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// 4. Thinking of Fights 
// Story: Shifting Sands 
// by Ralfil 
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A long awkward silence permeated the room as the original mare and the newly appeared stallion gaped with their mouths open. The other two ponies shifted uncomfortably.

Shift suddenly began to feel a thought strain approaching his mind. His eyes widened in fear at first, but quickly his brow furrowed in confusion. The thoughts were a lot like his own. In fact... he and the new mare stared at each other. He could feel her confusion as well. Testing the waters, he probed a bit with his mind. 'Hello?' He asked.

The mare stumbled backwards imperceptibly before looking at the still dumbfounded ponies next to them. She glanced at him again. 'Yes?' the thought came.

He laughed nervously in his mind. 'Ehehe. I'm guessing you're me from this other world the mare was talking about.' He waved his hand in front of said mare's face. She didn't respond. 'Huh. I guess they are a bit confused. Not that I blame them.'

'So, am I the only one thinking about what Eris did? Or do you feel as grossed out as me?' The new mare looked pointedly at him. 'What do you call yourself anyways?'

Shift coughed in surprise at her bluntness. 'I'm Shifting Sands. Call me Shift.' He furrowed his brow again in thought. 'Eris. Where have I heard that before. Hmm. Aha! You must mean Discord.' He grimaced. 'Now that I think about it...' He looked her up and down. '...Yeah. I'm feeling pretty disturbed right now too. Er, what's your name?'

The mare's eyes narrowed. 'Right. I'm Sandy Shift. Figures you'd have a backwards version of my name.' Shift adopted an offended look as Sandy continued. 'Now what do we do?'

Unfortunately, their mental conversation was cut abruptly short as the Unicorn who was apparently known as Dusk spoke up, “Um, Twilight? What's going on?” He turned to the mare beside him. “I thought I was helping you get home.”

The one who was apparently Twilight chose now to put her two bits in as well. “I could ask you the same thing.” She turned to Shift, directing the statement at him. “Why were you in my basement anyways? Wouldn't it make more sense to meet in the main part of the library?”

'Lie! For all your stupid flank is worth, lie!' Shift thought both to himself and in answer to Sandy's question. “Um, I must have made a miscalculation and ended up in the wrong spot. Clearly those two have accidentally traveled back in time and messed up as well.” His sweat was returning full force.

'They'll never buy that!'

'Just go with it!'

'Fine, but it won't work.' Sandy spoke up, “Oh, he must be right. I do seem to remember this happening.” She smiled awkwardly, eyes darting back and forth.

Twilight seemed to calm down and sighed. “Oh. Okay. I suppose that makes sense. I've done it before, and changing time-lines seems impossible from what I've figured out. Of course you'd remember it.” Shift grinned triumphantly at his female counterpart.

She scowled back. 'You're forgetting an important detail in this oh so clever plan of yours.'

'And what would that be?' he replied cockily. Pleased that they had diffused the situation, even if just for a little while.

Sandy raised her front hoof and pointed it at Dusk, all the while glaring at Shift. 'Him.' Shift became very nervous again right there.

At this point Dusk interjected saying, “Now wait a minute. What the hay are you talking about? This is too weird. I just got back from the...wedding...in...Canterlot.” His eyes widened in apparent realization. “They're changelings Twilight!” He ignited his horn with a purple glow. Twilight also lit hers up.

Shift and Sandy, in order to add to the confusion and possibly allow themselves to get out alive, readied spells of their own. Unfortunately, both forgot about the color of their magic as they shifted into fighting stances.

Twilight yelped in shock as she saw the green auras. She jumped away from Shift as Dusk did the same with Sandy. Now they were all in a circle facing each other. Shift had Twilight and Dusk on either side of him with Sandy across from him.

Shift sighed in frustration. “Here's an idea.” He said, “How about we-” He was cut off as Dusk fired a spell at him. Jumping to avoid it, he grumbled, “Well, if that's how it's going to be, then FINE!” With that he unleashed his first spell. From the corner of his eye he could see the mares were fighting each other in a similar manner. He smirked slightly. These purple unicorns had no idea what they were dealing with.

At least, that was what he thought.

Shift and his counterpart were both quite skilled when it came to magic of this kind. They had been practicing using it to hide for a very long time. They were certain they were prepared for anything Dusk or Twilight could throw at them. However, even though they were far more skilled than any regular changeling, they weren't nearly as powerful as the prodigies of Prince Solaris and Princess Celestia.

One might have thought they would win easily due to the nature of their surprise advantage. They would have been wrong. The unicorns had already fought changelings before, quite a few in fact, and knew a spell that could knock one senseless easily enough if it was restrained. As soon as they were revealed to not be the real deal there was no chance of them overcoming the purple unicorns.

If you were to look at this situation from Twilight’s perspective you would certainly be feeling aggressive. After all, this girl’s brother had recently been under the influence of changeling magic to such a degree that it was even erasing some of his memories. She had in fact talked with him after the defeat of the changelings about why he hadn’t seen the obvious signs that his fiancé had been acting strangely. To her shock he had revealed that he had no recollection of anything like that. The queen of said changelings had removed all memories that she considered objectionable to her plan.

Changeling mind magic often leaves its subject floundering and idiotic unless proper caution is taken. The changeling queen took none of this caution. One can only assume it is because she was in the final stages of her plan to conquer Equestria. If she needed more time she likely wouldn’t have been so condescending towards those around her. However, if one was to actually find themselves able to study changelings would have learned that their ability to integrate so fully into a society that nopony ever knew they weren’t there is a key feature to their way of life.

Shift at this time was focusing merely on fighting against a unicorn who clearly had it out for him. Said unicorn was still furious with the changelings he had encountered recently and had no intention of allowing any more of them to deceive anypony. He felt they had done enough damage already. As Shift dodged yet another blast of magic, likely an attack spell bolt of some kind, Dusk became even more frustrated. He had easily defeated several changelings pretending to be him just a day before. He couldn’t imagine why this one was so much more trouble.

“Hold still so I can blast you!” he shouted. Shift responded negatively and began taunting the unicorn. The rage was clear in his voice, so Shift hoped this could make the unicorn an easier opponent. After all, angry enemies are rarely rational.

As it turns out, this unicorn wasn’t so easily distracted. Firing two near simultaneous bolts to either side of Shift, he lept forward. Shift found himself rearing up on hind legs to avoid these blasts. He was caught off balance when his foe tackled him to the ground. Shift desperately tried powering up another spell, but the purple stallion on top of him fired faster.

The unicorns were just faster with their spells. This had become evident rather quickly in the fight. Though Shift had been sending spells of his own in retaliation to Dusk’s attacks, he had been forced onto the defensive. That was what allowed Dusk to direct the tide of the battle.

The next thing Shift knew, there was a bright purple light in his eyes and he was left with a pounding headache. Everything around him became a blur. He heard several muffled sounds that he couldn’t quite make out. Some seemed high pitched, some low. He was certain there was a thud of some kind in there somewhere. Most prevalent was one that he could feel. It was rough and varied, but he couldn’t remember for the life of him what was going on. The last thing he saw before everything went black was a pair of green orbs overtaking his vision.