//------------------------------// // The Awakening // Story: The Winds of Change // by AgentSnail //------------------------------// Chapter 1: The Awakening Jason drew a ragged breath as he began to think again. "Ugh, my back" His back hadn't hurt this much in a long time, he thought. But wait, he was under the impression that in order to think, he would have to be a living being. 'How could I have survived that? There's no way that's possible, even if I was wearing a seatbelt.' He thought. Jason continued to lay on the ground, starting to become aware of his situation. Two things he knew for sure, he wasn't on the road or in a hospital bed, and it almost sounded like he could hear wildlife. Was he off the side of the road? How could he have possibly gotten thrown that far? Last thing he remembered, he was in the fast lane. And yet, he didn't feel hurt, just the opposite in fact. He felt fine, better than he had before the crash. His bum shoulder didn't hurt anymore, something he hadn't gotten a break from in years. Sure his back was a little sore, but that would probably wear off. The early afternoon sun's rays warmed his body as he decided that he may as well have a look around. He opened his eyes, flinching from the sudden influx of light. Managing to open his eyes long enough to adjust, he attempted to move his limbs, but immediately thought that maybe he wasn't as uninjured as he had previously thought. A black blurry cylinder in front of his face moved. Instinctually he tried to get away from the thing, and found that it had come with him. He tried to smash it with his other hand, but was greeted by another blurry cylinder of the same, matte black color. He tried to grab one with his fingers, but nothing happened. Flailing the cylinders around, it took Jason a moment to realize that these things were his arms, so he did the only logical thing, and freaked out. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" he screamed, flailing the appendages around, "WHERE ARE MY HANDS?!?!?! WHERE ARE MY HANDS?!?!" He looked up and was greeted by a blinding sun. He put his arms up to the light, and could clearly see perfectly round holes protruding through them. "WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!?!?! WHAT KIND OF A CAR CRASH WAS THIS?!?!" After twenty or so minutes of yelling and screaming, Jason's logical mind started to regain control, allowing him to at least partially question the scenario. 'So lets see,' he thought after he calmed down, 'I'm not actually in pain from any of these injuries, nor am I even in the same place, so I'm either dreaming or high or in some sort of limbo.' He decided to see if he could find anything more interesting than the field he was in, looking around for signs of civilization. He saw some small plumes of smoke, like one would find from a wood-burning fire, coming from an unknown source behind a small forest. "I shall go that way," he proclaimed, to no one in particular. He tried to stand up, but found that he was unable to, falling on his face. Something else was wrong, of course, because something had blocked him from directly hitting his face. With an air of nervousness, he raised his hand to his forehead and found some sort of jutting, thing. It felt like a horn, but also felt like it was horribly disfigured. Deciding to ignore and suppress the terror and confusion building back up in his body, he dragged himself to a lake, only a few feet away, and looked at his reflection. He flinched and managed to resist the urge to yell for a few more minutes. A matte black face with large fangs stared back at him, with a sharp, ragged horn and bug like wings. Pure blue eyes replaced his old green irises, and didn't seem to have any kind of pupils. His old, human features were gone. His brown hair, his nose, and his ears were all replaced by features of his new body, which was that of a small, black, technicolor horse-like thing. Looking around, the environment seemed to have the same color scheme, with thick outlines and unnaturally bright colors. Jason ran his hoof down a blade of grass, finding that the texture was still the same, even though it looked completely different. "Weird," he exclaimed, continuing to move the grass around. Twenty minutes later, when he was done staring at the surrounding environment, he had come to a conclusion. 'Okay,' thought Jason, 'so this is the reflection of a changeling from that show that I watched a while ago. What was it called?' He shook his head, trying to focus. 'So that reflection is me,' he punched himself 'and this is real, so... um' He was silent for a moment, contemplating the ramifications of this new development. 'So I crashed into another car in a head-on collision, never felt the pain of death, and woke up here, the setting for a TV show about intelligent ponies, with no injuries. Not the worst thing that could happen, I suppose.' He looked at his arm, seeing the ground through its holes. 'Definitely not the best thing though'. "So I'm a changeling," he paused, thinking out loud, "and last time I checked, changelings are arch enemies of ponies. What a gift," he sighed, "and as far as I know, there's no way to get back, no way to see my friends ever again." Jason felt a pang of loneliness, remembering the recent things his friends did together. Then he remembered the "practical joke" that had basically taken his job. 'Maybe this is better off,' he thought, 'after all, most of my ties to that world are gone, and it's not like there's anything I can do to get back, as far as I know.' Deciding he had wasted enough time, Jason got up shakily onto his hooves, ignoring the impulse to freak out again. He started to walk, attempting to emulate the movements of actual horses. Foals walked, what, three minutes after birth? Why couldn't he do the same thing, especially if he had the coordination of a man in his twenties? As he finished the thought he face-planted again, groaning as he swept some of the dirt out of his face. He set off for town yet again, concentrating as he put the hooves forward. At least the back legs were rather easy to control, they were basically like his old legs. The front legs kept moving in strange ways, especially with these stupid backwards facing elbows. He hit the ground again, this time falling onto his shoulder. He sighed, getting up again. After a much larger amount of time than it should have taken, he finally arrived at the edge of the forest, which he assumed was the Everfree. he thought for a moment. "The Everfree," he scoffed, "couldn't possibly be that bad." He realized that he was talking to himself again. He really needed to stop doing that. Without any further thoughts, he entered the forest, immediately annoyed with the multitude of bushes and brambles he was forced to forge a path through. It didn't take him long to realize that while he felt scratching along his skin, he wasn't actually feeling pain. He looked back to see his sides covered with several white scratches, yet no blood. Thinking about the punch before, he couldn't seem to remember much more than a heavy tap, even though he had put a fair amount of power behind the swing. Concluding that his armor, chitin if he recalled correctly, was stronger than he previously thought, he simultaneously decided that he needed a disguise. Actually, that kind of went without saying, but even so. Thinking about the best way to blend in, he immediately thought of a colt. He figured that no one really cared what kids said, the were always pretty much ignored. He knew some kids that got away with saying some really stupid stuff, completely unquestioned by any adults. He figured with all that working for him it would be easy enough for him to stay under the radar. Thinking about the form he wanted, he imagined a dark grey pegasus colt with a lavender mane. Possibly not the best color combination, but then again, at least there weren't any annoyingly bright colors. 'How do I do this?' thought Jason, realizing that he had no idea how to do anything related to changelings. After a few failed attempts involving arm flails and attempts at magic words, he re-imagined the form he had created, concentrating harder this time. He imagined his form changing into the form of the colt. Heatless green flames licked over his body, leaving new fur in its wake. When Jason opened his eyes, he noticed that he was much closer to the ground. "This is weird," he thought, realizing that his voice had become rather high pitched. He hated having such a high pitched voice already. He looked at his flank, seeing the absence of a cutie mark. 'Fine with me,' he thought, 'One less thing to explain.' As an after thought, 'this should be interesting if I meet the CMC', he chuckled. He touched his new fur. "Shit this is soft! I've never felt anything anywhere close to this soft!" He yelled, before realizing that yelling in a hostile forest probably wasn't the best idea. He tripped over a root and hit his face again, groaning into the ground. He shook it off and immediately went back to marveling over his new fur. However, he was still attempting to walk at the same time, and bumped into a low branch. After he was done yelling at himself for getting hurt once again, he realized that he had actually come off completely unscathed. It seemed as if his armor was still under his disguise of the colt. 'Interesting,' he thought, 'I wonder if the horn still works? How did they levitate things in the show?' he didn't know. 'Imagining that they were floating? Yeah that sounds corny enough. I'll try that then.' He closed his eyes, imagined a specific rock floating, and opened his eyes. The rock didn't budge. He tried again, straining harder, with the same results. He figured that somehow he needed to get magic through the horn, he just wasn't sure how exactly. Jason spent a few minutes concentrating on what he wanted to happen before he finally relaxed, annoyed that he couldn't get any spells to work. He shut his eyes and turned, feeling a slightly cold sensation on his forehead. He looked over and saw the same floating rock enveloped in a light green aura. He really didn't know what he'd done exactly, but evidently magic didn't work all that well under pressure. Not without practice, anyway. It was kinda hard to explain something that he had no experience with. Looking up at the space his horn should occupy, he saw a kind of ghost aura of a corresponding green color. "So that still works." He briefly thought about the other spells he could preform, and the rock hit the ground. "I guess it needs some concentration," he chuckled. 'What about wings?' he realized. He twisted his neck to look at his now feathered wings, and sighed. "Why couldn't I have at least had those in my regular form, instead of those bug-like things? Ugh, whatever." He started flexing random muscles in his back until his wings splayed out, with a much smaller wingspan than he had expected. There was no way something like this could actually fly. "Okay..." he said, clearly unimpressed. With another flex, he brought them forcefully down, making him lift slightly off of the ground and throwing him off balance. One thing about wings, they were strange to control, for one thing. There was just no way to describe the sudden addition of limbs, although they definitely weren't comparable to arms in any way. Lifting them back up, and repeating the process, not getting much further than he had the first time. He tried flexing them in different ways, getting them to warp and bend, he assumed to better cup the air. He tried again, furiously concentrating on not only the actual flapping of the wings, but also the new slight warping he needed to create with every flap of his wings. He was able to hover after a few attempts, and slowly gained altitude a few attempts later. Jason steadily improved his abilities in the small clearing, gliding and banking around, until he lost control when he attempted to try what he expected would be an easy trick and smacked into a tree. "Okay," he groaned, "that one hurt." It wash't hard for him to decide to stick to the ground for a while, at least until the trees cleared up. He continued walking, levitating small things from time to time, until he came across a road. "Ponyville, 1/2 mile" read a sign "Awesome," exclaimed Jason, "this is going to be too easy." He couldn't have been more wrong.