It was another long and boring night, but Jack didn’t care. He felt like his entire life had been filled with torment and punishment for things he didn’t do. Everybody hated him, or at least he felt that way. His school career was already plummeting, he wasn’t passing and he knew he wouldn’t be able to bring his grades up high enough to pass on the exams alone. Every day after school he would lock himself in his room, open up his computer, and watch videos online. He couldn’t get enough of the My Little Pony series, and he waited impatiently for season 3. After watching Hurricane Fluttershy for the fifteenth time, he decided that he would eat his dinner outside, considering his house had no air conditioning and his small dark room was very humid. He flung open the dull, wooden cabinets to find the shelves nearly empty. His parents were rarely around anyways, so most of the time they left him money so he could buy food. Jack began rummaging through the foods, pulling out and old can labeled “green beans”.
‘Nope, had those this morning.’ He thought to himself.
He noticed a small box of crackers in the corner, the nameless brand his parents usually bought. Pulling them out slowly, Jack gave a sigh of disappointment, and headed down the narrow hall out of his kitchen towards the back door. Grabbing the handle, he gave it a hard tug. Nothing happened. He pulled again and let out a grunt of frustration. The back door was almost always stuck. With one final pull, the door flung open knocking Jack right off his feet and onto the ground.
‘Great,’ he thought to himself, ‘Now I have to eat cracker bits again.’
Slowly recovering from his fall, he slowly walked onto the back porch and sat down on a small wooden chair.
>---<
An hour passed, or so he thought. His parents hadn’t shown up yet, more than likely doing overtime work to help keep the bills paid. A few emergency sirens went off here or there, and he could hear every passing car. Staring out into the star filled sky he closed his eyes and imagined what it would be like living in Equestria. Everybody (or everypony in this case) cared for each other, there was no fighting, war, disease, poverty and so on.
‘Man I wish I could live there,’ he thought to himself.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw something moving in the sky. It was moving relatively quickly, but living in the big city had a lot of those kinds of things.
‘Probably another helicopter.’
Helicopters were an everyday thing, when he lived in the country the entire family got excited when one passed overhead. Since they moved, he found it wasn't nearly as exciting living in such a heavily populated area. After looking at the helicopter for a little longer, he noticed it was a shooting star.
'Woah, a shooting star! I haven't seen one of those since... Err... Well that just proves my point! I don't even remember the last one I saw!'
Last time, though him and his friend saw one. His friend had wished that he could see his grandparents again, and surprisingly they moved all the way from Europe just to see him! Since that kind of wish came true, he thought he might as well make a wish on that star.
“I wish I could live in Equestria, with all the other ponies.” Jack mumbled to himself, not wanting to be heard by any of his neighbors.
As he stared at the passing star, he noticed it began to slow down. Not only was it slowing down, it was getting bigger. He noticed the large flaming chunk of rock wasn’t stopping, but it was turning! Panic began to set in, and he ran towards the small wooden door that may save him. As he pounded on the door in attempts to open it, he realized it was stuck… again! Without anywhere to go, he turned around, closed his eyes, and prepared for the worst.
>---<
Jack woke up quickly, remembering last night. He was lying down on the grass and was quite comfortable, perhaps he had just passed out? He lay in the soothing bright green grass for a moment, pondering if he should get up or not. As he attempted to put his arm behind himself to get better leverage, he noticed his arm would not move in such a direction. His shoulders felt a little out of place as well. As a matter of fact, his whole body was feeling out of whack!
'Something just doesn't feel right here...'
He quickly rolled over and rose on all fours, quickly scanning the environment. No fences, no wood, no small town house, however there were many tall evergreen trees, some rocks both small and large, and a pond with some cattail sticking out.
‘Wait a minute! Did my wish actually come true?’
His excitement got the better of him, and he thought of all the things he could do around Ponyville, maybe he would even meet one of the mane six, better yet meet his favorite Pegasus pony ever – Rainbow Dash!
‘Hmmm…What do I even look like anyways?’ He pondered.
First thing he did was look down at his hooves. But they weren’t exactly hooves. His legs were a deep black, with several holes in them. Well they looked like holes anyways.
‘Oh crap.’
After slowly taking in the possibilities of what could have happened, he began to analyze his new body. It was a little uncomfortable, well, different at the least. With the joints in different spots, it was a little awkward to move. Carefully taking a step forward, he stumbled a little but continued moving. After a minute of walking he sped up, and eventually broke into a sprint. He quickly ran over to the pond, almost forgetting about his suspicions. His suspicions were definitely true. His neutral feelings quickly diminished into panic. Staring back at him from the water was a blue-eyed, deep black changeling.
“No!” He yelled out loud, starling himself slightly at his own voice.
He heard a crack nearby, maybe somebody; no somepony may have heard him.
‘Err… how do changelings disguise themselves? I don't think they ever mentioned it in the series...’ He thought, and after a brief moment noticed the severity if he were to be caught.
‘Well the least I can do is hide.’
He quickly ran behind a tree and peered over to see what was approaching. It was Fluttershy, on a regular stroll through the forest, followed by a small group of ducks.
“Okay duckies,” she said quietly, “You have a nice time while I go grab something for you to eat.”
The changeling slowly slid down the side of the tree, beginning to think of the Fluttershy he knew from the series.
‘Okay, so maybe she wouldn’t try to hurt me unlike most of the others. If I were to start, this would be the best pony to start with.’
>---<
After thinking more about Fluttershy, she returned a couple minutes later. He carefully admired her from a distance, ensuring he would not be seen. More memories of Fluttershy came to mind, how she cared for just about every living thing. Would she care about one changeling? Would she try to hurt me? Would she tell the others? Suddenly, he felt a tingling sensation feeling pass through his hooves, his feet, well, whatever they were. The feeling quickly passed through the rest of his body, and when he looked down to see what happened, he had pink hair blocking some of his vision. Turning around quickly, he saw three pink butterflies on his yellow flank, as well as a long, pink tail.
“Woah!” he said to himself, quickly noticing he said it out loud.
“Wh-Who’s there?” said a now nervous voice.
Jack heard hoofsteps slowly approaching, and he began to quickly analyze the situation. Should he run, and clearly be seen by Fluttershy? Should he stay and hide in hopes of not being found? His options were fairly limited, but he decided to at least attempt to change into something else, seeing as he was a changeling. He quickly began thinking of Rainbow Dash, her looks, movement, and experiences. Before he knew it, he felt the tingling sensation again, and he now had cyan hooves, rainbow tail and mane as well as a shiny new cutie mark.
‘Now what?’ He thought. Without hesitation, he hopped out from the tree saying “Hiya Fluttershy!”
“Eeep!” came the response, “Oh you scared me Rainbow Dash! Wh-What are you doing around here anyways? If you don’t mind me asking.”
‘Crap. Wasn’t expecting a question.’
“Well I was just flying by when I saw you down here with the ducks, so I decided to check what’s up.” The changeling responded.
‘That’s something Rainbow Dash would say… right?’
“Well okay then Rainbow, I’ll see you around soon I guess. I don’t want to be late to feed Angel, you know how that bunny can be sometimes. Y-You don't mind me leaving, right?”
“Of course not, Fluttershy! I’ll see you around then!” Jack let out a sigh of relief.
He had escaped a potential disaster on his first day; however he knew things were going to get more complicated if he had to take the forms of ponies he knew well. Should he meet up with the real pony he was mimicking, things would only become a heck of a lot worse. Before leaving the pond, he decided to return to Fluttershy’s form, since he knew she would be at her cottage feeding her abundance of pets. This would be the safest way to travel around Ponyville, at least for now anyways.
‘Wait… which direction is Ponyville in anyways?’ Jack pondered, ‘Perhaps I should just follow the direction Fluttershy was heading, I know she lives near Ponyville.’
Following the hoof prints left in the grass, Jack slowly treaded through the shallow forest.
>---<
It only took the changeling about five minutes to reach Fluttershy’s cottage. He stared at it for a brief moment, taking a mental note of Ponyville being a two minute walk away. The wooden structure of the cottage was quite pretty, although he was never really interested in architecture. Before he had a chance to leave, he turned around to find another Fluttershy, paralyzed in fear, staring back at him. Before he had a chance to say anything, she took off towards Ponyville. Without thinking things through, he bolted down the dirt path after her. He knew that he shouldn't follow her, but he wasn't quite thinking things straight after the whole 'Oh yeah I'm a changeling right now, everypony is going to hurt me' incident. The path was pretty straight forward, and the changeling was surprised at Fluttershy’s speed.
'I was not expecting her to be so fast!'
He never really did see Fluttershy run, although he did know she wasn’t a very fast flier. Jumping over the occasional overgrown root, or veering to avoid plants, he kept right on Fluttershy’s tail. When he was no more than a hoof away, he finally noticed he was in Ponyville. Surrounded by other ponies. All of which were staring at him.
“Well, well,” Said a voice behind him, “Now just what do we have here?”
Jack, now in fear to find who was talking to him, slowly turned around to see a purple unicorn staring back at him. Twilight Sparkle gave a slight smile, knowing the changeling had nowhere to run.
“Now, I think the Princess would want to hear about this!”