//------------------------------// // Chapter 14 - Friendly Enemies // Story: A Changing Perspective // by Dragrace //------------------------------// The windows of the library were still crowded, ponies pushing and shoving to get a better view. A few of the ponies now crowded the open door, attempting to get a better view upon the situation. The area was filled with many shocked expressions, including those of both Twilight and Jack. Jack was baffled of what had just happened, but to find Wings on the ground collapsed just below Twilight, and Twilight with a completely soaked coat was certainly not the results he had expected from his sudden disappearance. As for what had actually happened to him in the cave, Jack couldn’t recall anything except for the single tear Biggs had shed. Staring at one another, Twilight galloped over to Jack, leaping onto him and giving him an extremely tight squeeze. The ponies in the audience let out a long “Awwwwwww!” as the couple embraced. Jack wasn’t quite expecting to be gripped so hard, and he was left gasping for breath before the hug even ended. When the hug finally was ended, he was caught off guard when he found Twilight turned around, carefully balancing on her front hooves. Shortly after, he received a strong hind kick directly into the center of his chest. “Ahh… Wh..at was th..at for…” Jack wheezed, barely able to breathe once more. “That’s for making me worry so much.” Twilight said with a serious expression on her face. Her serious face was definitely scary. Jack had no intentions of making things any worse, especially if he were to receive another hind kick. Expecting Twilight to resume her passive position, followed by another embrace, he received yet another hind kick, this time from the nearby white unicorn. This time Jack was left completely breathless, collapsed on the ground, and simply looked up at Rarity wondering why she had kicked him. “Nobody hurts my friend like that!” Rarity said, giving a short “Hmff” and turning towards the opposite direction that Jack lay in. ‘Ow… Ow… Ow… Need to breathe…’ That was all Jack was able to think of, being so dizzy from the quick breathing. The ponies around the library began to leave, despite the unconscious changeling still resting amongst the library floor. A few ponies remained, the events that occurred in the library that day was more interesting than most of the events that unfolded in their quaint little town. Finally, after roughly two minutes of short, heavy breaths, Jack managed to recover back onto his hooves. Staring back at him was one upset purple unicorn. >---< “…And for the last time! I don’t know where I was!” Jack screamed, as Twilight continued to suspend him in the air with magic. Twilight was furious, and Jack was surprised she hadn’t burst into flames or done anything extreme yet. He had been trying to explain to Twilight that the changeling had teleported him somewhere, and he had no idea where. He didn’t even remember where he was or how he got back. All he really remembered was that he needed to see Twilight. Biggs was standing beside Rarity, both of them watching the situation unfold in silence. “And I don’t want to tell you again, that changeling’s magic is not capable of doing such a thing!” Twilight retorted. Jack was getting nowhere in this conversation, and decided to take a different approach to the situation in attempts to be grounded once more. Being forcefully suspended in the air by magic was strange; it felt like he was falling although there was no acceleration towards the ground. The feeling of touching the ground once more would be great, so maybe he wouldn’t like flying as much as he had once thought. “Alright, so you’re suspending ME in the air over a random CHANGELING that came out of NOWHERE, and you haven’t asked the TWIN over there about his SISTER being a changeling?!” Jack exclaimed. Jack was getting a little frustrated himself with the current situation. But when the magical field suspending him in the air suddenly vanished, he collapsed face first back onto the floor. Twilight then turned her attention towards Biggs, and began slowly approaching him. “He has a point, you know.” Twilight said as she continued walking towards Biggs. ‘Wait, did I just throw Biggs into the middle of this?’ Jack thought. ‘It wasn’t his fault at all! He was the one that saved me…’ Jack, still lying on the floor, and realizing his mistake he quickly rose to all fours, almost breaking out into a sprint to get to Twilight. Rarity then stepped out from beside Biggs and blocked the path in front of the charging stallion. Coming to a skidding halt, Jack heard the two talking. “I never had a sister.” Biggs said, still lacking emotion in his voice. “You know how changelings can be, she really got into my mind. I feel like she was there my entire life.” ‘That is the MOST I’ve ever heard him speak before.’ Jack thought. ‘Still needs to work on the inflection part, it still seems he’s lacking emotion. But I know he has them somewhere deep down…’ “That is quite ridiculous, you know” Twilight said, interrupting Jack's train of thought. Biggs simply nodded before she continued, “But it does make complete sense. When I'm around you it feels like you haven’t had a normal day without her, well, IT, in a while.” Jack cringed a little. Biggs was a changeling as well, but the way Twilight phrased the sentence was a little harsh, even if ‘Domina’ was an actual pony. The red mare let out a deep sigh. “I know” Biggs said. ‘Wait. That sounded like he actually meant it.’ Jack thought. ‘Did he actually use conversational elements… Properly?’ Conversational Elements. Now what might those be? ‘Now is not the time, brain.’ Biggs shot a quick look over towards Jack before giving him a small grin. The red and purple mare both looked at each other, almost as if questioning what they should do, before finally embracing. >---< Twilight had recovered from her mental breakdown, Jack had recovered from two sharp kicks to his chest, and the unconscious changeling in the middle of the library had still not awoken. By this point in time, Jack was questioning if the changeling would ever wake up. Jack still found himself puzzled by the changeling’s sudden behavior, from what he had experienced with Wings in the past he was very passive, and did not tend to resort to any sudden behaviors. The Hive is calling Those were Wings’ final words before Jack awoke in the cave. The Hive… Jack had been there once, and he understood that he would be forced to return eventually. Jack also noticed some significant changes in Biggs. It was almost as if he was getting an understanding of emotions, how they affected the ponies, how it wasn’t just wording or feeling that conveyed emotion, but action as well. It was if the changeling was developing emotions. A single tear rolled down Biggs’ dark face, eventually releasing the grip on his lower cheek and splashing down on the ground. That was the only image of the place Jack had been that he could remember, the rough cavernous walls behind Biggs as he shed his first tear. This wasn’t the first time he showed any emotion; he had given him the smallest grin before at the party. Looking back on the situation, it was almost a laugh, seeing as they knew he wanted the cake, but didn’t get any. Still, laughter is a sign of happiness in most cases; the only exception he could think of was laughing gas. Jack had learned something about changelings; most of the changelings were like the ponies he enjoyed so much. Each and every one was unique, despite them being much more violent. Maybe being turned into a changeling wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe it was an opportunity. >---< The four ponies were walking towards the park, hoping to forget what had happened back at the library. They had locked Wings in the basement, and Twilight had put multiple spells on the changeling and the door. She said something about not wanted something bad to happen again. ‘When she said again, I assume she was talking about my first escape.’ Jack thought. The entire walk Rarity was constantly pestering Jack over every single small detail which she found to be ‘Utterly disgusting’. She complained his untidy mane, split ends, unclean hooves, even something about his teeth not being white enough. Jack knew that Rarity was still upset after the Twilight incident, and she just needed something to rant about, and what better for the unicorn to rant about than style! Every comment just made him laugh; he wanted to make a witty comment back to her, saying something like ‘My teeth aren’t white enough? At least I don’t have celery in them’ or ‘Dirty hooves? But you have mud baths all the time!’. He managed to withhold comebacks, knowing that Rarity was already in a poor mood with him. Approaching the park, seeing a few young fillies and colts playing in the distance, Rarity struck up another conversation with Jack. “Jack, dear, how did you hear of my name before you met me?” She asked. Huh. Jack was expecting that question eventually; he remembered accidently letting her name slip without either of them saying their names. He’d assumed that Rarity had come up with some sort of ‘I’m so popular ponies everywhere know me!’ excuse. “Well, I was walking through town a few days ago, and I saw your boutique. I realized that it was really, nice I guess, compared to all the other buildings.” Jack said. “A simple ‘nice’? Darling, I’ll have you know it is the most glorious building in Ponyville!” Rarity responded. “Look, it was interesting. I didn’t really know what to think of it at the time, but I wanted to know what it was. So I asked a couple of nearby ponies.” Jack continued. “And who might those ponies have been?” Came another question from Rarity. ‘Wow, she’s really on top of me about this, isn’t she?’ Jack thought. “I didn’t get any names, but it was a mint green one and a light tan one. They told me it was Rarity’s Boutique.” With Rarity’s question answered, she had finally fallen silent. She definitely was quite persistent when it came to suspicions, something he had not expected from her. ‘Maybe I can enjoy myself now, seeing as we finally made it to the park. >---< Jack had been to this park before. He had been here twice, actually. He had shown up by accident every time, and hadn’t done much activity other than watching things. This time, his plans had not changed. He planned on staring at the sky, in order to lose himself to his thoughts once more. He looked around for a comfortable place to sit, and saw a small wooden bench. Walking the structure in order to sit down, he was quickly cut off by a rainbow stream. ‘Seriously, you too Rainbow? I know she’s your friend and all but I’ve already had to deal with Rarity’s pestering all day…’ He attempted once more to approach the park bench, just to have a cyan Pegasus land on the ground sliding. The pegasus with the multicolored mane then proceeded to lay across the entire bench. “All this tough work has really tired me out!” Rainbow said, letting out a long, fake yawn. Rainbow Dash turned her head over to look at Jack. “Sorry, buddy, I really need this spot. There’s plenty of other benches across the park though.” The pegasus said, giving him an evil sort of grin. Rainbow was up to something, he had seen that look before. But Jack couldn’t prove anything, as far as Rainbow knew he didn’t know her. He considered just pushing her off the bench, or pushing the bench over, but he quickly let the thoughts leave his mind. If there was one thing he didn’t want to do, it was get in a fight with one of Twilight’s friends. Then again he knew Rainbow would definitely win a fight on speed alone. Rolling his eyes, he began walking away, looking for another bench. Twilight and Rarity were both chatting on a bench not too far away, while Biggs was staring down a couple of birds that had settled in a nearby tree. When he came across another empty bench, he continued trotting towards it just to have the same rainbow pegasus steal his spot once more. ‘Real mature, Rainbow.’ Jack thought. He was getting tired of Rainbow’s behavior. He may have hurt Twilight, but it was only momentarily, and it was completely by accident. Was Rainbow always like this when something personal happened? Jack walked away. He wasn’t going to let it get to him, he could just go lay in the grass. Yeah, it would probably be more comfortable as well. Proceeding towards an open grassy area, he slowly found a comfortable position to rest, with his hooves tugged tightly against his body. Staring at the sun, Jack saw a cloud slowly pass overhead, and stop directly above him. Slightly in vision was the tip of the same multicolored tail that Rainbow had used to occupy the park benches. ‘This is just redicilous…’ Jack thought. He still wouldn’t let Rainbow get the best of him. He proceeded towards a nearby tree, rested his back against it, put his hooves behind his head and relaxed. Well, it would have been relaxing should a certain pony not have ruined it. Jack felt raindrops, one after the other, dripping through the thick layer of leaves the tree had offered. This was the point where Jack couldn’t take Rainbow’s immaturity any longer. “THAT’S IT!” He yelled, “I’M DONE!” This attracted the attention of many eyes throughout the park. Now, with almost half the park staring attentively at Jack, he stormed off towards the city.