Forever a Changeling

by Scootaloo-009

Chapter 5

        “Let’s go over what we know so far,” Shining Armor said to Spike. They had left the guard regimen outside so they wouldn’t disturb anything. Princess Celestia had sent them out first thing when she heard Twilight had gone missing as well, and had sent a whole complement of soldiers to make sure nopony else went missing.

        “So, at about three they arrived at the hotel and got their room. Two hours later they were demanding to get into some unicorn club. Two hours after that they were seen leaving the club with a third pony. After that they vanished. There is no trace of them in the room. Their stuff is all gone, and no pony saw them leave,” Spike read a list he had written earlier.

        “Not much to go on,” Shining Armor commented as he walked about the now empty suite. “Twili, where are you?”

        “Hey, you’re awake,” Rainbow Dash said.

        “Huh?” Twilight mumbled, still waking up. She noticed Rainbow Dash was using her voice, so it sounded so bizarre, like she was talking with herself. “How did you know?”

        “I’ve been practicing my pony sense. Your emotions changed and I just guessed,” Rainbow Dash answered, not mentioning the three other times she had said something and had been wrong.

        “Oh? What can you tell?”

        “Next to nothing,” Rainbow Dash replied. “I’m pretty sure the only way to work out what means what emotion is trial and error. It’s really, really hard to describe, but I can sort of tell where you are and when your feelings change, I just can’t tell what they actually are yet. I did learn one or two useful things about this place.”

        “Yes?”

        “First, I found the other unicorn. He’s about ten or twenty feet away from us, on your left. I’m not getting much from him though.”

        “Is he asleep or... dead?”

        “He’s obviously not dead, and from what I just learned, being asleep doesn’t make you go any quieter.”

        “Er, what?”

        “Again, it’s hard to explain. Anyway, I think he’s just really, really weak. If he’s down here much longer he will die.”

        “Anything else?’

        “No, or rather, that is something,” Rainbow Dash said. “I can’t really tell what my range is but he and you are the only two I can sense. I’m pretty sure I can sense things farther away than that, so we’re definitely deep underground.”

        “We already knew that.”

        “Still, think about what it means. I can sense anything with emotion. Either we are alone or I just can’t sense them.”

        “I’m not sure I follow.”

        “If I can’t sense them-” Rainbow Dash stopped talking. She’d heard the buzzing of wings nearby.

Through the pitch black, a purple glow seemed to be drawing closer. Soon they could see it was one of the changelings from the hive that had foalnapped them.The glow was emanating from a similarly hued flame around its horn. The changeling increased its intensity when it landed, allowing Rainbow Dash and Twilight to actually see their surroundings somewhat, though they had already accurately guessed at what they would be. It told them that the lump of purple goop was now sitting at the bottom of a stone cavern. Beyond that was an empty black void.

The changeling was carrying two carrots. It looked at them and cocked its head to one side. “Who is the pony?” it asked.

“We’re not telling,” Rainbow Dash said in Twilight’s voice.

“You’ll have to figure it out on your own,” Twilight said sternly.

“Fine. Share the food.” The changeling walked over and roughly stuffed one carrot into each their mouths, then flew off again, leaving them in the dark.

Hungry, Twilight ate hers quickly but carefully so she wouldn’t drop it. Rainbow Dash twisted her neck around as much as she could. “Heeh” she mumbled.

“Huh?”

“Ake iht”

“Oh,” Twilight said. She turned about until she found the other carrot and took it. She quickly devoured that one too. “Thanks.”

“You need it more than me,” Rainbow Dash said.

“So how are you doing?”

“Okay,” Rainbow Dash lied. She was starving, this far away from other ponies. Twilight’s presence was surely helping but she’d be in serious trouble if they didn’t find a way out of there soon. “That was rather interesting, though. I can sense changelings but only when they are feeling something.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I got a few blips from that one but most of the time it was like he wasn’t even there.”

“Huh.”

“How long do you think it will take them to find us? I figure we’ll be lucky if there is any flesh left on our bones by then.”

“I’m sure Princess Celestia is doing everything in her power to find us and we’ll be rescued in no time.”

        “I just wish there was something. Some clue to what happened here,” Shining Armor said, frustrated. He had spent the last hour searching the room several times over but hadn’t found anything.

        “We don’t even know if they were here or not when they went missing,” Spike said. “They might have gone out without anypony seeing and just haven’t come back yet because they’re having so much fun.”

        “Then why are their things not here?”

        “Right. I guess I’m just scared. What... what if we can’t find them?”

        “I know I’ll find them, even if I have to turn this whole city upside down. I-” Shining Armor stopped because a commotion outside the room was drawing his attention. He looked out to see an earth pony guard and a pegasus guard were both dragging a blue and green unicorn towards the door.

        “We caught this one snooping around,” the earth pony guard said, forcing her into the hotel room. The poor unicorn was petrified. They were dragging her simply because she seemed to have lost the ability to move her legs.

        “I’ll handle it,” Shining Armor said, dismissing the guards with a wave of his hoof. Without their support she nearly fell over but Spike was there to hold her upright. “You’re not in any trouble. We just want to know who you are why you’re here is all. Everything will be okay.”

        “I... I just wanted to talk with the ponies in this room,” the unicorn said finally. “My name is Meadow Breeze.”

        “You saw them?” Spike exclaimed.

        “Do you know where they went? They’ve gone missing and we need to find them,” Shining Armor explained.

        “Oh... I thought you had arrested them or something when I saw all the guards.”

        “Why would I arrest my sister?” Shining Armor asked, almost laughing as he did so.

        “Because one was a changeling,” Meadow Breeze replied.

        “Huh?” Shining Armor asked, alarmed.

        “Yeah, we found out Rainbow Dash is a changeling. Twilight hasn’t been home long enough to explain it to me but she did say she’s basically a good changeling who thought she was a pony her whole life,” Spike explained.

        “A good changeling? I’ll believe that when I see it,” Shining Armor spat, causing Meadow Breeze to noticeably cringe.

        “You’ll have to ask Twilight when we find her. And Princess Celestia still trusts Rainbow Dash so you should too,” Spike said sternly.

        “Dash? Who is she again? The name is familiar.”

        “She’s a pegasus. Blue. Rainbow mane. Was a bridesmaid at your wedding. Did the sonic rainboom.”

        “Now I remember.”

        “But you saw them. Did they do anything strange?” Spike asked Meadow Breeze.

        “Would everything count? They asked me all these strange questions. I got scared and kind of... teleported away. I decided to come back today but those mean ponies grabbed me before I could go back downstairs.”

        “Is there anything you can tell us? Anything at all? Does anything in this room look off to you?” Shining Armor asked in rapid succession. “The slightest thing might be what we need to find them.”

        Meadow Breeze looked around politely. She barely remembered anything. She’d been far too terrified at the time. It was mostly a blur. “I don’t... wait...” She sniffed the air. “It didn’t smell like this last night.”

        Spike and Shining Armor both inhaled as well.

        “I don’t smell anything, do you?” Spike asked.

Shining Armor shook his head. “Something only you can smell? What could that be?”

“It’s... changeling pheromone,” Meadow Breeze said quietly. “Not many ponies can smell it.”

“Well Rainbow Dash was here,” Spike said. “I might be her you’re smelling.”

“It’s not her,” Meadow Breeze replied. “This smells different. Way different. Its really strong too.”

“This means that changelings are responsible!” Shinging Armor declared. “And you can track them!”

“How? It doesn’t smell like this anywhere else in the hotel that I’m aware of,” Meadow Breeze explained. “It’s too windy outside, I think.”

“Are you sure? You just might not have noticed it,” Spike suggested.

“This is really strong. I would have noticed it sooner.”

“Still, this is a lead. Would you please assist us in finding my missing sister and her friend?” Shining Armor asked.

“Of course I will. I really need to talk with them.”

“About what?” Spike asked bluntly.

“I just... well... it’s about... it’s complicated,” Meadow Breeze finally said.

        “Something’s been bothering me,” Rainbow Dash said suddenly, breaking the past hour of silence.

        “Oh?”

        “Meadow Breeze said she nearly died as a foal. That’s really been bugging me.”

        Twilight was really interested now. “Did you have a similar experience?”

        “You could say that.”

        “Do you want to share it?”

        “I might as well, seeing as we’re probably not going to make it out of here. At least one of you girls should know my story. I didn’t die, or even nearly die, it was more, if I had been in the place I was supposed to be... well...

        “It all started in some village whose name I can’t remember now where I was born. My dad was a former earth pony racer named Spectrum Charge and my mom was a farmer called Posey. You can probably guess from that, that I took after my dad a lot. They were really surprised, I was the first pegasus in the whole family.”

        “As soon as I could fly, I didn’t ever want to stop. Mom would say she had to practically strap me down to get me to go to bed. Every day I was out flying. But one day there was this big storm. We didn’t have weather ponies out there so it was kind of like the Everfree Forest. When I say bad, I mean a hundred times worse than the worst storm we’ve ever had in Ponyville.

        “I was out flying when it happened. I tried to fly home but the wind knocked me off course. I couldn’t figure out where I was after that so I hid somewhere and waited for it to pass. That part’s still a total blur. I must have fallen asleep at some point because the next thing I knew it was the next morning and all the clouds were gone.

        “Some weather ponies had been sent from Cloudsdale to help with the clean up. They saw me flying and helped me find my way home. When I got there...” Rainbow Dash stopped talking. Her face was soaked with tears and her words were almost incomprehensible.

        “It’s okay, Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said. She leaned back and pressed her head against Rainbow Dash’s. She was unable to do anything else, but she desperately wanted to comfort her friend with an embrace.

        After a few minutes, Rainbow Dash had calmed down enough to continue. “When... when I got home, I saw that the roof had fallen in. With my parents inside.”

        “I’m so sorry,” Twilight said softly. “How old were you?”

        “It was about fifteen years ago so... about one. I think, I’m not really sure what my birthday is. I’ve always used the day I lost my parents. I was too young to remember it, if I ever knew it. I could always try and find my birth certificate but ‘things’ got in the way.”

        “That’s awful.”

        “I was really lucky. One of the pegasi who found me, his... brother? Well one of his relatives, was the dean at the Cloudsdale Flight School. He was able to get me early admittance and since it was a boarding school, it meant a place to live. I stayed there for a while but dropped out. I moved to Ponyville and became a weather pony. You know the rest.”

        “Is... is that why you didn’t want me seeing your memories?”

        “I have enough nightmares about it.”

        “Well I don’t think I need to see them now. You miss them too much for the memories to be fake.”

        “It could all be a lie though. You said it yourself, memories can be erased or faked.”

        “You can fake a memory but you can’t fake feelings. I think the most likely scenario is they found you as a newborn, either looking like you normally do, or you shapeshifted into it later, and they raised you as their own.”

        “I just wish I could know for sure.”

        “How come you never told us before?” Twilight asked.

        Rainbow Dash was quiet for a long time. Twilight wondered if she had offended her or something but she finally spoke. “Because I don’t like thinking about it. Because every time I told somepony it ended badly for me. Most either babied me or teased me. Gilda was the first who didn’t seem to care and that was perfect for me. I just didn’t feel like telling you. Fluttershy knows too, but that’s because the jerks at school wouldn’t shut up about it.”

        “I won’t tell the other girls if you don’t want me to.”

        “Thanks,” Rainbow Dash said, half sighing it.

        “Since we’re sharing,” Twilight said shrewdly. “Do you want to know why I erased my own memory?”

        “I thought you said you didn’t know why.”

        “I may have lied a bit.”

        Rainbow Dash chuckled. “So why did you?”

        “It was right after my brother was married. I went to congratulate them one more time before we went home. I... kind of walked in on them... enjoying each other’s company... ”

        “Twilight, you dork!”

        “I don’t think they saw me. The first thing I did was run to the Canterlot library, look up a memory spell and cast it on myself.”

        “So how do you know what happened?”

        “I wrote myself a note so I wouldn’t make the same mistake again. I basically told myself not to see Shining Armor and Cadance because they are doing things and that I had erased my memory of the event.”

        “Wow, Twilight, that is so something you would do.”

        “What’s that supposed to mean?”

        “Oh, you know.”

        “Hey, Sweetie Belle, what’s wrong?” Scootaloo asked. The unicorn crusader had been quietly staring off into space all day long.

“Huh? Oh, sorry, I’ve just been thinking,” Sweetie Belle said, momentarily snapping out of it. “Scoots, I think Rainbow Dash really is a changeling.”

        “Not this again,” Scootaloo groaned.

        “Ah told you Ah heard what Ah heard,” Apple Bloom said fiercely.

        “And what exactly did you see or hear that convinced you? Did you actually hear or see her say it?” Scootaloo asked, still not believing a word of it.

        “Okay, so, Spike’s been staying with me and Rarity for the past couple days. This morning he got a letter saying Twilight and Rainbow Dash had gone missing in Manehatten. Rarity made me leave the room but I listened from the door:

        “Oh man, what could have happened?” Spike said, sounding very worried.

        “What were they even doing there? I thought they were in Los Pegasus,” Rarity replied.

        “Didn’t I tell you? Twilight said another unicorn had gone missing there while looking for changelings so they’re going to try and find him,” Spike explained.

        “You don’t suppose... Rainbow Dash is behind this?”

        “Why would she do that? She’s a good changeling.”

        “I’m aware of that, Spike, but we know very little about them. What if a queen ordered her to do it? Would she even be able to say no?”

        “Or she had to so they would both stay alive. I can see that.”

        “Oh I do hope they are both okay,” Rarity said.

        “I’ll let you girls know as soon as I know.”

        “What?”

        “Princess Celestia is sending me to Manehatten to look for them.”

        “Not my Spikie! She can’t be serious, sending a little baby dragon to find his big sister after what’s happened to the others!”

        “I’ll be okay!” Spike said, sounding like he was struggling to move something or squeeze through a tight area. “She’s sending Twilight’s brother and a whole platoon of guards with me. We’ll find them in no time.”

        “I stopped listening after that and went upstairs to get ready,” Sweetie Belle finished. “Now we have Rarity, Applejack, and Spike, all calling her a changeling.”

        “I still won’t believe it until I hear it from her,” Scootaloo said defiantly.

        “Yer more stubborn than mah sis when somepony questions her work ethic!” Apple Bloom declared.

        “I just want absolute proof is all. Is that too much to ask?” Scootaloo replied.

        “So ask her!” Sweetie Belle said.

        “I will!”

        “Fine!”

        “Fine!”

        “Girls, quiet down!” Ms. Cheerilee called from the front of the class.

        “Sorry, Ms. Cheerilee,” they said together.

        “Rainbow Dash, come home,” Scootaloo whispered to herself before returning to diligently not taking notes.

        “We’ve got to figure a way out of here,” Twilight declared.

        “I’m all ears for suggestions,” Rainbow Dash replied.

        “Um... well this goo isn’t so sticky any more, just hard. Do you think you could make yourself bald and hornless? It should slide right off then.”

        “And what exactly would that accomplish?” Rainbow Dash asked irately.

        “You would be able to use magic then.”

        “I can’t use magic!”

        Twilight snorted loudly. “Rainbow, you can. You and I both saw Meadow Breeze teleport, and you yourself used it before to stop me from seeing your memories.”

        “But that was an accident. I definitely wasn’t trying to use magic. What would it do anyway? This stuff is magic proof.”

        “Since they spit it up, it’s likely highly soluble in water,” Twilight explained. “You could conjure some water to free us. Or at least my horn so I could help.”

        “Twilight, how long did it take you to learn that spell?” Rainbow Dash asked in a patronizing tone.

        “It only took me a few minutes to learn how to conjure water, though I did already know how to conjure other things,” Twilight replied in an annoyed tone.

        “And how long did that take?”

        “Umm... it was back when I was living in Canterlot, so with the Princess’s help, about two days to get it totally right, though I could actually get it to work after a few hours.”

        “And multiply that by like four for me since you can’t even show me how to do it, then add about a million more hours because I don’t know the first thing about magic.”

        “That’s my only idea at the moment. Do you have a better one?” Twilight asked snidely.

        “Hmmm,” Rainbow Dash hummed. “You said this stuff dissolves in water?”

        “It is highly likely, yes.”

        “Can’t we just lick it away then?”

        “Eww! They basically puked this stuff up, and you want to lick it? Anyway, it would take a while even if we did. They would certainly notice before we could get totally free.”

        “What if we got your horn free? Could you summon enough water to get us out then?”

        “And how are we supposed to do that? We’re back to back and can’t move.”

        “Oh just tilt your head back. I’m going to see just how far I can push my shapeshifting.”

        “Now there’s an idea! How about you get so big you can break us out!”

        “I can’t. Changing size is really hard, and I might not be able to get back to my normal size, or so I’ve been told, and I can’t get bigger than I am right now. Are you doing it yet?”

        “I’m leaning back, but what is this going to accomplish?” Twilight asked. She was answered by a burst of blue light from behind her, followed by something nosing at the back of her head. “What are you doing?”

        “What do you think? I’m going to try and pry the gunk off your horn.”

        “Be careful!” Twilight whined.

        “I’m not going to break your horn. And even if I do, it’ll grow back.”

        “And I won’t be able to cast magic until it does.”

        “I’ll be gentle.” Rainbow Dash finally located Twilight’s horn in the black void and gave the goo a tentative taste. “Hey! This stuff tastes pretty good!”

        “Eww!”

        “No, really! It’s like a lollipop, though I can’t figure out what flavor.”

        “Spit?”

        “It’s not like anything I’ve had before. Just stay still and I’ll have you free in no time.”

        “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” Shining Armor groaned. They had spent all day walking around the city with Meadow Breeze, hoping she would smell the changelings but so far she hadn’t caught a whiff. They were currently by the wharf, though it was fairly empty because most of the dock workers had gone home. They would have to turn in soon too; the sun was about to set.

“This is our only lead. It has to work!” Spike said.

“Hmmm,” Meadow Breeze said suddenly. Both of the boys turned and stared at her expectantly. “I think...” She began walking off in one direction, towards the edge of the wharf.

        “Do you have something?” Shining Armor asked.

        “Maybe...” Meadow Breeze found a cement staircase that took them down closer to the water. She went down it and kept walking.

        “Could they be underwater?” Spike asked.

        Meadow Breeze didn’t reply but kept walking along the narrow walkway. They walked for some distance before coming to a massive drainage pipe sticking out of the cement wall of the wharf.

        “They’re in here,” Meadow Breeze declared.

        “There? Are you sure? Could you be smelling something else?” Shining Armor asked.

        Meadow Breeze shook her head. “I’m sure of it. I could smell it earlier and its strongest in here.”

        “And Rainbow Dash?”

        Again, she shook her head. “Its too overwhelming. I can’t smell anything else,” she said, hoof over her nose. “They probably come in and out of here, or maybe another entrance. Either way, they have to be in here.”

        “This makes sense, have the hive right under the city. Guards, cockatrice formation,” Shining Armor ordered. The guards complied, forming a circle around Spike, Shining Armor, and Meadow Breeze, each facing in such a way that each pony was being watched by another.

“I think I’ll go back to the hotel and wait,” Meadow Breeze said.

“I can’t allow that,” Shining Armor replied sharply. Meadow Breeze began charging a teleport spell. “If you go back, I can’t guarantee your safety. Given that two court mages have already been taken, you are safer with us than anywhere else in this city,” he explained.

“Okay...”

Slowly they walked into the drain pipe and into the murky wet underground of Manehatten.

        If you like this story, you should check out some of my other works:

        My tumblr, an alternate universe mixing MLP and Cyborg 009.
        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.