-Equus, Ponyville, Midday, Arizona-
I slammed my left hoof across Velvet’s face, the reindeer was definitely asking for it today. She was giving as much as she was getting and our fighting was well out of the way of everyone else.
Grabbing my neck, she slammed her head down onto mine dazing me. That she could actually hurt me was saying how tough Velvet was.
“Stop! I’m sure whatever problems you’re having you can work out your relationship!” Oh it’s Cadence, really didn’t interact with her much and heard she was causing ‘mostly’ innocent incidents in Ponyville.
I was here on business talking to the local construction company, Velvet was along to see some friends and she goaded me into a fight. I always obliged Velvet, because fighting each other was everything to us.
“Oh hello Cadence, I’m a bit busy at the moment.” Even as she spoke conversationally to the princess of love, Velvet slapped her left hoof across my face staggering me.
I pulled out a rope and then pulled her into a head smash that left her dazed on the ground and then bucked her in the chest sending her skidding across the ground where she rolled onto her hooves.
“Look I’m sure that if you both discussed whatever problem you’re having with each other, you can work out your relationship issues.” We both looked at Cadence. “You two have some of the strongest love bonds I’ve ever seen. You don’t need to fight, I’m sure we can work this out!”
“What are you talking about? We’re not having any problems.” I leapt up to perform a flying buck to Velvet’s face as she came rushing in.
She quickly stopped short of my rear hooves, slapped her hooves against the ground. Two spikes of ice rammed upwards into my chest and sent me flying.
“I concur, I believe things are going quite splendidly.” Velvet generated several floating spheres of ice and narrowed her eyes at me. “What’s there to talk about?”
With a flick of her head she send the orbs of ice one after the other at me and I side stepped the first two and caught the third as Velvet lunged forward and tried to jam an ice blade on her leg into my forehead.
“What Frosty Farts and I are trying to say here…” I caught the tip of the blade on the orb, then twisted it upward and forced it into the ground. Velvet’s eyes widened as her spine was presented to me, I pulled both my hooves together and spiked her into the ground.
“This is really…” Velvet stated as she leapt up and smashed her left hind leg into my chin with incredible flexibility and grace that no other reindeer could match.
“Just how we…” My left hoof slammed into her kidney with the force of a lead lined donkey cart full of bricks making her grimace slightly as she went backwards and landed on her hooves.
We charged towards one another and leapt.
“Are!” We hit each other in the left cheek, she landed a hook and I landed a hard straight, then a second later we were at the ends of two trenches.
“Meep!” Paprika came wandering up to Cadence with a lazy looking Tinsel on her head and she placed a blanket on the ground.
We both went up to Paprika nuzzled her affectionately, the hearts in her eyes were lit ablaze for us and us alone. Velvet and I then sat down across from each other calmly, which for some reason flummoxed Cadence quite a bit.
“Aren’t the both of you… having domestic problems?” Cadence finally asked.
“Nope, not with this frozen cadaver!” I stated loudly.
“Says the tanned hide that could use more dusting.” Velvet sniped back.
We leaned forward glaring at one another and then started to passionately kiss as Paprika started setting out lunch.
“Meep?” Our alpaca queried curiously, but it wasn’t directed at us. I was too busy trying to suffocate a reindeer with my tongue.
“I… but… what?” Cadence shook her head and then sat down across from Paprika. “Of course I will join you in a picnic, thanks for asking… but weren’t these two just trying to kill each other a second ago?”
“Meep.” Paprika answered and waggled her brows.
“That’s foreplay for them?!” Cadence seemed highly disturbed by that.
“I hate you.” I stated passionately.
“Loathe you too.” Velvet soon returned.
Had anyone else said those words… well a changeling would be highly confused to feel nothing but love going on between us.
-Earth, three days after the Cooper Gang left, Morning, Camden Town, Dalmatian House, Ocellus-
Everything felt so restrictive, like I was in an egg… at least it was warm and cozy wherever I was.
Slowly opening my eyes I glanced around the room, tasted the very air and yawned. The light of a new day dawning shined through a nearby window
Love… it wasn’t in the air. It was in fact a solidified and consolidated mass here that felt like it took up an entire block in a city. The concentrations were so ridiculous that I seriously had to try to hold back a belch at being full, a very odd feeling considering I didn’t need solid foods.
I looked about and noted my position, I was wrapped in a blanket… Robin’s Egg. Nice color, I appreciated the thought that went into it and there was only one dragon that I knew of that would do so.
Now I just had to wonder, why was I surrounded by Dalmatians and were those large ducks? The puppies are so adorable! There were a variety of them in black and white, all of them sleeping in various places. I looked up on the mantle nearby and saw three puppies snuggling against a plush toy dog.
One had all white fur, one had two bands on her neck with a streak of black fur between her eyes and the last one looked like they had a bandit mask. The plush toy they were snuggling together was as cute as they were.
This was a rather quaint looking home, but the number of dogs in it was ridiculous… who could take care of this many dogs without going insane? I seriously doubted Pom had somehow gained this many Dalmatians as familiars.
Opening my mouth I tried to speak only to let out a raspy cough, I was really thirsty.
I eventually managed to untangle myself from my blanket by wiggling around a bit too much, I also dislodged a few puppies that had been cuddled against my side.
“Sorry.” I croaked out to the puppies I almost woke up, they got up and moved to snuggle against some other puppies and were asleep within seconds.
“Huh… what was… oh you’re awake.” An older dog stated quietly, she wasn’t a diamond dog and I don’t think I’ve learned to speak dog in my sleep so we were in a different world from Equus. We weren’t on Elhorn as far as I knew, because the décor was far too different. “Do you need anything?”
“Water.” I croaked out.
“Oh of course! You’ve been asleep for quite a while... I’m fairly interested in you, medically speaking of course.” The dog helped me sit up and looked me over. “Surviving on just love alone is a strange concept, I’m happy that my family was able to speed up your recovery. Do you think you can walk?”
“No… slight… atrophying.” Talking made me feel like my throat was full of sandpaper, my muscles also needed time to get back in working order.
“I understand, my name is Delilah and you’re under our families care and roof. I’ll go get some water now. I hope you don’t mind using a dog bowl, but we clean them quite thoroughly around here. At least my son Dylan does.” Delilah got up and quickly left the room through the nearby doorway leaving me surrounded by puppies, some of which were quacking their legs at the air in their sleep.
My legs felt like they were asleep, I started wiggling them to get some feeling back into them and wondered where Smolder, Shanty, Dodo and Pom were?
Okay horn check, I lit up my horn and immediately stopped while muffling a scream.
OH SWEET CELESTIA’S CHICKEN PHOBIA DID THAT EVER HURT!
Yeah, no using magic from my horn for the time being on the pain of my horn possibly exploding violently, got it.
So I’m still suffering quite a bit of magical backlash despite the abundance of love in the room, the last thing I remember was being carried through a cold snowy mountain and a lot of warm feelings afterwards.
Okay shapeshifting test…
With a flash, the world was slightly smaller than before and I was looking over my blue furred and black spotted body from where I sat. Okay, shapeshifting wasn’t painful, so that’s something I still have at least.
I tried to get my paws under me to stand up, I wasn’t having too much luck as I kept flopping onto my side and or back. My mind was quite willing, but my body was still too weak to really try walking at the moment.
“So you’re saying Smolder’s friend finally woke up from her coma?” Into the room walked a chicken conversing with Delilah, hefting a bowl of water above her head. They both stopped when they saw me. “And is apparently now a blue Dalmatian… well I’ve seen almost everything now.”
“Uh… sorry, I was trying to find out how bad off I am and was testing my capabilities… I’m Ocellus.” Currently doing an impersonation of a Dalmatian, I was hopefully as adorable as all the other puppies in the room. “I can’t use my horn for magic, but I can still shapeshift at least.”
“Can I get a list of limitations of your shapeshifting?” The chicken asked as she placed the bowl before me and I carefully lifted my head to start lapping it up with my tongue.
“No perfect mimicry except for appearance and voice, no memory copying, three fourths to half or less as strong as the real thing after taking the form of, inanimate objects are possible.” I stated succinctly after swallowing some water, as I thought about all the neat things changelings like me could do with our abilities alone. “As for examples of strengths gained from taking different forms. Gills are possible when changing into something aquatic or whenever needed in base form, surviving in lava is possible for a short time if transformed into a dragon or other scaly heat resistant entity like a fire salamander and turning into a solid stone rock will make me nearly as sturdy and heavy as one. I can’t turn into sedimentary stuff, my mass has to go somewhere.”
“Flexible, but only capable of solid physical forms… so you can’t turn into something like mist, fog, air or sand. Okay I’ve heard enough, the names Spot Irma Chicken and welcome to the Dalmatian Home and being awake.” She held out a wing and I shook it with my right hoof. “I’ve become a recent resident here, also I respond to Pullet Marlow or Aunt Marlow. I’m a lot older than I look.”
“Excuse me, but since I suddenly find myself having a patient in my home, I must check her over… and since she’s turned into a dog…” Delilah came over to me and nuzzled the top of my head and I giggled. “I’m a nurse dog that works at the local hospital, but outside our home you won’t hear more than barks from us thanks to the magic Spot has done around here. That said and to start off… how are you feeling on a scale of one to ten?”
“Emotionally or physically?” I was emotionally charged and raring to go, physically… not so much. If I had slept in a cocoon, then I wouldn’t be having these issues with getting back on my hooves quickly.
“Physically is required, emotionally is optional. As a therapy dog, since you can understand what I’m saying, I can’t do cute or friendly sounding barks at the moment and apologize for my poor services in being huggable.” Delilah smiled at me and I started giggling. “At least you’re not feeling too bad if you can laugh like one of my children.”
“Are all of them yours?” I asked wide eyed.
“Yes, but not in the way you think. I didn’t give birth to all of them, goodness knows what I’d look like after having ninety nine puppies, but they are my children all the same.” Delilah patted me on the head gently with a paw. “Now how are you feeling?”
“Physically, I’m going to need a little help to walk again and my horn hurts if I try to use it, like a twelve in the pain scale out of ten. I’m well aware of how to take care of that, I just can’t use magic with it for a while. The rest of me is a three for feeling a bit sore, it feels like I’ve been out for a while.” I could feel my tail wagging. “As for emotionally, I’m going with five, only because I don’t see my friends anywhere and that would normally induce a state of panic in anyone who’s been stuck on several dangerous worlds and has just woken up from a coma.”
“Smolder is here, as for the others… yeah, you’re going to have a few issues there.” A black dog with a few purple spots came in. “I’m Dante, don’t see much danger to us from you, but my ability to predict dangerous scenarios are mostly centered on me and the general area.”
“Huh?” I tilted my head in confusion.
“Dante recently found out he’s got Grimm in his ancestry… which makes me question my husband’s side of the family somewhat.” Delilah raised a paw to her chin and looked thoughtful.
“Okay, what was it you said about issues Dante?” Over the course of the next ten minutes I was filled in on what happened.
Pom had arrived in the nearby park here, Shanty apparently arrived in a place called Mesa City Vega with Dodo and as for us we ended up in the manor of one of the world’s most well know philanthropists that was an adventurer extraordinaire.
We were all almost in once place but circumstances led to Pom being stuck on a plane, a fast flying version of an airship, heading to Africa. She is currently lost with their oldest sister, which I assured them would be alive as long as Pom is since she’s good at protecting others as trained guard.
Shanty arrived looking for Pom with a group of very friendly thieves and someone who looks a lot like Pom. So we possibly had doppelgangers here like they do in the mirror dimension Twilight is in communication with. Our goat friend soon left with the group to deal with a dangerous criminal panda in a place they called China, she’d come back later to see if any of us showed up in the meantime, provided she survived being a crime fighting pirate.
We had arrived after they had already left. Smolder had made several friends among the younger adventurers that accompanies the richest duck in the world.
We came here for several reasons. Among those reasons, two were about Hunter who was asking for help with changing his business into something unrecognizable as being anything related to one Cruella De Ville who wanted to slaughter all the dogs in this house for a fur coat. At least I knew Rarity wouldn’t do something that horrible in the name of fashion.
So… we were a little split up and all over the place at vast distances, well it shouldn’t be too hard to bring our group back together. Right?
“Yeah, now that we’re all on the same page… except we don’t know where Shanty’s group is going exactly." Dante stated with a dour mood. “We also don’t know where Pom will end up and you guys are welcome to stay here provided your friend Smolder doesn’t burn down the house. It’s still a possibility, but it would mostly be…”
Dante gestured towards an opening door.
“An accident Dylan…” Smolder froze as she came into the room with several dogs and they looked at me, the sound I heard coming from Smolder’s throat would be something she would never want me to tell anyone about. “Ocellus!”
I found myself being picked up and squeezed by Smolder after the ear hurting squeal that had woken up all the puppies that immediately started asking about food, the emotions that were coming from her were quite a bit more than excitement. I tried to get my legs around her, my limbs just couldn’t do it.
“Heh, I’m getting better at seeing into the future short term.” Dante stated with a wagging tail. “Just so long as I don’t ever see that fiery apocalypse again, things are going to be okay.”
“Hey, Smolder, I know you’re happy to see me, but can you put me down next to the bowl full of water?” I was still thirsty, Smolder did so and I started drinking it in slowly.
“So… a blue dog… not my first choice if I were to wake up from a coma.” Hey, I was in a house load of them Smolder, how could it not be my first choice when I didn’t feel threatened enough to turn into a dragon!
Besides imitation is a somewhat sincere form of flattery, as long as it wasn’t creepy.
“I’ll have you know that I’m completely adorable Smol!” Despite my angry retort, Smolder just started petting and I whined. “Hey- stop that…”
“No this is too cute Ozzy.” Smolder stated as she scratched one of my ears. “Your tail is a blur.”
“Smolder, this is embarrassing.” I whined like an actual dog.
“Well how is she mom?” The dog with the star and red collar asked, I believe Smolder said Dylan.
“She’s mostly fine, not capable of walking and might need some physical rehabilitation, but she’s mentally healthy as far as I’m concerned.” Delilah looked me over. “I’m not capable of gauging how healthy she is magically, but she says she has that handled.”
“She better, I sunk enough love into her to feed an entire hive of changelings three times over.” Smolder still had love to give… that was kind of amazing. She truly loved me and that love was near endless.
“I just don’t want to use my horn for a while… it might literally explode if I try.” I knew better than to push my horn. “Just don’t ask me to do anything with it for several weeks, magical backlash is really painful.”
Unicorns had higher tolerances for magical backlash. Changeling did not have such a tolerance, which is why it took Queen Chrysalis so long to enact another plan after the whole wedding fiasco.
Princess Cadence and Sir Shining Armor overloaded Chrysalis’s horn with the purest magical love possible, which also happened to every other changeling that had been present in Canterlot, it fed the entire hive for months at least and most of the changelings had to wait until our physical and magical injuries healed before we could resume living normally.
I think it was that blast that made Thorax who he is today… aside from Kevin, the infiltrating specialist of the hive who could have personally become colorful at any time after spending so much time with a rather infamous band of mariachi changelings, The Shapeshifting Siesta.
Apparently Kevin just made friends normally and was upfront about what he was doing to everyone he met and never hid the fact that he was a changeling, his honesty led to him having quite a few friendships. The only reason he didn’t go colorful sooner, is because he refused to fully share the love in his heart and had an idea what was going to happen when he finally did. He was the one who studied the anomalous first colorful changeling group that were exiled and quickly formed a traveling mariachi band, one which personally had one of my family members in it.
Coming back to the present I looked up at Smolder holding me.
“Zoned out again?” Smolder asked.
“Yeah… thinking about my family and the Shapeshifting Siesta.” I looked around and then turned back and dragged my tongue along Smolder’s face, making her blush. “Stop calling me Ozzy!”
“Ugh, you two are so saccharine, excuse me while I go find a dark corner to crawl into before I get sick from all the sweetness.” Dante murmured. “Goth’s got to Goth, but first I’m setting up the table for…”
Dante stopped and looked around, he turned to Mr. Star collar.
“You-know-what Dylan, can you wake Dawkins so he can operating the kibble pump?” Dante meandered off with a smile on his muzzle.
“Sure thing Dante!” Dylan looked a little sad as he turned to his mother. “He’s a good top dog replacement, but Dolly really brought energy to living around here.”
“I’m sure we’ll make do Dylan, even without Dolly’s energy.” The dog with a yin-yang styled fur pattern stated calmly.
“Deepak has the right of it Dylan, I’m also sure that Dolly will be fine as Pom is quite capable of her care.” Delilah informed.
“Hey, if you need energy, I’m sure I can do my part. I’m old enough to start helping around here.” A dog with earphones stated as he stretched out and padded up to us his digits were all black fur and he had single white spots on both his black ears. “I’m DJ, nice to finally meet you Ocellus.”
His emotions were quite easy going, compared to Dylan having hidden anxieties of the likes that Pom tries not to show. He then walked off, not much of a talker then.
I turned back to Delilah nuzzling more sleepy pups awake, she turned to notice my look.
“I’ll help you with physical rehabilitation after…” Delilah trailed off and looked around. “Well after morning…. er… what’s a word most of my children wouldn’t know for it… ah idea, after morning vittles Ocellus!”
“What are vittles mommy?” One of the puppies asked innocently.
“Don’t worry about it.” Delilah stated calmly and patted the puppy on the head.
“Why is everyone so dodgy around the word mphhphph…?” I’m surprised that Smolder covered my mouth.
“They have a thing about words around here Ocellus, you just woke up and I don’t want you to get hurt in the resulting avalanche of puppies.” Avalanche of… was that a thing around here Smolder? “You’ll see it in action soon.”
“Can you wake up the ducks Smolder?” Delilah asked as she got most of the puppies waking each other up now and had a baby puppy on her back giggling and making cute barking noises. “I have to teach Dorothy how to talk, I’ve been rather negligent in teaching her common dog.”
“Sure thing Mrs. D, I’ll be back… I’m going anywhere without you Ocellus.” With what could be felt from her, it wasn’t hard to believe Smolder implicitly.
“So would you like anything for breakfast Ocellus?” Delilah asked and her eyes went wide with a panic.
“Breakfast?” One of the puppy’s stated, it was innocent enough with several puppies saying it… then it reached a crescendo when all the puppies around started to gather and move in mass while shouting it excitedly.
I was plucked off the floor by Delilah and held above a massive surge of puppies and watched as the baby hopped off Delilah's back, she was giggling happily as she rode another puppy away.
“I’m full thanks, the love here is all top quality and improbably dense.” I then belched loudly.