//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 // Story: Forever a Changeling // by Scootaloo-009 //------------------------------// Forever a Changeling by Scootaloo-009, a.k.a. Mechsrule1 My Little Pony and related names, images, and scenarios are property of Hasbro Inc. Chapter 2         “What are you talking about, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked.         “Don’t play stupid, we ain’t blind!” Applejack shouted.         “What’s going on here? Why can’t I move?” Rainbow Dash asked back.         Twilight’s horn glowed. “Where. Is. She.”         “What has gotten into you? The last thing I remember was Twilight casting her anti-changeling spell. Did something happen?”         “I’ll say something happened!” Pinkie Pie replied. “We found the one changeling in the world stupid enough to hurt one of our friends. The only thing keeping you alive right now is the fact only you know where she is,” Twilight snarled.         “Who? We’re all here!”         “Rainbow!” Applejack shouted. “Now start talkin’ or Ah start hurtin’!”         “I am Rainbow Dash!” Rainbow Dash shouted.         “You’re not!” Fluttershy yelled from the other side of the room. Everypony in the room was shocked at her outburst.     Rarity got up and walked over to Rainbow Dash. “I find that very hard to believe. Without your disguise I don’t know why you bother continuing to lie.”     “What is wrong with you?” Rainbow Dash growled. “I wish somepony would just tell me what’s going on instead of asking me a bunch of questions that don’t make any sense!”     “You want to know what’s wrong? This is what’s wrong!” Rarity snapped. She cast a spell that made a mirror appear in thin air.     Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes then looked in the mirror. The five other ponies clamped their hooves over their ears as she screamed.     The two limbs she treasured most were gone, feathers replaced with some sort of bluish green membrane. Her coat was now black instead of cyan. By twisting to the side she could see a bluish shell on her back.     Looking up she saw the only familiar features left. Her eyes were still the same color, though they were all magenta now, and her prismatic mane was intact, albeit with a few holes in it, though there was a black spike sticking out of it now.         “How- what... what?” she stammered. She had finally stopped screaming but was breathing heavily.         “Enough theatrics. Tell us where are friend is!” Rarity demanded.         Rainbow Dash stopped hyperventilating and began nervously chuckling. “Heh- good prank, Pinkie. Can you let me down now?”         “This isn’t a joke!” Twilight snapped.         “It has to be!” Rainbow Dash whined. “I can’t be a changeling!”         “Oh Ah guess yah just look like one. Our bad,” Applejack retorted. “Look, there’s just no way. I remember the invasion at Canterlot, Discord, I remember us beating Nightmare Moon, going to Appleloosa, Gilda, flight camp, doing the sonic rainboom, even being a foal!”         “You just saying that doesn’t prove anything,” Twilight stated. “Pinkie, when you came to town, I remember it. You invited everypony in town to a party but since you didn’t know about the mail system, you hoof delivered every invitation, only you couldn’t get one to my house so you sent it with a firecracker. It took me days to fix my house!” Rainbow Dash said. “And Fluttershy, I remember on the first day of flight camp the teacher accidently tripped on your tail. You were so scared of being expelled you hid in the bathroom for two days.”         Pinkie Pie glared at her. “You promised to stop bringing that up!” “Yeah, yeah, losing a friends trust, well I think our friendship kind of died when you strapped me to a wall and yelled at me for no good reason!” Rainbow Dash retorted.         “So you’re not going to tell us when you replaced Rainbow Dash?” Twilight asked.         “I already told you, I’m Rainbow Dash! And even if I’m not, I don’t remember.” Twilight sighed. “I didn’t want to have to do this. It’s tricky but it’s the only way to know for sure. Pinkie, Applejack, hold it still.”         The two ponies nodded and stepped forward. They grabbed the sides of Rainbow Dash’s head and forced her to look forward.         “What are you doing?” Rainbow Dash asked nervously.         “I’m going to look through your memories and find out for myself,” Twilight replied.         “My memories!” Rainbow Dash’s ears drooped even lower. “But- but-”         “This isn’t exactly a fun spell for anypony but you’re not giving me a choice.” Twilight got really close again and looked into Rainbow Dash’s eyes. The gaze was entrancing. Rainbow Dash couldn’t, didn’t want to look away. It just felt so nice looking into those- Suddenly she was in Canterlot facing down a duplicate of herself. Then she was in a dragon costume. Then she was on a treadmill next to Big Macintosh. The images flashed by quickly, like a movie on fast forward. It only seemed to slow down whenever she was looking in a mirror or at her reflection. She decided to just relax and enjoy the free show of her awesome life. There she was as Commander hurricane, then chasing Mare Do Well, now she was meeting Tank. If she could have closed her eyes, she would have when Discord began running through her mind.         Pinkie going crazy, then meeting the buffalo. Saving Rarity. Gilda.         The memories were going faster now. Rainbow Dash idling wondered how far back Twilight was going to go. There was Nightmare Moon, then moving to Ponyville. Leaving flight school. Doing the sonic rainboom. More flight school. Meeting Gilda.         Rainbow Dash was getting worried. Twilight didn’t show any sign of stopping.         “No,” she muttered.         She was getting closer to when she first came to flight school.         “No!” she said, struggling, trying to do anything to make it stop. Anything to avoid reliving that day.         She was being dropped of at flight school now. “NO!” Rainbow Dash shouted. The image was torn away, leaving her with an even worse headache. There was a loud crash and she felt the hooves leave her head. She opened her eyes, not realizing they had been closed before.         Twilight was on the far side of the room and the rest were crowded around her.         “What just happened,” Rainbow Dash groaned, the pain not going away.         “Yah just blasted her, that’s what!” Applejack snapped.         “I what?” Twilight finally regained her composure and stood up. “It’s okay. You just knocked me back is all. I wasn’t expecting you to cast any magic.”         “I can do magic?”         “So?” Pinkie Pie asked.         “Girls, she is Rainbow Dash,” Twilight declared.         “Thank you. I didn’t know that,” Rainbow Dash said, grumbling. “Or at least she’s the Rainbow Dash we know.” Twilight went on. “I was stopped before I could go back to her foalhood, but I can be certain that from the day she started flight school onward, this changeling was Rainbow Dash. The switch happened before any of us met her.”         “Could they be false memories?” Rarity asked. Twilight shook her head. “No. I’ve performed a memory erase spell on myself so I know the signs. I would know if anything had been tampered with.”         “You erased some of your own memories? Why?” Fluttershy asked. “I don’t remember. I think it was to see if I could do it, but I had to erase why I did it so there would be nothing left to trigger the memory. I only know I did a good job. The only reason I know is I left myself a note saying I was going to try it.” “Maybe she was always a changeling,” Applejack suggested. “And there never was a pony.” “I-” Rainbow Dash started. “Maybe my parents were changelings too and never told me...” “Why don’t you ask them?” Rarity suggested. “They’re... not around any more,” Rainbow Dash replied quietly.         There was a knock on the door and Princess Celestia strode into the small room, leaving her guards outside.         “Have you learned anything, Twilight?” she asked.         “She’s a changeling but she’s also Rainbow Dash,” Pinkie Pie declared.         “I don’t know when it was switched for the real Rainbow Dash if there was one, but it was before any of us knew her,” Twilight explained.         “Hmm...” Princess Celestia hummed.         “What do we do?” Rarity asked.         Princess Celestia was quiet for several minutes, examining Rainbow Dash. “She is the same Rainbow Dash who defeated Discord and Nightmare Moon. If the Element of Loyalty chose her, that alone tells me enough about her character. If she wishes to become Rainbow Dash again and go back to Ponyville then I see no reason to stop her. I will not hold her here.”         Whatever was holding Rainbow Dash to the wall opened up, allowing her to fall to the floor. She let herself hit the ground and just lay there, face down.         “Are you okay?” Fluttershy asked.         “My whole life’s been ruined, but yeah, I’m fine,” Rainbow Dash grunted from the floor.         “Don’t think about it like that,” Pinkie Pie said, standing over her. “You just learned something new about yourself is all.”         “Ah’m sorry bout that, Rainbow. Ah thought yah had been kidnapped and some changeling had tried tah take yer place.”         “I’m still a love stealing monster.”         “You’re not,” Fluttershy said.         “Yeah, Ah bet us being friends has been yer food,” Applejack.         “It would explain all the times I went without eating and never got hungry,” Rainbow Dash said, looking up.         “The only thing I’m confused about is why you weren’t affected by Princess Cadance and Shining Armor’s magic,” Rarity said.         “Maybe it only worked on hostile changelings,” Princess Celestia suggested. “Magic can be funny at times.”         “Come on, Rainbow Dash, we’ve got to get back to Ponyville ASAP!” Pinkie Pie said, forcing her to stand up.         “What for?” Rainbow Dash snapped.         “So I can start setting up the party!”         “How can you be thinking of parties at a time like this?” Twilight exclaimed.         “How else are we going to tell everypony in town Rainbow Dash is a super cool changeling?” Pinkie Pie replied. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -         Rainbow Dash stared out the opposite window of the train as it rolled along. It was easier than looking at all the ponies staring at her.         “Okay, I admit it, taking the train was a bad idea,” she said.         “Well if you would just disguise yourself again, it would be fine,” Twilight replied snidely.         “I don’t know how. I don’t know anything about being a changeling,” Rainbow Dash replied. She lifted up a hoof and looked at it. She’d spent an hour trying to get it to turn back to it’s normal blue but it stayed stubbornly black.         “Isn’t there someone who can tell you how?” Pinkie Pie asked.         “Queen Chrysalis’s whereabouts are unknown. We have no way of locating her, even if we wanted to,” Twilight explained.         “There is another changeling hive,” Rainbow Dash said thoughtfully.         “Huh?” Applejack asked.         “By Los Pegasus. I can’t believe I forgot about it.”         “You’re not talking about-” Fluttershy started to say.         “I am,” Rainbow Dash finished. “The ‘What’s Your Fantasy’ brothel. I’ve never gone there myself but I know a lot of ponies who have. Everypony there is a changeling. There has to be at least one who can tell us where their queen is.”         “Well you can go by yourself. I’m going no where near that filthy place,” Rarity said.         “This train line goes through Los Pegasus. If we stay on we can go there and talk to the changelings there,” Twilight said. “Maybe you can go back to your hive.”         “Twilight, what’s with you?” Fluttershy asked sternly.         “Yeah, she’s our friend. Yah’ve been treatin’ her somethin’ awful!” Applejack added.         Twilight’s look softened. “... You’re right. Rainbow Dash, if you want, I’ll go with you.”         “Alright,” Rainbow Dash agreed. “To Los Pegasus!” - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~         If you like this story, you should check out some of my other works:         The Seven Tribes, a rather long fanfic that, like many stories, tries to explain the past.         Samurai Applejack, a drastically different kind of story. It’s rated mature for violence and some suggestive lines.         Night of the Werepony, what I consider to be my worst story, but it’s my most popular. It’s just one chapter long.         My tumblr, an alternate universe mixing MLP and Cyborg 009.