The Pretender
One of the more alien sensations one can experience is a complete lack of sensation at all: sensory deprivation. It’s a state not unlike dreaming. The mind is left to wander while the body is at rest, deprived of any and all signs of the world around it. By its nature, it is a calming state. Paradoxically, the very concept should be quite alarming. Without senses, how would anyone interact with anyone else, or even the world around them?
These are not the things one would think about in this state, however. As mentioned, the experience is inherently calming. Without sensory stimuli, there is little to do but sleep and wait, wait through the nothing for anything, any feeling whatsoever to return.
And so, as a chilled wave passed over her for the first time in hours, this is the state Rainbow Dash found herself in. The very concept of hot and cold was at first strange for her to try and process. Her eyes stayed shut, her ears were muffled, and her mouth and nose were forced shut. Yet her skin could feel. It felt cold, moist. There was even a bit of stiffness, and patches of numbness, but mostly it was just cold.
Simple things were hard for her to even understand. In her head, there was no ‘where am I?’, only ‘what is ‘where’?’. Slowly, one by one, she began to re-learn what the different pieces of her were and meant: one, two... four legs, but in two pairs, and another pair of limbs— wings, actually, and her head and tail. Yes, now it started to make sense again.
She felt the coolness across her skin, though mostly on the outside. She understood now how she must’ve been positioned; she was suspended, somehow, in something that felt like a thick jelly, with her limbs tucked in tight around the rest of her in a ball. That gel around her wouldn’t let her move, but it seemed to almost move on its own. The coolness around her, the rush of sensation, grew around until it neared her face.
It wasn’t until it passed over her snout that she realized she hadn’t been breathing for the last ten minutes. In a panic, she gasped, only to find something was lodged in her throat. Her eyes shot open and she pulled and strained against the gel around her. Whatever was in her throat, it wasn’t coming out on its own; it felt like some massive glob of paste the size of her hoof.
Eventually she did rip herself loose from her sticky prison, only to collapse on the hard, rocky ground before her. She caught some glimpse of a cave ceiling and something glowing green on the way down, but she thought nothing of it at the time. All she was focused on was staying alive.
It only took a few more coughs, as well as somepony’s sharp smack on her back, but she finally and disgustingly hacked up the blockage like a cat with a slimey hairball. A slimey, green hairball that glowed faintly in the dark of the cave.
Rainbow Dash collapsed on the spot, not caring that her chin fell square on the new pile of rancid mush. The effort it took to save her own life left her drained and delirious, or so it seemed. She barely could feel the cool air anymore, at least on the outside; a fresh breath, even from that musty cave air, was a sweet relief from everything else about the situation.
Yet as she lay, sprawled out on the floor and head cocked to the side, a new horror began to dawn on her. One entire side of the cave was covered in glowing green. That green, which she now realized was a little too familiar, came from pods upon the wall. More pods, she realized, besides the one she had just escaped. Each one shone the same sickly color against the black walls of the cave, and each one contained the same sort of dark core: a single changeling in each bubble of slime.
“Oh no...” Rainbow mumbled. Yet as she tried to stand, she winced and promptly collapsed back down, gripping her head in her forehooves and rolling over onto her other side. A flood of images came to the forefront of her mind at once, yet none were so coherent as the words she now remembered, just as they were shouted before:
“The sky is falling!”
“We’re under attack!”
“Save yourselves!”
“What’s going on?!” Rainbow shouted. She was barely able to see straight with all these memories rushing in at once. Flashes of fire, bug wings, ponies galloping around in terror...
As she squirmed on the cave floor she felt herself picked up one leg at a time by smooth-coated yet knobbly legs. She knew before she looked: more changelings.
Rainbow struggled, but none of her limbs had any strength to speak of. “Lemme go!” she yelled, or at least she did as much as her weakened body would let her. Just trying to focus on getting herself free again was enough to drive the pain in her head down. Still, as the changelings carried her onward, she could do nothing to release herself from their grip. Tug, pull, twist... all she seemed to accomplish was straining herself. With a sigh, she stopped fighting and let her head hang back. It was from this position that she could take a better look at her surroundings. Or rather, as her eyes came into focus, she began to see what had become of herself.
At first she thought it was a trick of the light, that her eyes just needed to adjust to the darkness or something. But now, quite clearly, she could see that the hooves in the changelings’ grasp were the same color as the changelings themselves.
Rainbow swore she felt her heart start to race, even though she wasn’t quite sure if she still had a heart. Actually, she knew she did once she took a panicked look at the rest of herself. For, belly-up as she was, she could see quite clearly into the translucent blue-green carapace on her underside. That close, anypony could’ve seen the moving bits inside.
She wanted to scream. She, Rainbow Dash, wanted to cry. But she couldn’t. She was too weak, trapped against her will.
“What’s going on?” she mumbled feebly. “Why am I here? Why am I... this?”
The changelings just flitted on through the cave in silence.
— — — — — —
Within a few minutes of traversing the network of rock and stone, passing numerous other drones along the way, Rainbow groaned. “Alright,” she whispered to herself. “That first bit was a little freaky, but now I’m just bored. Are we there yet?”
The changelings swooped to the right just then, landing on something of a crude balcony and setting Rainbow on the ground. Immediately, Rainbow scrambled over onto her hooves. Before she could get any further, however, her vision began to narrow and her knees began to quiver. Two of the drones that had grabbed her before now leaned against her from either side, supporting her until the blood— well, whatever giant bug-ponies have in its place— rushed back to her brain. By then, the other two were just cackling tantalizingly before her.
Her one chance to escape, gone just like that. Rainbow Dash realized how much she had to rely on the others to stand; she simply hung her head and followed suit towards a massive wall of greenish membrane. “You know,” she told herself upon noting how clearly she could see her surroundings, “I never realized just how used to hair I was until now...”
As they reached the membrane, it reflexively stretched open for them to pass. Inside was a creepy reinterpretation of a banquet hall: stools and chairs were made of different sizes and colors of mushrooms around a roughly-carved stone table. ‘Roughly-carved’ in this case means it was eaten away at by the changelings, somehow, as there were still strands of green goop stuck between the tabletop and the floor. A chandelier fashioned around the roots of a luminescent fungus hung at an odd angle over the table, while the same kind of mushroom grew around the edges of the ceiling. None of it was so bright as to feel like actual sunlight or anything, but it was better than the dark of the cave. To Rainbow Dash, it all looked like a strange attempt at hominess that would probably do more harm than good.
And, of course, who else would be awaiting in this mockery of the Equestrian high life than the same changeling queen Rainbow had already come to know.
“You’re sure this is the one?” Chrysalis demanded of her drones.
The other changelings immediately brought Rainbow Dash to the far end of the table, then bowed before the queen. “Yes, my queen,” said one of them. “We watched her pod for hours. The one with the rainbow hair, yes?”
Rainbow gratefully plopped down on the mushroom and put her back hooves up, trying to ignore the small cloud of dust-and-or-spores that popped up as she did so.
Queen Chrysalis nodded, then waved her hoof. “Yes, good. Now return and help move the others.” With that, the drones bowed once more and flitted their way back out the membrane door. Once they were gone, Chrysalis turned her attention and glare to Rainbow Dash, only to find the ex-pony fiddling with her jagged horn. “Ahem,” Chrysalis said.
Rainbow cocked an eyebrow, or again the closest equivalent, at her. “Hey, you wanted me for some reason. I ain’t the one who needs to ask nicely for anything.”
Chrysalis blinked once, then sighed. “Oh, Rainbow Dash,” she said. “I don’t think you realize what’s truly going on here. We’ve already won. We—”
“You know, you’re right,” said Rainbow. She leaned forward and slammed her hoof on the stone table. “I don’t know what’s going on around here. And I don’t care what you want out of me, you’re definitely not getting it until I get some answers first. What happened to Ponyville? Where’s everypony else? What was wrong with the sky?”
“Oh? You really don’t know?” Chrysalis asked. “Perhaps you were left to simmer too long... do you not remember the rain of fire? How we took the opportunity to strike, to establish a hoofhold right beneath the home of our greatest foe? And how you foolishly stayed behind rather than saving yourself?”
After a second, Rainbow shook her head. “Uhh, okay I remember something about fire, annnd maybe something about running...” She clenched her eyes shut and tapped her head a few times. “It’s... fuzzy. Maybe if you just give me a little time to—”
Suddenly Chrysalis leaped into the air and swooped right up to Rainbow’s face. “I don’t have time for games, you incompetent!” The smell of the queen’s breath reminded Rainbow Dash of dirt and spiderwebs, as did the feel of her hair. “Tell me where the others are!” Chrysalis demanded. “The other five, the Bearers!”
“Bearers?” asked Rainbow. “Wait, do you mean for the Elements—”
“Yes, the Elements of Harmony!” Chrysalis snarled at Rainbow, fangs-first. “I will not have some upstarts turn this victory against me. You will tell me where they went, and now!” She landed and stomped on the table to accentuate her point.
Rainbow Dash quickly backed away, lying on her back on the floor. “I-I don’t know! I can’t remember, I swear!” She winced as Chrysalis raised a threatening hoof again, but the blow never came.
Instead, the queen stomped once more on the table, then began to pace back down its length. “Useless, incompetent drones!” she growled. “They were supposed to stop the conversion process just short of a mental wipe, not in the middle!”
“Huh?” asked Rainbow as she slowly worked her way back onto her hooves. “Conversion?”
Chrysalis smirked at the corner of her mouth. “It’s one of the ways we can... reproduce,” she said. “Conversion of ponies into loyal, obedient, if sometimes useless changeling drones.”
Rainbow looked at her front hoof and frowned. “G-go on.”
With a scoff, Chrysalis shot a malicious glare at Rainbow. “We just take a normal pony, trap her for a bit, and let our magic work out the rest,” she said, putting obvious emphasis on the word ‘her’. “You’re only about halfway done, but I assure you, once you’ve helped us, you won’t remember anything. Nothing except who your real loyalties belong to, I assure you, after a little ‘indoctrination’ of course.”
“A little what?” Rainbow scratched her head, then recoiled and hung her head. The sound of carapace on carapace was not only grating, like that nails-on-a-chalkboard sound, but it was also a bitter reminder of her state.
“Teaching? Encouragement?” Chrysalis tried again. “Oh, what’s the word... well, ‘brainwashing’ sounds a bit ugly, but it should suffice...”
A chill ran down Rainbow’s ‘spine’ as the pieces began to come together. “So... all of Ponyville, then?” Chrysalis nodded. “A-and they’re here. And like me, just... not... skipping a step?’
Again the queen nodded, this time with a chuckle. “All except your certain friends,” she said. “But don’t worry. They, too, will join the hive.”
Rainbow gulped again; she felt like she was going to be sick. Slowly, she paced away from the table, towards some of the excess goopy membrane along the walls, between the fungi. “And we’ll stay that way. Forever...” she mumbled. Once she was close enough, she could see a faint reflection of herself in the goop; she looked like all the other bug-drones before, save for perhaps a slightly more petite figure. Embarrassingly enough, she thought.
But as she replayed the conversation so far over and over in her head, a thought occurred to her. “But I’m different,” she said, just loud enough for the queen to hear the tail end. “I’m like you, one of you, but... I’m still me.”
“What’s that?” asked Chrysalis. “Are you ready to talk?”
Rainbow just smirked. With but half a thought, she had become enveloped in a green light. The changes passed quickly over every inch of her, the light of her magic burning through like a flare of green flame. Once it passed, what was left of her was a figure of a rainbow-haired blue pegasus pony.
She tested her wings once: good as new, if a bit stiff. The motion did, however, catch Chrysalis’ eye. Quickly, the queen whipped around, but not before Rainbow had already started to take off.
“Come back here!” shouted the queen.
Rainbow was already flying for the exit; as before, the membrane peeled open at the first sign of motion in its general direction. It wasn’t quite as fast as Rainbow would have liked, evidently, as it was still stretching out by the time Rainbow got there. She reached in and tried to squeeze through, but in those split seconds she had, all her struggling only seemed to tighten the membrane’s grip.
Over her shoulder, Rainbow saw Chrysalis galloping after her on her freakishly long legs. The queen only made it about halfway across the room before Rainbow finally forced through to the far side. Once she had landed and gotten back to her feet, she looked back and smirked, raising her wings.
“Catch me if ya can, Honeysuckle!” she shouted, her taunt echoing throughout the hive. Instantly she took off, zooming through the open caverns like they were the forests back home, but with more space and the occasional flying obstacle out of a startled drone.
This left the queen on the balcony exit, dumbstruck as she tried in vain to track Rainbow’s course. Chrysalis stood there for a moment with her jaw dropped, then shook it off.
“You!” she shouted. The nearest drones, passing by for no real reason at that moment, dropped what they were doing and landed before her with a bow. Chrysalis barely looked at them. Her eyes were fixed on the location she last saw Rainbow Dash.
“After her!” the queen barked through clenched teeth. “Now!”
— — — — — —
“Okay, we made a left... two rights... ugh, where is it?!” Rainbow thought aloud as she flew. More and more, changelings were starting to take note of her and swarm after her, but between the limited space in the caverns and the sheer speed she kept up, they were soon lost in the distance.
Eventually she found something that seemed a bit familiar: green glowing pods on the walls. Rainbow slowed down to take a better look at them. A few here and there were occupied, but they were few and far between. The arrangement was nothing like that she’d seen upon waking, however; too many were on the floor and ceiling, or otherwise angled so no pony could’ve stayed upright and still in them.
Yet above the pods, she noticed a few shapes moving. A larger cluster of drones than any she’d seen yet was passing over, in groups of five, with four supporting the fifth’s limbs.
“There,” Rainbow mumbled. “Now where are they taking them?”
She checked behind herself; none of the drones were still after her. Looking back down, most of the cluster was already out of sight through a small tunnel, but a few still lingered behind. Rainbow thought for just a second, took a deep breath, then swooped in after them. Halfway down, a green flare of magic flashed across her body, returning her to changeling form.
Rainbow followed the other changelings down, around, up, and through the twisting tunnel until it dumped out in another, largely sealed-off cavern. Frankly, the exits weren’t what mattered most to Rainbow as she first saw the inside of the chamber. Most of the cave was covered and dripping in green goop, with thick tendrils of it reaching down from a massive, brightly-glowing blob on the ceiling. Attached to most of these tendrils by their heads were changelings, with their eyes open in wide but blank stares as some inky black fluid pumped through the tendrils and to and from their ears. Even as Rainbow watched, the two that were carried in were forcibly attached to the grotesque device, black-carapace-horn-first.
A few from the cluster left over patted their hooves together as if to say ‘job well done’, then they all flittered out through a tunnel on the far side. Rainbow Dash stayed behind, frozen yet shivering on the ground as she looked up at the slimy monstrosity before her.
“Please, please, please tell me I’m not too late...” Rainbow told herself. She gulped, then gagged; a changeling’s innards were far from arranged like that of a pony, not that it was normal for somepony to see their own internal organs pulsating and moving inside themself. With a short growl, Rainbow cast herself back to her ‘normal’ form, then swooped up to the tendrils.
She gave the first one she could reach a tentative poke. It was squishy, and swayed easily beneath her hoof. She gave it another jab, then smiled. “Okay, I think I get it,” she told herself.
Rainbow fluttered back to the cave wall and braced herself against the rock, reverting for the moment to changeling form. She wasn’t sure if it was all due to finding a good hoofing, or if she really was feeling some sickening sensation in the base of her hooves from being changeling, but it was a pretty sure grip. Regardless, she focused ahead, at a line of slime tendrils on the edge of the bunch. Then she kicked off, sweeping through with one hoof stiff and outstretched.
The changeling goop snapped off like gooey twigs.
After the first sweep, she clung tight to the far wall. Sound of the thud and splat from the changelings and slime smacking against the cave floor still echoed throughout the chamber. Rainbow held her breath, listening intently; the only other sounds that came were from her own occasionally-twitching wings.
So she went in for another strike, this time swifter and surer. It started to make more sense with each slice; after the second, she began lining up the slime tendrils with one of the holes on her leg. Each impact practically made her heave from the feel of it, but the cuts were cleaner and quicker. By the time she was down to the last one, however, she simply shut her eyes during the squelch of the hit.
The floor of the cavern was now full of slowly waking new changelings, each groaning and rubbing their heads like they’d been asleep for a week. And, soon enough, they each started to panic as they began to see themselves and each other.
Rainbow Dash swooped down and landed with a four-hoof stomp on the rock before them, seemingly dropping through a ring of green fire as she reassumed pony form. The changelings in the cluster were immediately silenced.
“Listen up!” said Rainbow. “We’re all gonna be fine, got it? We’ll just high-tail it outta here, then find a spell to change us back. Everything’s gonna be just fine.”
“Fine? Fine?!” asked what was assumedly a mare in front. “I’m some kinda bug-freak-thing! I can barely remember how I got here! How is this fine?!” The others in the crowd began spouting similar complaints.
After a half minute or so of this, Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Hey!” she shouted. “Everypony just settle down!” Her voice echoed through the chamber.
The others quieted once more.
“Look,” Rainbow began again, strutting back and forth like in a military march atop something of a ledge before them. “I know this is weird. We’re all going through it, you know. But we’re all going to get through it together.” She slammed one forehoof into the other. “I want you all to repeat after me: ‘I’m not a changeling, I’m me.’ I caught you just in time to save you from some brainwashing whatchamacallit— no thanks necessary, by the way— but you still need to focus. I mean, I don’t know exactly how it works, but... well let’s just hope I got you all free in time, alright?”
Some in the group began to nod.
“Hey!” Rainbow shouted. “I don’t hear any of you!” She stomped her hoof at them and repeated, “‘I’m not a changeling, I’m me.’ Say it!”
It began as a feeble chime from somepony in the back, but soon the others joined in. “I’m not a changeling, I’m me!” they each shouted back, one by one, working around the crowd. Soon, they were all chanting the saying back, like unified protesters embittered with themselves.
“Good,” Rainbow said. “Now think it. Hold onto it, and don’t forget it!” She stood in a regal pose. “Remember it. Use it to remember who you are, what you look like. And you can change back, just like that!” She thought again on that last statement, then added at a bit of a mumble, “Okay, it’s temporary, but it’s sure better than nothing. And it’s easy, trust me. Just as natural as flying, for me. Er, well, walking, for ponies who don’t have wings.”
Some of the others looked to each other with tilted heads and shrugs. At first, it was almost like none of them heard Rainbow Dash’s orders. But then one of them, what would turn out to be a yellow-coated orange-haired earth pony mare, simply flashed with a green magical fire, and ‘reverted’ successfully. Rainbow Dash recognized her from the streets of Ponyville: Junebug, or something like that.
Soon the others joined in in a strangely comforting storm of green magical flashes, until every one of them was a pony once more. At least, as Rainbow noted, for the moment.
She also noted that there were none of her better friends amongst them, but that only confirmed what Chrysalis had said. Nothing new there.
“Alright, everypony,” Rainbow continued. “I know one way isn’t the way out, so let’s try the other. And remember to keep telling yourself who you really are. At least I’m pretty sure that’s what you’re supposed to do here. Sounds about right, anyway.”
One pony raised his hoof and asked, “But won’t we be seen by the other changelings?”
“Yeah,” said another, “what if we get caught?”
“What if we can’t find a way out?!”
“Up-up-up!” said Rainbow, scowling at that last one. “I don’t wanna hear any of that downer-talk. From any of you!” She turned and started to trot towards the exit tunnel. “As a last resort, and I mean last, we can change back for a quick disguise. Otherwise, everypony stick together, and we’ll try to hide in the shadows or something. But do not give up, do not split up, and definitely don’t stop reminding yourself you’re a pony. Got it? Good. Now let’s get goin’!”
— — — — — —
Through many a treacherous twist and turn the ponies ventured through the caves. Most were surprisingly devoid of changelings or even their signature slime, but there was always something to keep the ponies on-edge: an echoing scuttling here, buzzing and chittering there. Several times, a few of them panicked and reverted to changeling form as they cowered in the dirt. Even if they did get a stern look out of Rainbow just short of actually yelling, the incidents only helped unsettle the rest of them. Even if they were shaking in their hooves the entire way, Rainbow kept pushing the group on like a watchful shepherd. She even led them through orders, such as “Everypony stay close. I think they’re actually coming this time!” and “Let’s check out that fork up ahead!”. Most leads towards some kind of light or what they assumed was the smell of fresh air seemed to be futile at best; everypony agreed that mushrooms were borne of Tartarus by the end of the journey.
But then, there it was: a massive tunnel leading diagonally up towards the surface. The sky, a very bright and pale blue with a few dark clouds amidst, lay unfairly just out of reach of the ponies, past a steep, rugged incline of black stone.
At least they made it about halfway before the swarm caught up. But when they came, headed by the queen herself, the sound of giant bug wingbeats echoed in the caverns was deafening.
Rainbow fluttered just above the head of the group, looking back with wide, quivering eyes. “It’s just like Canterlot all over again...” she mumbled. “Pick it up, ponies! Go, go go!”
A few dared glance back at their impending doom, but most seemed to get what that approaching stampede of flitters meant. The ponies struggled and stumbled forward on the rock at as grueling a pace as they could, but at the rate the changelings approached, there was simply no way.
One earth pony mare in the back grabbed onto a rock that was just a little too loose, and toppled back down a good few yards. She winced at the sharp stone, but when she tried to get back up, she could barely move.
Rainbow Dash swooped down quickly to help her to her hooves. “Come on,” she said, “Nopony gets left behind!”
“Come on, nopony gets left behind!” echoed her own voice in her head. Flashes came back to her again; something of a burning building, Fluttershy, and shoving a heavy beam off of her...
“Rainbow Dash? Rainbow Dash!”
When Rainbow came back to, she was being shaken by Junebug, the earth pony mare she’d saved. To their side, the changelings closed in like a massive black cloud. They’d be on them in seconds, easily. Rainbow shuddered, a desperate tear rolling down her cheek, then gave in: “Everypony change back! We’ll fly out, it’s the only way!”
Seeing the swarm for themselves, the others didn’t even hesitate. Rainbow of course made it quickly to the front of the pack, back in her element as they swooped up and towards the mouth of the cave...
Then she felt her tail snag on an invisible force, just before she got free. The next thing she knew, a large mass tackled on top of her and slammed her into the rock at the top edge of the cave. On the outside, it was a bit of a cliff that her head was almost hanging over: at least an eighty foot drop.
Chrysalis rolled Rainbow Dash over and snarled in her face. “You insolent little worm!”
“What’re ya gonna do, huh?” Rainbow shouted back. “You ain’t getting your answers without me around!”
“I’m beginning to think the answers aren’t worth it!” Chrysalis bared her fangs at Rainbow Dash. “You... fool! Did you really think you’d get away with my changelings? And, pray tell, what did you possibly expect you’d do? Live normal lives? And starve without knowing how to feed, no less. Like the little helpless grubs that you all are. So weak. So naive.” She scoffed. “I bet you couldn’t even hold your form if you wanted to...”
With that, Chrysalis’ horn began to glow, and Rainbow felt a searing, splitting pain through her head. The sensation washed over her, and she cried out in agony. Slowly, green magical light carved a schism right up her middle, then suddenly split outwards, burning up her pony disguise with it.
Then Chrysalis’ eyes widened. “No,’ she said, shaking her head and backing off from Rainbow Dash. “No, that’s not— how?!”
Seizing the opportunity, Rainbow fought through the pain and stood up. Strangely enough, she saw hair flop down in her face. Her hair, more or less. Only it was shifting in color, from red to orange all the way to purple and back again, cycling through every few seconds. In the vague reflection Rainbow could see on Chrysalis’ carapace in the light of day, Rainbow saw her eyes, too, were discolored and slit-pupiled, yet still appeared about the same purple they would be should she be a pony. Yet besides her belly-plate and tail, which were shifting colors to match her mane, the rest of her seemed just like a changeling again. Even when she felt her hair, it felt... wrong. Like that dirt-and-spiderwebs feel she had since she woke up.
“What’s going on?” Rainbow asked. “Don’t tell me you screwed up, ‘your highness’.”
The group of ponies-made-changelings all flittered over and stood fiercely before Rainbow Dash, growling at Chrysalis and the confused swarm behind her. “Back off!” shouted one of the mares. The group backed up around Rainbow Dash, snarling and pacing their hooves on the ground. Rainbow could barely see past them, they were so tightly-knit.
“If you want to get to our queen, you’ll have to go through us!” said another.
Rainbow blinked once, then looked herself over again. “‘Queen’? What?!” She shuddered, looking between Chrysalis and herself. Then she began to smile. “Oh. Oh, I get it,” she said, smirking at the old queen. “Yeah, ‘queen’. I like the sound o’ that.”
“I suppose it may be time to start a new hive,” Chrysalis growled through grit fangs. “Ironic, I suppose.” She turned away in a huff. “Fine, forget the ‘answers’. For the good of our kind, you may leave. Go, seek out a new hive. As far as that will get you...”
And so, Queen Chrysalis turned to fly back inside without so much as lifting another hoof in their direction. The pony-changelings turned back to Rainbow Dash and began to amass around her with looks and questions of concern, practically lifting her up on their hooves as they did so. Rainbow had to flutter back just to get some breathing room.
“Whoa, whoa,” she said. “Come on, everypony, cut it out! Remember, we gotta get this fixed, right?”
“As far as that will get you.” In that very moment, before anypony had a chance to respond, Rainbow realized just what Chrysalis meant. A deep, thundering boom sounded behind her, and she turned just in time to see a building-sized smoking black boulder sail above them and crash somewhere back in the hive complex, shaking the ground and the air violently on impact. Rainbow’s eyes were transfixed on the horizon, where the rock had come from; if she was correct, there was the mountain of Canterlot. Half of it was gone, and a pillar of black smoke rose from the crater.
From the crater itself grew a massive, writhing, gray-black... something that made the once-mountain look like a hoofstool. Its roots sprawled out and enveloped the mountains and the city, as well as what appeared to be part of the countryside immediately around. Orange fire and glowing liquid oozed forth from the tendrils of this monstrosity, much like a light now coming from the inside of the cavern.
Worse still, Rainbow heard more distant booms from the sky, as a rain of black and orange meteors pierced through the black clouds all across visible Equestria.
As she stared, a few changelings zoomed out of the caverns overhead, desperately looking over their shoulders in a panic. Rainbow spun around to see what the fuss was about. Just barely, she could see something moving down at the base of the cave; the creature looked almost like the stone around it, if not for the faint signs of color around its front and back. Its rocky exterior surrounded a grotesque, misshapen body. It had one too many legs on its right side, with a larger, upward-curving appendage not unlike a scorpion’s tail with a fire poker as a stinger growing out of its left. Otherwise, it was as if it had the face and body shape of a pony burn victim with its mouth mostly melted over. Mostly.
It moved unnaturally quickly, easily leaping up thirty feet to snatch a fleeing changeling out of the air by skewering it on the orange spearhead. It slammed the bug back down onto the rock, skewering it firmly. Then it let out a victory roar, something along the lines of a wolf screaming “Yeeeirrsscchh!!” into a tin pot.
The other pony-changelings immediately flittered up and started to push Rainbow back away from the beast. “My queen!” said one. “We have to get you out of here!”
Rainbow stammered in a stupor for a moment, eyes locked on the creature as soon more joined it, each more deformed and more vicious and efficient than the last. “Y-you don’t have to tell me twice!” Rainbow shouted, turning tail herself. “Let’s go, let’s go! Anywhere but where the rocks are landing!”
They formed together as a swarm, with the others trying to surround Rainbow Dash but only really succeeding in slowing her down. She groaned and tried to push through them, despite them maintaining a decent speed directly away from the doomed hive.
One mare-by-voice asked, “Shall we look for a place to start our new hive, my queen?”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Okay, first, stop that. Second, let’s just find someplace safe.”
The mare-changeling saluted. “Yes, my liege,” she said.
Another of those alien howls echoed out from the changeling hive behind them; Rainbow Dash was too worn and too dumbstruck to criticize her ‘subjects’ any further.
— — — — — —
Hours of flying later, long after the sun had set and the group lost sight of the black clouds, they found themselves at a mesa in the middle of a large desert. There was no water, no civilization, no life anywhere to be seen besides from each other.
The changelings let Rainbow Dash take the lead, finally, as they circled in to the first cave they saw. Inside, Rainbow Dash promptly collapsed, rubbing one of her insectoid wings with a hoof. “I’ve never flown so hard in all my life,” she said. “I... I need to rest.”
“Perfect,” said what must’ve been Junebug. Her and a few others hefted Rainbow Dash onto their backs and carried her further inside. There wasn’t much to see through the short tunnel. At least at the end a hole in the roof gave way to moonlight, but that was about the only distinguishing feature.
The pony-changelings set Rainbow Dash down against a wall. A few of the others started to go around to the other walls, spreading goo through some motions of their hooves and mouths.
“Eugh,” said Rainbow, sticking her tongue out in disgust. “Okay, everypony, you really oughta stop that now.”
“But my queen,” said Junebug, “this is to be your new home, yes?”
“Well— well I guess, for the time being.” Rainbow Dash shook her head. “Okay, you know what? ‘Your Queen’ wants you to— okay, actually I kind of like the sound of that... b-but the point is, I’ve got a few rules to lay down!”
Junebug bowed. “As you wish, my queen.”
“Rule number one,” said Rainbow. “We’re ponies, not changelings. Start acting like it! And you can start that by looking the part!”
“As you wish,” Junebug repeated, flashing green as she changed back into the form of an earth pony.
Rainbow smirked as most of the rest of them bowed and changed back as well. “Alright, cool...” she said, rubbing her chin. “Rule number two: keep calling me ‘queen’. Or ‘Queen Rainbow Dash’... on second thought, how about just ‘Queen Rainbow’?”
“As you wish, Queen Rainbow,” said Junebug. A few others trotted up behind Rainbow Dash, but Junebug paid them no mind. “Now, please,” she said as a mother to her child, “rest. You deserve it.”
Rainbow felt a cool sensation, a welcome break from the desert’s nighttime heat, on her back and tail. She glanced around and saw the pony-changelings forming more of that slime-goop around her. “Uhh, what are you doing?”
Junebug turned Rainbow’s head back to face forward. “Oh, but this is your, well, ‘throne’, Queen Rainbow,” she said. “You need to rest, if you are going to be our true queen.”
“‘True queen’?” Rainbow asked, scowling. “Ugh, what do I have to do now?” By now, the slime was worked up to around her shoulders and lower ankles.
“Like I said, all you need to do is rest.” Junebug smiled warmly. “We’ll be your guardians, Queen Rainbow, while you sleep.”
“That’s it?” asked Rainbow. “Oh, good. I thought I was unqualified or something.” She tried to lift one of her lower hooves into a more comfortable pose, but it was stuck in the goop; the slime now enveloped all of her lower body. “Uhh, yeah, very funny. Come on, guys, let me out.”
Junebug looked aside and shuffled her forehooves. “Well... technically, you aren’t quite qualified yet.” The others began to layer the slime on thicker and thicker around Rainbow’s limbs, even her wings. “But, once your transformation is complete, then you’ll truly be our wonderful, absolute queen!”
Such a cheerful tone combined with such a horrific realization made Rainbow Dash even more nauseous than the slime had. “Wait, no!” she yelled. “Stop! Please!”
“Goodnight, Queen Rainbow!” said Junebug.
“Goodnight, Queen Rainbow!” said the rest.
Rainbow Dash felt them working around her head now, and she frantically flailed as best she could; it was no use. Just as they got around her ‘ears’, she began to cry. It was about the only thing she could do anymore, with the rest of her locked in place by slime.
“I take it back! I-I’m not a queen!” she pleaded. “I don’t wanna go back in!”
She had to shut her eyes as they were covered, and the last thing she saw was the smiling faces of half the ponies of Ponyville, eerily similar and lit sideways in the moonlight.
“I’m not a changeling!” Rainbow pleaded. “I’m—”
Her mouth was the last to be fully covered, mid-sentence.
“... me... “