//------------------------------// // Ch 22 - A Bug's Life // Story: A Flurry of Problems // by MelodyMori //------------------------------// Two weeks ago Nightshade couldn’t help but shiver in anticipation as she paced in her assigned room. The house itself was owned by a unicorn named Swift Tracker or something of the sort, a second-rate bounty hunter. The other resident was a pegasus mare that she hadn’t bothered to learn the name of, too annoyed by her incessant babbling about ‘her town’ or ‘our town’ or whatever it was called. As annoyed as she was, Nightshade couldn’t help but be thankful that the fallout of the mission would fall on another’s shoulders. She had spent too much time crafting her Mask, to have it all go up in flames would be... No, now wasn’t the time to second guess. It was time to do the mission and get them back from her Client. With a skill borne from decades of training the changeling spun on one hoof and slipped from the window in complete silence, her natural form replaced with one of a blue pegasus with a prismatic mane and tail. A very high profile and eye-catching form, enough that Nightshade would usually refuse to adopt it, but one that would put her mark at ease. Or if that failed at least the mark would hopefully not want to attack her ‘friend’. The ‘pegasus’ slipped from the house into the town itself with relative ease, waving hello to the various townsponies as she went along. The true Rainbow Dash was off in Canterlot visiting friends, but the residents of Ponyville didn’t know that. So instead they treated the changeling like they would the prismatic daredevil: with friendliness and care. Was almost a bit much for her to be honest, but Nightshade had dealt with worse and so forged on. Thankfully the Castle of Friendship - wow what a name - wasn’t too far away from the hideout. Once the ‘pegasus’ arrived at the mark’s home she couldn’t help but take a small breath in and out. While infiltrations weren't something new to her, such a rushed one wasn’t her usual method. But unfortunately, the Client didn’t give her much choice considering what was on the line. So despite her misgivings, the ‘pegasus’ gave a knock on the front door, hoping that the mark was actually home and not on some ‘friendship quest’. The door creaked open to reveal a young purple and green dragon, his eyebrow raised in surprise. “Hey Dash, what’s up?” ‘Rainbow Dash’ gave a confident smile and waved a hoof nonchalantly. “Oh you know, the usual. Is Twilight around? I want to talk to her about something.” Spike shrugged, pushing the door open a bit more to let ‘Dash’ in. “Yeah, she’s upstairs in her study. She just put Flurry to bed so make sure you aren’t too loud, don’t want to wake the baby after all.” “Obviously.” ‘Dash’ patted Spike on the head as she flew in. “Thanks, Spike.” As the ‘pegasus’ flew through the open door she felt a shiver run down her spine. A quick glance at her form showed that nothing actually happened to her form, but her senses were kicked into overdrive anyway. Changeling senses were special in the fact that they could more easily ‘see’ magic in a way. Or more accurately sense where strong areas of magic are. “You good Dash?” Spike asked from below, concern thick in his voice. “You froze up for a second.” ‘Dash’ shook her head, refocusing on the task at hoof. She let out a confident chuckle and grinned at the young dragon, waving off his concern. “Yeah I’m fine, just had a shiver go down my spine all of a sudden. Anyway, catch you later!” With that, the ‘pegasus’ quickly sped down the hallway of the castle. Even with her horn being unavailable, ‘Dash’ still could tell that something was cast on her. If not an active spell then some kind of ward or trap. Whatever it was probably wasn’t a good thing, so she had to act quickly and head home with her mate and child. First I need to finish the mission, then I can think about that stuff. Otherwise, the Client will have their hides. Nightshade internally grumbled to herself. Shaking that thought from her head ‘Dash’ continued down the endless hallways. Unfortunately, she wasn’t actually Rainbow Dash so didn’t actually know where this study was. So instead she began to open and check random doors in the surprisingly large castle. After what felt like an hour but was most likely just five minutes the ‘pegasus’ ended up in a kind of throne room. But instead of a singular throne, there were six crystalline thrones set around a circular table made of the same crystal. Each of the thrones had the cutie mark of one of the Elements of Harmony, while the table had a map of Equestria. “Woah.” the false pegasus breathed out, honestly caught off guard by the beauty before her. On top of that, the sheer amount of magic sang melodies in her ears, almost completely wiping out the other two large magical signatures she was picking up. “Dash?” A feminine voice rang out from behind Nightshade, prompting her to whirl around in the air. Twilight Sparkle looked up from the ground, her head tilted in confusion “Spike told me you wanted to talk, is everything okay?” Nightshade flew down, her wings folding against her side. “Yeah, I just wanted to say hi and talk to a friend. I can leave if you’re busy with Flurry though.” “No, no worries. I thought you were in Canterlot though?” Twilight raised an eyebrow, inching closer to Nightshade, causing her confident smile to diminish a bit.  “My plans changed, so I decided to visit you instead.” Nightshade tilted her head a bit, one of her eyes flicking back. “Plus I heard your niece was over to visit and I wanted to see her and say hi to the little one.” Twilight frowned, her horn glowing slightly as she approached. “I’m sorry Dash, but my wards detected a changeling entering the castle. I have to check to make sure it isn’t you first.” Welp, that throws a wrench in my plans. Nightshade thought, internally scowling. Hopefully it doesn’t work. The alicorn got close enough to cast her changeling detection spell, prompting a second shiver to roll down Nightshade’s cyan back. Twilight winced and stepped away instinctively, allowing Nightshade to know that the spell did in fact work. Unfortunately.  “Sorry Twilight, but I gotta do this.” Nightshade sighed, shaking her head. “I’m sorry for what I’m about to do.” With a smooth motion, Nightshade grabbed Twilight by her neck and slapped the alicorn into the crystal table. The impact visibly rattled her, her horn flaring with magic for a moment before whatever spell she was preparing failed due to her concentration being broken. Twilight staggered to the side a bit but Nightshade flared her borrowed pegasus wings and slammed both hooves into Twilight’s head, this time making the alicorn cry out in pain. Nightshade winced slightly, not due to the fact she hurt a pony or that she was assaulting royalty but due to the fact that she didn’t want to kill anypony. Blood on her hooves was something that wasn’t new to her, but taking a life wasn’t something she truly enjoyed doing.  So instead Nightshade picked up Twilight by one of her wings and a foreleg and flipped her into the air. She flipped head over hind hooves straight into one of the thrones, where she lay dazed but not dead. And judging by the groans not dazed for too long thanks to her earth pony durability. Nightshade flared her wings and began flying towards the other magical source, which was hopefully her actual Mark. Why He wanted an alicorn foal was beyond Nightshade’s imagination but she had more important things to worry about. Hopefully, it was just for ransom like what was happening to her now and not something more sinister. Shifting her attention back to navigating the accursed castle was a small matter. Whoever designed the place deserved to get fired, none of the hallways or doors were labeled and almost all of them looked the same. If it wasn’t for the fact that Nightshade could pick up on what was hopefully Flurry’s scent, finding the foal would be like searching for a needle in a haystack.  After the fourth wrong door, Nightshade’s search was interrupted by Twilight herself literally teleporting in front of her. The alicorn snarled and tried to fire off some kind of blast spell, which was easily dodged by just ducking out of the way. The wall behind Nightshade cracked under the force of the spell, bits of crystal flying back into her coat and tail. “Really, do you know how long it will take to brush that out of my tail?” Nightshade dramatically whined, rolling her rose-colored eyes. “Your tail?” Twilight shrieked with rage. “That’s not your body! That’s Rainbow Dash’s! I already know you’re a changeling, why don’t you just give up and stop parading around looking like one of my friends?” “What can I say? I feel awesome in this form. Maybe I should wear rainbow hair more often.” Nightshade couldn’t help but give a small smirk as she spoke. “Besides, you can always just stop looking at me if it bothers you that much.” Twilight let out another shriek of rage before charging her horn up to fire off another spell. This time instead of simply dodging Nightshade ducked down before ramming her right front hoof into Twilight’s jaw in a powerful uppercut. The alicorn’s jaw clicked shut and Nightshade could swear she felt a tooth crack as the blow connected. The spell being charged fired off prematurely into the ceiling, raining down dust and flecks of crystal on the two. Nightshade planted her other three hooves onto Twilight’s barrel before kicking off, her wings sending her back into the hallway while Twilight herself was knocked back into the room proper. The princess once again dealt with for the moment, Nightshade turned to race down the hallway. She looked to both sides at the rows of doors before rolling her eyes and simply flying out of the window. If she couldn’t find the stairs to get up to Flurry, it was time to use what Chrysalis gave her and fly up to the foal.  Thankfully the outside of the castle wasn’t as complex as the inside was, and Nightshade was able to fly back into the correct floor with ease. The windows were surprisingly big, then again from what she knew of the actual Rainbow Dash that was probably by design so the daredevil didn’t break too many windows. Based on the shorter hallway leading up to the room containing the magical source, Nightshade assumed that this was the bedroom section of the castle.  Nightshade sighed before opening the door to Flurry Heart’s room. She really didn’t hold any malice towards Twilight Sparkle or Flurry Heart, she was here to get her own family back. And if it required her to harm a child she had to live with that.  The door opened with a small squeak, revealing a hastily put together foal’s room. Various foal products sat on a dresser and diaper changing station on one wall, while on the other was an empty bed. In the middle of the room was a crib with a sleeping Flurry Heart in it, her blanket kicked to the bottom of the bed while she sucked on one of her hooves. Even with all the coldness Nightshade forced herself to have to harden her heart for a mission like this, she couldn’t resist letting out a small ‘aww’ at the sight, reminded of her own child for a moment.  Nightshade forced herself to refocus on what she was doing. She wouldn’t be able to dote on her own child if she didn’t foalnap this one, and lollygagging wasn’t doing her any favors. Hissing in frustration at the task before her, Nightshade forced herself to step into the room itself. Flurry Heart stirred at the sound of her hoofsteps, opening her eyes with a coo. Nightshade put on her most comforting, motherly smile and flew over to the waking foal. “Hey, Flurry Heart. It’s me, Auntie Dashie.” The foal giggled and reached out her hooves to the hovering pegasus. Swallowing down any ill feelings about her task, Nightshade scooped the foal up into her forehooves, letting Flurry suck on one of her hooves. Hopefully, the cyan coat tasted better than changeling chitin did. Out of context, it was an adorable scene to be sure. The moment was quickly ruined by the injured Twilight running into the room herself. She was bleeding from somewhere in her mane, and a bit of blood was leaking out of her mouth where she probably bit her lip. The alicorn’s wings were fully flared out and her horn was glowing something fierce.  “LET HER GO!” Twilight roared, her eyes full of such malice it was almost impossible that it was on a pony.  “Sorry Twilight, I can’t do that. Goodbye.” Nightshade sighed before starting to fly towards the window.  Unfortunately, Flurry Heart had other ideas and started to flap her wings to try to get to her Aunt Twilight. Nightshade hissed in frustration as this pulled her off course, the foal’s oversized wings giving her a bit more lift than normal. From the corner of Nightshade’s eye, she could see an approaching beam from Twilight’s horn, but the fact that Flurry pulled her around to face Twilight took too much of her attention to properly register that fact.  The beam hit Nightshade square in her hoof, causing her to scream in pain as the overcharged blast blew the lower half of her right foreleg to bits. The beam continued up and clipped her eye before simply colliding with the ceiling. Unfortunately, thanks to her attempt to go to her aunt Flurry Heart was between her hoof and the beam. Thanks to the attack the poor foal had a massive hole in her chest and was gasping for air. Nightshade fell to the ground, too stunned with pain to maintain flight or her Mask. As her true form was revealed she couldn’t help but wince, not wanting other ponies to see it. Thankfully Twilight’s attention was firmly on the dying Flurry Heart, who quickly passed due to being sans lungs or a heart. Twilight wailed and teleported elsewhere, hopefully somewhere far far away. With the current threat gone, Nightshade tried to pull herself up onto her other three hooves, her wings buzzing with the effort. However, a new threat made itself clear when Starlight Glimmer ran into the room, her eyes blazing with fury. Unlike Twilight, Starlight seemed to know enough about fighting to use a different spell instead of just shooting lasers everywhere. The crystalline floor shattered as several vines grew from it, wrapping around all four of Nightshade’s limbs. The changeling hissed in pain from the vine pulling tight around her recently amputated leg, the pain stunning her enough to allow the vines to pull her down. Nightshade began to prepare a teleportation spell now that she had her horn, but that was dashed by Starlight Glimmer’s second spell: a hefty sleep spell. Nightshade growled one last time as the last chance to save her family slipped from her hooves, sleep overtaking her with no mercy given. Several days ago “Who sent you?” One of the guards roared at Nightshade, the question heard almost every day for the past week.  Nightshade rolled her eyes, giving the guard the best poker face she could while strapped to a hospital bed. Not the best position to be in when ignoring questions, but there wasn’t much the changeling could do at the moment. The guard continued to yell questions while a second tried to use limited torture to help the process along. Unfortunately for them, Nightshade was familiar with torture so wasn’t too affected by an amateur like the guard.  After an hour of failed questioning, the amateur torturer guard left in a huff, shaking her head in frustration. She was covered in green changeling blood, the hue extra distinct on a white coat. As the door opened Nightshade heard a squeak as the mare ran into somepony.  Curious Nightshade turned her head to see none other than Flurry Heart sitting on the floor, bowled over by the much larger mare. She was somehow older, almost Flight School age, but 100% alive and well. For a second the filly and changeling made eye contact, the former’s eyes betraying the true age of the mind within.  The door immediately slammed shut thanks to somepony else’s magic, cutting off the eye contact. But the damage was done, and Nightshade couldn’t help but smile to herself. The foal actually lived, sure she was somehow older but she was alive. Thank Celestia. Present day “Say, do you mind if I use the little filly’s room? Believe it or not, I do actually have to use the bathroom.” Nightshade whined, getting the guard’s attention. He rolled his eyes but did start untying the changeling so he could lead her to the bathroom. Nightshade didn’t need to go, but she did have to get ready to take her leave from the hospital. The day before she had been questioned by Princess Luna herself, and she heard the guards outside talking about having her shipped off to Canterlot to stand trial. While meeting a princess was cool, she knew what a trial would end in for her.  Once Nightshade was unstrapped she was led by hoofcuff to the bathroom itself. The hoofcuff was designed to have enough length and slack in its chain to let a mare do her business in peace without the guard having to stand next to them, but fitting two ponies in a bathroom was always a bit cramped. That cramped feeling gave Nightshade the opening she’d been waiting for: the guard was bored, having been used to walking her to the bathroom several times over the course of the past two weeks. He was barely paying attention to what she was doing and was most likely just counting down the hours until he could head home.  Unfortunately for him, he wouldn’t get that chance, Nightshade using the cramped space to boost her horn straight into his throat. The sharp curved tip easily pierced his skin, blood starting to trickle down her head from the wound. The guard himself reared back, shoving the changeling down and away from him. Nightshade winced in pain as the trick did hurt her, horns were sensitive after all. But she wasn’t the one drowning in his own blood, one hoof trying to shove Nightshade while the other flailed for the handle of the door. Nightshade quickly put that to rest with a shove to the side, forcing the guard off his hooves with her superior strength and forcing him to topple to the ground. Now that he was weakened and dazed, Nightshade put an end to his struggling by ripping out his throat with her fangs. Nightshade couldn’t help but grimace slightly, spitting out the bit of blood and fur stuck in her mouth. Thankfully the guard had a key to the hoofcuffs, unshackling her from the corpse. The suppression ring on her horn required a different key, but thankfully the guard also had that. The downside of all of those devices having the same lock and key was pretty clear to the changeling but she decided not to look a gift pony in the mouth. Now free, Nightshade used her returned shapeshifting powers to adopt a simple Mask: a random pegasus she had seen countless times in Manehatten. Slipping out of the bathroom was easy enough, with a hop and a skip she flew out of the window to freedom. The Princesses really needed to hire better guards in the future. Once a safe distance from Ponyville Nightshade adopted her preferred Mask, transforming into a pegasus mare with a black coat and mane, a gold streak through her mane and tail breaking the monotone color scheme. She put on a confident grin and resumed her flight home in Cloudsdale, the cloud city a familiar refuge for the past 15 years.  The key to getting in was hidden in the same place it always was, letting the homeowner in without so much of a squeak. Not that cloud-hinges could squeak, but Nightshade still took it as a point in her favor! The house was still the same too, albeit a bit dustier. Once the door was closed and locked she quickly rushed into the sitting room, a hopeful look crossing her face before being once again crushed by despair. In the sitting room were three statues, the petrified forms of her family members. In the middle was her husband, while on the right side was his sister and Nightshade’s other partner. While most other ponies would find the thought of dating both siblings odd, Nightshade was thankful that she was lucky to have the two of them. The last statue was of her son, the four-year-old thankfully petrified in his sleep, hopefully not aware of what was going on. Set on the table was a familiar note, freshly sent if the lack of dust was an indication. Nightshade picked it up in her hooves, trembling slightly as she opened it. My dear Midnight Strike, You failed in your mission. I asked for the baby alicorn Flurry Heart and you would have presented me with a corpse. For your failure, your family shall remain like this for now. But your failure did entice more chaos than I originally planned. Instead of a simple fallout over a foalnapping you helped start a full-blown drama within the royal family. The repercussions of this event will be delicious to watch, and I have to thank you for that. Rest now my dear, I will have another mission for you soon. If you manage to not screw this one up I will bring back your family, do not worry. In the meantime, I would suggest speaking to Quick Fix. I am sure he has something that can replace your missing hoof. Your wonderful client, -G Nightshade couldn’t help but snarl, her Mask’s name barely noticed. She was being led around like some mutt, hoping that the next opportunity wouldn’t also end in failure. Casting one last look at the three statues, Nightshade let out a small sigh and flopped to the ground. Despite her frustration, this was a second chance. This time she wouldn’t mess it up either.  For her family’s sake.