A Busman's Holiday

by Parchment_Scroll

Out of the Frying Pan...

There comes a time in everypony's life when you look around, and you start to wonder: how did I get in this situation? What crucial decision in my life went wrong? For me, that time had to be at the moment I was crawling slowly along the rafters of an abandoned Canterlot warehouse, edging between sleeping changelings and praying to Luna that I didn't make too much noise or, worse yet, brush up against one.

This won't end well, I thought. Below me, Meanie and Freeze Pop waited patiently while I navigated my way through the sleeping changelings. I made the mistake of catching Meanie's eye, and she started jumping up and down and waving her hooves. Fortunately, Freeze Pop was pretty on-the-ball, and was able to ground my hyperactive cousin before things got out-of-hoof.

It was agonizingly slow going, edging my way past the bugponies, since the low light made it difficult to see their fanning wings. I'd heard about insects doing something like that in hives, but it was something else entirely to see it up close and pony-sized. Eventually, however, I made my way to the center of the warehouse.

Beneath me, clinging to the rafters I was crawling on, was a collection of some two dozen cocoons, each containing a member of Short Shanks' Lost Colts. I eased my way over the edge of the rafter to examine the stalks the cocoons were attached to. They were springy and tough, like... Well, I have no idea what they were like.

I prodded at one with a hoof, and felt the edge of my horseshoe bite into the stalk slightly. A viscous green ooze came out, nearly sticking me to the cocoon myself. Heck of a defense mechanism, I thought.

"What's the plan?" a harsh voice whispered by my ear. I swallowed my startled yell before it came out and looked around, terrified. There, hovering just a couple of feet away, was Freeze Pop, staying aloft with lazy flaps of her white wings. She took notice of my startlement and smirked at me.

"Haven't exactly got one yet," I admitted. "I usually just... if you'll pardon the expression, wing it."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, ha ha," she whispered back.

"Anyway, what are you doing up here?" I asked. "And more importantly, since you're the one with wings, why did you let me volunteer to climb up here?"

"You had that look on your face," she replied enigmatically.

"What look? I didn't have a look. Did I have a look?"

"That 'ooh, a challenge' look my buddies get sometimes," she explained. "Admit it. You saw all those bugs up here and you just couldn't wait to put your skills to the test."

"Okay, fine," I said. "Fine. Whatever. More to the point, while we're both up here, who's keeping an eye on Meanie?"

"Mean-- oh, Pinkie Pie? She's a three-time savior of Equestria," Freeze Pop whispered with a dismissive hoof-wave. "She can keep an eye on herself."

My face and my hoof got reacquainted yet again. "You've never spent much time with her, have you?" I asked. Before Freeze Pop could reply, I got back to work examining the cocoons. "I think," I said after a moment, "if I move fast enough, I can break these loose without getting stuck. Think you can carry them down to the floor?"

She didn't reply in words. The look she gave me was eloquent enough. She positioned herself directly below the cocoon I was examining and spread her hooves, ready to catch it.

I took a moment to dip the tips of my forehooves in the sap-like fluid leaking out of the damaged stalk and planted them firmly on the rafter. As I hoped, the stuff stuck my hooves in place well enough to keep me from falling, but not so well I thought I might end up stuck there. With a Discord-may-care grin, I leapt away from the rafter with my back hooves, then swung under, giving the stalk a solid kick. It snapped with a soft tearing sound, and while Freeze Pop carried the freed cocoon to the floor, I clambered up onto the rafter to get ready for the next cocoon.

By the time we finished, I'd had to reapply the gunk to my hooves three times, and Meanie was showing dangerous signs of severe boredom. Freeze Pop set the last cocoon down with the others and I was looking around for a safe route down when I heard something terrifying.

"Is that all of them?" Meanie's harsh whisper carried up from the floor. I made frantic shushing motions at the two ponies down there just as Freeze Pop nodded her confirmation that we'd gotten all the Lost Foals down.

"Woo-hoo!" cheered Meanie, a raucous explosion of confetti and streamers erupting from her party cannon. I winced, and looked around. It was, of course, too much to hope that the changelings were such sound sleepers they'd missed that. All around me were angrily narrowed, multifaceted blue eyes. The shadows separated from the ceiling, and at least two dozen angry changelings bared their fangs at us.

I glared down at Meanie, who at least had the decency to look chagrined, and then the changelings began to swarm us. From that point, I had other things on my hooves besides Meanie.

One of those other things was the adhesive gunk from the cocoons' stems, which made fighting off the first few changelings even more of a challenge than it should have been. At first, I was able to make use of its elasticity to get a few really good kicks in, knocking two of the changelings to the far side of the warehouse. By the time I'd recovered from those two, however, they were all over me.

I caught glimpses of the warehouse through the holes through the creatures' hooves as they clutched onto me, biting and kicking and just generally making life miserable for me. I found it harder and harder to fight back, not due to blood loss -- the changelings were getting in each others' way as they all strove to be the one to subdue me -- but because I just couldn't move with them all pressing in around me. I managed to squeeze a hoof out from under one of them to lash out with an admittedly feeble kick, which freed me up a tiny bit so that I could make a better showing of myself.

Before the changelings could close in again, I lashed out with my back hooves with as powerful a kick as I could manage, and was gratified when the entire cluster of changelings around me went flying. I grinned at the devastation I'd wrought, but my self-congratulations were cut short when I realized that just above and behind me, Freeze Pop was dusting off her hooves with a smirk. I rolled my eyes at my own stupidity -- of course I hadn't taken them out myself. "Thanks for the save, Freeze," I called out.

She grinned. "No problem!" she said, then tucked her wings in for a high-speed dive at another cluster of changelings that had surrounded Meanie in the meantime. I watched, impressed, as she sent the bugponies flying with a headbutt, the impact of which sent a puff of compressed air all the way up to the rafters where I was. As the dust cleared, however, it became apparent that Meanie had somehow managed to slip out of the cluster of changelings without them noticing. Looking around the warehouse, I spotted her wheeling her party cannon around to fire at another cluster.

"Wow," I grunted. "I better step up my game, or there won't be any left for me to fight!" Scanning around the area, I noticed a group of changelings flying down towards Meanie. Letting out another Buffalo war-whoop, I leapt from the rafters in the opposite direction. The gummy sap stuff stretched taut and swung me around towards the descending changelings, then snapped just when I was beginning to rethink this... I don't think "plan" is the appropriate word.

With a mad cackle, I flew through the air, landing with all four hooves atop the nearest changeling. Giggling, I then leapt from changeling to changeling, giving each a good solid kick as I leapt to the next one. By the time I reached the floor of the warehouse, a half dozen more of the creatures had been dispatched, not to mention however many Freeze Pop and Meanie had dealt with.

I landed next to Meanie and turned to face the oncoming swarm, just as Freeze Pop swept in on the other side of the party pony and readied herself as well.

We'd already taken out at least two dozen, if not more, of the changelings. "They just keep coming!" I... okay, let's be clear. I did not whine. I complained. There is a difference.

"Quit whining," said Freeze Pop as the next wave of changelings swarmed us. She lashed out with a powerful back kick that not only sent two changeling flying, but peppered me with bits of bugpony teeth.

I winced slightly and darted under the nearest changeling, stopping to give it a kick in the rump before turning my attention to the next nearest.

"Oooh!" Meanie said appreciatively. "I think you just gave that changeling her Cutie Mark!"

I laughed. "That's a new one on me," I said as I gave the next changeling a left cross, following through with a roundhouse from my back hooves.

"Makes sense," Freeze Pop called out from where she was fighting off five of the bug things single-hoofedly. "Getting their flanks kicked seems to be these guys' special talent!"

Meanie hopped back-hooves first into her party cannon, narrowed her eyes in the most serious expression I'd ever seen, and looked right at me. "Launch me, Merry!" she called out, then pulled back inside the cannon.

"She cannot be serious," I grumbled, before a changeling's lunge forced me to leap into the air. It had worked before, I reasoned, so I galloped across the swarming changelings' heads in my mad dash for the party cannon. A group of five or six of the creatures were gathered around the muzzle of the cannon, licking their fangs in anticipation of... something unpleasant, I was sure.

"NOW!" Meanie yelled from inside the cannon, and I slammed a hoof on the trigger button. In an explosion of confetti, streamers, and plasticware, Meanie shot from the cannon with a delighted squeal, blasting her way through the changelings with a sound that most emphatically could not have been what I thought I heard. The only thing that sounds like that when it's knocked over is a set of bowling pins, and bowling pins are not nearly that... fang-y.

I have no idea how long the fight continued. I had pushed well past fatigued and into completely drained, and they just kept coming. Freeze Pop had gone from absolutely dominating changelings to slightly better than holding her own. Meanie... I had no way of determining how well she was doing. At first I thought I was seeing changelings taking on her appearance, but every time I thought that, the Meanie I was looking at would do something incontestably her, and in so doing, take out a few of the bugponies.

"Something's not right here," I grumbled.

"Apart from the fact that we should have won by now?" Freeze Pop said.

"Why haven't they been trying to mix us up? You remember what happened at Shiny's wedding, right?"

Freeze grimaced. "You're right," she said, laying into another pair of the things. "Why aren't they taking our shapes?"

"Because," an authoritative voice called out, "these are drones! They don't have the ability to change shape like the other changelings do."

Meanie popped up beside me, gasping in shock, and the three of us turned to face the voice. There in the entrance, framed by the dim orange light from the alleyway, was a cluster of pony-sized silhouettes. "Sorry it took us so long," a brash, somewhat high-pitched voice said from within the cluster.

"No problem, R.D.!" Meanie said, waving cheerfully.

I leaned over to her. "Hssst!" I hissed. "How do we know that's really her?"

"Oh, don't worry," the one who looked like Twilight Sparkle said in a fair approximation of her voice. "It's us." With that, her horn let out a flare of magic and I immediately threw myself to the floor, covering my head with my forehooves.

After a few moments, realizing that nothing had happened, I lifted my head and looked around me. The changelings, all in various states of injury and at varying levels of consciousness ranging from very conscious and enraged to completely unconscious, hovered in the air around us without the need to flap their wings. Twilight -- I was pretty sure by this point that it was Twilight -- glared at them menacingly, her horn wrapped in a field of magic. I sat back on my haunches. After a moment I whistled. "That," I said, "is some kind of telekinesis there."

Shiny rolled his eyes at me. "Of course it's telekinesis," he said. "How many times did they kick you in the head, Defty?"

I shook my head. "No," I said, "I mean, 'Wow, that is some kind of telekinesis there.' As in your sister is crazy powerful."

He grinned. "Isn't she, though?" he said, tousling her hair with a hoof.

"Shining Armor," Twilight groused good-naturedly, "I'm trying to concentrate here!"

"Right, right," he said. "Sergeant! Report!"

"Deft Hoof was able to secure the abducted foals," Freeze Pop said, snapping to attention. "They're over there," she indicated the spot with a wingtip.

"Well done, Sergeant," Shiny said, then relaxed. "At ease, Freezy."

Freeze Pop grimaced. "You guys came in the nick of time," she admitted.

"Please," I said, "you were totally dominating those freaky bugponies." I shook my head. "I mean we. We were totally dominating. Especially me. I am a one-pony changeling-kicking machine."

"Oh yeah?" taunted Shining Armor. "How many times did Freeze Pop have to save your flank?"

I grumbled under my breath. The word "fizzler" may or may not have been a part of what I said. I admit to nothing.

"Forget it," Shiny said, "we're wasting time. Twiley, there's a paddy-wagon on the way. Think you can hold these things until it gets here?"

"Watch me," Twilight Sparkle said with a smirk.