Ocellus walked miserably back towards the School of Friendship with a piece of paper in her magical grip. She sighed as she recalled how happy she was earlier that very day. She then took a look at the page in her grip, one of six to be precise. It was to be the greatest research paper she had ever written. It was all about the Pillars of Equestria and how their qualities related to the Elements of Harmony. It was sure to have gotten an A+, but it wasn't to be apparently.
Ocellus looked up at the sky as she went over the morning's events in her mind. She felt like an idiot for not using a paperclip on the six pages, and for not watching where she was going. Her heart had sunk into the deepest of depths as she looked up from where she fell after tripping, only to see an errant breeze carry off all six pages of her research paper into the distance, and in different direction.
She had ignored the cries of her friends as she got back up onto her hooves and ran off after one of the pages. Her panic was so intense that she had forgotten she could fly or even use magic for a few minutes. She did catch up to the page eventually, but by then, the other fives pages were nowhere to be found.
And so, Ocellus was walking with her head down low back towards the school. She was weighed down by the knowledge that two weeks worth of work, which included staying up into the later hours of Princess Luna's night three separate times, was all for nothing.
And on top of all of that, the school bell had rung a while ago, meaning she was seriously late for class. Something she never was until today.
All in all, Ocellus wanted to cry.
"Hey, Ocellus!" cried out the cheery voice of Silverstream.
Ocellus looked up to see all of her friends gathered together outside of the school. They were all smiling at her for some reason.
"Why the long face?" Gallus added in a cocky tone.
The sight of seeing anycreature happy while she was so miserable only fueled her unhappiness further. Her face set into a tight frown, Ocellus replied bitterly, "Oh, I don't know, maybe it's because the research paper I worked on for two weeks just blew away!"
Yona chuckled softly, much to Ocellus' surprise. Before she could confront her friends on their strange behavior, Ocellus received an incredible shock when each of them held up a page of the paper she had worked so hard on.
Ocellus gasped, and she said breathlessly, "You found the pages?"
"All of 'em!" Sandbar said with a grin, and he walked over and handed Ocellus the page he had found.
Ocellus took the page with her magic and said, "Oh wow, you guys. . ."
"Yeah, yeah, we're awesome. We know," Gallus said as he flew over and handed off another page to Ocellus.
Ocellus smiled warmly and said, "Thank you! Thank you all so much!"
Silverstream handed off another page to Ocellus and said, "You can count on us!"
Ocellus took the page with a smile, but then she gained a worried look and said, "Wait. . . Oh no! I've made you all late for class, haven't I? Sorry. . ."
Smolder shrugged as she came over and handed another page off to Ocellus. "Eh, don't sweat it. You needed help didn't you? Besides, you'd do the same, right?" Smolder said.
Ocellus nodded and said, "Yes. I'd help you guys any time."
"Yona don't mind being late!" Yona said happily as she walked over to Ocellus, "Yona happy she helped friend!"
Gallus nodded and winked. "Same here," he said.
"We all know how hard you worked on it," Sandbar said, "How couldn't we help you?"
Ocellus took the last page from Yona and absentmindedly straightened up the papers as she gazed at her friends. The emotional low point she had been in a moment ago combined with the act of uplifting kindness her friends had given her made her very loved at that moment.
"I . . . I don't know what to say. . ." Ocellus said, smiling a sweet smile, blissfully unaware of a strange event that was happening within her body. A spot on her chest, right where her heart was, was beginning to glow with light blue magic.
This glowing became a slight cause for concern for the five friends, and they all stared at Ocellus nervously.
"Uh. . . Ocellus?" Sandbar asked tentatively.
"Ocellus really shiny. . ." Yona said nervously while squinting at the Changeling.
Ocellus had her eyes closed at this point, so she was completely unaware of the odd looks she was getting from the rest of the group. She also didn't seem to hear their nervous remarks.
"My friends. . ." she said softly and with a smile as the light coming from her chest slowly grew brighter and brighter.
The five creatures were forced to look away and shut their eyes as the light became nearly as bright as Celestia's Sun. There was then a mighty flash, accompanied by the cracking and whooshing sound of something magically being brought into being. After this, the light quickly faded away, allowing the five friends to open up their eyes and see that where Ocellus once stood, there was now a crystal-blue cocoon about one and a half times the young Changeling's size. Lying on the ground in front of it in a nice neat stack were the six pages of Ocellus's report.
". . . .Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. . ." Gallus drawled out while everycreature else stared at the cocoon with slack jawed expressions.
Smolder slowly suggested, "Maybe Changelings. . . molt?"
Then Gallus suddenly smacked himself up the side of his own head and shouted, "Grr! Darn it, Gallus! Get your head in the game!"
Gallus then quickly took the air, hovering above the cocoon, and gave orders to the group. "Alright! All of you! Make a ring around . . . this thing. . . and make sure no creature touches it, breaths on it, or even gets within spitting distance of it! None of you guys touch it either! And if any creature even tries to get too close, you know what to do, Yona! Silverstream, you got claws, so you grab Ocellus's report and make sure nothing happens to it! I mean, if it's the cause of all this then it better get handed in on time and graded for all the trouble it caused. Yes, Smolder, I know you got claws too, but we aren't risking you sneezing it to ashes. Right. While you're all doing that, I'm gonna go get Princess Twilight. We good? Good!"
Gallus then flew off into the school in search of the pony he hoped would have the answers to this strange problem.
And all the while, the five friends all had the same thought: "What happened to Ocellus?"