Retcon

by Beige


Chapter Twenty-Two - Moth

y/w/VwyQkz5CajY

It had been dark outside her window for a few hours.

The enormity of her situation had finally sunk in when she had gotten back to the Institute. Lemony had awkwardly tried to talk, but Retcon couldn’t remember what it had been about. They had parted at some point, with Retcon taking herself to her room.

She laid on her bedsheets, flat on her side rather than curled up. To curl up tight would be to emulate holding oneself. Retcon could derive no comfort from such an allusion.

Sleep had eluded her, as her mind wouldn’t calm. What ifs and maybes swirled around her, dizzying and making her stomach churn. These thoughts were of no value to contemplate, but she couldn’t stop.

Her chest would occasionally convulse, like sobbing, though her eyes never watered.

Pegasus no more. Her name was Retcon, and she was a changeling. It was no longer something she could ignore. The reminder followed her wherever she went.

She couldn’t yet bring herself to examine the changes more closely. The fact that she now possessed an alien body, that she had lost her face and her own voice, it was something she would have to come to terms with. But she couldn’t just yet. It was too much all at once.

And so she lay there, unmoving, her brain churning through possibility after awful possibility. A passive passenger, she waited for sleep to finally claim her.


Retcon lowered her forehoof, looking back up at the large bedroom mirror. The creature stared back at her. She was having a hard time associating the image with her concept of self.

It might have still been morning, she wasn’t sure. At any rate, it had been light for a while. As the reality of her appearance had begun to set in, she had awoken with something of a morbid curiosity, electing to familiarise herself with her new form.

Chitin. She had found the word in her dictionary when reading about insects, leading to looking up exoskeletons, a concept that made her teeth grate. That was the word for the substance she now had instead of skin and a coat. Jet-black with a slight gloss if not exactly shiny, it was a tougher hide than flesh, but still plenty pliable. If she pressed a hoof to the side of her foreleg, the chitin still gave; she still seemed to be gooey underneath like most living things. It felt like she still had a regular skeleton too, as she poked and prodded her joints and skull. It certainly felt bizarre to move and was perhaps a little less touch-sensitive than skin, but it wasn’t exactly armour. At best, she imagined that paper cuts were a thing of the past.

Just like she had done on her first day, Retcon put a hoof to her chin, turning her head this way and that in the mirror. There was no resemblance she could see in the shape of her face to the one she had possessed before. Even putting aside species, she had the face of a complete stranger, and it unnerved her to see it move when she did.

A wicked pair of fangs jutted out from the upper lip of her now-more-slender muzzle. The shape of her jaw felt strange when she closed her mouth, or when she spoke. She couldn’t jut her lower jaw forward without hitting her upper fangs. Her eyes were a solid teal, and almost seemed to glow, particularly in low light. Inspecting her reflection, she couldn’t tell which way her eyes were pointing just from looking at them. She also now possessed a curved horn, small but sharper than those of unicorns. Down the back of her neck was a membranous sail in place of a mane, made of the same dark grey stuff as her tattered tail.

Her great feathered wings were gone, replaced by two sets of thin diaphanous insectoid wings, one pair moving up while the other whips down, pockmarked by the odd hole as with her legs. Her backplate where they attached down to her segmented abdomen had become an iridescent dark green. She couldn’t quite bring herself to be particularly upset at the loss of her wings, though she wasn’t sure whether it just hadn’t sunk in just yet, and so did her best not to think too much about it. Nevertheless, she wasn’t quite so disturbed by her new membranous appendages as she had imagined. She could almost call them… pretty. She wasn’t sure how she should feel about that.

What did disturb her was how tattered and delicate they appeared. They were translucent and almost as thin as paper, and as she had discovered when she tried to sleep, they were very sensitive. As she paced about her room, she had become aware that the handles on the doors were roughly the same height as her back. The notion of getting something caught in one of the holes in her wings was worrying. She held them close.

She was a changeling. She looked into the mirror, and the creature stared back. But inside... Retcon felt no different. As far as she could tell, she thought the same thoughts, felt the same feelings. She was still Retcon. As much as everything had changed, she realised...

...nothing had.

Her reflection watched her mutely.

A loud thumping at the door shook Retcon from her thoughts.

Hey, you in there?

Shower? Retcon cleared her throat. “Um. Yeah,” she replied absently.

There was a pause, then, “Well can I come in?

No, it’s my door, I’ll open it, she thought as she made her way over. She opened the door inwards, revealing Shower standing alone in the hallway.

There was a brief moment of hesitation from the pegasus as their eyes met. “There you are. I was starting to get worried you’d left.”

Retcon bit her tongue. “…No. Still here. What is it?” She cringed inwardly at the sound of the voice she had, at the weird way it fluttered. It didn’t sound anything like her.

“I-” Shower glanced down the hallway, rubbing the back of her neck. “…I just wanted to check up on you, you’ve locked yourself away all day.”

“I’m fine,” she replied tersely.

“Uh huh. Tell you what, why don’t you come out with me, we’re having a get-together outside.” She indicated her head toward the hallway. “It’ll do you good.”

“No thanks. Think I’ll stay.”

Shower took a step forward over the doorway threshold. “Look… I know that sometimes, people want to be left alone. The value of your own company, I get that. But right now, I think you need a little… normalcy.” She half-smiled. “Just for a bit, yeah?”

Retcon scowled. “I’m not like you. How would you know what I need?”

“I knew you before you did,” Shower said coolly. “Just, trust me on this. Give me half an hour. Then you can come back and wallow all you want. Deal?”

I’m not wallowing… Retcon sighed. “…Who’s there?”

“Just me and Gurney, we’re out in the courtyard.”

…I do need to speak with Gurney… “…Alright, fine,” she said, trying to sound annoyed despite the small jolt of happiness she felt from the pegasus.


Retcon felt smaller, more exposed out in the open. Every corner could reveal someone standing there, every door could open as she passed. She was now half-a-head shorter than before, but that wasn’t the only reason the hallways seemed bigger.

Despite her jumpiness, the two of them didn’t run into anyone on their way to the courtyard. Retcon almost breathed a sigh of relief as the great double doors opened to reveal Gurney seated alone at a garden bench out on the grass.

Gurney was eating from something held in his claws. Glancing up, he raised a wing in greeting.

Retcon has half-expected to see more people waiting for her and had been bracing for if somepony new was there. Seeing just Gurney was encouraging, though she still gave the open sky a cursory scan.

Beside her, Shower waved a wing back at the griffon.

“Hey, good of you to join us!” declared Gurney cheerfully. “How’re you doing?”

“Fine,” Retcon replied, managing not to sound terse. Following Shower’s lead, she took a seat at the bench next to her, facing the griffin. She kept her forelegs off the table and out of sight, though her wings fluttered slightly in the breeze. “What’re you eating?”

“Sandwich,” the griffon replied idly, looking down at the bread partially wrapped in metal foil. “Don’t ask what’s in-” He smirked. “Actually, you want to know?”

I don’t, thanks,” piped up Shower. Gurney snickered to himself. Scrunching down the open-ended side of the foil, he set it aside.

Retcon frowned. “…So, what’s this about? ‘Let’s all look at the weird thing’, or what?”

“No,” said Gurney. “More like, ‘we know the weird thing had a heavy day yesterday, so we’d like to check in on the weird thing and make sure she’s doing okay’.”

Retcon suppressed the urge to be short in response. “I’m… good, thanks. Just…” She hunched her shoulders, looking away. “…Just getting the hang of everything.”

Gurney bobbed his head. “Understandable.” He glanced briefly to one side, his expression shifting. “Sorry, by the way. I put you on the spot and kinda volunteered you to help with the lavastone. That was wrong, but… it was the only way I could think to contain it. Sorry about that.”

“Oh, right. Thanks. I mean… I get it, and… Thanks.” Retcon nodded. “It’s fine.”

“What’s it like?” asked Shower earnestly. “Now you’re back to, well, this?”

Retcon frowned down at the table. “It’s… weird. I can’t really describe it.” Her voice hitched occasionally as she spoke. She lifted a foreleg to look at it. “Everything is the wrong shape, and bends wrong. I dunno, I try not to think about it. I guess… since everything seems the same up here,” she tapped the side of her head, “I just try and pretend nothing’s changed.” She looked up at Gurney. “Would you… you said you could tell me how to… use this?”

Gurney cocked his head. “Your transformation magic?”

“Mmh.”

“I reckon so,” he nodded. “Going back over the papers, old-you gave us a lot of detail on how it works, but not so much on how to teach someone how to do it. It’s kind of something you- your kind seem to figure out on your own.”

Retcon wilted in her seat. “But then-”

“That doesn’t mean no,” said Gurney. “It means I can give you pointers and any help I can, but you’ll have to find the answers from there.” He scratched the side of his beak with a talon. “I don’t know all that much about spellcasting, but if it’s like other things, it should come pretty naturally to you. After all, you’re not starting from scratch here. Your body already knows how to do it, you’ve just forgotten how.”

“How long did it take for you to start flying again?” asked Shower pointedly.

“…Pretty much straight after we met.” Retcon noticed the smug look Shower was giving her. “…Alright, I get it. …Thanks.”

The wind felt strange as it played at the crest she had in place of a mane. Strange, yet still somewhat pleasant, as it always felt when she was outside. She felt warm inside.

She wondered idly if her legs would make sounds if she stood in the wind the right way.

Shower and Gurney were treating her the same as they always had. She was the same inside, thinking the same thoughts, and her… friends were acting no different. She just looked different.

Hmm…

“What happened with the lavastone?” she asked. “Is that-… That’s all over, right?” She hadn’t given it much thought since she had returned from Canterlot.

“We got it back safe, yeah,” said Shower. “Made it back in good time too, it was still light out. You don’t wanna go flying over the Everfree at night.” She rustled her wings. “We’ve got a vault for things like it on-site where we can wait for it to safely run itself dry. Mission accomplished: cursed artefact contained.” She grinned. “I really can’t tell you how much trouble you saved us, helping out. I know how big… this is for you. So yeah, thanks for your help. Seriously.”

“Sure.” Retcon shrugged, though she didn’t feel particularly nonchalant. I really don’t know how to respond to that, she thought. And don’t make it out like it’s a big deal. It’s done.

“I mean it. Unless we could’ve got clearance to let the new Princess know we exist so that we could recruit her baby dragon, which would also be a paperwork nightmare for more reasons than I can count, we would have had a whole neighbourhood in Canterlot in 24-hour quarantine for at least the next few days. Not many dragons rattling around Equestria, least not many friendly ones.”

Retcon sniffed. “How did it get all the way into the city without activating?”

“Heck if I know,” said Shower. “The dude’s not around to say. I’d ask Sparkler; it’s her assignment, maybe she’s figured it out.” She shot Gurney a look. “Come on, really?”

The griffon glanced up from his sandwich he had just unwrapped. “Wha’?” he asked, beak full of food.

Shower rolled her eyes. “Nothing.”

Retcon snorted in amusement. Shower gave her a brief side-glance, smiling lightly, but said nothing.

She felt warm inside.

She felt an ear flick. Where was that warmth coming from? The walls of the Institute cast shade over most of the courtyard, so it wasn’t-

Her breath caught in her throat. She looked at Shower without moving her head.

Oh no.

“What’s up?” Shower asked. “There a fly on my face?” She wiped a hoof over her muzzle.

“Uh, no, I-” I need to leave. “I just…” She stood abruptly. “I’m going to get a drink.”

“Hold up,” Shower interrupted, stopping the changeling on the spot. She got to her hooves as well. “You stay here, I’ll grab the drinks.”

“Oh, uhh.” Retcon gingerly sat back down. “Alright.”

“You better be here when I get back, yeah?” Shower grinned, then turned and cantered to the doors, wings fluttering as she went, as if she were about to take off.

Retcon shrank into her seat, glancing around. The warm feeling had gone.

“Everything okay?” asked Gurney between bites.

“No. Problem.” She shook her head. “Need to go.”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Gurney dropped the sandwich, waving his talons placatingly. “What’s going on?”

“Umm…” Retcon hesitated, halfway out of her seat. Can I tell Gurney? I can tell Gurney, right? He’ll understand. “…I think I just… F-From Shower, I think I… took some energy…” She trailed off, feeling exposed.

“Oh yeah?”

It wasn’t a response she was expecting. “What do I do? I didn’t mean it, honest!”

“Tell her,” he replied plainly.

Retcon reeled. “I can’t-!” She glanced behind toward the doors, then lowered her voice. “I can’t tell her!”

“Why not?”

“‘Cos I shouldn’t have done it!” She exclaimed, gesturing with her forelimbs.

“Yeah, that’s called ‘owning up’.”

“Ugh.” Retcon dropped her chin to the table. “It’s not that simple,” she groused.

Gurney cocked his head slightly. “Alright, I’ll give you that. …But I think I know how you can make it simpler.”

“How?”

He glanced up over her shoulder. “Just trust me on this.”

Alarmed, she turned to see Shower trotting back across the grass, wings close to her sides. Retcon tried to marshal her body language, trying to seem like nothing was amiss. The warm feeling had yet to return.

As she approached the bench, Shower reached under her tightly-closed wing and produced three cans, placing them in turn on the table. “Drinks,” she announced in the silence.

“Danke.” Gurney grabbed a can and tapped the top with a talon. “Oh, we were just talking. Retcon has something she wants to say,” he said conversationally.

Retcon glared at the griffon. What.

“Oh yeah?” Shower crossed her forelegs on the table, giving Retcon a look of interest. “What’s up?”

Urgh, this is so… Fine, I’m trusting you on this. “Umm, well…” She scratched the back of her neck, avoiding the crest. “Alright, don’t get mad.”

Gurney’s eyes seemed to twinkle.

“Okay?” Shower raised a brow. “Good start.”

Say it, you’re making it worse. Retcon shrunk down in her seat, pointedly looking down at the table. “I, um… I think I… took some of your energy. I-I’m really sorry.”

There was a stillness after she spoke. She glanced up to see Shower with a look of mild shock. She felt her eye twitch.

Shower gently placed her drink back on the table, lifted a foreleg in the air, then pumped it down. “Booyah!

Retcon blinked, ears flattening. Huh?

The pegasus leaned forward, exuding enthusiasm. “When? What were we talking about? How’d it happen?”

“U-Uhhh…”

Across the table, Gurney burst out laughing.

Retcon stammered. “W-Well I don’t know, it… We were just talking and-” She almost choked on her words, wings starting to flutter madly, as she recognised the warm feeling again, as if she were basking in a bright sunbeam. “I-I thin- I’m sorry, i-it’s- I think it’s happening now.”

Shower looked idly upwards. “Huh. I don’t… feel all that different. I wonder what changed. You haven’t managed this before, right?”

“No course I haven’t! Urgh…” Retcon shrank in her seat. “…I dunno, guess you never really liked me much.”

Shower gave her an odd look. “I like you.”

“Not much before,” she mumbled at the table. “Can I go now?”

Crossing her forelegs, Shower leaned back smugly. “Nah.”

Retcon squirmed. “Why are you so okay with this?”

The pegasus’ grin dimmed, her emotions mixing slightly, though the feeling of inner warmth didn’t abate. She sighed after a moment. “Alright, yeah… It is a bit… ick. But all the same, you’ve gotta get food somehow. I’m just glad I can finally help.”

“Why?”

“It’s like… like if a vampire came up to you and- Do you know what a vampire is?”

Retcon shook her head dumbly.

“Alright, imagine a pony who can’t eat regular food, they have to drink a pony’s blood to survive instead. Time and a place for your dumb predator jokes,” she added sharply without looking at Gurney, who shut his beak. “Point is… I get it, it’s weird to speculate about it, but…” Her eyes appeared to smoulder as her emotions turned. “If a friend came up to me and said, ‘hey, I’m actually a vampire, I’m hungry and I don’t know what to do,’ I’d be like… well I’ve got plenty of the stuff, y’know. Least I could do is share I guess.” She turned away as she trailed off, her embarrassment clear from her body language alone. “Anyway, that’s how I rationalise it,” she said with a shrug, picking up her drink.

Retcon blinked, her face warm. How do I even respond to that?

“So how’re you feeling now?” Shower asked before she could reply.

Retcon frowned. “Like I’m taking advantage of you.”

To her annoyance, the flow of warmth seemed to increase slightly as the pegasus laughed. “Dude, I volunteered for this. If I wasn’t fine with it, I wouldn’t be here. Chill.” She took a swig of her drink. “Just don’t go overboard, yeah? I’m still at work right now.”

“This is work?” Retcon gestured around the courtyard.

“Current assignment; feed the weird thing.” Shower leaned back with her drink. “Check.”

She didn’t feel much like laughing, but nonetheless appreciated the levity. A not-quite-smile tugged gently at her face.

“Uhm… Thanks…”

“Don’t make it awkward.” After a pause, Shower lowered her voice. “You’re welcome.”

“Wait,” Retcon started. Might be a stupid question, but… “Are vampires real?”

“Nah, they’re made up,” said Gurney, smirking. “Rule No. 1 of working for the Institute; don’t believe that for a second.”