//------------------------------// // The New Day // Story: The Winds of Change // by AgentSnail //------------------------------// The New Day The wind rustled in the trees, causing some birds to chirp excitedly. A group of pinecones wobbled in the breeze, one becoming liberated from the group. The wooden torpedo fell from the treetop, gaining speed and creating a slight whistling sound as it descended. Then it contacted Jason's nose. He sprang up in bed, still in a tired stupor, looking for the culprit that had whacked him on the nose. He turned around several times before taking proper note of the bed he had so hurriedly jumped off of, and noticed the pinecone. Evidently some part of his antics had awoken Dash, who was also looking around, trying to figure out what had gotten Jason so riled up. He seemed to relax, and pointed a hoof at the pinecone. "That stupid little piece of shit fell on me." He said. She seemed to think it was hilarious, much to his distain. He retook his spot next to her, attempting to regain some of his damaged pride, and put a hoof around Dash. "You know, you're lucky that I love having you around so much, or I might actually get mad at you." "Aww, come here." She pulled him closer. "I'm sorry for always laughing at your misfortune. You just make it so easy." "Oh, thanks Dash, I feel so much better." He sighed, and a long silence followed. "Hey," he jumped a little at the sudden noise, and looked up at her. "When this is all over, you aren't going to leave, are you?" He laughed before he realized she was serious. "Leave you?" She nodded. "Dash, I would never, ever, leave you. You have nothing to worry about." She snuggled a little closer. "Bad past experiences?" "A few. Apparently most ponies think I'm just a one night stand type of mare. I thought I had some sort of curse for a few years there. Just promise me that you're different, I don't want to be lonely anymore." "Well, I don't exactly know how no one wanted, well, this," he gestured. "Your sense of humor, intelligence, cunning. And to top it all off you're stunning to look at." She blushed. "I guess to answer your request, I promise." She moved her head towards his, and he mirrored the movement. They could feel each other's breath as they got closer, until "Eeewww!" Scootaloo had apparently awoken, much to Jason's distaste, and was now staring at them, a disgusted look on her face. They both pulled away. "Dammit Scootaloo, leave us alone!" She giggled, retreating back to wherever she came from. Jason sighed. "Guess that gives me a good reason to get up." Dash nodded, mirroring Jason's annoyed look. He got up off the bed and pulled her up with a fore hoof, and remembered the intense itch that he had developed. It had gotten worse since yesterday, and had spread up from his fore hooves to his upper chest and neck. He tried to scratch at himself, but nothing seemed to work. He transformed back into changeling form and tried harder. "Itchy?" "Yeah, I have no idea how to stop this though, or why it itches. It's not just the injured one healing, so it can't be that." He whacked his arm sideways into a tree, and heard a disheartening crack. "AAAAAAHHHHHHH-- wait that didn't hurt." He pulled his forearm up to his face, realizing that the itch had improved considerably. "What changed? The itch is gone." he waved his arm around a little until a layer of chitin dropped off his fore arm in two almost perfect halves, landing on the ground. He stared at it for a while, and turned to Dash, then back to the chitin. "Well I'm fine, somehow that didn't hurt." "So, you just lost part of your shell?" "I know as much as you do. Although the itch is gone." He paused. "Maybe it's like a snake shedding it's skin, although I don't know why a changeling would need to do that." He eyed the new chitin, realizing that he could see his face in the new, shiny black armor. As he looked at his reflection, his arm became more dull and quickly became the same matte black as the rest of him. "Well, that was strange." He turned to Dash, who had watched the whole process. "At least I can get rid of this itch now." He walked back to the tree and whacked his other fore arm against the tree at full power, hearing another crack and replicating the arm waves to remove the obsolete chitin. "Scoots, what happened to you?" Dash yelled. Scootaloo's head popped up from behind a pile of blankets on the bed. "Right here, Dash!" Dash recoiled a little from the noise. "Keep it down, kiddo, we don't want anyone to know we're here." She worriedly looked around, hoping nopony had heard Scoots' little outburst. "Okay, I'll try to be quieter." She hopped off the bed and made a bee-line to the new black things with holes in them that somepony had senselessly left laying around. She picked one up, and tried to fit it over her leg, attempting to figure out it's purpose. "What are these, Dash?" "Those are parts of chitin from Jason." Scoots recoiled a little from the chitin she had so quickly put over her leg, apparently reconsidering her decision. "Hey, this gives me an idea. Dash, lift up your fore hoof." She looked confused, but followed his directions. He levitated two of the pieces of chitin over to her lower leg, and fit them overtop her fur. He took some of the twine and secured the makeshift armor in place. "So this is what chitin feels like. I didn't think it'd be so heavy, at least for how thin this is." Jason secured the other set of lost chitin to her other fore hoof, following the same process with the twine. "Punch something, see if it fits alright." She nodded and flew over to another tree, knocking the side of her hoof into the trunk. After she left a fairly large dent in the bark she nodded, impressed, and flew back. "That's some nice stuff you got there. I couldn't feel any of that more than a heavy tap. I wish these holes weren't here though." "Better than nothing, I guess." He turned to Scoots. "Now about you." He looked at the sun for the first time. It looked like it was about ten maybe? He wasn't really sure. "What should we do?" He asked Dash. "I kinda feel like we should just keep her here in the event of an invasion by the griffins. I don't really want her to get hurt, especially if we could've saved her by keeping her here as opposed to bringing her back." "But the problem is about people thinking we foal-napped her, and that would give them a reason to renew the search efforts, along with adding a new crime to the list of things I've supposedly done." "But Jason," Scootaloo had spoken up. "No one is going to notice I'm gone." "What about the orphanage staff? I think they would notice a missing foal." "I haven't lived there for months." Jason stared at her, slightly dumbfounded. "So you've just been living on the streets? What would possess you to do that?" "I hated the orphanage! Everypony hated me being around because I was the only one who ever had any reason to be happy with crusading and all, so after we built the Crusader's Clubhouse, I moved in there." "Why didn't you just ask somepony else for help? Ponyville is filled with nice, charitable ponies." "I didn't want to live off of someone else, okay? The only thing I have left is my pride. My scooter broke last week, and now my pride and my my friends are all that I have left." "Oh, Scoots." He hunched over and pulled her into a hug. "Just ask for help sometimes, okay? You won't lose your pride by not going it alone." He got back up and pulled Dash aside. "What are your thoughts on adoption?" He whispered to her. She looked over, thoroughly surprised. "I guess I didn't give it that much thought, but now that you mention it, it would be a good idea, and Scoots would love living with her idol. But we still have to get back to Ponyville on favorable terms before any of that could even happen, so it's really just a pipe dream." "You're right." he sighed. "But what will we do with Scoots before then?" "I say we keep her here. I mean, this has got to be safer than Ponyville in an invasion. There'd be no reason for the Griffins to send troops in here, it's universally known as extremely dangerous, besides the fact that she has food and shelter, and it's well hidden." Jason chuckled. "I don't get what it is about people thinking this place is so dangerous. I think it's just hyped up fear." He paused. "This brings up the fact that if we did send her back, she'd have nowhere to stay." "So you're saying we should keep her here because it's actually better than what would happen in ponyville?" "Essentially, yes." Jason scratched his chin. "What happens if something goes wrong?" "What do you mean?" "Well, I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that Canterlot will be the Griffin's target, especially since it has the leaders and was the city previously attacked. In that case, what will we do?" "You mean like do we sit here and watch or do we fight?" "Yeah, because if we do fight there's the possibility of injury, death or capture. If neither of us make it back, Scoots is stuck." "Well we can't just stay here and do nothing!" "We also can't take on an army alone!" "What are you guys yelling about?" They both turned to Scootaloo, who had apparently run out of new things to occupy her. "We were trying to figure out what we're going to do if we're captured or killed out there and what happens to you. If we can figure that out and it spells something other than doom for you, you can stay here with us for a while." Her face lit up, then it turned sour, and finally averaged out in the middle. Jason assumed that she didn't know what to think. "So that's a maybe?" "Can you fly, Scoots?" "Well, um..." she looked down at her hooves. "She can't fly." Dash said. "Oh, is that because your wings are small?" "That's what the doctors say." she continued to look at her hooves. "Lets just see if they're right about that." He grinned. Dash turned to him. "How are you going to figure that out?" He gave her a smug expression. "Have you forgotten that you're talking to Ponyville's resident changeling? Well, past resident changeling?" Green flamed flared out from him, leaving another Scootaloo in it's wake. "If I can fly right now, than you should also be able to. It's as simple as that." He stretched the wings out. "These aren't really that small, you know." After finishing his observations, he got the wings into a good launch position, and then started flapping them. Nothing happened, so he gradually sped up his flaps, until he was just barely touching the ground. He started to lift off of the platform, but then stopped flapping and landed, breathing rather heavily. "Tough?" "I started too slowly. I'll just start at as fast of a speed as I can this time. Just hold on." He looked around, noticing a slightly hopeless look on Scootaloo's face. "Why the long face, kiddo?" "You had so much trouble just getting off the ground. What makes you think that I can even do that, let alone fly?" She looked back at her hooves, until Jason put one of his hooves under her chin, pulling her eyes up to meet his. "Everything I do, you can do, because I am you right now, so you should be able to do exactly what I just did. Heres to attempt number two." He got back into his launch position and started fluttering his wings as fast as he could immediately, instead of building up to it. He rose off the platform surface rather quickly, much to the surprise of Scoots. He stopped ascending around twenty feet up, and started moving forward, flying around for a while before gliding back down to the platform, finding Scoots with her jaw open. "How did you do that?" "The real question is, how did you do that?" Why don't you find out?" He transformed back into his regular form. She nodded excitedly and started flapping her wings, making a rather loud buzzing. She had her eyes tightly shut, and didn't realize that she was not actually making progress. Jason dawned a worried expression on his face, and mouthed the words 'why isn't it working' to Dash. Scootaloo opened her eyes and frowned, looking more than a little disappointed. "Why isn't it working?" She mirrored Jason's thoughts, starting to look increasingly depressed, which Jason realized was a stark contrast to Dash's rather happy expression. What did she have to be happy about? "Hey Scoots?" Dash started. "What, Dash?" She sniffled. "Flap your wings in slow motion, Scoots." Scoots nodded and slowly moved her wings upwards, then returned them to their lowered position. Dash smiled wider. "Your problem isn't your wings, Scoots, you aren't flapping them correctly. Do it like this." She ran through the correct motions. Scootaloo still looked disappointed. Chin up, Scoots, this is a good thing!!" "How is it good that I can't fly!?!?" "Oh, well it would be terrible if your wings were actually too small, but in reality, all you have in your way of flying is a slight necessity to change your tactics. You should be excited that you're so close." "You really think so, Dash?" "Of course, Scoots." She paused. "Now, back to what you have to do, you can't just flap them up and down, you have to catch air to push down, and then do the opposite on the way up, otherwise you don't actually achieve anything. Do it a few times." She watched as Scoots ran through the motions, improving the fluidity of them each time. Jason appeared to have gotten bored with the flight school and was strumming at the guitar. "Want to try again Scoots?" She nodded excitedly. "Well, carry on." She stretched out her wings to their full potential, and started flapping them with Dash's advice in mind. She saw the ground slowly move away from her. "Remember Scoots, catch the air with your wings." Scootaloo nodded, and followed the advice, starting to ascend more quickly. She was actually doing it! She was flying! Then, in all of her excitement, she lost her concentration, and the rhythm of her flapping was lost, plummeting her back towards earth. She was falling, the ground was approaching too fast, she tried flapping her wings, but she was slowing down too slowly, she wasn't going to-- The ground stopped moving closer, as she was carefully set down on the platform. She looked up to see a smiling Dash, who she assumed was the one to catch her. "That was a good first try, Scoots. How'd it feel?" "I loved it, it was like riding my scooter, but without being stuck to the ground. I loved it." "Well, that's where I'm going to call this lesson for right now." Scootaloo tried to protest. "No, Scoots. We'll pick up later today, after lunch. Give your wings a rest, and get some food." She looked around to see Jason rolling around on the ground, presumably trying to scratch part of himself. He got up, looking shifty. His eye twitched. "Get out of the way." "What?" "Now." Dash pulled Scootaloo over to the side of the platform, taking no chances, and watched him worriedly. Jason ran at the tree trunk, and jumped, smacking his back into the tree with a sickening crack. Jason ended up on the platform, where he let out a contented groan. "Are you okay?" "I'm so okay it's unbelievable. Oh man that was sooooo itchy. Oooh yeah." Dash looked faintly disturbed. Jason got up and walked back to his guitar, knocking off the new back and chest armor plates that had broken off on the way, moving them into the corner. "You can put that on if you want, I'm going to have to knock off more stuff soon." "It can wait, I'll do it later." Scoots seemed to get an idea, and her face lit up. "Jason, can you play us some songs?" "I guess so, sure, although I'm kinda starting to run out of ones I know how to play. Here's a new one." He plugged in the guitar and powered the equipment. "So how was that Scoots? Up to what you were expecting?" "Even better than that!" Jason smiled at Dash. "When this is all over, I'm getting a recording contract." Dash chuckled. "I know I'd buy your stuff." "Well here's one more song to add to that list." "That's where I'm going to stop it right now." Scoots groaned. "I can't just play all the stuff I know and run out, I have to make it last." He paused. "I have to go fix that flash bang line." Jason set down his guitar and jumped off the platform, quickly navigating towards the fallen line of twine and black crater. He was stringing it back up when he heard some shuffling and yelling down the path somewhere. The shuffling quickly turned into hurried galloping as Jason realized that whatever it was, it was coming straight for him. He dropped the rope, attempting to quickly hide it under some leaves, and then quickly flew back to the platform. He landed, much to Dash's surprise that he had gotten back so soon. "Get down, there's someone coming." The platform became a flurry of activity as all three of them ran for cover, and just as quickly became silent. Jason inched his way to the edge of the platform, attempting to see the culprit of the noise. A few seconds later a very beat up earth pony mare galloped by, constantly looking behind herself. Jason motioned for Dash to look. She saw the mare and shrugged, until a Manticore sprinted by after her, gaining quickly. Their expressions of slight amusement turned to horror. Jason turned to Dash. "I'm going to save her. I'm not going to just watch as she gets killed by that, thing." He levitated the knifes over and inserted them into his hooves. "I'm coming with you." "Fine, but I'm putting the armor on you. Don't do anything stupid." He levitated the knives, twine and armor over and got her suited up. "If the manticore tries to sting you, put this armor in between the stinger and you." "What about the gillie suit?" "We don't have time. Let's go." They took off, quickly flying after the duo, which were still in hot pursuit. Jason turned to Dash. "Remember, it's you or him." __________________________________________________ The mare got to the cliff and skidded to a stop right on the edge, slumping her shoulders hopelessly. She turned around to face the mantacore, holding her ground. Not like she had any choice. She noticed Jason and Dash flying behind the manticore, and recoiled further in fear. A changling and some sort of hybrid was even worse than just a manticore. Then the changeling did something she didn't expect. It swooped towards the manticore, brandishing a fairly large pair of knives. It seemed to be going for the head, but missed when the manticore moved quickly towards her, accidentally lodging the knife further back in the manticore's side, causing the animal to seemingly lose interest in her and scream in pain. The changeling hybrid came in with another set of knives, but was knocked away by the manticore's tail, sent flying into some underbrush. "Dash!!!" The changeling yelled, before managing to free his knife from the manticore's side. As soon as he freed himself, he was also whacked by the tail, rolling past the other one, which had managed to free itself from the bushes. He quickly rose and joined his partner as they re-approached the manticore. They briefly conversed before splitting from each other, the regular changeling going straight at the manticore, while the other flew off to the side and disappeared into the forest. The head-on assault changeling attempted to ram a knife into the manticore's eye before said manticore dodged and he was forced to quickly evade the manticore's tail. The end of the tail lodged in the ground, and the changeling stabbed at it, evoking more screams of anger and pain from the beast. The hybrid changeling came into view from behind the manticore, and it quickly got into a hovering position behind the manticore's head, and seemed to hesitate before ramming the knife in up to the hilt. The manticore went limp and fell to the ground, and the changelings seemed to rejoice, then immediately turn to her. She tried to back up, but only suceeded in slipping off the edge of the cliff. As the the changelings disappeared from her field of vision, she could've sworn she saw them jump towards her as she descended past the cliff edge. She hadn't fallen for more than half a second before both changelings shot over the side of the cliff, quickly closing the distance to her. She wasn't sure what she actually wanted to happen, whether she wanted to be saved just to be captured and replaced, or if she'd rather die. The choice was made for her as the hybrid changeling grabbed her side, closely followed by the regular one. The hybrid gave her a warm smile, which left her slightly confused, as they gently lifted her back up to the cliff top. They gently set her down at the top and let go of her, much to her surprise. Then the hybrid one started taking off her skin, while the other turned to her. "Um... hi?"