//------------------------------// // The Awakening II // Story: The Winds of Change // by AgentSnail //------------------------------// The Awakening II Jason jolted awake, looking around quickly. Something was wrong. The ceiling was white. The floor was white. The walls were white. Jason hated the color white. He noticed that there was a blanket over his lower body, over top of the softest bed he had ever felt. "No way..." He whispered to himself. Then he tried to move his arms. They were tied to the bed posts. "There's always got to be a catch." He tried pulling harder on the ropes, but nothing happened. "Well, that was anticlimactic." He tried to figure out some sort of elaborate scheme for escape, but nothing came to mind. He was already getting bored. "At least my legs aren't tied...that would be beyond weird." He tried to sit up, but immediately slumped back down, feeling huge pain in his chest. He argued with himself for a moment over whether or not he should look, before curiosity won and he looked down. He wished he hadn't. There was a huge crack in his chitin, and every time he moved, or even took a breath, the crack slid around, extremely painfully. So he did the only sensible thing a human minded changeling can do in that situation. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" He touched the crack. It moved a little. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" Rainbow dash walked in, looking tired and pissed, and stared at the changeling. Jason turned and saw her. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" He struggled backwards, hitting his head on the bed frame. The crack on his face shifted. Instead of yelling some more, a feeling of heavy nausea fell over him and he got as close to the side of the bed as he could and retched repeatedly. Nothing came up. He got tired as the last of any adrenaline he had had in his system wore off, and he slouched back, coming to grips with his injuries. He stared at Dash, who looked like she was getting the courage up to speak. A strange thing for her to do realistically. Needing to gather courage, that is. "Hey, um, sorry for beating you up yesterday..." She said. Jason looked at her, a puzzled expression on his face. "What, that's it?" She looked at him, a confused expression on her face. "You're just going to forgive ME? A changeling, a sworn enemy of the land of Equestria?" "Well, after you saved my life, or at least my leg, and then I beat the crap outta you, it was really the least I could do, bringing you here." Now it was Jason's turn to look confused. He was surprised enough that someone had taken him in and helped, but from the element of loyalty? No way this was real. "So, If you owe ME, why am I tied to the bed here?" He asked, sounding annoyed. "Well, I don't know if I can really trust you to not, you know, seek revenge, and kill me." she replied. "Oh no, THE Rainbow dash is afraid of changelings..." he teased. "How do you know my name?" she narrowed his eyes. "Um, the fact that I'm a changeling might have helped that." He chuckled. "Oh..." she seemed to be at a loss for words. "Can I get a mirror or something? It's kinda hard to concentrate when all I can think of is this crack in my face." 'Never thought I'd say that before...' Dash got up and went through a door. Well, really more of a hole in the wall, cloud house and all, and returned a few seconds later with a handheld (hoofheld?) mirror. "Here. Just put it into my hoof." "Into...Oh! Derp. The holes..." Jason nodded, and she slipped it through. He examined himself. There was a crack running up most of the side of his chest, along with the one on his face, which ran from just above his jaw line to his eye. Both were caked with blood. "Well let me be the first to say that I look like complete and total shit." He continued to look himself over, before handing the mirror back. "Thanks." he said. As Dash retrieved her mirror, a sharp plastic edge on the handle poked the inside of his hoof. "AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!" He flailed his hoof around, managing to dislodge the offending object. "Holy fuck that hurt." Dash looked like she felt guilty. Jason knew, because he could feel that she felt guilty. He didn't think he would ever get over this whole, sensing emotions thing. "Oh crap! Sorry, did I do that?" "No, but for future reference, these things are sensitive." "How did you not know that already?" "Do you think I just sit around all day and put things through my hooves?" She didn't respond. He chuckled at the mental image. "Anyway, why are you keeping me here? It's not like I can really do anything tied to the bed like this..." "Okay." Jason looked at her, she seemed to be having a battle with herself over what to say. "Okay, here's the deal. I'll let you stay, on account of you trying to save me, but you're going to have to tell me everything, and if you go back to being a regular changeling, I swear..." "I never was a regular changeling." Jason blurted out, before he could catch himself. Dash looked at him wide eyed, waiting for a follow up. Finding none, she spoke up. "What do you mean? Were you always trying to help ponies? Is that what you mean by 'not normal?'" Jason was torn on what to do. He could tell her literally everything, or he could make more things up about his life as a changeling. Deciding that he apparently sucked at the whole 'making up a backstory' thing, and his full backstory would come out anyway, he decided to risk banking towards the other solution, accepting the idea that she may think he was crazy. She had already accepted a changeling into her home after all. "No," he started, "I literally wasn't a changeling." She looked bemused. "Oh, ha ha, very funny." She saw Jason's serious look, though, and froze. "You're serious, aren't you...were you a pony before all of this? "Um...no" This was going to be harder than he thought. "Do you know what a human is?" "Oh, yeah, I think there was a group of them that lived to the north of Equestria, at least before they were wiped out by the Griffins. Primitive little guys, those. Twilight taught me about them. They were briefly referenced in a Daring Doo book. Not that I study all the time or anything." She looked around nervously, seemingly afraid that someone would see her. "Anyway, I don't see why that's--" She turned to him. "No..." "Unfortunately, yes. Weirder still is that I come from a different planet." He sighed. "And now I'm stuck here." "Yeah right... I guess I could understand the human part, but the different planet part: not so much. Good try though." She looked away, chuckling. "I can prove it." Jason blurted out. She turned back to him, and smiled. "Go ahead, prove me wrong." "Get me something to write on." She fetched him a clipboard and some paper, along with a pencil. Picking up the pencil in his magical grip, he proceeded to draw a map of the world, to the best of his ability. The levitation part seemed to improve his drawing skill, but only barely. Jason named all the continents, drew a few country borders, and showed him the location of his home, along the North American pacific coast. She Laughed. "You're going to need more than just a few names to make me believe you." Jason thought for a moment. "Well, that complicates things, I guess, but I'll keep trying." he named several countries, explained their current political regimes, leaders, etc, before he explained his life up until he was transported to Equestria. He looked up to see a dumfounded Dash. "Okay I believe you." "Really?" "Yeah, you said all of that without even skipping a breath. Only a completely and totally insane person could come up with their own world and know that many details about it, and frankly, you just don't look like you're that insane." "That insane?" "You're still pretty weird." Jason gave her an annoyed look. She laughed. "Well anyway, now since you believe me, I can tell you about some cool stuff. Much cooler than what I have been talking about at least. Drumroll please." He paused, formulating his thoughts. "You, as Rainbow Dash, like fast things, right? "Well yeah, of course." "And you're well aware of how humans are slow, almost comically so?" "Ya..." she replied, unsure of where Jason was going. "Well, to combat this slowness, the humans on my world built machines to speed up travel, and I figured you'd be interested in them, in terms of speed if not anything else." "Would I ever! It's not everyday that you meet an alien with entirely new ways get around quickly. It's a lot better than listening to stuff about boring old pegasus flight. That's really the only fast way of getting around here..." "Glad you feel that way. Lets see... first off, we had cars, which were like big, metal machines that powered themselves, and drove on wheels." He started to draw one on the clipboard. "Some--" "How fast are they?" she asked, exited. Jason laughed. "I was getting to that. Anyway, a fair amount of these cars are slow, economical cars, just for getting people around." She sighed. "For the record, those tend to go to a little over one hundred miles per hour. Then there are sports cars, which are a step up, and then super cars. The fastest one right now, I think, is the Bugatti Veyron Super Sport, maxing out at a little over two hundred and fifty miles per hour. And it's road legal, if that means anything to you. Here's a kinda good drawing of it." It was actually pretty good, which was strange, because it had always been an ongoing joke with his friends about how even his stick-men looked strange. "On the GROUND?!?! How is that possible?" "Big engines. The Veyron has over a thousand, you'll get a kick out of this, horse-power. You should know more than anyone that at those speeds air resistance is like plowing through a wall, and then some. It doesn't help that they have to install parts on the car to take the air rushing past and push the car into the ground, because otherwise it would just fly up into the air from all of the lift it creates." He chuckled. Another funny mental image. "Wow. I mean, I've gone faster, but something that big traveling at those speeds, it's nothing short of incredible! It'd be cool to go to your world and try some of those things, I have to say." "There are some other pretty amazing ones that are mainly based on acceleration, rather than top speed. One of these, called the Ariel Atom V8, or something like that, goes from zero to sixty miles per hour in one point eight seconds, and all it does in the process is remove your face!" She stared at him, looking mortified. "That was a joke..." He heard a sigh of relief. "Something that heavy can accelerate that fast?" "Yeah. It's pretty weird, speeding up that fast. It's like taking off in a rocket." "Ooh, what's that? How fast does that go?" "Remind me to tell you later." "Awww..." "Don't worry, I haven't even gotten to the best part yet: planes." "You mean that you people got flying machines working? Awesome!" She was getting a little Pinky-esque. "Yeah, they have these really powerful engines that allow them to take off, because unlike you, planes were never able to hover. At least, until recently. They have stationary wings." he started sketching another picture. "Well how do they fly? Seems like you're trying to pull a fast one on me," she said. "You can't fly without flapping wings." "All you need is enough velocity. You get to like, mach one right, top speed?" "Huh?" "The speed of sound?" "Oh, yeah. It's called a sonic rainboom. It's really awesome!" "So I've heard." he chuckled. "We have those where I come from, except without the colors. Some of the fastest military jets reach speeds of, dramatic pause, mach four or five." Dash's Jaw dropped. She quickly noticed, and replied "How is that possible?!?! How do they not tear themselves apart?" "I dunno, I'm not a jet expert. Here's a picture." "Wow, you just blew my mind. That's just insane! I want to fly so bad right now!" Her stomach grumbled loudly. "Well, maybe later, I guess I am pretty hungry." She started to leave the room before face-hoofing, and turning back around. "Ok, well, I'm probably going to regret this later," She came over and untied the restraints, helping Jason up from the bed. "Want some food?" His stomach grumbled. "Hell yes." Dash laughed and walked out of the room and down a flight of spiral stairs. Jason followed her, but stopped a few steps down, feeling a little dizzy. "Well, shit." His vision darkened as the blood ran out of his head. His eyes shut off entirely, while he tried to stick a hoof to the wall, which apparently wasn't where it was a minute ago. He lost all remainders of his balance, and proceeded to roll down the stairs. Still conscious, he couldn't help but think about how soft the stairs were, before crashing into a much less soft pillar at the bottom. He regained his vision after a moment. "Think on the bright side, Jason," he said to himself. "Holy shit I got down those stairs fast." 'There we go, I feel better already.' Rainbow dash was looking down at him. "What happened?" she sounded worried. "Well when I got up, basically my heart wasn't ready for the shift in height and the necessary adjustment in blood flow, and coupled with how much less blood I had, it didn't end well. If that makes sense." "Oh...yeah, sorry again." she paused. "So Jason eh?" 'When did I... oh yeah, just a second ago. Yeah." "Hmm, a strange name, but I like it. Let's go eat." They got up to go into the kitchen. Dash went and grabbed a few random food items from something that looked a lot like a fridge, although how something made out of cloud could function mechanically was beyond him. She came over to a cloud table and sat down, gesturing for Jason to join her. He pulled out one of the cloud chairs and sat down, staring hungrily at the food. "You know what, Jason," Dash started. He looked up. "You're not half bad."