With a hastily-drawn map, John was able to point Twilight, Flash, and Dash in the right direction. Blueblood watched the three fly away, their wings unfurled for the first time in two days. He chewed his lip, his mind rumbling with considerations.
“We should follow,” he told Braeburn. “The five of us need to help them however we can.”
Braeburn shrugged. “How’re we gonna follow? Ah got my tracking spell, but… We’re kinda grounded.”
Eudora’s eyes twitched in the direction that the fleeing car had retreated. “Why didn’t you guys go with her? Aren’t you all alicorns underneath… um…”
Blueblood sat and grumbled. “I am the best flyer between us, and I could never match even Twilight’s speed. It’s quite embarrassing, really.”
John, unlike the others, had a slight grin upon his features. The understandably-moody Redheart took slight offence to this. “What’s gotten into you?”
He turned, his grin undiminished. “Eudora, don’t you live right around here?”
She nodded. “Yeah?”
“And don’t you have a car?” His eyebrows danced as realization dawned on her features.
“Oh, yes,” she replied. “I think I can help with that.”
Blueblood decided that he hated cars with every fiber of his being.
“That’s three red lights you’ve passed,” John noted with some detachment. “A new record.”
Redheart licked her lips as a large tanker truck rumbled by in the other lane. “Well, we do have to make up for lost time.”
Braeburn huddled close beside Blueblood in the back seat, his hat pulled low on his head. A weak pulse of his magic pointed their way forwards. “Jus-just wake me when it’s over.”
Eudora’s head jerked to the side, and the car jerked in concert. “There they are!”
A slick, green car rolled towards the downtown. In its front seats were the likenesses of Lavern and Amelia. An odd, greenish tinge gleamed from their eyes, eyes that were dispassionately flickering back and forth across the road before them. Eudora took in a deep breath and slid her vehicle into their lane, nearly causing several accidents in the process.
Blueblood became ill at roundabout that point.
Eudora noted with distain that there were three cars between them and the vehicle they were in pursuit of. “Crud. Do you think we can make them pull over or something?”
John rolled his eyes. “Why? Are you a cop?”
“Glory be, I hope not,” Redheart said.
They entered the freeway, the two-lane road presenting higher speeds and surer injury. Eudora sidled the car into the fast lane and brought them closer to Lavern’s. “I got an idea.”
She turned towards Redheart, taking her eyes off the road. The car swerved as she talked. “Hey, can one of you guys zap their tires, or transmission, or something?”
Redheart’s mouth froze in an open position. “I.. We… we hardly know anything about cars. We’re just as likely to flip it over as bust it.”
Blueblood grasped Eudora’s head and turned it back towards the fore. He placed a hoof on Redheart’s shoulder. “Princess Redheart, what is your personal spell? The one that you are the best at?”
“I…” She frowned at his hoof, which he lifted away with all due speed. “I can look inside somepony and find what’s wrong with them, then maybe fix it without surgery. Why?”
“Brilliant!” He pointed past her to the other car. “Do the same with that vehicle, but instead of fixing an infirmity…” He grinned wickedly. “Make one!”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to hurt Alma! I don’t want to…” She sighed, rubbing at her nose with a fist. “It’s too dangerous.”
Blueblood was about to ask Braeburn, when the other prince replied unprompted. “Don’t look at me, ah can hardly lift an apple as is.”
Eudora was one car length away from the villains’ car. Blueblood shut his eyes and exhaled. “Redheart…” he said.
She raised an eyebrow.
“I trust you to do this,” Blueblood said. “I’ll make sure the girl is safe. You can stop the car, I know it.”
Redheart’s mouth twitched into an almost smile, which quickly faded away. “Okay, then. On your mark.”
Blueblood’s horn glowed. Alma’s body began to glow almost imperceptibly from the back seat of the other automobile. “Go.”
Redheart concentrated, a faint glow appearing from her forehead. Her breathing slowed as she focused her energy upon the car’s drive train, its tires, its fuel tank. Her brow furrowed at the choices, and she continued to search.
Eudora pulled up alongside the other car, and John watched it through narrow eyes. A chance glance by the Lavern-esque driver prompted a double-take. The driver snarled and brought its vehicle close to Eudora’s. She swerved, almost taking her car into the ditch. The other car connected door-to-door, snapping Eudora’s rear-view mirror off.
A green glow came forth from the enemy vehicle, and Eudora was suddenly faced with an unfortunate truth. “Guys… Guys! The breaks don’t work!”
The driver grinned, turning the wheel for another impact. They connected, rattling the bones of all occupants. Blueblood heard Alma’s faint scream, and saw the mother reaching back to hold her hand. He felt a chill run down his spine when his eyes met the young girls, and fear blasted from her in near-palpable proportions. “Any time now, Nurse Redheart!”
“I’m trying!” she screeched. Blueblood bounced back, his rump squishing Braeburn into the window. She glowered at him, her eyes wet. “It’s like there’s nothing I can do that won’t wreck the car, or hurt the passengers, or… or…”
Her eyes lit up. “Oh, that might work.”
The changeling, for if it was not obvious before, it should be in a moment, driver grinned with glistening fangs as it readied itself for another sideswipe. The car’s wheel turned, and he neared the impact point. Eudora struggled to keep her car on the road, and let loose a scream as the point of no return approached.
Suddenly, with a spark of Redheart’s magic, the hood of the changeling’s car flew up.
The creature flashed green as his disguise fell away with shock. His hooves, flat chitinous pseudopods that they were, failed to find purchase on the wheel. Redheart gasped in horror as her plan to stop the car twisted itself into something ruinous. The car turned towards the ditch, ready to careen into oblivion.
The Amelia-alike grasped the wheel and turned it violently to the other direction, crashing the car sideways into Eudora’s. John’s airbag went off, clouding any visibility that they might have had. Eudora slammed on the useless breaks, praying that they might find purchase.
Through it all, Blueblood’s magic never left Alma.
Redheart let out a cry as her magic found its way to Eudora’s breaks. A latch returned to position, a leaking line soldered over, and the car stopped in less than sixty seconds.
In the middle of the freeway.
The changeling vehicle rolled away, and off of the freeway. John looked behind himself and saw the dozens of cars also using the road that were bearing down on them. “Hit! The! Gas!”
Eudora complied, and the car jumped forwards. A minivan passed by as they picked up speed, the soccer mom within noting to her children how stopping on the freeway was several flavors of idiocy. They switched lanes just in time to enter the exit, rolling into the downtown area.
A construction site came into sight. A tall office building was surrounded by cranes and bulldozers and all sorts of awesome stuff. Blueblood gulped as he noted that the construction workers were all moving in a noticeably robotic fashion.
“Here we go.”
Twilight Sparkle flapped her wings as she struggled to keep up with Rainbow Dash and Flash Sentry. The two experienced flyers far outpaced her, their entire lives revolving around bettering their bodies. Though it was not a mutually exclusive ideal, Twilight usually spent the better part of her time strengthening her mind.
Dash glanced back and waved a hoof to her friend. “Come on, Twilight, we’re almost there.”
“Right,” Twilight panted. “Gotcha.”
Flash circled around her and placed his hooves under her wings. “Here, keep them straight out for long stretches…”
Her “meep” of surprise at his touch echoed through the skies whilst her wings locked up. Her uncontrolled plummet was short lived, as she was soon caught by both Rainbow Dash and Flash.
“Sorry,” he sputtered. “Sorry.”
Twilight sighed and resumed flapping. “No, I’m sorry. That was silly of me.”
Rainbow pursed her lips in an unsuppressed frown. “Can we please keep moving? Save the character development for later.”
“The what?” Flash asked.
“I dunno, it just sounds like something Pinkie Pie would say.” Ranbow Dash gave her wings a mighty flap, sending her soaring towards the downtown.
Twilight shrugged at Flash. “Color commentary?”
He nodded. “Color commentary.”
Which building they needed to find was fairly obvious, by the way it was dominating the skyline. Though, as far as the city was concerned, calling it a skyline was highly generous. Most buildings were little more than three stories tall, and the one under construction was at least three times that.
“Coming soon, office space,” was written on a decently-sized sign at the front, along with some mumbo jumbo about Ingram Construction and who to contact and so forth. Twilight disappeared in a flash of purple light and reappeared inside the shadow of a large dump truck. Flash and Dash landed soon after her.
“So, plan of action?” Flash asked. His eyes never stopped moving around the site.
“We can wait for the car to arrive with Alma,” Twilight replied. “But I think this might be a little more fishy than just a foalnapping. Care to scout around inside?”
“Three pastel-colored ponies in an enclosed space with a million humans poking around?” Dash asked. “Piece of cake.”
They skittered around, careful to stick to the shadows and away from the sight of the “humans” walking around. Flash couldn’t help but notice the green glow in their eyes. Twilight’s magic creaked a newly-completed door open, and the three of them slipped inside.
They slithered and slunked through the hallways. It was clear the building was quite close to being usable, only the upper levels had any work to be done. As such, the quiet was deafening, making the ponies feel all the more conspicuous. Twilight stopped as a hint of odd magic tickled her horn, a presence she had not felt since…
“Below us,” she said. “There’s something below us.”
Flash found a stairway as quick as a wink, and they floated down on feathery wings. On the next level, a large, metal door barred their way. A sickly green glow eked out through the frosted window, sending shivers down their spines.
“Okay, this just went straight into Freakytown.” Rainbow Dash took a hesitant step back. “Right behind you, Twi.”
Twilight merely nodded and pressed the door handle down.
She choked and backpedaled at the grisly view before her. Dozens of people were contained inside; men, women, and children. They were suspended in vats of the green fluid that she had so recently come to acquaint with changeling bile. Organic containers with filmy viewports suspended the people in that dark space between awake and asleep.
She fell back against Flash, and didn’t step away for a good long while. She barely registered Rainbow Dash’s gasp of shock and the profanity that followed. She barely felt the comfort Flash tried to send her way through his forelegs.
She suddenly realized that Flash Sentry was sending comfort her way through his forelegs.
She pulled away from him with a start. “Time! Time to free these people, yeah! Rah, rah for the good guys!”
Her voice echoed in the confines. The three of them looked into the room hesitantly, a faint bubbling noise meeting their ears. “So,” Flash began, “where do we start?”
Twilight searched the room for less than a second before she made her choice. “Oh, gosh.”
In a fresh pod before her, there sat Amelia, and Lavern beside her. Twilight’s horn glowed, undoing the bonds that held them within the changelings’ brew. She caught Amelia in her forelegs as Rainbow Dash caught Lavern.
They coughed and sputtered as they got their bearings. Their eyes widened at the insectoid display around them. “Where’s Alma?” Amelia demanded. “Where in the heck is my daughter!?”
The three ponies glanced between each other, coming up with no answers. Rainbow Dash piped up quietly. “She’s on her way here, but I think… I think the changelings have her.”
Flash Sentry stepped forwards. “I promise, I’ll do everything in my power to save her. You have my word.”
The car pulled into the lot, and Alma was led from the vehicle. Her mother’s gentle hand was stronger than usual as it pulled her along, away from the stranger in the car. Alma thought that it had been her dad, but he changed. He changed, and Alma wasn’t sure what he had changed into. She felt so sleepy.
And that headache wouldn’t go away.
“Mommy?” she asked with bleary eyes, “what are we gonna do here?”
“It’s a surprise, tender loveling,” her mom said.
Alma blinked. Her mom never called her “loveling,” that was just weird.
The headache increased in strength, and Alma’s internal complaints grew silent.
They passed by a bulldozer that had no place on the relatively-finished construction project. She marveled dimly at the steamroller that was more suited to roadway construction than office buildings. A backhoe rumbled past as a changeling parked it.
She looked again, and noticed that it wasn’t really a changeling, just a hairy man. Right?
She was led through the halls and into a big conference room, where a bunch of men in suits waited for her mother. They bowed as she passed them, their eyes flashing green. Alma clutched her mother, easing away from those men in black suits.
“We’re ready, your majesty,” one suit told her mother. “We’re set for ignition on your mark.”
“Mm, excellent.” Alma looked up at her mother and gasped as her eyes flashed green as well. “Gather the troops, they’re going to love, love, love my brilliant plan.”
The cobwebs fell away, the headache lost its power, and Alma came to a chilling realization. “You’re not my mommy.”
The woman who was not her mother opened her mouth and let it hang limply. “You… You can’t possibly know that. You’re under my…”
She shook her head. A sinister smile crossed her lips. “No matter, then. The time for disguise is over, my soldiers.”
She knelt down before Alma, staring into her eyes with a despicable fire. “Watch closely, loveling. You’re going to love…”
Alma gasped as the form of her mother burst into green flames, consuming her whole being.
“Love…”
Out of the fire and the flames stepped a slender, black body. Chitinous hooves clomped softly against the floor, and greenish-bluish hair wafted like cobwebs around her head. Fangs sprung from her mouth, along with a long tongue that snaked its way through the air.
“Love it.”
Alma screamed, falling against the wall. She hid her face and cried out, tears pouring from her.
A suit on the other side of the room whispered, “Hey, hey cut it out, she’s just a kid.”
Chrysalis turned towards him, her smile devolving into a snarl. “And why should you care?”
“Well, I mean”—the disguised changeling stuttered for a good few moments—“it’s just common courtesy to be nice to kids, isn’t it?”
His answer came in the form of Chrysalis’ fiery magic grasping him and flinging him bodily through the window, heightening their insurance premiums something fierce.
A small voice sliced through the silence left by the changeling suit’s passing. “God is bigger than the boogey man…” Alma sniffled. “B-bigger than Godzilla or the monsters on TV…”
“Dear child,” Chrysalis said, her voice dripping with honey, “you needn’t worry about the monsters on TV…”
Her mouth opened wide as she bared her teeth. “We aren’t on TV anymore!”
The changeling suit landed in a heap of limbs at John’s feet. The brony squealed as the body plopped before him. He watched it settle slowly, morbid fascination daring him to take his eyes away for even an instant.
He was rewarded with the sight of the body apparently catching fire and burning to a blackened crisp. “What.”
A changeling stepped from the residual smoke, sputtering and gasping. “Good grief! I’m never gonna get used to regenerating my entire body! It feels like I’m a whole…” The creature looked up to see itself surrounded by humans, and one pony. “New changeling.”
The changeling backed away the single step it took for it to be pressed against the wall. “Whatever it was, I didn’t do it.”
“Yes you did,” Blueblood said. “Now, can you tell us what you’re about to do?”
“Completely and utterly sell out my hive?” the changeling asked with a smile.
“That would be pretty nice,” Redheart said. “So, spill it.”
The changeling’s grin grew to epic proportions. “Not on your life!” It burst into flames and sank into the concrete wall, disappearing from sight.
“Wha—” Eudora’s complaint about the laws of physics being so utterly violated died on her lips as Blueblood explained.
“The changeling’s mode of transportation,” he mumbled. “A sort of teleportation spell that doesn’t bend space-time, just shifts a few molecules. It’s bizarre and creepy.”
“So let’s follow it,” John suggested.
“I can’t teleport there!” Blueblood waved a hoof unspecificly. “If I don’t know what’s on the other side, I could teleport inside a wall, or become bonded with a flower vase, or some such—”
The sound of a door opening to his immediate right caused Blueblood’s tirade to end prematurely. “Oh.”
They piled into the dark hallway, eyes and ears alert for any sign of changeling activity. The one they had cornered seemed to have vanished from the story completely. But as luck would have it, and boy howdy does luck have it, they turned a corner and came face-to-face with Chrysalis and her entourage.
Swear words in a variety of languages and levels of obscenity flew back and forth between the two parties for several moments, until one changeling (who was suspiciously undisguised) put forth the factoid that swearing in the presence of a child was quite unseemly. Both parties were able to calm down a bit at this statement, before they realized that they stood mere inches away from some of their most mortal enemies.
So the swearing continued.
With the five of them working together, Twilight and the others were able to open a dozen canisters, freeing the people inside. While some of them were understandably freaked about being rescued by technicolor ponies, they soon came to accept it as being less weird than being kidnapped by bug-pony-things.
But at least one was wary about the fact that they might just be “A horse of a different color.”
The massive form of Keefe rose from an organic casket, shaking his head and coughing up bug juice. “That’s just nasty, man.”
Lavern clamped a hand on Keefe’s shoulder. “Do you know where Alma is?”
“No… No, I don’t, Vern. I’m sorry.” The big man’s pained expression spread around the awakened prisoners. “I got caught this morning, I dunno where she is.”
“Guys!” Rainbow Dash’s voice called out from the stairwell. “Guys! I can see Chrysalis! I can see the changeling queen!”
The awakened gathered around the window, listening closely to the words that drifted into the building. “Changelings, we are gathered here today to finalize my grandiose plan!”
“I don’t think that word means,” Lavern said, “what she thinks it means.”
“I think she does,” Twilight countered.
“The building behind you is but a mere office building, a palace of petulant paperwork!” Chrysalis continued. “But with my guidance, we have turned it into a beacon of love and well-wishes!”
“This oughta be good,” Amelia muttered.
“Because my children, what brings these humans together in love and friendship better,” Chrysalis crowed, “than an honest-to-goodness disaster!?”
Silence descended on the inside and outside of the building. A changeling voice piped up from the crowd of construction workers. “What?”
“Can’t you see it?” Chrysalis asked. “In all their years, nothing has prompted a greater outpouring of love that disasters and tragedies! That is why we’re here, my changeling children, to craft a homespun disaster!”
“Wait, wait,” another voice called out. “We’re gonna destroy the office building, or something?”
“Imagine,” said the queen, “a news broadcast. The destruction of a newly-finished office building. The mourning families. The pain on their features. The help and caring of thousands, neigh, millions of viewers as they pour out their hearts to these victims of a horrible, horrible accident!”
She lifted her hooves to the sky, and the sun shone through her perforated hooves. “Imagine the love that we, those disguised as victims, shall receive!”
Silence once more fell upon the crowd. Twilight’s hoof covered her mouth in horror. The first changeling that had spoken up chirped once more. “We’re gonna… We’re gonna blast the building with all those people inside?”
“Well!?” Chrysalis screeched. “We want it to be authentic, do we not!?”
“I didn’t sign up for this!” another voice said. “This isn’t right!”
“I agree!” signaled a third. “This is evil, Chrysalis! Evil!”
Chrysalis’ face betrayed not a single sign of emotion. “Every changeling that does not want to die weak and loveless, please raise your hoof.”
Most of the crowd dutifully raised their hooves.
“If you would,” she continued, “find the traitors and bring them to me.”
A scramble took place as the four changelings that had spoken up were dragged onto the crane that Chrysalis was standing on. Ropes quickly secured them. Now that she looked twice, Twilight could see six other prisoners held beside the queen. Blueblood, Redheart, Braeburn, Eudora, John, and Alma were tied to the arm of the crane, immobile and angry.
“Stand by, my changelings!” Chrysalis called. “Today marks the day where we return to full power, where we gain the ability to finally stand against Equestria and claim it as our own! Today marks the day”—she lifted a small control box in her magic, a large red button adorning it—“of the changelings!”
Keefe made a noise like a strangled cow and ran to the back of the room. He reached a set of suspiciously-marked-and-wired barrels just as the queen pressed her button. With a mighty hand, he yanked the wires free from the barrels, interrupting the electrical signal that was most assuredly zinging their way.
Chrysalis’ smile lasted just long enough for her to realize something was wrong. “Alright, who’s going to go check the bombs?”
Unsurprisingly, none volunteered.
Chrysalis groaned. “Cheeselegs, Thor Axe, Seggy Ment, go and check the darned bombs!”
The three unlucky changelings trotted away as their disguises dissolved in fire. They made their way inside and headed for a specific stairwell.
They were met with unexpected, though in hindsight unsurprising, force.
Chrysalis trotted in place, her ire rising. “Where have those fools gone? How long does it take to make sure a bomb can actually go off?”
“You’ve failed, your highness!” came a haughty voice to her left.
Chrysalis snarled at her captives, in particular the white alicorn that never seemed to shut up. “I have not failed, you dimwitted numbskull! I have succeeded in a way I never before dreamed!”
Her wings flittered as she drew herself towards Blueblood, licking her lips at the feast to follow. “Perhaps I should feed directly from you, drain the love from your body. You’d love, love, love it!”
Blueblood’s adam’s apple bobbed as she approached. “You’ve, um, you’ve failed because you’ve underestimated one very”—he gulped as she came close enough for her breath to blow hot against his neck—“one very crucial thing,” he finished with a crack of his voice.
“Tell me more, my prince,” she chuckled.
“You’ve underestimated the magic of friendship, witch!”
Chrysalis twisted in midair, turning to face the alicorn princess that had spoken, and the veritable army of angry humans behind her. They poured out of the building, “frown” not truly describing the expression of displeasure that sat on every single face.
Twilight Sparkle’s horn glowed as she pointed it at the fifty-odd changelings that stood disguised before her. “Cha-a-a-a-arge!”