(Moar Catalyst stuffs.)
“Stuff? I see. And we have a Changeling in the house, why?”
“Ace, meet Catalyst. You probably know him as Quill.”
“Right. Well, how about I leave, and come back when there’s less weird shit going on.” Before he could turn around, though, Twilight’s horn glowed, and the door closed behind the surprised stallion. “Twi? What’s going on here?”
“Ace, we need to talk. About you.” The stallion stood where he was, and you just kept looking at him, contemplating the best way to go about this whole plan of yours. It was quite clear that an attack wouldn’t work, since that would just make it harder to accomplish what you were hoping to do. With a small groan, you got up from your seat, and you began walking towards the pegasus.
“Ace, I know that this is quite a bit to take in, but I need you to stay calm, and listen to me.” The stallion’s eyes grew wider as you approached, but he didn’t move. The red section of his irises started to waver, and you knew that was a bad sign. Even without the ability to see the magic within his body, you knew that this wasn’t going to end well. “Please, I’m just trying to help. The Princess sent me.”
“No, she wouldn’t. The Changelings are the enemies of the princesses.” He took his first step back, and you knew at that moment that this wouldn’t go peacefully. He was too tense, and he wasn’t listening to you. His fear at what you are is forcing his mind into a fight of flight manner of thinking.
“Ace, calm down. There’s something wrong with you, and I need you to be calm for me to fix it. I think that Discord-” A hoof connected with your head, sending you spinning across the room. A solid impact signaled your landing, and a lance of pain flew up your spine. You looked towards the blue pegasus, and his irises were almost entirely red.
“Discord is naught but a pawn! The master has chosen me as his star pupil! I, and I alone, was given the gift of eternity! This worthless form means nothing, and with it I can do whatever I wish! Not even your princess saw through my ruse, so what hope do you pathetic ponies have?” He looked over at you, and his lips curled up into a mockery of a smile. “And you, pathetic creature. The Princesses were right to kill off your kind. So much potential in what you are, and yet you cast it aside for the goal of Canterlot. Such potential! It’s sickening to think that your kind couldn’t see what you could’ve done.
"But my master. He is wiser than all the rest. While your princesses would force you to your natural lives, my master would see us all ascend into god-hood!” You struggled to your hooves, and you quickly built up a charge in your horn. You grimaced as you saw your tiny mental timer rapidly drop as you allowed your magic to cast words to the mind of the lavender mare. A subtle shift of her eyes in your direction acted as all the confirmation you needed. “Think of it. You, Twilight Sparkle. Imagine being the goddess of magic! All the knowledge you could ever hope for, right at your hooves. The works of Starswirl would pale in comparison to what you would do. Applejack, the hardest worker in all of Ponyville.” A grunt forced itself past your lips as you launched yourself forward, your magic propelling you faster than the eye could follow.
The impact knocked your breath out of you, but you managed to wrap your hooves around the postulating pegasus, the two of you slamming into the wall. A hoof connected with your gut, but still you held on, the charge in your horn growing quickly, supplemented by the raw magic provided by the lavender mare. As the charge reached its maximum, you unleashed a bolt of energy into the pegasus, hoping that it would be enough to knock him out, if nothing else.
It would seem that fate had other plans for you, as the magic you unleashed into the pegasus did exactly what you intended, and then a bit more than that. The entity that was sharing Ace’s body had been working its own spell, and it had released the magic at the same time as you had, creating a battle of magical willpower. A fight that you had absolutely no chance of winning. To you it felt like hours of magical sparring, each variation to your spell matched and countered by the entity. Had you not been fearing for each bit of magic you spent you likely could have won in moments, but as it was you were taking a minimalist approach.
In a brief bout of superior strategy on your part, you broke through the walls of the entity’s defenses. A move which ultimately cost you more than you thought it could.
A dying pony is truly a terrible thing to behold, as they draw their last breaths, and their mind desperately reaches out for something to cling to in its last moments. For earth ponies and pegasi this takes the form of a last twitch of the body, or a last bout of mental clarity, taking the form of final words. In a unicorn, though, it can take the form of a last spell. A spell with very few magical boundaries. Spells that would kill the pony casting them. A spell like complete memory transfer.
/\/\/\ Twenty Years Ago /\/\/\
You looked at your mother, tears leaving streaks in your red coat. She was lying in a small heap on the floor, her coat already discoloring from the violent throes of your father’s drunken rages. Her ragged breaths came side by side with groans of pain. Your hooves sounded like a dirge on the tile floor as you approached. Her head twitched in your direction as you grew closer, and it was only once she looked at you that she actually began crying. Whether because she was finally realizing you were there, or because of her injuries, or because of your question, you never knew. Even with your ignorance, you always thought it was the last reason.
“Why does daddy hit you?” In all the times that you’d seen this happen, and it happened almost every week, you had never asked her a question. You had always just stayed by her side, giving her what comfort you could in silence. Now, though, you had asked the question that had been burning in your mind since you were old enough to know what all the words meant, and what was actually happening.
For almost three hours you stayed by her side, and not once did either of you speak. She never mentioned your question again, that year. Or the next. She never mentioned your question again for almost fifteen years. And you never asked it again, fearing what the answer could be.
“This is what I ran from.”
/\/\/\ Seventeen Years Ago /\/\/\
The crack echoed in your mind for minutes after the actual sound had long since died. The warmth against your face was spotty, and you knew that it was blood. Hidden against your red coat, but still visible if you knew to look for it. Itchy, your friend, stood across from you, the dead stallion between the two of you, his blood draining through the holes on either side of his neck. His horn flickered once, twice, and then a third time, dropping the gun to the ground, its impact barely registering in your mind.
“Red, I… I didn’t mean to…” His words flit through your mind, leaving nothing worth noting in your memory, save for their existence. You brought a hoof up to your cheek, and you rubbed it in a small circle, before pulling it back and looking at it. “Red, I didn’t do it on purpose!” The red liquid slowly trickled off your hoof, each drop landing in the expanding pool of blood on the ground. “We’ve gotta get out of here!” A tugging on your hoof bids you to follow, but you can’t get the look of surprise on that stallion’s face from your mind. You’ll never forget that look.
“I was just eight years old. Itchy was nine.”
/\/\/\ Sixteen Years Ago /\/\/\
The principal gave you a warm smile. It brought a smile to your own face as you looked at the mare with anticipation. The small piece of paper levitated before you, and you snatched it up eagerly with your own magic. It took quite a bit of concentration for you to work your magic, but it worked well enough. As you looked over the paper, you felt your heart begin to soar.
“Is this real?” Your voice shatters the silence, and the principal just gives you a small nod. Her motion was minor, but the look in her eyes said more than any amount of words could ever hope to match. You lunged forward and gave the principal a massive hug, her initial reluctance to return the embrace fading moments later under your onslaught of pure emotional bliss. To see you so happy, she’d have to be a monster to try to ruin the moment.
“It’s real, Red. You did it.” Since the school day was, technically, over, you raced from the school, the distance to your home seeming to just melt away. As you raced up the flights of stairs to your apartment you noticed that you were smiling from ear to ear. The first time in more than two years.
As you threw open the door you were amazed to see both of your parents sitting in the living room, a level of calm pervading over the atmosphere. You proudly moved in front of them, and your mother looked at you, a look of genuine curiosity on her face. Your father, though, seemed only mildly interested.
“Mom, Dad, guess what?”
“What is it, sweetie?” Your mother’s voice always put you at ease when she spoke, and during those few moments when you were actually happy, it just made the mood all the better.
“I finally passed all my classes! The principal pulled me aside after school to give me my report card! I finally did it!”
Your mother opened her mouth to respond, but a harsh glare from your father cut her off. Then, he shifted his gaze to you. “It only took how long?”
“That’s not the point, Dad! I finally managed to pass everything!”
“That is the point!” His voice stopped any response you might’ve had, his volume great enough to force you back a half step. “If you give any pony enough tries, eventually they’ll get it right, no matter how fucking stupid they are! Ever heard that wonderful quote about Shakehoof? Give a hundred manticores a hundred typewriters and eventually they’ll type out all the works of Shakehoof.”
“Dad…”
“No! You’re a failure, and no son of mine.” Your father quickly stood, heading for the door. “I’m going to get a drink.” The door slammed behind him, sending a single hung picture to the floor, the shattering glass being the last thing your father did that day.
“My every accomplishment was made meaningless. Successes turned to failures with just a few words.”
/\/\/\ Five Years Ago /\/\/\
“Red.”
“Yeah, Mom?” You held your mother’s hoof as she slowly died on the hospice bed.
“He did it because you weren’t his. Because he couldn’t have children, we made a deal with the devil. One part of the deal was his kindness.”
“What are you talking about, Mom? Save your strength. You don’t need to waste what you’ve got left rambling for me.”
“No, Red. Listen, please. You’re just a tool for Him. I wish I could warn you, and help you to avoid what will happen, but there’s nothing I can do that could change what’s going to happen.” The heart monitor slowed as you felt her hoof loosen around your own. “No matter what happens, Red, know that I love you. And so did your father. He couldn’t live with what he had to do, so he killed himself. It wasn’t you, it was him.”
“Mom, don’t go.” Your voice cracked as you looked at your mother, her life slowly fading. “Mom, please. I don’t want to be alone.”
As you spoke those last words, her eyes opened wide, and locked with your own. “I’m sorry, Red, but I can’t stay here, and you can’t come with me. He will be all the companionship you’ll need for the rest of your life.” The heart monitor flat lined, and you just sat and listened to the unwavering tone for several long minutes before you left. Nopony tried to stop you. Nopony even noticed you left.
“Alone, at nineteen. Forced into the world on my own.”
/\/\/\ Two Years Ago /\/\/\
You looked at the mares as they walked by, silently hating each and every one of them. None of them knew you, and you didn’t know any of them. But you had to treat them as property, as slaves, in order to build the reputation that was required of you. You masters had been quite clear in what they required of you, and they didn’t react well to failures, of any magnitude.
The massive brick of a pony that they had given you for protection was the closest thing you had to a friend since Itchy. Each day was the same. Find a mare, capture her, and break her will. Turn her into a slave, just like you. A different kind of slave, but a slave none the less.
You hated yourself, and you hated what you did.
But more than either of those, you hated Him.
You wanted to escape more than anything, but the scars along your belly served as a reminder of how He death with attempted escapes. It was all a part of His plan, and so you had to get to the needed point in time for the arrival of the Element, whatever that was.
“I was a tool. It was them or me, and I didn’t know that it was actually always going to be me.”
/\/\/\ A Few Days Ago /\/\/\
“Red, for your failures, there is but one punishment that will suffice. I tolerated blunder after blunder from you, taking them in stride in hopes that you would improve. Clearly, I was mistaken. Clearly there really is nothing that can be done to avert the price that you paid in the womb.” A flash of light before your eyes is the last thing you see, but not the last thing you hear. “While I have ended your physical form, I still have a use for your mind. Despite your failings in school, you aren’t stupid. Far from it, in fact. You are likely just as smart as many of the ponies that go to university.
“It’s just a shame that you wasted it all.”
“I HAD NO CHOICE!”
/\/\/\ Now /\/\/\
“I HAD NO CHOICE!” Your voice comes out loud enough to turn your voice hoarse. Several coughs followed your exclamation, and as you opened your eyes you saw the twin golden orbs of Storm’s eyes. You looked down at your hooves and you were thrilled to see that they were those of a Changeling.
“Catalyst, what just happened?” Twilight’s voice comes from somewhere off to your right, but you don’t look at her. You’re still absorbed by the sight of your hooves before you.
“I… I think I just killed a pony.” A humorless laugh escapes you, and you let your head fall back to the floor. “That makes three.” With a thought you access the spell you had cast earlier, bringing up the time you had left before you died of magical starvation.
Just under twenty four hours. A day.
“What do you mean, you killed a pony? Ace is just fine. Unconscious, but otherwise unharmed.” You look at the lavender mare, and then back at the ceiling.
“I didn’t do anything to him, true. But the force that was inside of him? I killed that. As he died he used the last of his magic to force me to relive certain points in his life.” You slowly rolled onto your belly, and then you stood. Your legs were shaky beneath you, but they held. “Now that this is done, I have a day left to fix what I’ve broken.”
“Catalyst,” this comes from the taupe colored stallion of the same name. “From what I know about Rarity, you’ll be hard pressed to win her back in a day. And since your entire relationship was built on lies…”
“I know!” You glare at the stallion for a moment, before you take a deep breath. “I know. But even if I can’t fix it, I want to die knowing that I at least tried to show her what I did, and why I did it.” You take your first step towards the door, and a second follows close behind the first.
As you enter your home, you make sure to take your time, and not rush anything. Wasting energy panicking, or rushing, wouldn’t help you this time. As you entered your room, you grabbed your journal in your mouth. You put it on your desk before you write a heading on the latest page. You look at the blank page for several minutes before you begin writing. Each word prompts the next, and soon you have the whole page covered. And shortly afterwards, the next page.
The last lines of the entry, though, seem the most important to you.
I go, now, to what is either the next step for the Changelings, or the end. Either way, I will go doing what I can see as the only right path to take. My actions brought me here, and my actions now will either doom my race, or save it for another generation. I will write no more in this book until tomorrow. Should nothing follow, I failed. Should something follow? Well, we’ll just have to see.
You grabbed the journal in your mouth, and then you went down to the door to your home. It was a long trip across Ponyville, and the odds of being spotted were so great that you doubt you’d be as lucky as you were for the trip from the Library to your home.
(Hope you liked it. History will be starting next chapter.)