//------------------------------//
// "Stop monologuing and get off my ceiling!" 
// Story: Lightning Pest 
// by Casketbase77 
//------------------------------//

Lightning Dust wheezed heavily. Her lungs were gone, replaced by spindly valves still foreign to her calcified mind. 

"Monster..."

The valves labored to push words past her mandibles, sounding less like the voice of a famous stuntmare and more like a hissing recording of someone mocking her pitch and speech patterns.

"It was a foal's errand to think I'd make it with the Wonderbolts..."

A crude, proboscis-like tongue flicked between beastly jutting fangs.

"The Washouts were an act with no encores..."

Somewhere behind primitive, segmented approximations of ears, Lightning Dust's shimmering wings buzzed with agitation.

"...and the Royal Guard wouldn't take me because I wasn't attentive enough. Or something. I'm not a hundred percent sure, since I zoned out during their boring initiation seminar."

The insectoid mockery of the equine form ceased her pacing, since that was what she'd been doing. She sat on her thorax and straightened up. Or perhaps she straightened down, since her hind appendages were still suctioned to the cloudsculpted roof above her.

"Nothing stays," she rasped louder. "Everything changes. If the only constant in my life is change, then change is what I shall be! I... I..."

Lightning Dust extended her pockmarked appendages in rapturous buggy bliss.

"I reject my equinity, Rainbow!!"

"Shut up, already!"

Still suspended upside-down, Lightning Dust swiveled her compound eyes. They saw a glassy image of Rainbow Dash, sitting at a fogformed breakfast table, fuming up at her.

"You've been crawling around in endless circles, muttering how you're such a monster." Dash stuck her spoon into her cereal with much more force than was necessary. "It's getting really really hard to ignore your yammering. And your stink. And your slime."

As if on cue, Lightning Dust's neck joint discharged a dollop of natural lubricant that plopped directly into Rainbow Dash's cereal bowl. She didn't comment on Dash sighing and pushing the ruined meal away. Too busy buzzing to fill the air with more noise.

"I don't have to come down, because I don't answer to you, pony. I'm an apex predator now! Only the decree of a Changeling Queen can beckon me! And even that probably wouldn't work because I don't know how to disengage my sticky pads."

To demonstrate, Lightning Dust pushed her forelegs back onto the ceiling, freeing her hinds with a grub-like grunt. This didn't accomplish much, since her fronts were stuck now, leaving her dangling like a monkey. An annoying, insectoid monkey.

"See? Not even I can dislodge me. And I can lift like ten times my own body weight. Are you jealous yet, Dash? I know if I were you, I'd be mad jealous of m-"

A bowl of polluted cereal hit Lightning Dust's face. 

A split second later, Lightning Dust hit the table.

"Well that's disappointing," Rainbow Dash sighed. "Was kinda hoping you'd fall through my floor and keep going til you hit the earth." 

Lightning Dust, helpless on her back, searched for something to comment on other than the fact she didn't have the anatomical oomph to roll over. She settled her attention on the cereal box to her right.

"Whinnies, breakfast of champions! Nice. I used to chow on that stuff all the time when I was still a fur-covered meatbag."

"Uh-huh.  And how long has it since you've been, um... a "meatbag," anyway?" Rainbow Dash carefully moved her only box of cereal away. "Not that I actually care how you did this to yourself, but I get the feeling you're not gonna leave until you've given me the whole spiel."

"Oh wow, right into it? Ya know, I actually planned this big entrance where I'd disguise myself as your flight suit, but your closet door was locked, and then I realized I don't know how to shapeshift yet, so I improvised the kitchen ceiling idea-"

"Can you please hurry it up? I was getting ready for work before you started bugging me."

"Heh. Bug. But okay, let's see, does my new brain even remember such an old, uncool life? I guess I've been a changeling for...uh..." Lightning Dust's upward-pointing legs twitched as she did some mental math. "How... how long was I crawling around up there?"

"Like ten minutes."

"I've been a changeling for fifteen whole minutes!"

Rainbow Dash dully regarded the beaming beast with the blonde fauxhawk that had gotten its uncoordinated bulbous body embedded in her kitchen table. "Yeah, I can believe that." With a scooch, she was out of her chair and on her way to the sink.

"Huh? Hey, where ya goin'?" Lightning Dust buzzed her wings, but failed to pivot herself. She couldn't see past her bulging abdomen, but did hear the sound of Dash's cereal spoon getting washed off in the sink.

"I'm multitasking. Remember: getting ready for work. Keep going, though. Next is when you tell me how you got yourself to be like this, right?"

Lightning Dust bit her lip in frustration. Or tried to, before she was reminded she didn't have lips anymore. Her long-awaited return to her rival's life wasn't proceeding at the pace she wanted. Not least of all because she was competing for attention with a spoon. And losing, by the sound of things.

"I, uh... ahem!" Lightning Dust straightened her posture as Dash re-entered her field of view. "The first thing I did was track down that little ladybug changeling who goes to Twilight's School. Then I bribed her with a Bit to bite my wing."

Rainbow Dash was toweling her spoon dry and replacing it in a drawer. "And that turned you into a Changeling?" she asked flatly.

"Uh, no. It didn't. But I had her bite me twenty-six more times just to be safe. I know it was that many, because twenty-seven Bits is all I had."

"On you?"

"No, in general. I already said that the Washouts broke up a few months back. Weren't you listening to even a little bit of my ceiling monologue? I worked really hard on it!" Lightning Dust's garbled voice was genuinely upset. Enough to make Rainbow Dash turn around and make eye contact.

"Okay okay, sorry. So after you blew the last of your savings on useless bug bites, what did you do after?"

"Well... I uh..." Lightning Dust did her best regain composure. "By then I was bleeding pretty bad from getting chomped over and over. Plus, the ladybug changeling was all embarrassed because about a dozen other students had gathered around to see what we were doing. Man, I remember when the Washouts drew crowds that big!"

Dash and the Wonderbolts still regularly sold out entire stadiums. Much like the one Dash was due to arrive at in the next half hour. She swished her tail anxiously, then trotted across the kitchen.

"Huh? H-hey, I'm not done with my stor- Dash, come on!"

"I'm still listening!" Rainbow Dash snapped. Then, realizing she'd let her anger overpower her pity, she sighed. "I'm just grabbing some food on-the-go from my icebox. Ya know, since I didn't even get a bite from my bowl of Whinnies."

"Breakfast of champions!" Lightning Dust chirped triumphantly. "Wait, did I say that already? I've been laying here for awhile, and all my bug blood is pooling to my head. Kind of hard to keep my thoughts straight." 

Rainbow Dash grunted in exasperation, kicking the cloudform breakfast table and dispelling the magic holding it together.

"Aha! Free as a bee!" Lightning Dust buzzed in celebratory figure eights while Rainbow Dash rummaged coldly in the stationary snowcloud where she kept her frozen food. "As soon as I eat and get dressed, I'm leaving," she warned.

"Oh. Guess I'll skip over the adventure I had through the Everfree Forest after the school security guards chased me and my bum wing off-campus for hassling a minor. I had a lot of thrills while on the run from the law, like finding a hydra with one of its heads stuck in a trap that I freed using my deft little pony hooves. I thought the hydra might learn a lesson about little creatures being able to make a big difference, like that story about the mouse who pulls the thorn from the manticore's paw that my great uncle Wind Rider would read me before I went to bed as a foal. But nothing like that happened and the other three hydra heads immediately tried to eat me as soon as the fourth was freed, so I ran until I met some sort of nature spirit with moose antlers that whispered prophecies of a magic-less Equestria where the three tribes have broken apar-"

"See, you opened by saying you'd skip over this stuff, but I'm noticing you're not doing that." 

In the span of time where Lightning Dust had gotten lost in her own rambling, Rainbow Dash had found time to trot to her bedroom and slip into her Wonderbolt uniform. She was zipping it up as she returned to view, and Lightning Dust did her best to look composed. 

"Right then. Well... the last and most important creature I ran into was a zebra who spoke in rhymes. See, when she found me, I still had a hydra fang stuck in my flank, and she really wanted it so she could make a talisman of hydra warding or whatever. She wanted the fang, I mean. Not my flank. Anyway, I traded her for a flask of distilled Poison Joke, chugged it, and the ladybug changeling's spit still in my system did the rest." Lightning Dust landed and proudly puffed out her carapace. "It was awesome. Except when my old skeleton liquefied and leaked out of all my orifices. That part of the transformation hurt like a motherbucker. Worse than the biggest wipeout I ever had while I was a stuntmare. Oh hey, did you end up finding a good replacement breakfast in there?"

"Huh?" Rainbow Dash looked at her icebox, then back at Lightning Dust's strangely sincere expression. "Uh... no, just stuff that needs cooked, and I'm already running late. But honestly, its okay because that last part about your skeleton kinda killed my appetite."

"You mean you didn't find anything? That's no good! An athlete shouldn't perform on an empty stomach. Not even a measly Wonderbolt."

Rainbow Dash didn't have time to protest that final insult before she was shouldered sternly but gently out of the way.

"Lemme see here... ah!" Lightning Dust shoved aside several vegan steaks and pints of low-fat ice cream. "Here, a can of frozen peaches! That's your fourth-favorite fruit, right after apples, tomatoes, and blueberries in that order!"

"I know, but I don't have my can opener. See, last week Pinkie bought a trick can of oats with a spring snake inside, but the lid was stuck so now she has to give her prank victims a can opener along with the can... jeez, now you've got me monologuing." Rainbow Dash's nose wrinkled as her thoughts suddenly caught up to her words. "And hey, how do know about my favorite fruits and the weirdly specific order I list them in?"

Lightning Dust palmed the can of peaches in her tarsi, looking genuinely hurt. "I know because you told me. Back when we were cadets at the Wonderbolt Academy. Remember? We used to laugh at the slop they fed us in the cafeteria and talk about all our favorite foods from back home. Mine was Whinnies, breakfast of cham-!"

"Yeah, I know. I remember now. Jeez. I'm just surprised you remember."

"Well of course I do. What kinda rival doesn't obsessively catalogue every piece of tactical information she can about her nemesis?"

Rainbow Dash rubbed her neck awkwardly. "Uh... don't take this the wrong way, but have you been getting advice from Trixie? Like... really bad, unsolicited life-coach advice?"

"Unsolicited? The Great And Powerful Trixie is my personal guru. She's been my go-to gal ever since the Washouts broke up and I lost what little grounding I still had in life."

"Uh.... uh-huh. And how's that been working out for you?"

"Terrific! She spitballed a solid life lesson about how if I'm planning on taking revenge on my rival while wielding a magical power-amplifying artifact, I should try not to get bamboozled into taking the artifact off, since that story ends in a stuffy boring guidance office spouting off-the-cuff platitudes at walk-ins off the street whose twenty-seven Bit budget can't afford an actual licensed therapist."

"Trixie said all that?"

"More or less. But when I told her I wasn't interested in revenge, she got all apathetic for some reason and said to just think about anything my rival said to me that was really memorable. And sure enough, I was able to come up with something!"

Rainbow Dash regarded the can still gripped in Lightning Dust's spindly foreleg. "That my fourth favorite type of fruit is peaches?"

"Not just that, but a different thing you said. Back at the Academy. In fact, what I remembered was the last thing right after I got kicked out."

Rainbow Dash flicked her ears uneasily. She had absolutely no memory of this.

"You said there goes someone who will never change. Well, I bet you feel like a chump now. I ran right from Trixie's office to that ladybug changeling's classroom as soon as I knew what I needed to do to prove you wrong." The former pegasus was positively glowing with triumph. "Check me out! Score one for Lightning Dust!"

Rainbow Dash's jaw hung open. She wanted to yell. Or kick something. Or run to her bedroom and slam the door. To do anything other than keep staring at the brittle, hollow creature whose sorry state was at least partially her fault. But she did none of those things, and instead just croaked out "I got... to go... to work."

"Not on an empty stomach, you don't!" With a showmare's flourish, Lightning Dust raised the can of peaches to her mouth and tore the lid off with her changeling fangs. "Here ya go, superstar. You'll need all your energy, since you still owe me a race and I'll be waiting here when you get back."

"You mean you're not leaving?!"

Rainbow Dash knew that a less patient pony would have called the Cloudsdale police by now. Maybe after taking the flyswatter off the hook in the bathroom and thwapping Lightning Dust until the oversized pest lost consciousness. But a less patient pony also wouldn't have a can of peaches earnestly extended to them right now. 

"You okay, Dash? I can taste emotions ya know, and you're introspecting, like, super hard right now. No need to think too much about this. It's just food."

Except it wasn't just food, was it? It was an offering from Lightning Dust to replace a meal she'd ruined. Every time Dash was around her, Lightning Dust had done nothing but make messes. And judging by the story told today, Lightning Dust's mess-making was even worse when Dash wasn't around. But the can of peaches was different. This was, as far as Rainbow Dash could surmise, the first time in Lightning Dust's lousy life that the oblivious hothead was actually trying to clean up a self-made mess. Her first attempt ever to rectify a mistake.

Maybe what Lightning Dust had done to herself really was her way of trying to (literally) change. Maybe it was the only messy way she knew how.

"Th-thank you," Rainbow Dash managed. She accepted the meal and gulped it down. "Break... breakfast of champions, am I right?"

Lightning Dust gave her a hoofbump, then ushered Dash out the door. 

"I was thinking..." the changeling ventured. "Since uh... since I don't have a home right now, maybe I could crash with you? I'd totally earn my keep, since once I get the hang of shapeshifting I could, like, guise as you and go to boring press conferences you don't feel like getting out of bed for."

Rainbow Dash put her hoof on the door and adjusted her flight goggles. "We'll... we'll hammer out the details later. You can stay for a little while, but can you promise me that you'll start going to a real life coach? Not just Trixie?"

"Eh? Oh, sure. I'm easy. Open to change, one might say." She made a buzzing noise that approximated laughter. "Maybe I'll hit up that rhyming zebra again. I tasted loneliness when I was leaving with my new body, and you can totally vouch to her that I'm great recurring company!"

Rainbow Dash decided to leave before she said something she'd regret. 

"I'll see you when I get back from work, Dust."

"Buh-bye! Don't let the door hit your flank on the way out!" She held the cloudy puff of an exit open and Rainbow Dash was gone in a blast of tailwind.

Deciding that her triumphant return had worked out well after all, Lightning Dust chirruped with satisfaction. She pulled Dash's door shut and removed her foreleg from the knob. 

Or tried to.

Her sticky pad was stuck. 

"Uh... Dash?" she called. 

When no answer came, the newbie changeling pushed hard against the door with a different limb, freeing her first one but hopelessly affixing the second.

"Where's a well-aimed cereal bowl when you need one?" she complained. Then she sat down.

And waited for Dash to come home.