“Where is she?!” Cheerilee rushed down the stairs into the main hall, her heart pounding in her chest and her pupils mere pinpricks. Rarity was right behind her, having been the pony that had to come get her. Scootaloo was hurt, that’s all she was told. It was all she needed to be told.
Big Mac stood by the front doors, the limp body of Scootaloo in front of him. By his side was the changeling, Elytra, her aqua carapace covered in a spider web of cracks and chips. The bug’s horn was cracked as well, it’s protective covering shorn off to expose the fleshy pink organ beneath.
Cheerilee closed the distance to the fallen pegasus in less than a second it felt like. She dropped to her knees and restrained the urge to pick up the filly and hug her tight. She looked Scootaloo over, spotting a bruise that covered the majority of her back and one of her front legs was bent in a direction it definitely did not belong.
Her heart shattered into a thousand little pieces.
“What happened now?” Applejack’s voice came from the direction of the stairs. “Oh no…” The annoyance evaporated from the mare’s voice as Cheerilee heard her hooves click against the crystal floor. “What happened?” Every set of eyes in the room turned to Elytra.
“I-” The bug stammered. “W-we were up on the balcony...she saw some clouds and wanted to watch them. Um…” It was clear Elytra didn’t like being the center of attention, an aversion built up from years of blending in. “We threw a rock at one of the clouds and it started to rain-”
“-oh no, what happened?!” Mayor Mare’s voice rang throughout the space, the usual groans suppressed due to the current crisis. “Oh dear, poor Scootaloo.” Cheerilee soon felt the politician come behind her and put a hoof on her back. “Is she okay?
“Rarity, Mac, take Scootaloo up to her room and patch her up. Be gentle.” Scootaloo was encased in the soft blue glow of Rarity’s aura. Cheerilee held onto one of the filly’s hooves for as long as she could until it was too far. “Cheerilee, y’all can go with ‘em if y’want.”
“N-no.” Cheerilee finally stood up and wiped her eyes, looking to Applejack with a fiery determination. “I need to know what happened.” She received a nod as every eye in the room turned back to Elytra.
“I-It started to rain...and we were talking. Then…” Elytra’s gaze lingered on Mayor Mare for a moment. “...she came outside and told Scootaloo not to be around me. They started to argue and sh-she pushed Scootaloo away. “ Elytra was looking anywhere but in the eyes of the ponies around her. “It was slippery. Scootaloo fell off...I dove after her.” Elytra’s voice cracked like the shell that covered her body. “I-I’m sorry, Cheerilee. I tried. I wasn’t fast enough. I swear I tried to save her!” The changeling was pleading for her life, knowing how thin the trust that kept her roaming free was.
“Ah’m gonna be honest right about now.” Applejack raised her voice, drawing the attention of everypony around. “Y’all need to go up to your room and stay there for a bit, Mayor. Because if you stay here, Ah can’t guarantee your safety.” AJ was right, Cheerilee could feel the anger replacing the fear and sadness in her gut. It was all directed right at Mayor Mare.
“Is that a threat, Applejack?” Mayor Mare put a hoof to her chest in feigned disgust.
“No, that’s a promise.” Applejack replied.
“Y-you pushed a filly off of a building.” Cheerilee stood and rounded on the older mare, stabbing her bad hoof right in the chest of the politician. “One that can’t even fly!” She lost control of her voice, it filled the room with her anger and flooded it with fury. “Why would you ever do that?!” She had never felt this protective of one of her pupils, this was something else.
“Cheerilee.” Elytra’s hoof was now on Cheerilee’s, bringing it down from the mayor’s chest. “It was an accident. Please.” There was a sincerity in the changeling’s voice, and a genuine sympathy. “The last thing we need to do is fight even more.”
“I…” Cheerilee had so many words on the tip of her tongue, so many nasty things she could say. She stared right into the eyes of the mayor, a politician’s poker face staring back at her. “I pity you.” She settled on a softer, but still harsh, set of words. “Get over yourself, you don’t matter anymore.” She stalked off, happy enough to leave Mayor Mare behind.
Right now, checking on and taking care of Scootaloo was more important than anything else. She just needed to make sure the filly was okay, Cheerilee needed her to be okay. The maelstrom of emotions that filled her head and heart were slightly confusing and the stress of it all started to form a headache.
“Celestia, what is wrong with me…?” Over the past several days she had thrown a monster into a hole and went off on the mayor of Ponyville...for what? A protective instinct that she never really had suddenly flowed forth from the pit of her very being. It felt like she was acting irrationally and she just couldn’t help herself.
Her hooves carried her to the room she and Scootaloo shared while her mind stayed in a daze. She stood in front of the door, just waiting. She waited for something to happen, perhaps some realization to slap her in the face. Except no epiphany graced her presence, no revelation dawned upon her.
She just stood there and stared at the door for several minutes.
Was it nerves freezing her? What did she have to be nervous about? Scootaloo had been breathing down in the main hall, it wasn’t like she was d-...she couldn’t even bring herself to think of Scootaloo and that word in the same sentence. It simply hurt too much. The door in front of her opened, Big Mac standing on the other side and snapping the teacher out of her stupor.
“Oh, hello Big Mac.” Cheerilee shook her head and cleared her throat. “Were you coming to get me?” Talking to Big Macintosh was a bit odd these days, only focusing on his one good eye felt awkward still. It didn’t seem to impede the stallion, though.
“Eeyup.” Big Mac retorted as he stepped to the side.
Cheerilee entered the room and Macintosh closed the door behind her. The usual scene of warm sunlight streaming into the room, bouncing beautifully off of every facet of the crystal construction greeted her. Scootaloo lay in their bed, Rarity sitting beside her and working diligently on the little pegasus entrusted to her.
“Ah, Cheerilee.” Rarity looked up for a moment, then right back down. “Scootaloo is okay, darling. Well, as okay as she can be after that fall. From what I can tell, she broke her leg. I’ve done my best to immobilize it with a...well, a rather makeshift splint. Just make sure she doesn’t put any weight on it.” Rarity’s horn dimmed and the light faded as she finished up her work.
Scootaloo was resting on her side facing the room. Her front left leg had two pieces of wood on either side of it wrapped tightly with cloth, which seemed to be from bed sheets. She was still sleeping, but it definitely wasn’t peaceful. Her little orange face regularly screwed up in pain as she tried to shift.
“That rather nasty bruise on her back, well there’s nothing I can do about that.” Rarity stood, once again packing her supplies back in her bag. “I know a few spells for pain, but nothing for the amount she’s experiencing. I’m truly sorry, darling. It’s going to be an exercise in patience for a few months until she heals up. We are quite lucky that pegasi are rather sturdy ponies.”
Cheerilee was afraid to touch Scootaloo in fear that she might break even more. She finally brushed strands of purple mane out of her pupil’s face as gently as she could. That familiar anger welled up in Cheerilee’s stomach, but this time it wasn’t directed towards Mayor Mare. It was directed right at herself.
Scootaloo was in her care, the filly was her responsibility. She was supposed to keep this little pegasus safe and happy, and she had failed. Now the broken pony in front of her was a monument to that failure, one she would never let herself live down.
“I’m sorry, Scootaloo…” Cheerilee mumbled. The weight of it all finally came crashing down on the mare. Exhaustion, both mental and physical, suddenly overtook her and made her want to curl up with the filly.
“I’ll leave you two alone…” Rarity’s voice trailed off knowingly as she vacated the room. When the door clicked shut, Cheerilee broke.
The tears came slowly at first, but they didn’t stop. Quiet gentle sobs racked her body as the one piece of her old world that still remained seemingly untainted by this nightmare was now laying broken before her.
Over the past month she had leaned on the little pegasus’ presence more than she had realized. In the shelter beneath the school it had been the quiet comfort of another pony, of small conversation and shared thoughts and experiences. Now, it was something to look out for, to look forward to. Cheerilee wanted to get them both out of this alive.
Could she even do that anymore? What would happen if she lost Scootaloo? The thought alone tested that thread of equinity that was keeping her going.
She sat there for she didn’t know how long, just crying into the sheets and trying to fight off the thoughts that kept needling her brain. It seemed like hours that she spent in her own thoughts, the frozen sun not helping her keep track of the time.
“Cheerilee?” She hadn’t even heard the door open. It caused her to jump up and hastily wipe her eyes and try to straighten herself out as quickly as she could. “Oh, I’m sorry. I can come back-” Cheerilee turned her head about to see none other than Elytra. The changeling stood in the doorway, shifting nervously on her hooves.
“N-no come in.” She sniffled and straightened her posture, clearing her throat and doing her best to collect herself. “I-I wanted to...well, thank you. For saving her.” Elytra stepped in the room and closed the door behind her, stepping a bit closer to the teacher and student but keeping a respectable distance. “If you hadn’t caught her…” Both creatures sat there for a moment, contemplating the rest of that sentence.
“I’m sorry.” Between words and in the silence there was a gentle clicking coming from the bug. Cheerilee didn’t know much about changelings, but it almost sounded like an audible fidget. “I should’ve reacted quicker…” A gentle thrum came from Elytra, beneath her shell as her wings vibrated.
“No, no.” Cheerilee finally dragged herself from the pit of her own misery and stood up. “You saved her, you shouldn’t be apologizing.” She operated on pure instinct as she walked over to Elytra and gave the bug a tight hug. The changeling froze in place as the earth pony embraced her. The breath caught in her chest and Cheerilee could feel the creature’s entire body tense up. “Thank you.”
It took a moment or two, but Elytra gave in. She wrapped her hardened hooves around Cheerilee and squeezed the mare. The contact was something that Cheerilee desperately needed, she closed her eyes and just melted into the embrace.
One thing that struck Cheerilee as odd was just how warm Elytra was. She had expected the carapace to be cool to the touch, almost like plastic or glass...instead it almost felt like heated rubber but much more sturdy. “Thank you.” Cheerilee muttered out again.
“I-” Elytra was the first one to pull away, her bluish-green face slightly tinted red. “-I was just trying to help her. She’s such a sweet filly…” Another bout of self-blame was on the bug’s tongue as her voice trailed away.
“She is.” Cheerilee walked back over to the bed, Elytra on her tail. The pony and the changeling sat beside each other as they watched the filly’s chest rise and fall with strained breaths. “Before this...she was quite the active pony, too. I think she has some sort of muscle disorder with her wings, but that never stopped her.” Cheerilee smiled a bit. She wasn’t sure if she was recalling this to cheer up Elytra or herself. It was helping both of them, though. “She has this little scooter she used to ride around town, she just zipped around on the thing. If her wings never stopped her, I don’t think a broken leg will.” Cheerilee rested a hoof on Scootaloo’s side, careful to avoid the filly’s injured back. “She’s got a heart as strong as a horse.”
“I can tell.” The shell on Elytra’s back split open as the wings beneath it buzzed and hummed with activity. “She defended me from Mayor Mare, just stood right between her and I like she could stop anything.” The thought of the stunted pegasus flaring her wings and glaring up at the elder statespony was too much for Cheerilee and made her giggle a bit at the thought. “You ponies are made of tougher stuff.”
“How are you doing?” Cheerilee decided to move the topic from Scootaloo to the other injured party. “Your...uh...shell looks like it took a beating. Are you hurt?” The cracks that snaked their way across the glossy surface of the chitinous creature were numerous and highly visible. Some ran deeper than others and crunched when Elytra moved or shifted.
“It’ll be okay.” The dark pink eyes of the creature looked away from Cheerilee and towards Scootaloo. “It might take a while, but I can repair it.” Cheerilee cocked her head, a question forming in her mind but she wasn’t sure if she should ask it. “No..you don’t want to know. I’ve told ponies before and...well, it grossed them out.” Elytra sighed and went to stand, but Cheerilee reached up and put a hoof on her side.
“No, please.” Cheerilee smiled. “Sit. Let’s just talk for a while.” Elytra bit her lip but eventually nodded and sat back down. “I think we could both use the company.”
“Sure, I guess.” There were enough nerves in the bug to fill a pony twice her size. Cheerilee had no idea why, though. Cheerilee didn’t feel like she was particularly intimidating, and the atmosphere was down but not dangerous or even oppressive. “Sorry...about being nervous. I’m still getting used to being like this in front of you all and it’s still weird being around ponies in general.”
“How did you know what I was thinking?” Unease built in the earth pony’s head as the once-predator seemingly read her mind. She tried to push that feeling out and trust Elytra, but there were still those thoughts that she was a changeling.
“Uh…how do I explain this?” The clicking sound returned, a pretty obvious tick from the bug at this point. “Emotions taste different. Unless you’re really good at hiding it, you always give off some sort of taste. It’s not telepathy because I don’t know what you’re thinking, but after a while you get good at guessing.” Elytra cleared her throat and avoided looking at the pony next to her. “I-I can’t really help it even if I tried. Sorry.”
“You can stop being sorry, y’know.” The explanation was fascinating and piqued Cheerilee’s interest, but she would circle back around to that later. “If you can’t help it, you can’t help it. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
“Can...can I be honest with you?” Cheerilee nodded and motioned for her conversation partner to continue. “Ever since we changed and Equestria welcomed us, I can’t escape this...this guilt.” Once again, the gentle thrum of wings and clicking of something Cheerilee couldn’t see came from the changeling. “I did some not-great things in Canterlot during the invasion. Things I was told to do, but that’s not an excuse and I know it.” The slow deliberate speech of the changeling became faster, devolving into a frantic rant. “Before all of this, you ponies were so nice to me but all I could ever see is what happened at the wedding. I still do. There’s just this need in me to...to right those wrongs.” Elytra rose to her hooves and began to pace, chitin striking crystal echoing around the small room. “I lied to everypony here for a month and it tore me apart to keep it going. I expected to be thrown out, I probably deserve it. But no…” Those solid dark pink orbs looked to Scootaloo’s form as the filly slept. “She stuck up for me. Twice now. I’ve done nothing to deserve it, but she’s still been on my side.”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.” Cheerilee responded with a warm kindness in her voice. “I’ve been a teacher for over half of my life, and you know what I’ve learned in all of that time? Foals can sense the good in creatures. They know a good pony, or changeling, when they see one.” Cheerilee smiled and stroked Scootaloo’s side gently. “They can’t help it, they just know.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Cheerilee didn’t need to taste Elytra’s words to know that the bug didn’t believe one word she just said. “Either way she’s got my back so I have to have hers, right? That’s how friendship works, or at least it’s how King Thorax says it works.”
“So, tell me more about you.” To hear Elytra call Scootaloo her friend warmed Cheerilee’s heart. It was wonderful to see that Twilight’s teachings had not only sunk into Scootaloo’s head but had also spread through the changeling hive. “I want to know more about Elytra.”
“You and me both, Cheerilee.” The changeling grumbled back. “I..to be honest, I’m still finding myself. Before the Metamorphosis, we weren’t individuals. Just drones. I came to Equestria to figure out who I am and explore. I traveled all the way across this country to get back home and...well, I fell in love. I needed to come back for so many reasons.”
The guilt and tension had all but faded from Elytra’s body and voice. Now it was filled with a thick sense of wonder and no small amount of hope. To see a creature from another land, one who had been so opposed to Equestria not that long ago...well, it made Cheerilee’s heart flutter.
There was still hope for life after this.
----
“Okay, let’s take a look.” Sunburst had woken up from his nap and been summoned to Rainbow Dash’s room. When he first got there, all he could tell everypony was that their favorite speedster was sick. After a request for equipment, Spike had brought him a cart with some of Twilight’s more scientific instruments. Now he had more to work with.
“None of this will hurt her, right?” Pinkie, the one pony who hadn’t left Rainbow’s side since she fell sick, was still sitting by her and refused to leave. He couldn’t blame her for being worried, some of this stuff looked scary.
Rainbow’s other friends were also in the room. Rarity, Applejack, and Spike were giving him space, unlike Pinkie Pie. They were just as worried but at least they knew that he needed some room to work if they wanted answers.
“No, Pinkie. I’m not going to hurt her. I just need to take some readings.” Sunburst fumbled through a few of the instruments until he came across just a simple thermometer. “First, we take her temperature.”
Pinkie stepped aside, allowing the mage to finally get access to the subject. Twilight didn’t have an old school thermometer that went in the patient’s mouth either, it was one of the newer ones that you just had to press against skin. That was nice, at least.
Sunburst picked up the thermometer in his mouth and trotted over to Rainbow Dash before pressing it against her temple. He waited and waited until the little device finally beeped at him. He pulled it away and moved it into his hoof to get a clear look at the display.
“That’s...high.” He wasn’t a doctor, but even he knew the standard temperature range for an equine. “One-hundred and three point 5. She’s definitely running hot.” Sunburst shook his head and sighed. “How long has she been running a fever for?”
“It comes and goes.” Rainbow’s caretaker answered. “She cools down sometimes but it’s never for long…” That didn’t provide any useful information, not that he would tell Pinkie that. This could just be the flu. If any regular sickness was the cause, why was she turning gray?
“I know she went outside, but what did she do out there?” Sunburst turned around, setting the thermometer on the cart and looked at the remaining Elements of Harmony. “Anything out of the ordinary? Did she come into contact with anything magical?” All the eyes fell on Applejack.
“Well, Ah was keepin’ an eye on her.” Applejack spoke up. “Got a telescope up there to just monitor things in town. She was speedin’ off towards Fluttershy’s a fast as a dog chasin’ a rabbit but she just stopped. Kinda like she hit somethin’ it looked like.”
“Do you think she was trying a sonic rainboom?” Rarity offered. “It would be like Rainbow Dash to attempt something so flashy in the middle of all of this.” The group all collectively hummed, then spoke in agreement. Sunburst only knew about Rainbow Dash second-hoof but he knew she was a braggart and a show-off so that all tracked.
“A sonic rainboom?” Sunburst stroked his beard. “Shattering the natural magic barrier...so that means…” He bit his lip and looked at the mare in the bed, a nervous bundle building in the pit of his stomach. Just the other day he had scoffed at the idea of a pegasus being infected like a unicorn...but…
“Means what?” It was almost spoken in unison by the three mares in the room with him. He didn’t answer, he couldn’t as his head was filled with thoughts and theories all at once. He hoped to Celestia above that he was wrong but the evidence was stacked against him.
He picked up a long slim metal wand from the cart and rushed back over to Rainbow’s side. To make sure it was working correctly, he waved it through the air and checked the results. 10 lights decorated the handle of the device in a straight vertical line, all ten lit up bright green.
“Uh...what is that?” Applejack sounded worried, not that she needed to be.
“Thaumometer. Measures magic energy.” Sunburst mumbled out, resetting a device with a button on the handle. He pressed the length of the wand against Rainbow’s chest and ran it up her body slowly and up her head. He kept waiting for the number of lights on the handle to go up. No matter where he moved the wand it stayed at the one solitary light at the very base. “That’s not good.”
“She’s a pegasus, darling.” Rarity stepped forward, incredulity building in her tone. “She’s not a unicorn, she doesn’t have magic.” The murmurs from agreement from the others made Sunburst roll his eyes.
“No offense to Cheerilee, but what are they teaching you around here?” Sunburst walked over to Pinkie Pie, reset the thaumometer and waved it over her. Within seconds all ten lights were green and it was beeping repeatedly. “See?” He showed the device to the other mares. “Unicorns can use magic, but earth ponies and pegasi still have it. Everypony has a…” He closed his eyes and searched for a good explanation. “-a magical battery! We all have a magic battery inside of us. We’re born with it. It’s what allows pegasi to move clouds and earth ponies to grow stuff, it’s what unicorns mix with the natural mana of the world to shape it.” He jabbed a hoof at Rainbow Dash. “Her battery is drained, not draining. Drained. If she touched that magic barrier and it’s as tainted as the rest of the magic outside of the castle, that’s what did it.” Sunburst was crafting this theory on the fly, but it was backed by evidence and years of studying. “That’s why she’s sick, her body is struggling to stay alive without it.”
If the mood was dour before, it was downright abysmal now. The mares looked at each other, all looking for a shred of hope or perhaps an idea between them. There were none. They were out of their element. They knew it and so did Sunburst.
“Y’all gonna tell us how to fix her?”
Before doomsday he might’ve been a bit more shy about answering this question, maybe he would’ve had a bit more tact. There was no room for such niceties anymore. All of the eggshells had been shattered long ago.
“Unless you know of a way to supercharge her full of mana, no.” He turned back to Rainbow, who hadn’t moved since he entered the room. “Make her comfortable, that's all we can do.” The broken unicorn turned to the dragon in the room. “Spike, the books I asked for?”
“I-in the library...like you asked.” Was the response he received from the assistant.
“I’ll be in there if you need me.” Sunburst turned and left the room, a stunned silence filling the room as he shut the door. He had done what was asked of him in there and now he had another job to do.
The walk to the library was mercifully short as it was on the same floor as the bevy of guest rooms the survivors had claimed as their own. When he got to his corner of the space, he found a massive stack of a dozen books all as thick as his hoof waiting for him. Stenciled on the spines were the same name repeated over and over again: ‘RESEARCH’.
The stallion grabbed the book from the top of the stack and flopped on his mattress, letting it fall open. As he flipped through the book he realized that every word contained within the book was written in beautiful calligraphy. Every diagram, drawing, and graph was the result of a practiced quill put to parchment.
“I can’t believe she wrote twelve books about this.” Sunburst murmured to himself as he skimmed over the pages and pages. Twilight had compiled a dozen tomes of research about everything relating to Harmony. Spike told him it covered the Elements, the Tree, and the castle. Years of theories all contained here.
If Twilight Sparkle was the cause, then surely she would lead him to an answer as well.
----
“-and I told her ‘well if you wanted it so bad, why didn’t you go for it?” Cheerilee couldn’t hold back her laughter at her own story. Elytra joined in, giggling like a schoolfilly at the story from the teacher’s time in secondary school. The two continued to laugh for a minute or two until they both had to wipe the beginnings of happy tears from their eyes.
There was a sweetness to the changeling, a kindness beyond the years she had spent in the hive. When comfortable she was energetic and funny, but the moment she slipped out of that comfort zone she seemed to close herself off. It was a minefield, but one Cheerilee didn’t mind navigating.
“When...when I was in Canterlot.” Elytra’s laugh died and that nervousness returned to her voice. Like always, the changeling fought through those feelings and kept going. “My cover was a teacher at a preschool. I was there for a couple of months and...I miss it. There was something nice about it, especially being around the foals.”
“You never…” Cheerilee squinted and tried to think of a way to phrase her question. She had no idea how changelings bred and she didn’t want to offend. “You never had any of your own?”
“Ah, no.” Elytra looked to the one hoof she had planted on the ground, her other was gently brushing Scootaloo’s mane. “Before the Metamorphosis drones couldn’t have broods of their own, and I didn’t stick around for long enough after to...settle down like that.” Cheerilee nodded, the feeling was all too familiar to her. “What about you?”
“I never thought about having my own, no. My whole life has always been about nurturing the foals of others and guiding them.” Cheerilee couldn’t ignore the stab of longing that erupted in her chest. “I never had the time.” Her eyes drifted towards the filly laying in the bed for a moment, just enough for that sense of longing to grow.
“You’d make a good mom, Cheerilee.” A blush erupted over the pony’s features at Elytra’s words. “I mean it, I can feel it.” She looked up from Scootaloo to find the changeling’s eyes looking straight into her own. Cheerilee couldn’t stop a smile from forming along with that blush.
“You guys remind me of my aunts…” Both creatures’ heads snapped towards the filly on the bed, who groggily stared at them both with sleepy purple eyes. “It’s gross.” A groan escaped her mouth as soon as the last word was uttered. “I...hurt.”
“Yeah, I bet.” Elytra was the first to speak, her hoof still in Scootaloo’s mane. “You’ll be okay, though. You’re the toughest pony I know.” The hoof of the changeling withdrew from the flightless filly’s head. “Just rest up, okay? I have something I need to go do.”
“Bye Elytra.” Scootaloo croaked.
“Come by when you can, I’m sure Scootaloo would love your company when she’s feeling better.” Cheerilee waved at Elytra as she left the room. The feeling in her chest let her know that she wouldn’t mind more of the changeling’s company either in the future. Once the door was shut again, she turned to her student. “How are you feeling?”
“My leg hurts...my back hurts…” Scootaloo looked at her bound and splinted hoof, trying to move it before wincing. “What happened?”
“Elytra caught you before you hit the ground.” Cheerilee explained as a small strained smile crossed Scootaloo’s face. She didn’t need the changeling emotion-tasting power to know what the filly was thinking. Elytra was a good changeling, and Scootaloo had been right about her.