought this was going to be more fun, but you’re just pathetic! I can’t take you back to Shadefire like this… no, we gotta toughen you up first. Red! Blue! New plan! It’s playtime, the game is ‘Train Robbery’! Disguise yourselves as guards and move up into the passenger cars. I’m gonna explain a few things to our sister here. Wait for my signal.”
As soon as the two fly-faced changelings were gone, Nightshift turned turn on the smaller, spiny changeling and spoke in cold, measured tones, “I know you’re telling the truth.”
“What?” The filly backed away carefully.
“I said I know you’re not Diane.” The changeling’s smile was venomous. “But if you want to survive, you better learn to fake it. If the other shifts learn you’re not really one of us, they will tear you apart. Now, we’re going to play, ‘Train Robbery’. You get to be the escaped monster, ‘Diane Pastel’. You can’t shapeshift yet, but that’s okay. All you have to do is smile, smile, smile, let big sister Nightshift do the talking, and you *might* survive. And remember, it was pretty little ponies just like the ones out there that took you away from your family and turned you into that.”
-=-=-=-=-
“Okay… you’re right…” Dayglow stammered quickly. “We lied. The truth is, we’re just trying to get by. We weren’t even going to Ponyville, we just needed to catch a train out of Ponyvale, and you guys were going in the right direction and…”
“So why bring Pinkie Pie’s name up at all?” Sweetie Belle’s face scrunched adorably in deep thought, “I mean, that means you had to know who Pinkie Pie is, and I’m pretty sure Strawberry used that name because she knew I’D know who Pinkie Pie was. And that means you somehow know who I am…”
“We better tell her the truth, Charlie,” The pink, straight-maned unicorn who called herself ‘Strawberry Shortbread’ sighed heavily, “She’s on the verge of figuring it out anyway. Sweetie, I’m sorry we lied to you, the truth is my name is…”
“Diane!?!?” It took only half a minute for pink unicorn to realize that Sweetie wasn’t referring to her, but to the pair of monstrous changelings who had just entered the car.
“Oh good,” That larger, spider-bodied changeling stepped in front of a smaller, pink changeling who seemed to be all spines and teeth and smiled nervously from behind the larger changeling, “it looks like at least one of you has heard of my little sister. That means you’ve heard what she does to ponies who make her angry. Everypony just hoof over their bits, and no pony has to die.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t bet on that,” Shortbread’s smile stretched unnaturally from ear to ear. And her whispered voice carried like ice scraping a chalkboard.