//------------------------------//
// Imago 
// Story: Friendship is Replicable 
// by Trick Question 
//------------------------------//

I awoke to the sound of knocking on Trixie's trailer door.

Stirring, I wiped my bleary eyes and saw Maud entering the trailer. "Is she okay?" asked Maud.

Trixie nodded. "Just exhausted, I think. Thank goodness you were able to get here so quickly. Did you read the entire message?"

"I did." Maud walked over to me. "We need to act quickly," she said.

"Absolutely," I said, sitting up in bed. I felt a strange weight on my horn, and lifted my hooves up toward it.

"Don't worry about that," said Maud, taking my hooves in hers.

Then, Maud smiled.

My eyes widened. I tried to access my magic, but it was blocked. There was undoubtedly an anti-magic device affixed to my horn.

"Trixie, run!" I shouted. As I saw Trixie casually walk up beside Maud, my heart sank in my chest.

"It's going to be okay, Glim," said Trixie. "It really is."

"You bastards killed Trixie," I said, starting to cry. "It'll never be okay!"

Maud released my hooves, and transformed into Twilight Sparkle. I didn't even try to remove the magic blocker. I just held my hooves over my face and cried.

"Glimmy, I'm still here," said Trixie.

"The pony I spent the past three weeks falling in love with is dead," I sobbed, choking on the words.

"Starlight, listen to me," said Trixie. I wiped my eyes and sniffed, looking upwards. "They got me two weeks ago."

"That... that's impossible," I said, shaking my head in disbelief. "We shared things with each other! We were intimate!"

Then in another flash of light, Twilight turned into Trixie as well. "That's because I'm still as Great and Powerful as ever, silly. I'm just inside more than one person now," she said. "There's nothing scary about it, Glim. You'll understand soon."

"Without you, I have nothing left to live for," I said, the tears already having left me. "Just do what you have to do."

The other Trixie turned back into Twilight Sparkle, and both mares climbed into bed with me. "You'll never be away from her, soon," said Twilight, cuddling up to me from behind. "She'll be a part of you in every way. I'm a Queen now, so we can complete the process right here. I have the authority to order your personality activation."

Trixie spooned in front of me. "I love you as much as ever, Starlight Glimmer," she said, as her body shimmered and changed to reveal a teal-colored changeling drone. "Please don't fight us."

"I... I love you too, if you're in there somewhere," I whispered to Trixie. "Dear Celestia, how I need to believe you're in there."

"She is, and she'll be within you as well," said Trixie's changeling. "My name is Flexia, by the way, but you can call me Trixie if you want! I get to be her most of the time, which I love because it means I get to be with you."

I closed my eyes. "Right. I bet my love for her was delicious," I said distastefully.

"No, nothing like that! Although it is delicious. I just love to be able to generate that love from you," she said. "Trixie is in love with you, Starlight. That hasn't changed."

"We really aren't that different from you," said Nexus, shedding Twilight's form. "This is something wonderful you're about to experience, a moment that your entire life has been leading up to. It's your destiny."

"I won't fight against Trixie," I said. "Just... please, please don't be lying."

"We promise," said Flexia.

Then I felt Nexus's fangs sink into my shoulder.

"Ouch—I thought there'd be a warning," I said, and then to my surprise, I barked out a laugh. "Heh. I have no idea why I'm laughing right now. I think I've just completely lost my mind."

"Not yet! That comes later," said Nexus.

"That was a joke," Flexia quickly pointed out.

"Yeah, I got it," I said, then gasped as I felt the change begin to take me. Having learned from Twilight's ordeal, I decided to relax and allowed the process to work its magic. Almost immediately, it began to feel pleasurable. It wasn't euphoric—it was even a little painful, to be completely honest—but it was like the slightest imaginable pain from prying off a well-worn scab when the skin had completely healed beneath it. A warm, satisfying, distant sort of pain. Like stretching a tired muscle, except it's happening everywhere at once.

I felt a separate warmth welling up from within, holding me, comforting me; like a mother holding her child, but in reverse. I allowed it to swim through my gut, where things were painlessly twisting and reforming, like a massage from the innards out. My flesh began to swell, and I felt my limbs weaken as my bones dissolved, migrating to the surface to form hard plates. Looking at my forelegs I could see my color was a brilliant lilac, undeniably pretty despite its alien appearance.

Then came my wings. I'd always wondered what it might be like to be an alicorn, and this was as close as I would ever come. Delicate wings sprouted from my back between two plates, and chitin formed around them. I couldn't see what color the shields were, but it didn't really matter. I felt Nexus behind me pulling all the hair out of my tail and mane, and my tail began to transform in a similar way. I could feel a new organ developing beneath it.

I witnessed my muzzle shifting in front of me, becoming a little more masculine, and the oddity of it gave me a secret thrill. Fangs were poking free from my mouth, and something very hard was pressing upward, poking through and up out of my skull on either side of my horn. I was aroused; being a changeling did nothing to change that. It was somehow comforting to know I could still feel that sort of romantic attraction, and the feeling was strengthened being sandwiched between the shells of two ponies I'd loved so deeply in different ways, as well as the warm throbbing sensation of blood flowing through my strange new body.

Then the love hit me like a blinding light, and the world was a different place.

I was surrounded by it. It tasted like honeysuckle and strawberry and Autumn and the color chartreuse and epiphany and time. I couldn't help but let it inside me, and I felt full—psychologically full—in a way that can't be adequately described in this data file. The last vestiges of resistance fled my new body. I'd not been aware I still had any fight left in me, but there was a lingering piece of me holding back until that moment. I loved in return, and I felt the love swell within me and flow into my new siblings, merging with them in a manner more intimate than anything mundane like simple sexual intercourse could hope to achieve... and we hadn't even joined with each other physically yet.

"See?" said Flexia.

"I'm overwhelmed, but I'm still scared," I said, because I was.

Nexus massaged her hooves against the iridescent bands of my midsection. "I'll just take this off now," she said, reaching up with a hoof to pull off my magic blocker, tossing it on the floor. I wasn't about to leave, and she knew it.

"Is it like dying?" I asked Flexia, whispering into her tube-like ear appendage.

She shook her head. "It's like being reborn... sort of. It's indescribable, even with lifetimes worth of memories to assist in the telling."

I felt Nexus pulling at the base of what used to be my spine: a fleshy protrusion directly beneath my tail. I shuddered as my stinger came out into the open. This sensation was a more familiar kind of euphoria.

I gripped Flexia tightly about her shoulders as I stabbed with the stinger. The first stab glanced off of her chitin, but the second one found purchase between the bands. I instantly knew I'd hit the spot.

"How long—" I began to ask, but then the data transfer initiated on its own. I could sense my brain rewiring itself as my thoughts became jumbled and I started to recall my early childhood. "Oh, oh no... you're going to know everything I've done in my life, all the terrible mistakes I've made..."

"Shh," whispered Nexus. "It's okay. We both know how embarrassing pony lives can be."

"All is forgiven, Starlight. You're purging these memories from who you are as a pony," said Flexia. "They're no longer who you are."

That shifted my perspective. I was dying, but I deserved to. It was the bad parts of me that were dying: the unbridled emotion, the hubris, the desperation. I was becoming simple data.

So I let it happen. Memory after memory was transcribed and compressed and stored into little sequential containers in my mind. It didn't matter that Trixie was going to know everything. I wanted to share it with her, to finally be without secrets. My whole life had been predicated upon hiding who I truly was inside, and now... now that hope was being deleted from me, right along with the need.

"Yes," I said. "Th-this is good. I deserve this."

"I knew you'd love it," said Nexus.

"Your life makes me want to cry, Starlight. You've been through so much. You have a lot in common with Trixie," said Flexia. "This is a healing process. We're repairing you by eliminating the terrible scar called Starlight Glimmer. Being her isn't going to hurt you ever again. You'll see her life as any other."

"I love you so much Trixie," I said, on the verge of tears. "I know you're not her, but..."

"We're both her, and we love you too," said Nexus. "Let go."

And so I did, feeling my thoughts compartmentalized and stored, bit by bit... until my brain felt empty inside. Now I was a blank slate, ready for much more than this one arbitrary life had given me.

"It's so empty. I don't understand who I am," I said, my voice soft. "Why am I Starlight Glimmer? There's no logical point to it, is there?"

"None at all. Now try to make a small gap between your body and Flexia's, Imago," said Nexus. "I need to sting you so we can begin your depersonalization."

"Imago? That's... that's who I'm becoming, isn't it?" I asked. The word imago means the final form of an insect—or in pony psychology, the idealized view of the self. "Very clever."

"I knew you'd like that!" said Flexia, with a giggle. "Imago is a touch on the sardonic side, but with a good sense of humor and a warm, open personality toward new friends. You'll love being them."

I had so many questions, but I was distracted by the visceral sound of being stabbed in my gut coupled with a momentary sting.

"Oh... oh Celestia it's coming," I said, trembling as Flexia pressed her back against me again, sandwiching Nexus's ovipositor between us.

"Beginning memory upload," said Nexus, and then the entire world literally rushed into my head.

I was dimly aware that I was spasming in place as the flood came. Countless facts and experiences blew through me so quickly I had no time to examine them other than feeling the cursory details. They simply filtered into place in a well-kept library that was becoming my mind. So much of it was emotional in nature. The changeling experiences were relatively boring before Chrysalis was overthrown, but the pony lives were rich and full.

I quickly learned how differently Starlight Glimmer saw the world compared to other ponies, how things I'd thought were unique to her were common, and other things I thought of as common were actually unique. Only a hoofful of ponies had been converted prior to the new plan, as Chrysalis considered it dangerous to absorb pony memories lest it lead to revolt. I was a part of something grand, a change that would take all of Equestria into a new age. I knew everything about it. And there was a plan for me within it, as well. This Imago person had been hoof-picked for me, chosen to play an instrumental part of the operation. Chosen to get along well with Flexia as we played the role of mates, still disguised as ponies.

Then it ended. I was virtually sitting in the largest library in Equestria. Everything I could ever want was right at my hooftips. I examined how Twilight Sparkle felt when this happened to her, and the experience was remarkably similar. Excited, but hollow. I mentally rummaged through the overwhelming swamp of data, trying to make sense of it. The fact that I was Starlight Glimmer was entirely arbitrary. I had thousands of lives within me, and she was just one of them. A remarkable and fascinating life, but just one of many.

"Please finish me," I murmured. "Delete Starlight Glimmer. I shouldn't be her. I shouldn't be anypony."

"I don't know about that, Imago. You don't sound completely certain," teased Nexus.

"Please. Please, delete Starlight Glimmer!"

Of course, I knew she was teasing me. I knew because I knew everything she knew. I knew it right as she said it, as her current experiences blasted their way into my brain: I could feel myself being her at the same time as I was being me. Most changelings were teases. It was fun to tease. And I liked it, too, despite the torture, because I was one with them already.

Yet, deep down, there remained the tiniest, lingering doubt. If being Starlight was arbitrary, what about being Imago? Certainly it was no more random, being that the personality was selected for me by the hive, but would the experience of being her be rewarding?

Even though I owned thousands of memories telling me not to worry about it, I wondered. Memories aren't the same as experience, just as past and present are distinct and separable; and these new memories felt even less like experience. I didn't question I wanted this, mind you. I'd do anything for it. But was it just a simple change facing me? Was I dying and being reborn? Or was I simply dying for the sake of a new, mindless drone? Maybe changelings didn't have a soul at all. Maybe this was some sort of fancy puppetry without conscious experience. But everything suggested otherwise—any belief that changelings were less "real" was nothing more than hubris based upon a lingering psychological need to believe my experiences were more unique than I'd just discovered.

What is change, anyway? It was a curious thought. I reviewed Starlight's past, reading her file in my mind—the same file you're reading right now—and I felt critically aware of the reality of the present. The only truly real thing is the "now", the moment we live in, especially when your memories are nothing but unvarnished data. I'm here with you, running at the same pace as you and everypony else, experiencing rather than reflecting, because it's all I have left to be.

Despite all of this doubt, there is no fear within my alien breast. Change is what I am. In a way, don't we die every time we change as a pony? If "now" is all that is real, aren't we a different person from the one we were in just the previous instant? I think I understand now. This is why ponies are so afraid of change. We cling to tradition so hard because we're afraid of losing a piece of this illusion called "me". Maybe instead of being afraid of change and death, we shouldn't fear either one.

Why be afraid of something you object to, if you know you won't object once it happens? I will be fine with this, so I am fine with this. I've moved from the past to the present, and it's time to give into the future. Let forever be.

Then Nexus speaks.

"Starlight Glimmer, commence with personality separation and low-level format."