“Oh, Ginny, there you are.”
Morning Sun looks over, from where she’d just started counting seconds in front of this door; Ginny wants to prank her brothers first. “Uhh…” It’s… Not someone she recognizes, though that hair looks somehow familiar. So, probably not on her avoid list, but possibly on it anyways.
“Where have you been?” the girl asks, trotting forwards. “It’s been almost two hours- Harry’s been getting worried.”
“Uhh…” Her eyes pick out the girl’s nametag. Silversong… is not on her avoid list, but is an Equestrian name. So, this girl must be an Equestrian- and, thence, know about the Changelings.
“What’s taking so long?” Silver continues, coming to a halt in front of her, and scowling slightly.
“Ahh…” She can’t decide how best to break contact with the girl without letting on that she’s not actually Ginny. It doesn’t exactly help that her nervousness levels are climbing rapidly.
“Ginny?”
“Uhh…” Before long, the girl will realize something’s wrong unless she does something- but she spent so much time avoiding all the important people that she never observed Ginny enough to even begin to come up with something she might actually do. She’s starting to think it might be a good idea to play it off as a costume, even though it’s not Nightmare Night… or “Halloween”, as the local analog seems to be called.
“Ginny? You okay?”
“Uhh…” There it goes. She’s not sure how to play it off, though- the girl will probably think of Changelings if she’s not careful.
“Yep, I’m okay!”
Morning blinks. Same voice as she’s been mumbling in- thus, the real Ginny, from behind Silversong.
Great. Now Silver will see two and immediately think Changeling.
Silver turns as well. “Whaaat-?” She looks between the two.
Ginny giggles, jogging forwards. “What brings you down here?” Ginny asks Silver.
Silver ignores the question. “Ginny… do you have, like, a doppelganger or something?”
Morning’s jaw drops. This girl is an Equestrian, and she didn’t jump straight to the changeling conclusion? Did she sleep through the entire invasion, then live in a hut on the corner of a rock farm for most of her life, without ever reading a newspaper? That’s about the only way she can think of the girl could not know about the Changelings!
Ginny lets out a small snort of laughter. “Briefly, yeah. She’s got this amazing disguise ability, so we were going to prank my brothers.” She sticks a thumb towards the door Morning had been waiting outside. “They’re… What was it?” She looks at Morning. “Making stuff?”
Morning shrugs. “Yeah.”
“Wait,” Silver mutters. “You ran into… Whoever this is, who happens to have the ability to exactly mimic your voice and appearance, even including the radios?”
Morning blinks. “Radios?”
Ginny taps the black things on the front of her robes. “These. Communication technology.”
“Ahh…” She looks down at the ones on the front of her ‘robes’. “Ahh, yeah, I guess. Th-Though these won’t w-work, since they’re c-constructs, not… the real th-thing.” She touches one lightly, wondering how the real ones work.
Silver rubs her chin. “How… ah, ubiquitous is that ability?”
She shivers involuntarily. “How… How do you mean?”
“Like, I assume you can match me exactly as well- but do you have to have a template to work off of, or can you make something up?”
“Ahh… I…” She gulps. If she’s already in this far, she might as well go the whole way. “I can… make it up. I-If I want.”
Silver scowls. “And you’ve got a nervousness problem, too. Hmm…” She rubs her chin for a second, and looks at Ginny. “Anyways, you ran into her, how?”
Ginny shrugs. “She, ah, forgot to lock the door, so I walked in on her talking to herself in the mirror. While looking like me, so it was pretty obvious.” She tilts her head, putting one finger to her chin. “In any case, she had a few questions about the Whiskey Tango that I… Well, I don’t know it as well as you do.”
Silver raises an eyebrow. “You examined half the Papa Tango, yet you don’t know the Whiskey Tango as well as I do, when I haven’t seen so much as a single symbol of either?”
“W-What…” Morning begins. “What does this h-have to do with d-dances?”
Silver lets out a snort of laughter, and starts giggling.
Ginny grins. “Nothing. Anyways, why are you here, Silver?”
Silver blinks, straightening out her expression. “Oh, right. Harry was getting worried with how long you were taking.”
She tilts her head. “Only Harry?”
She shrugs. “Well, alright. All three of us. I take it you found her, and that’s what’s slowed you down?”
Nod.
Silver grins, before looking at Morning. “So whaddya say, after we prank the Twins, we prank Harry and Hermione as well?”
“Ahh…” She shivers.
“I don’t think that’d be too good of an idea,” Ginny mutters. “She gets, like, very nervous around anyone important.” She shrugs. “I don’t get it, but she does, so…”
Silver nods slowly. “And Harry would be important because he’s famous, wouldn’t he? What about Hermione, though? Could we prank her without… Well…” She gestures towards Morning.
“Ahh…” Morning mutters uneasily.
“I think she’s afraid of Hermione because she’s Harry’s friend,” Ginny answers. “And me, two hours ago, because I’m way important as the liaison. You were the only one she didn’t seem overly scared of.”
Silver spends a few seconds looking between the two, before letting out a sigh. “She is aware that we’re also Harry’s friends, right?”
“What-!?” Morning gasps.
Silver pulls her into a gentle hug. “Don’t worry, we don’t bite. Let’s prank the Twins, shall we?” She blinks, giggles, and looks at Morning, still held in her hug. “You said you could make something up… How, ah, free is that?”
“Oh, hey boys!”
George looks up from his work with Fred, towards the source of Ginny’s voice- which is a little higher off the ground than normal. “What in the world…?”
Fred looks up as well, blinks, and speaks. “No, what the hay…?”
Ginny grins cheerfully. “You having fun?”
George starts talking. “Were in the-”
“-hay-”
“-did you get a unicorn?”
The pure white unicorn, visibly fresh out of the Forbidden Forest, snorts and rolls its eyes while an unfamiliar Equestrian with silver hair helps Ginny dismount.
“Oh, I found her in the bathroom,” Ginny grins, once fully on the ground again, patting the unicorn’s shoulder.
“You… found her in the bathroom,” Fred repeats.
“She just said that,” the Equestrian states.
“How did she get to the bathroom?” George asks.
“I walked there myself,” the unicorn states calmly.
They stare.
“What…?” Fred begins.
George looks at his brother, then at the Equestrian, and finally at Ginny, who seems to be trying to hide her giggles. “You’re playing with us,” he accuses.
“Well of course,” Ginny giggles. “How many talking unicorns do you meet?”
The Equestrian shrugs, and starts talking. “Well, there’s…” She starts listing off names, but in a mutter low enough neither twin can make any of it out.
Fred looks around. “Where’s the camera?”
The unicorn vanishes in a bright flash of green flames, leaving behind an Equestrian girl with white hair and pink glasses, holding a camera with a massively long lens. The flash goes off, bright and white, immediately before girl and camera vanish in a second flash of green light.
“There it-! … Uh, was,” George observes.
Before either of their vision can resolve, though, there’s a third flash of green light- so, when they can finally see straight again, Ginny is standing between two equestrians, and looking curiously at the one with the unruly yellow hair. The yellow-haired girl is looking nervously back at Ginny.
The twins stare for about two seconds.
Then Fred starts it. “That was-”
“-Amazing!” George finishes.
“How’d you do that?” Fred asks the yellow-haired girl, who looks at them with an expression bordering between nervousness and confusion.
“You know how the Equestrians all have unique abilities?” Ginny asks them.
George nods.
“Yeah,” Fred answers. “They’ve got all those unique abilities, then the ones they call their unique abilities.”
Ginny scowls. “The ones they don’t call their unique abilities aren’t unique, they’re skills or something. Anyways, Morning Sun’s talent is, like, the perfect disguise.”
“Disguise?” George asks, raising an eyebrow.
The silver-haired Equestrian shrugs. “It’s more of a total transfiguration thing,” she states. “With, apparently, no real limits.”
Morning Sun flinches, but doesn’t say anything.
Ginny looks back at the Twins. “And why were you saying ‘hay’...?”
Fred shrugs. “The Equestrians say it a lot, whenever they’re not thinking about it.”
“Usually correct themselves in a hurry, too,” George chimes.
“I’m curious,” Ginny begins, looking at Morning Sun. The Twins had fervently wished they had her shapeshifting ability, even after she’d promised them they wouldn’t like it. Fortunately, she’d had to tell them it’s impossible to ‘share’, and is- as far as they needed to know, at least- unique to her. Now, she, Ginny, and Silver have just finished pranking Harry and Hermione- who had taken it just like Silver had. “But, um, those other forms you used earlier, with the Twins. Do you… have names for them?”
She winces. “Ahh… That. Well… When he asked about a camera, I couldn’t resist, so I shifted to look like Photo Finish for a second.” She scowls. “The camera was a magical construct. Flashbulb worked great, but it didn’t take any photos.” Then she looks at Ginny. “But I don’t like impersonating people, so I shifted back quickly.”
Ginny tilts her head. “What about that form you took after that one, before… Well, becoming you?”
She winces again. “You… You noticed that?”
She nods. “Yeah. Something about pegasus magic, I think. Compounded with my photographic memory…”
A third wince. “That… That would do it. Um…” She looks pleadingly between the floor. “Please don’t tell anyone about it?”
They nod in perfect sync.
“Alright.” She shudders briefly, takes a deep breath, and lets it go. “That… That was my natural form.”
Ginny winces. “Did… Did something happen, to make the black… thing, necessary?”
She blinks. The girl saw her exoskeleton, and has to ask if it’s necessary? “Uhh… No? I mean… it is a part of me.”
“But-!” Silver begins. “But what made it part of you?”
She stares at the girl for a few seconds. “It’s… It’s reminiscent of what I am. Like the green fire.”
“Oh,” Ginny blinks. “So, you’re… not one of the normal pony tribes, are you?” She scowls, then looks at the others. “Though, it’s not like any of us are, either.”
She looks up suddenly. She’d hardly raised an eyebrow when the girl mentioned the pony tribes, but then she said they weren’t one of the normal ones. Could that be why they’ve never heard of the changelings? “What?”
Ginny looks at her, raising an eyebrow. “You’re not one of the normal pony tribes, are you?” she repeats.
She shakes her head. “No, no, I’m not a pegasus, unicorn, or earth pony- but then you said that you aren’t either.”
Ginny looks at the others. “Ahh…”
Silver shrugs. “So long as she can keep it secret,” she states.
“I daresay she can,” Hermione injects. “Well, that her entire race can. The only references to them I’m getting are newspapers, all dated a couple years ago.”
“Uhh…” she begins.
Hermione smiles at her. “It’s my… unique talent.” Then she scowls. “I can only ever get publication title and dates, though, without going out to find one.”
She winces, rubbing the side of her head. “Yeah… Ponies are, ah, mortally afraid of my kind, so…”
“Ahh,” Silver mutters. “Well, that’s… kinda the opposite of what we ended up becoming.”
She blinks at the girl. “Becoming?”
“Yeah. Lyra’s got this massive spell matrix downstairs, calls it the ‘Papa Tango’. Turns a British witch or wizard into a pony.” She shrugs, wrapping both Harry and Hermione with her arms, one on either side. “We’re all British, gone through that matrix. Which doesn’t make us exactly like other ponies- no, us ‘Papa Tangoes’ are rather universally more powerful than regular ponies.” She scowls. “And that was before the super secret part happened, and we all ended up ascending.”
She gasps, stumbling backwards a step. “A-Ascending? You- You’re Alicorns?”
All three nod.
She looks at Ginny, who shrugs.
“The Papa Tango hasn’t finished its work on me,” she sighs, shaking her head.
She looks back at the others. “L-Like, Alicorn Princesses!?”
Silver shrugs. “Or so we’ve heard. But we haven’t told anypony yet, so I’ll say no, we’re not princesses.”
She closes her eyes, taking a deep breath or two to calm herself down, and opens them again. “Soo…”
Hermione looks at the other three. “We should probably tell Hidden Light,” she mutters. “That transformation ability is amazing, mortal fears aside.” She scowls. “And you seem mortally afraid of ponies, to boot. She can probably help with that.”
She winces. “Er… Yeah, I guess.”