//------------------------------//
// Ch. 03. Changelings Abroad! 
// Story: If Wishes Were Ponies, Book II 
// by tkepner 
//------------------------------//

After the party in Equestria, Harry headed for the Portal Station. He would be staying with the Weasleys. Twilight and the Element Bearers had business in Canterlot, and so wouldn’t be around to chaperone him at the house in Little Whinging. 

To his surprise, his herdmates went with him. He had thought it was only going to be him. It wouldn’t be a problem, though, they still had their apartment trunks at both the Embassy and Weasley Orchard locations. He was sure the five would end up split between Ginny’s improved room at The Burrow and the trunk left there. 

Harry was more than a little startled by the surprise party Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had put together for him when they arrived late that afternoon at the Weasley farmhouse. The party included his friends from Hogwarts; Neville was much more relaxed than he had been at his own party. So was Harry. No surprises there! The Gryffindor Quidditch team, all the Firsties from Gryffindor, plus a few from the other Houses, including Elly de Rippe, were in attendance.

Elly, Harry noted, seemed especially shy about being at the party. It was as if she had no idea what to expect at a party. Hadn’t her family given her birthday parties? Even at his first birthday party in Equestria he sort of knew what to expect. He had, after all, had to listen to Dudley’s parties while he was locked in his cupboard under the stairs. She acted like it was all foreign to her.

How the Weasleys had convinced her to attend, he wasn’t sure. He was glad they did, however, he still owed her for indirectly saving him last term.

She still puzzled Harry. She had declined all his invitations to visit Equestria, saying she didn’t want to impose. As wonderful as it sounded on the other side of the Portal, she had written, he had invited a lot of people. She didn’t want to distract him from his friends. Moreover, she had her family estate to learn to run, and most of her holiday time was taken with tutors and her Aunt for that. “Perhaps next summer?” she suggested at the party when he again invited her.

He was just glad she didn’t expect to be another of his herdmates! Keeping the five he had happy would be hard enough.

Still, she never strayed that far from Harry, or the fillies, while at the party. In fact, she seemed to spend more of her time around the Equestrian  fillies than Harry, Ginny, or Hermione.

The party lasted until shortly after an early dinner, with swimming, a low-speed Quidditch, and several other games. A few of the finished prank candies from the twins were demonstrated, to great laughter. That a good time was had by all seemed to be the popular opinion as they left via the floo that evening.

Elly seemed both grateful to have been at the party, but oddly relieved, when she finally went home. Perhaps the party had been a bit too much? She seemed especially drowsy as she flooed out.

After two parties that day, one in Equestria and the other at the Weasleys, the younger kids were all exhausted and off to an early bed. Harry again bunked with Ron while the girls all retired to the trunk in Ginny’s room.

At loose ends until their letters for the coming year arrived, the seven of them planned to spend the following weeks exploring Ottery St Catchpole. Which, Harry had been told that morning, was in Devon, England. It had a small church, grocery, paper shop, garage, guest house, house-and-garden supply shop, school, and, of course, several pubs. The twins apparently quite liked the girl in the paper shop.

Besides the Weasleys, there were three other witching families in the village. There was the soon to be Fifth-year, Cedric Diggory and his parents, the soon to be Fifth-year, Sally Fawcett and her parents, and the soon to be First-year Luna Lovegood and her father, Xenophilius. Xenophilius published The Quibbler, a newsparchment.

The Lovegood’s, and their residence, were just as bizarre as the newsparchment the family printed. The house resembled a giant chess-piece, a rook. Mr. Lovegood himself dressed in robes almost as outrageous and eye-watering as those presented by Headmaster Dumbledore. His robes, though, seemed themed on chess-pieces and mystery symbols.

Luna appeared as odd as her father, and talked about creatures that no one else seemed to know anything about in a dreamy, not-quite-there voice. But she was a fun person to be around, Harry discovered.


^·_·^


In mid-August, the seven werewolf volunteers Remus had managed to convince went through the portal at one-hour intervals starting at noon. All seven collapsed and went into convulsions moments after crossing the Portal, as expected. The waiting medical teams immediately rushed them to quarantine and made them as comfortable as possible.

Remus, after checking with the hospital ponies and wizards, reported to the Ministry, where he planned to spend the night in one of the Auror holding-cells — he brought along a book and playing cards. The cards were in the hope he could convince the guards into playing a game of poker. He ended up losing about ten galleons, but he considered it money well-spent to have them so eagerly recount how they had taken the former werewolf’s money during a full moon.

As Remus had done the previous month, the werewolf volunteers convulsed as soon as Luna’s moon crested the horizon. Then, after leaving the moon up for an hour, Luna retired it for the night. The moon had been up that long for Remus because it had taken them time to get the message to her about what was happening at the Portal Hospital. They might experiment with the exposure time at a later date, but they didn’t want to take any chances this time.

The next morning, when they checked, they discovered the process had worked. Transiting the portal as much as eight hours before experiencing a full-moon-rise that night was a cure for the werewolf curse. The volunteers, all long-time veterans of the curse, were in tears of happiness at seeing the results of the werewolf-curse testing spells. Two of the women promised to have his children, if he wanted.

The ponies wanted to be sure, and insisted that the former were-wolves wait until the next day to return home to spread the good news.

The Ministry reluctantly gave Remus an official letter declaring that, because they had watched him all night on a full-moon night and performed numerous magical checks, he was not a werewolf.

The party that night at Grimmauld Place almost took the walls down. No one under that age or eighteen was allowed in the doors. Headache cures were required by all the next morning. Several new couples emerged, as well.

An overnight stay in a Ministry holding cell, with periodic magical checks would be the procedure for all wizards and witches who wanted to prove they weren’t werewolves the Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement decided. If they didn’t transform or show any other symptoms, they would receive a certification letter declaring them as having proved they weren’t a werewolf. There would be a fee, of course, the Ministry had to pay for the overtime for the aurors, right? 

Fortunately, for the normally destitute werewolves, Sirius was more than happy to setup a fund with the goblins to make sure no one was denied the opportunity. He even awarded the cured werewolves a hundred galleon present to help them get established. And a party in Grimmauld Place to celebrate their new status. 

Only a few in the Ministry objected to the situation. They were miserable diehard conservatives who felt the werewolves should be eliminated instead of cured. Fortunately, pointing out to the Minister that every cured werewolf meant additional income to the Ministry in fees and taxes helped push through the certification process.

For the first time, there was a complete cure available. It was painful, but no more so than the transformation itself, all the subjects had reported.

Word of that had raced through the hidden community of werewolves. Many still didn’t believe it, but many more were willing to try. The Portal Hospital ended up booked up for the next several months on the nights of the full-moon. Rather than just one night, as it was on Earth, Luna had consented to making a full-moon rise on three consecutive nights. That way the newly cured could see for themselves it had worked for them before they went home. And it gave the hospital an additional day to process patients.

Many of the “cured” opted to remain in Equestria for a time.

To Harry’s amusement, all of the cured werewolves now had a unicorn as their animagus form. They had gone from pure predator to very dangerous prey! Such irony.


۸-_-۸


It was a quiet night — or very early morning, take your pick — at the Ponyville Sweet Apple Acres Portal Station. The unicorn sergeant looked up from her paperwork as the three changelings walked into the check-in office. The Station, at the edge of the Everfree forest, rarely received any visitors, official or otherwise, this late at night. The last time had been a full-blown Princess-declared emergency, and hundreds of Guard ponies had trooped through at near gallops — with a truly impressive array of new equipment, some not out of the experimental stage.

She raised an eyebrow inquisitively at them as she almost unobtrusively slid a report, the latest update about traffic through the portal, over her copy of Playfilly.

Preoccupied at the sudden appearance of visitors, and hiding her magazine, she didn’t notice the almost invisible flash from the stolen wand as it cast a slight confundus on the sergeant. Of course, that it came from under one of the three unicorns instead of one of their horns, as a pony would normally expect, helped to hide it. In any event, she would now be inclined believe whatever they said to her.

After staring at them dully for a moment, she blinked once and asked, “What can I do for you?” as she pressed the button on the floor for assistance.

The lead unicorn, a light green with a light blue mane and tail lifted a paper out of her saddlebags and sent it to the sergeant. It was a short note, just a request that the Doctors Pony, Bones, and Balls travel through the Portal to the Little Whinging Embassy as soon as possible.

The soldier frowned as she glanced at the clock. It was nearly two, one-forty-seven to be exact. Both the portal and the Embassy were usually almost deserted at this time, although attendants were always present at the entrances to both.

The door to the left of the three ponies opened and a unicorn Guard came through. He stepped to the side to watch the three visitors, keeping the sergeant out of his line of fire, as he closed the door. He wore one of the new saddle-mounted rifle systems with barrels on both sides and automatic ammunition feeds. A spark shot from his horn to the sergeant, who didn’t even look at the newcomer as she sent a spark back.

“The letter arrived while I was having dinner,” said the light-green unicorn. “I gathered Doctors Balls,” she nodded at the amber stallion, with a dark-blue mane and crossed bones as a cutie mark, “and Pony,” a pale-blue unicorn with two-tone red mane, “and came here as fast as we could. Even with that new floo travel, it took a bit of time,” she finished.

Hidden by the other two unicorns, the wand underneath the stallion flashed a second time, and the second unicorn was hit with a confundus.

The sergeant sighed and pursed her lips. Without warning, a spark shot from her horn to each of the three ponies. They had expected that — the spark was a spell to reveal a disguised changeling. Even though they knew the spell would pass them, they couldn’t stop their reflexive stiffening.

The Guard pony smiled ruefully at their reactions. “Sorry about that, but it’s what we have to do now.”

Doctor Bones nodded genially. “Yes, we know. We get those every day. Still a surprise, though. I imagine it will be a few more months before that becomes an ignored feature of conversation for unicorns.

“I assure you,” the stallion said, firmly, lifting his muzzle arrogantly, “that we are not illusioned, either! So, you don’t need to do that.”

The sergeant blinked at the unusual declaration, paused, and nodded sagely. The unicorn with saddle-mounted rifles blinked, frowned bemusedly, then returned to his attentive stare.

Three sheets flew out of a basket on sergeant’s desk, and she quickly noted their names, descriptions, and cutie marks on them. Doctor Bones’ cutie mark was two crossed bones. Thigh bones from the look. From the sergeant’s expression, Doctor Balls’ cutie mark clearly left him mystified — how did a trio of a foal’s multi-coloured balls lead to becoming a doctor? Doctor Pony’s cutie mark was scary, a patchwork pony doll with a scalpel over it. She kept looking from it to the Doctor’s face. The three could see her trying to figure out how a filly got that as a cutie mark! And if she should be worried about it.

After she finished writing, she took pictures of the cutie marks. She attached the Polaroids to the papers while grinning at the three doctors, “Gotta love those new cameras from Earth! Instant pictures without magic,” she declared, and shook her head wonderingly. She lifted three green badges from a drawer, carefully wrote their names on the badges, attached them to lanyards, and held them out in her magic to the three doctors. They each put on their lanyard.

Then she stared at their letter a moment. Without a sound, a copy appeared, which she then clipped to the pictures and the other documents. She dropped them all into a basket on her desk.

The stallion stifled his desire to sigh in relief. It had taken them three months to acquire the right paper, discover the right letterhead, the right seal, and the proper written mannerisms of the purported sender. Their forgery had passed the first, and most important, inspection.

“We have to check for contraband,” the sergeant explained as she floated the letter back to Doctor Pony. “Please step into the next room.” The unicorn standing beside the open door to the interior of the building, smiled pleasantly as the two mares and stallion walked into the next room. He closed the door behind them, leaving the sergeant alone, once more, on a dull night.

Inside the room were two more ponies, a pegasus and an earth pony. They also were wearing rifle saddles. The earth pony stood in front of the closed exit from the room where he had all three unicorns in clear sight. The pegasus hovered near the ceiling beside the entrance and above the end of the long table that divided the room. The door behind the table was closed.

The three Guards were positioned so that none were in the others’ line of fire.

“Please place your saddlebags on the table and empty them,” the unicorn said as he walked behind the counter, closing the hinged counter door.

The changelings had expected this. It was still more than a bit terrifying, knowing that they had little to no way of escaping if things went wrong.

The doctors were quick to respond. All three had a tied bundle of instruments specific to their profession. As professionals, they were expected to carry such, as well as a few appropriate medicines and bandages in their bags. Doctor Bones even had a small bottle of the new Skele-Grow. In addition, they each had a bag of about a hundred bits and several gem stones varying from tiny to hoof-size. There were no clothes, of course. Nothing they owned would fit on the other side of the portal.

The Guard behind the table sighed. “I’m sorry,” he said regretfully, “but we can’t let you take bits or loose gems with you through the portal. We will credit your bits to the Embassy. You may withdraw their equivalent value, as you need, in the local currency. The gems will be kept in a safe-deposit box until you return.” He noted their names from the lanyards and wrote them on six small boxes he pulled from below the counter. For each doctor, the gems went into one box and the coins into the other.

He cast a targeted finite spell inside the bags, then felt around inside each to make sure it was empty, and that there were no hidden Undetectable Expansion Charms or notice-me-nots in use.

Doctor Balls hid his smile. They had known this was the procedure. By providing the ponies with obvious “contraband,” the ponies wouldn’t expect any more. Not wearing clothes also made it “obvious” they weren’t trying to hide gems. The normal body-scan for contraband wouldn’t detect the gems they had taped inside the holes in their legs, as, technically, they weren’t inside their bodies. That was the problem with tailored spells, they were rather restricted in what they could do. 

It took only a few more minutes before the three illusion-hidden changelings trotted out of the portal entrance building and down the path that led to the portal.

“I can’t believe that actually worked,” said Fifty-six Emmie, formerly known as Worker Infiltrator Cadet 370,456ME, via their mind-link.

“Why wouldn’t it have?” said Earl, the one posing as the unicorn stallion, “You two worked hard enough for it.” Unlike the other two, he was a male. His designation was Drone URL370,456. “And I practiced that spell until I was dreaming of it!”

“Yeah, we know, we saw the dreams,” Emmie said dryly.

At the crèche in the hive, the entire group had been honoured to be one of the few with a drone in their crèche. That he, and the other permanent hive inhabitants, had accompanied the infiltrators and soldiers in the attack had been astonishing, to say the least. Queen-Mother had committed the entire ling population into the assault. There would be no returning to the hive.

No ling had been left in the hive, and the reservoirs of food had been emptied. The entire invasion was a do-or-die effort. Failure meant the likely extinction of the hive.

The rumour mill, whispered from ling-to-ling instead of in the mind-link, was that the hive was in crisis. The reservoirs were draining at a rate much faster than the infiltrators could replenish. A rate that had accelerated as the hive had grown larger in the years building up to the invasion. Soon, they would run out of food — and they were already on limited rations for non-essential lings. That was probably the reason why crèche 370,456 had been the last set of eggs laid. There would have been no ling left behind to take care of the eggs or nymphs.

Usually, as one crèche reached cadet-age, the next set of eggs were laid and incubated. This time, however, there hadn’t been any eggs laid even when the cadets reached the end of their hive training and were ready for field-training. As a result, their crèche hadn’t been large enough to replace the lings lost through accidents, age, and protecting the hive over the last year.

Unfortunately, for Fifty-six Essie — Worker Infiltrator Cadet 370,456SE — and Fifty-six Emmie, drones like Earl were . . . well . . . useless outside the hive, as he well knew. He wasn’t even as mature, physically or mentally, as the workers despite being the same age, and he knew it. It would be several more years before he would be old enough to be presented to the queen as an adult, for her to trade to another hive. He hadn’t been trained for the warrior class, infiltrator class, harvester class, gatherer class, or any class, really. Why waste training resources on a ling that was just going to be given in trade to another hive, anyway?

He had had access to the hive mind, of course, but little to no reason to internalize any of it. Not to mention that there is a big difference between knowing something and being able to do it! Without training or regular use, knowledge is useless.

He was, by the infiltrators’ standards, simple and a bit slow.

And yet, he was the one who had come up with this idea when they realized their original plan was fatally flawed. 

They had wanted to protect Earl until he reached maturity. Once he was an adult, they would have taken him to one of the other hives and offered to trade him to them in exchange for the other two to join the hive. If he were a mature drone, alone, the new hive would have eagerly accepted him at what amounted to no cost for them. The problem was with Emmie and Essie. Usually, workers were never traded between hives. Captured workers, if they hadn’t fought to the death, were quickly worked to that state. 

With any luck, offering Earl would get them accepted as his personal slaves at the least, if the new hive wouldn’t accept them as second-tier workers. They wouldn’t have good jobs, but they would be alive. Which they all agreed was a better fate than trying to live by themselves without a hive behind them. Starvation and predation were very possible outcomes, otherwise.

Earl was happy to agree to this, as the two infiltrators had the skills to keep him alive for the years it would take for him reach that level. Skills he didn’t have, and only vaguely understood.

Fortunately, during the year and a half that they had wandered the fringes of Equestria, they had discovered that using him to negotiate a place in a new hive wouldn’t work. Queen-Mother’s attempt to conquer Canterlot, and Equestria, had not only failed, but had revealed the existence of changelings to the unsuspecting ponies. The drones and workers from their hive, they discovered, were considered contaminated with a defective decision-making process. How could a new hive have faith that any of the decisions made by former members of the Chrysalis hive were well-reasoned? As a result, the other hives had decided that any benefits a drone might bring were offset by being from a defective hive. There was the distinct possibility that their own decision making might be contaminated, if they accepted the drone. 

Not to mention their reluctance to add to their hive’s population. The newly alerted ponies made gathering food much more difficult. In fact, the hives would have to reduce their populations over the next few decades, and going on short rations to weather the temporary difficulties of too many lings.

Sneaking past the new ling-detection spell was impossible! It worked by first detecting the active use of the disguise magic, then by forcing them back to their normal form. And the ponies had quickly deployed that spell everywhere! They had even started putting the spell on entrances to buildings, so even if there weren’t any unicorns around, say in an earth-pony farming village, a ling could still be caught.

They had despaired surviving.

Then, one night, Earl had said, “If it detects the disguise magic, then don’t use that. Use an illusion.”

To the other two’s amazement, their trial had worked! 

But that came with its own drawbacks — they had to avoid touch at all costs. And with the ponies wanting to hug at a moment’s notice . . . it became quite a chore to acquire the love they needed, but not impossible. But at least they could travel in safety among the ponies.

Still, that was not a permanent solution. Someday, somewhere, they would be found out. Until then, though, they could haunt the parks, fairs, nightclubs, and other locations where ponies tended to crowd, and survive by remaining on the outskirts. Now, at least, they had a chance to come up with another solution.

It was at a foal’s party that they had heard the rumour of a portal to another world. Months passed as they reconnoitred the situation, leading them to this desperate bid at escape. If the numbers they had heard were accurate, they could safely disappear into a new world where none suspected their presence. A bit of careful shadowing of the few humans that made the trip to Ponyville had shown that there was a possibility of finding enough emotional food to survive.

“We’re not through yet, so pay attention!” ordered Essie.

While they were walking up the path, they were surreptitiously transferring the gems hidden in their leg holes into their saddlebags. They didn’t want to take a chance that going through the portal with those still in their legs might cause severe problems on the other side. They shouldn’t, but who knew for sure? The illusions on themselves, and the gems, helped mask what they were doing from the ponies they knew were watching them.

The second checkpoint was a bit easier to navigate. They were subjected, again, to the ling-detection spell. The third checkpoint was just as simple, and then they were trotting around the tree-portal on the spiral path. They took off their saddlebags and slipped on the simple robes at the portal, itself.

Then, it was on to a new world. And surviving in their new, bipedal forms.

The unicorn on duty on the other side had been warned to expect three doctors. When three very short people walked out of the portal, he was a little startled.

They had planned for this. They hadn’t known what they would look like on going through. Ponies became humans, but what happened with Changelings? They practiced for weeks being minotaurs, trolls, and gargoyles to familiarize themselves with different forms of bipedal locomotion. The body shapes were different, and each exerted its own influence on movement. They hoped that such practice wouldn’t leave them slow and clumsy when whatever they became, they became.

The unicorn immediately started to use his magic to help the three that had just come through stay upright. “Please remain calm, I’ll help you stand up.” 

All three were playacting at being clumsier than they really were. They had told the Portal minders on the other side that they had been practicing bipedalism. They knew that that information would have been passed on to the minders on this side.

The unicorn was distracted and annoyed that they appeared to have lied about practicing walking. That their forms were also unexpected, merely added to his confusion. 

Partially hidden by his sisters, Earl grabbed his wand from where it was stuck on his stomach. The moment he had it in hand, he cast a confundus at the unicorn, and took a quick look around.

They were lucky, there weren’t any other ponies in sight.

“Thank you for your help,” Earl said loudly, casting an illusion on himself, as did the other two, that he was an adult. There had been plenty of pictures on the Equestrian side of what humans looked like for him to cast something accurate. He used an illusion as they were unsure if the ponies on this side of the portal would use the ling-spell, and ruin their escape. 

“As you can see, we’re fine,” he continued firmly. “Everything is the way it should be.” They were no longer pretending clumsiness. Slightly awkward, yes. Clumsy? No. “We can handle the dressing rooms by ourselves, no need to worry yourself about us.”

The unicorn nodded absent-mindedly, his magic stopping.

The lings quickly ducked into their respective dressing-rooms on either side of the central hall. 

Fortunately, both rooms had several large posters demonstrating proper apparel for their respective sexes. Apparel which was stocked in the dressing-rooms. The posters changed with the seasons, obviously.

In short order, the three exited the rooms. They nodded to the unicorn Guard, who nodded back and smiled, then made a note on the paper on his desk. They made their way past him to the next, main room, where another unicorn gave them a look-over before nodding approvingly. He hit them with the ling-spell, of course, and asked to see their lanyards. He verified what they had said on the other side, examined their letter, then waved them onward.

The walk to the dome exit, and the walk to the embassy were much shorter than in Equestria. They did notice the heavily armed guards watching them closely.

They were hit with the ling-spell twice more before they entered the Embassy, itself.

Exiting the Embassy was easy. Once they passed the Guard Portal side entrance at the back, they headed for main entrance in the front. On one side of the door was a large map of Little Whinging, on the other was a map of London. They studied both carefully, taking their time. This close to the door, they could feel the presence of a ling-spell. Apparently, the doors were both the first and last defence of the Embassy, depending on which way you were going.

Then they merely went straight out the front doors! No fuss, no bother. Everyone assumed they knew what they were doing. The door’s ling-detection spell disturbed them no more than any of the others they had experienced. They didn’t even slow down.

They had made it.

They luxuriated in the feeling for a moment, then started down the street. They would find a dark alley and transform to birds. That would let them cover far more distance than any pony would expect.

Now, to see if they could survive on what love the humans provided — and if the magicals could supply more than the non-magicals. Fortunately, they had enough reserves for several weeks, at least.


۸-_-۸