//------------------------------//
// United we fall 
// Story: Conversion 
// by CrutioAstarothChaos 
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“You must be insane to think I’ll take my brother in there with who knows what injuries!” Zaffre said. “I’d rather take him to the orphanage and hide him in a closet!”
“I know it sounds crazy, but you have to believe me!” Lancet stated. The two of them were standing outside the hospital, with Zaffre carrying the unconscious Buzzer.
“Give me a reason to,” Thorax replied.
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Try me,” Zaffre retorted with an angry look.
“She knows,” Shiftlight said after a long pause. “About me, about us. Nurse Redheart knows what we really are.”
“This has better be a sick joke!” Zaffre hissed. “Or I swear to every ancestor we ever had I’ll gut you myself!”
“It’s the truth,” Lancet replied, stepping closer to his brother. “And you better believe it, because I bet my hide that you know just as much about healing as a rock.”
Thorax let out an angry hiss, but slowly started moving towards the entrance. Shiftlight followed him cautiously. Once inside, Lancet lead his brother to his own room, and after they put Buzzer into a bed, he left, just to return with Nurse Redheart.
“Zaffre, I suppose you two already know each other.” Lancet said, trying to break the tension. Thorax shot a murderous glare towards both his brother and the mare.
“What’s the emergency?” Nurse Redheart asked, ignoring the furious changeling, and moving closer to Lime. Zaffre stepped between her and his brother.
“You give me one good reason to let you even catch a glimpse of my brother, or I’ll tear you apart!” Thorax hissed, his disguise vanishing, showing his fangs.
“I am a medic,” she replied coldly, “and this is my hospital. If I was trying to harm any of you, I could’ve already tied up Lancet. Now move aside.”
Zaffre snapped his teeth before her face, and then walked out the door, erupting in green flames to take on the appearance of the blue pegasus again. Lancet let out a heavy sigh, while Redheart examined Buzzer.
“Can you dissolve his disguise?” she asked. “I need to see what injuries he sustained.”
Shiftlight dropped his own cover and with a flash of his magic burned away Buzzer’s. The nurse looked at Lime’s face, his chitin shattered, faint greenish-blue fire burning in the cracks, his eyes shut with some blue mist seeping out from under his eyelids.
“This doesn’t look good,” Redheart sighed. “What do you know about your own anatomy?”
“Not much,” Lancet replied. “Every wound heals over time, but scars usually remain. A broken limb can mend together correctly, even if it’s not splinted. Sometimes those with serious injuries are put into a cocoon, filled with enough liquid so they can breathe.”
“Are these liquids hot or cold?” she asked, putting a hoof on Buzzer’s forehead.
“I don’t know, but I know that these cocoons are in the coldest sections of the caves.”
“Okay, we need to move him,” Redheart said, moving out to the corridor. “He’s burning with a fever unlike any I’ve seen before. There is a huge tub in the west wing of the hospital, and there are icepacks in the freezer. We’re putting him in a cold bath, until we can figure out something better.”
“How can I help?” Zaffre asked.
“You can help by staying put,” she replied, pushing a gurney next to Lime’s bed. “And that means both of you.”
“But...” Lancet started.
“No ‘buts’.” Thorax interrupted. “You drank a mug of absinthe like it was water; I’m surprised you’re still on your feet.”
“If that’s true, we’ll have a lot to talk about when I get back.” Redheart added, shooting a furious glare at Lancet. “Zaffre, levitate Lime on the stretcher.”
The shifter obeyed, dropping his disguise and putting Buzzer on the gurney. The nurse covered Lime with a white sheet, and then pushed the unconscious changeling out of the room, leaving the other two bugs in the room alone.
Once he was sure Redheart was out of hearing distance, Zaffre closed the door and magically sealed off the room, preventing any sound from escaping the four walls.
“You mindless idiot!” he yelled, turning to face Shiftlight. “Our brother’s life and our fate is in the hooves of a pony! What insane reason did surface in your brain to make you believe this was the right course of action?!”
“Well maybe I was trying to be nice for once!” Lancet replied with the same fury.
“By what, making him the victim of a fight he never expected?!”
“By keeping it a secret and keeping all of us here!” the other cried out. “I saw how happy Lime was at the party, and you yourself brought along foals from the orphanage! I dare you to tell me that you brought them along for some other reason, than your own soft heart!”
“Are you blaming me now?!” Zaffre was now inches away from his brother’s face. Lancet seemed to shrink under the crushing anger of Thorax. “For your actions?!”
“I’m asking for forgiveness!” Shiftlight cowered, hiding beneath his hooves.
Zaffre snorted, turned around and left.
“We have no business anymore,” he said from the corridor, loud enough for Lancet to hear.
 
Redheart gently lowered the unconscious changeling into the bathtub. She only hoped that this would work, and the fragmented chitin would heal. The nurse couldn’t say the same about the bond between the other two shifters, but right now she could concentrate on one problem.
She examined Lime in the tub, and found that the cracks, which submerged under water along the side of the changeling, have stopped burning; the lines along the fractured hide still glowing, but the ethereal energy no longer escaping from his body. She grabbed a cloth, soaked and folded it, laying it on the shifter’s face. After some sizzling and cracking the room went quiet again. Redheart turned around to find a thermometer and monitor Lime’s temperature, when she bumped into a blue pegasus.
“I thought I told you-“ she started, but Zaffre interrupted her.
“I couldn’t bear Lancet anymore.”
“Oh really? Tell me about it,” Redheart retorted, passing him by.
“I would rather not,” Zaffre replied.
“Then you’re no better than him,” she said, hoping she could make Zaffre forgive Lancet.
“How is he?” Thorax asked, putting Redheart off.
“I don’t know,” she replied hesitantly, putting the thermometer in Lime’s mouth, and holding it there. “I’m trying to understand what’s going on here, but I’m flying blind.”
“The love we feed on transforms into that stuff,” he explained, “and it’s escaping through the cracks. Field medics usually use slime to stop it from leaving our body.”
“And you didn’t tell me this before because?”
“I wasn’t thinking clearly,” Zaffre answered calmly. “My feelings have clouded my head.”
“Just like your brother’s,” Redheart stated, reading off the scale of the thermometer.
“You know, it’s not going to work with me,” he said. “You would need a lot more skill to manipulate someone, who was taught to manipulate others from birth.”
“Are you blaming me for trying?”
“Why are you trying?” Zaffre inquired, unconvinced by the changeling-loving act of the nurse. “What motivates you to help us?”
“You mean as a changeling, or as a family?” she asked back, a tiny bit of fury and sadness in her voice. “Because I’ve seen a lot of the latter falling apart!”
“Touching-” Thorax remarked, but Redheart interrupted him.
“No it’s not!” she yelled. “I saw stallions leave mares because they suddenly became mothers, I saw unwanted foals at the orphanage, and you did too! So why are you so cold?”
“Because he made a stupid decision!” Zaffre hissed. “We were exposed, my brother could’ve died, and now I’m forced to trust YOU, to handle OUR fate!”
“Then let me help!” she touched the shoulder of the shifter with a hoof, but he pulled away. “I have sworn not to do harm, and Celestia is my witness that I will keep that vow! Just help me by letting me do my job!”
“I’ll come by tomorrow morning to see if he’s okay.” Zaffre said, heading for the exit. “Make sure he won’t try anything stupid, should he wake up.”
With Thorax gone, the room was now silent, except the occasional breathing of Lime. Redheart let out a heavy sigh, and sat down on the floor. She really didn’t think this through. None of them did. The changelings were experiencing unforeseen things; feelings that they barely dared to admit they felt, much less confess it to others. The nurse felt a cold grasp in her chest; no matter how much she tried to help Lancet, the unity of the trio was now breaking up. And she knew from experience, that breakups can sometimes hurt more, than one could imagine.
Especially if someone never experienced anything like that ever before.
 
“Zaffre, wait!” a voice called out for the changeling. “I... have something to ask of you!”
“I said; we have no business anymore!” he yelled back at Lancet. “The moment Lime is fine we’re leaving!”
“You may be, but the decision about his life is Lime’s, not yours!” Shiftlight retorted.
“And you think I would leave him here with you? All of us made a vow; we swore to watch each other’s backs!”
“And I kept that promise!”
“At what price?” Zaffre cried out. “We are not safe anymore! I don’t feel safe anymore!”
“Just because she helps us now, doesn’t mean we can’t take care of ourselves anymore!” Lancet stepped closer to his brother. “If we want to stay here for a year, we must trust them!”
“No,” Zaffre replied after a heavy sigh. “I refuse to accept it. I refuse to be a failure.”
“Don’t make the mistake I did!” Lancet pleaded. “Look what it lead to in my case! Just give it a thought, that’s all I ask!”
“Hmph,” Thorax snorted, and trotted away into the night. “I’ll do my best.”
 
Lancet locked the door behind himself, and lay on the bed. His head was still spinning from the alcohol, no matter how much he tried to surpass it. His thoughts still ranged over the events of the night, playing it all over and over again, like a bad dream. Shiftlight wished it to be nothing more than just a dream, and closed his eyes. He thought about trying to sleep, and forget all that happened, but his consciousness kept him awake enough for him to notice the faint sound of the door opening and closing. It didn’t take him too much to realize who could’ve disturbed him.
“I’m not ready to talk about it yet,” the shifter said, hoping Redheart would just leave him be.
“Like I give a buck!” she replied in a silent but furious voice. “You come here in the middle of the night, drunk, with your brother having injuries and think you can still dictate the terms? You are out of your delirious mind!”
Shiftlight sat up on the bed, and faced the angry nurse. Redheart’s cold blue eyes could’ve easily pinned him to the wall of the room, like a needle does with a bug, and Lancet shrank under the penetrating gaze.
“You will tell me everything, and I mean everything that might make you emotionally unstable, or so help me, I’ll rip your disguise off somehow, and tie you to the tip of the town hall!”
The changeling bit his lip. He knew Redheart’s threat wasn’t empty, but his drunk brain just couldn’t really comply with telling his personal secrets to a pony. Zaffre was right: none of them would feel safe in a situation like this.
“No,” he said after a short pause.
“Then leave,” Redheart replied coldly. “Now.”
“You’re throwing me out?”
“I trusted you so far, because I thought you wouldn’t do anything too unpredictable,” the nurse moved closer to the changeling. “But now you have proven me wrong; you hurt not one of us, but your own brother! If you can’t even control yourself to prevent this from happening, how am I supposed to trust you with practicing under my guidance to be a colt-nurse? So yes: I’m throwing you out. Pack your things and leave.”
“What about my brother?” Shiftlight asked vaguely.
“Do you truly think any of them would wish to see you if you’re turning down every attempt of help?” she retorted. “I offered my help several times, and you haven’t even gave it a chance. Now I’m returning the favor: no second chances anymore.”
“You wouldn’t...” Lancet started, dropping off of the bed.
“Three seconds,” Redheart said. “And I call the guards.”
Shiftlight didn’t make a sound as he left the room. The nurse looked at the door, and walked out into the empty corridor. She couldn’t see the changeling anywhere. She walked around in the hospital, her colleagues sleeping or working at their desks, but otherwise the hospital being all empty. She sat down in the reception hall, and looked out at the dark and empty streets of the moonless night.
“You bucking idiot,” she whispered to herself, as a tear ran down her cheek.
 
Buzzer soared on the edge of unconsciousness, as one half of his mind struggled to keep awake, protecting him from the threat of Luna. But the rest of his brain agreed on keeping the stress of being awake to a minimum, and dragged the tiny conscious spark down into the depths of the dreams.
In his sleepy visions he found himself in a cold dark-blue ruin of a castle, surrounded by deep-purple mist, with nothing but the starry sky above his head. The changeling moved around in the illusion cautiously, not remembering the place, watching out for any danger he might have to face. He hid behind every corner, leaping from cover to cover, and while trying to find a way around the maze, Lime bumped into a throne room. If he would’ve been awake, he would’ve definitely died from a heart attack, because in the throne sat no one else, but the princess of the night. Unfortunately the turn of events prevented him from waking up from the nightmare, so he could only hope his presence would go unnoticed.
“Dost thou not know we could feel thou, hiding in the shades?” Luna called out after a short while. Buzzer considered his options, and then replied.
“The faint belief that I might go unnoticed made me feel at least a bit safe,” he said from his hiding place. “But unfortunately it seems like I’m stuck here for a while. Probably thanks to the hind hooves of some drunken stallion.”
“Thou hast probably deserved that buck,” Luna remarked.
“For what, Canterlot?” Buzzer asked. “Like I had a choice in that matter!”
“Thou can always choose between right and wrong!”
“Well forgive me if I made a wrong decision just to stay alive!” Lime retorted. “I think I paid a price by being separated from the rest of my hive, maybe even permanently!”
“Is thou asking of us to pity thee?” Luna chuckled. “Forgive us if we find it amusing. It is rare that our enemies abase themselves so far as to beg for some sympathy.”
“I am not asking for pity!” Lime snapped, leaving his hiding place and facing the princess. “I am simply trying to understand what reason one could see in getting home just to be ordered to tear his own kind apart! I saw changelings devour each other to survive, I have seen cruelties your highness could never even imagine, I lived through things I would never thought of doing, just to find myself being forced to do them to survive!”
“And now thou art here, doing the exact same thing thine kind have done for, what, the last few centuries?” she inquired of him. “Hiding in disguises, trying to feed on our subjects...”
“I am only striving to survive!” he cried out. “Why am I to take the blame for being a changeling? You are a goddess, and your subjects love and respect you, but with our queen we fear and shun her! We carry out her orders because our fates are in her hooves! But surely an immortal alicorn such as yourself cannot understand the concept of death!”
“ENOUGH YOU IMPUDENT BUG!” Luna boomed in her Royal Canterlot voice. “Thou hast made us very desperate for flushing thee out! Mark our words; thou better decide to come to us, before we decide to find thee!”
Buzzer awoke with a gasp, splashing the water around him in the tub, panicking from the feeling of the cloth on his face, waving around with every limb he had, just to finally flounder out of the tub, and land with a loud thud. He looked around in the dimly lit hospital room, and noticed his disguise missing. He saw a mirror on the wall, and stood up, to examine himself properly. What he saw gave him more questions that answers.
His face was full of cracks, his left eyelid swollen, a piece of cloth was wrapped around his horn, and his left fang was broken. He recollected what he could from the events of the night, and soon, he was sitting on the floor, making theories about what he could’ve been missing. All of them involved him being exposed at some point, and the absence of his brothers probably meant that they escaped, and kept the hospital under surveillance, to see if he can make it out before the guards arrive. Buzzer decided he would try his best, and escape as fast as possible.
Unfortunately for him, his head hurt so much he could barely put on his disguise, much less blow a hole in the wall, and the shortage of windows left only the main entrance as a possible escape route.
“They will never see me coming,” he said to himself, hissing from the pain, as he erupted in green flames.
Once on the corridors, he moved cautiously. He expected a few guards to be at the entrance of his room with a cage, but the hospital was silent. Then the realization hit him.
They don’t know about me, he thought. If they would, the princess surely wouldn’t have offered me the chance to give myself up.
Feeling a bit safer with his new discovery, Lime made a run for the exit. He almost reached the door, when a female voice stopped him in his tracks.
“Lime!” Redheart called out. “It’s good that I found you before you left!”
“I suppose it is,” he replied casually. “I’m sorry I was such a bother.”
“Well, I wanted to talk to you about that,” she said, stepping closer to the changeling. “In private, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Well, I’m sure Pinkie is expecting me to be home at any minute!” Lime turned to leave.
“I know what you are,” Redheart stated, and that sentence froze Buzzer solid. “I just wish you to hear me out.”
“Give me a reason to,” Lime replied in a cold tone.
“Because I know why Lancet did what he did.”