//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: After the Invasion // Story: Dilemma of a Changeling // by Hydra_1324 //------------------------------// Everything hurt. Everything. There is no possible way that my pain could have been understated when I woke up. It felt like I flew straight into a tree and crashed through it. Knowing my luck, I probably had. So, my name's Chameleon, and this is the story of how I got captured by the very things our Queen said was inferior to us. Ponies. --- Chameleon groaned. He heard voices. How many? He couldn't tell. They... They just mixed together. Just... Just where was he? He couldn't use his magic. Not even his... other ability, his specialist ability. They were locked off too. He could barely move. Parts of him felt like they wouldn't budge. The only things he felt were... Fear. Pain. Panic. ... He opened his eyes. He could barely see. Everything was blurry... What even happened to him? Nothing made sense. So he managed to cough out a few words. "Where the hole am I?" His throat was dry. He could hardly speak. ... He didn't get an answer. So he waited some more time before trying again. He thought to himself; 'If I ask enough times, surely... surely I'll get an answer? Right?' He heard someone come in. So, he wanted to test his theory. So he asked a different question. "Am I chained up...? Or... Or is my body broken?" He followed up by stating what may be obvious to him, but not to others. "I... I can hardly see. Everything is blurry, and... Everything is stiff." He didn't get an answer for a good few moments, but he did hear a slight hushed argument? He couldn't feel anything from anywhere. The argument just stopped, briefly. Were they focusing on him? Then he heard a female voice... Best way to describe it? Bookworm, nerdy? Maybe a scientist? I don't know, I'm not a genius. "You crashed into something, and broke two legs, among... other things." The thing about her voice, though. She sounded sympathetic. But not 100%. He couldn't tell for sure, though. He whispered to himself that he felt he was hopeless, that he didn't believe anyone was going to answer him. This didn't get a response or even an indication that they were listening. Then, he overheard that he should be taken to a hospital. The nerdy pony was talking to someone else. A male. They... didn't sound like they wanted to agree, but they did. He loathed this. He could hardly hear anything or see anything. Most changelings were known for lying, but that was generally to get out of bad situations. There was no way words could get him out of this. Not one single way. He felt entirely at the ponies mercy. He hated that. He hated all of this. But there was no way out. They were moving. He thought, at least. He disliked being unable to do anything. So he waited for something to happen. Anything. A short amount of time later, at least to him, it felt that way, they stopped. He heard something, some sort of conversation between the nerd pony and whoever was with her, and then he was put on something solid, yet incredibly soft. He was left feeling less stiff, but he could still hardly move. Was he unbound? It felt like it. He heard a door click. He was alone. Right? Wrong. He heard someone sit down. On a chair? Something? I don't know. So someone was in this room with him. No one else? That was his guess. He could be wrong. So he decided to ask again, something a little different, not knowing that this would open up a whole can of worms, talking with what he would soon know to the Element of Magic herself. Well, more like answering questions, but close enough. "Where are we... now? I... I can't tell." He wasn't expecting an answer. But he got one. "Alright... We are at the hospital inside the headquarters of the Royal Guard." The nerdy voice responded back to him. She seemed like the most possible way of getting answers here. But now he was curious. Royal Guard? Like the changeling's guard? It made him slightly nervous. "Are you nervous? I'm nervous." Okay, nevermind. Scratch slightly. Just nervous. "Also... Who, or... What... Is the Royal Guard?" Her answer surprised him. "It's the force of ponies that defends and protects Canterlot Castle, and the Princesses." He frowned slightly, mainly because she either didn't pick up on his nervousness or responded to that via body language. Which he could hardly see, nor feel. Something about the impact left him partially blind. He could still see, sure, but well? Hole no. Everything looked like a bunch of blobs to him. Colourful blobs, but blobs nonetheless. Blurry as all hole. He prayed mentally to the roaches above to make sure he was safe. That he wouldn't die here. Regardless of his mental praying, however, he still had to talk. Why? He felt like he had to. Keep the pony talking, less focus on himself. Probably. That's what they taught me to do, keep your captor(s) talking when you're the prisoner? Even if changelings weren't prisoners very... Chameleon, you're rambling again! He shook his head and looked at the blob in front of him. The purple, and very much in control blob. He wanted control. He didn't have it so he decided to keep up this little charade of the helpful talkative changeling. "Why... Why do the princesses need protection, though? I thought they were pretty powerful... Right? At... At least as far back as hive legends go, they are..." Unless something's changed, he mentally added. It took her a while to answer this time... Thinking about her answer? Regardless, he listened. "Well... That they are, but there are situations where their power is... Too much... Hive legends? What do they say?" That... felt like a hard question to answer. There were so many hive legends. Too many to list with sufficient detail. "About who? There's... a lot. I don't... I don't really want to list them all. There's too many." "That's alright. What about the origin of the changelings?" He didn't know. "I... don't know. I genuinely don't. Most of the legends... They're based on singular members of your kind, usually famous ones. Like... The princesses. They're kinda morbid though, so... If you really want to know them, I'd grab a bucket. They're also... Kinda morbid. They're usually used though, to scare other changelings into keeping their disguises up. I know, it's kinda disappointing, but I can't give you any kind of information on our origin." A few seconds of silence passed before the nerdy voice asked: "A-And the legends about the princesses?" This, admittedly made him think for a fair amount of time. Then, he responded "You... Might want to grab yourself a bucket. They might make you sick, because of the gruesomeness of them." He waited for her to grab a bucket, for about 10 seconds. After that was over, he continued; "The most, uh, scary story is that the princess of the sun ate changeling children or... nymphs. There's a story similar to it, but it's less relevant... How she got changelings baked into her cakes." He waited for her to take this in, then he continued further. "Then... the princess of the night would take changeling hunting as a part-time, and by that, I mean slaughtering any she'd find, brutally. Not just your regular changeling killing spells, at least they'd kill decently quickly, no, according to the legend... ripping out vital and non-vital organs alike and... I don't remember what she did with them..." He shivered at the last part. 'Did I break her? She's been silent for a good minute.' "Well..." 'Nevermind, she's fine.' "Most ponies had forgotten about Changelings, up until after... y'know, but there were many myths where Changelings did the same to foals so... would that make us even?" He took in a deep breath. Because he wasn't expecting her to be this resilient to the legends. They sometimes gave him nightmares. 'Is... Is she hiding something? Could these... Legends be true? Maybe ponies are just as dark as us?' He thought. "I guess. I still wouldn't want to face one of the princesses though, heh." He said nervously. "I can understand that..." She sighed, before saying further "Um... How do you identify if Changelings are from one clan or another?" This was an easy one to answer. Wing colour. I think, anyways? "My wings are blue, and so are the rest that was in the invasion... I'm guessing that if you have a different wing colour than you're from a different hive than mine." The nerdy voice spoke up again. "Alright! Um... What about the relations between the hives? ...How are they?" She questioned slightly nervously. 'Am... Am I scaring her? I'm not even doing anything. Or maybe the questions are just awkward for her to ask. Eh... I'll bite.' "Pretty much non-existent from the rest of the hives, generally they just ignore our existence because of what... some of us have done. Especially Chrysalis. Her ways of doing things are frowned upon because she wants to take love etc by force. The other hives would rather just take the place of some pony who isn't necessarily kidnapped or anything, but just isn't there. Passive, I guess." "Alright..." The nerdy voice- 'Hole, I need to find out her name, this is getting old. Eh, I'll do that later.' "Uh, what about your eyes?" 'Wait. My eyes?' He thought, then questioned, slightly frantically, "My eyes? They're... They're still white, right? Gradient white? Grey-ish? Slightly? Sort of? Something like that?" Okay, scratch slightly. Add very. "Yes. They're this grey-white gradient." Phew. No more franticness. Yay. "Okay, so... Changelings kind of go on a sort of rank, or class basis. Blue means drone, Green... is generally for queens, I guess, or changeling guards. White is for specialists, with abilities that most changelings can't do, sometimes useful, sometimes not so much. Yellow is for sentinels, which are basically senior changeling guards. Don't mess with them. Don't worry, white doesn't mean I'm blind, I'm just not your everyday changeling." She seemed really full of questions. Just who is she? Was her kindness a mask? ... 'It doesn't matter. Even if it's a mask, if I don't... don't answer, I'm as good as dead. If I do answer, I'm dead if I have to go back to my... Queen. No. Former Queen. She isn't my Queen anymore. Not if I keep answering these questions. I... only have two choices. Tell her everything, and maybe live, or tell her nothing... and die.' She started speaking again. So he listened. She listened to him, so he'd listen to her. "And what are you a specialist in? Oh, and can you eat normal food? Also, will it feed you to some extent?" 'Trying to wean me off love, pony? It'd be expensive, probably.' "I... I can eat normal food, but... It only benefits us about 1/32th of the way that just absorbing some emotions would do. There's not exactly a term for what I specialize in, because it's random. Sometimes it's completely useless. Sometimes it's got no use whatsoever, but sometimes, like myself, it's got a use. I can basically change my body's material to something's material around it. With a few exceptions. I can't turn my body's material into a pony, for example. Any living creature I can't copy its body material. Or liquids. Even if they're frozen. By the way, my name's Chameleon." She didn't say much for a while. So he was back to his thoughts. His solace. Except, he didn't have much to think about. "Ah, nice to meet you. My name's Twilight Sparkle." ...He did now. 'Wait... Wait... THE Twilight Sparkle? The Element of Magic? Oh roach, I hope she doesn't plan to kill me with her element. Or get the sun princess involved... I don't wanna die!' "Wait... You're the Element of Magic? I... I didn't think I'd meet one of them and live, to be honest. It's said in the hive each element has the power to kill if used to do so... I... I had no idea... Heh... I'm just glad you're not trying to kill me right now." Silence. How he hated silence. It was worse than words of hatred. "Well, why would I?" She nervously chuckled. "Well... I am a changeling." 'Not helping your case here Chameleon. Well, it's said and done now. So buck trying to fix it.' She spoke up again. Great. More stuff for him to think about. His head hurts too much for this. "Well, it's not as if we're trying to exterminate the changelings..." He sighed and said "I'm sorry, it's just... This isn't going to be the first time someling decides to invade somepony's place. That's just what we are. Sneaky. We walk outside not as ourselves, but as someone completely different from who... We actually are. Like a race comprised entirely of actors, I guess." ... "And why not become actual actors?" ... 'WHAT HAVE I GOTTEN MYSELF INTO THIS IS ANOTHER BUCKING CAN OF WORMS HOLY BUCK! ...It's not too bad, I guess there's worse fates than talking to Twilight Sparkle about changeling secrets. Like Chrysalis finding out that I'm talking to Twilight Sparkle about... Chameleon... Stop thinking about that.' He shook his head again, sweating slightly. "I don't know. Never thought about it that way. It makes perfect sense, but noling's thought about it, at least as far as I'm aware. Or maybe a drone has. But they're not important. At least not to most of the hive." She started to attempt to reason with him about her idea. "I mean... You could collect a lot of emotions as an actor, and the shapeshifting would help a lot." It certainly would. But who'd let them? It'd be a difficult thing to pull off. "True, but there's two small problems with your idea. One... Getting other ponies to agree with it... Two... To collect emotions, we need to be within about 50 feet of our target(s)." She stopped talking. "What about sticking to the theatres then?" Nevermind. 'More reasoning with me. Joy. Makes me have to think. I hate thinking. Especially when it hurts. I just want to sleep.' "You would have ponies within that range... And maybe the getting ponies to agree with won't come immediately, but I'm sure some would let you try, and that is a start." ... "This... This is probably one of those things that's easier said than done, don't get me wrong, I like your idea, but... It'd be difficult to pull off. Besides... Finding somepony who'll let us... needle in a haystack." She argued with him more, "But if it can be done and if I could help you look for somepony who can help?" I let out a loud sigh. "...Maybe. I... I won't give you a definite answer because I'm... Not exactly certain on it. Just need to think about it, really, and not when my head is buzzing all over the place." ... "Alright, that sounds good enough." She told him after taking a deep breath. Then, groaning slightly, I admitted to her about my feelings. My fear. My everything. Also that I was tired. "Besides, right now nothing to me is really clear, not even my thoughts. I never thought I'd be alone like this. I know, I've got you near me, but all changelings are supposed to hear their siblings voices over the hivemind. But I just hear... Silence. Have you ever had a really, really bad headache like this?" She sighed and said: "I cannot help with that though." 'Did she just nod? I'm... I'm guessing she did.' I grunted. "I know." Then I sighed, and asked softly, yawning slightly. "W...Would you be okay if I tried to sleep it off? It feels like my head is going to split open. That's how bad it is. Or... Or do you want to ask me some more... stuff?" ... "No, no, if you need to sleep, that's fine." 'I like her. She seems more merciful than I expected.' "...Thanks. Y'know, if you were a... changeling, you'd be one of the most merciful of us." He commented, then added slightly frantically. "No, no, I don't mean that I intend to turn you into a changeling, even if that were possible, I don't intend on it!" "Um, thanks, I guess..." She said awkwardly. Okay, maybe that was a little awkward. He guessed that she was smiling. "...Are... Are you smiling? I... I can't tell, genuinely, I can't tell anything about you physically except... you've got a horn, and you're purple..." I added after a few moments. "Everything... Everything looks like a blob to me." ... "Perhaps once you sleep you will be able to see better?" She asked in... A motherly tone? "True." He wriggled slightly, before turning his back to you, before wriggling back to attempt to view her slightly. "Be...Before I sleep, are you going to watch me, or... something else?" "No... There are guards outside the door" She told him "But they will not come in unless it is necessary" He yawned and said, "Alright..." and turned my back to her. "I'll see you later? Well... Sort of hear you?" He didn't hear her answer because he had fallen asleep. But one thing he knew when he fell asleep, that perhaps he could be who he was and get away with it. In this cold world.