Meet the Director
The interviewer walked stiffly back inside the building, fighting to keep her face from showing any emotion to the Engineer, despite the fact she wasn’t even looking in her direction. Only after she was deep inside the facility did she relax, collapsing onto a set of stairs. She hyperventilated for a minute or two before finally being able to hear the individual beats of her heart. She took one last exhale, then opened her notebook and reviewed what she wrote. She managed to get through half of them, scribbling extra thoughts in the corner until she was interrupted by the click of talons across the floor.
“So that’s where you were, I’ve been wandering through this entire place looking for you.”
The interviewer looked up into the face of a griffoness, purple rimmed eyes peering tiredly at her.
“I’m Gilda. My boss wanted me to remind you we have another guy. He does some behind the scenes thing, and wants you to at least meet him.”
The pony scrunched up her face. She didn’t recall any mention of this guy, but of course, most ponies don’t know who the backstage workers are. Maybe he just slipped their minds. She shrugged and followed after the griffoness.
They went to the basement of the facility, with pipes and wires poking out of the walls. In the shadows, a desk with a large, high backed chair faced away from them. “Go on, kid. We don’t got all day.” Gilda grumbled.
The interviewer gulped and took a few unsteady steps towards the desk.
“Sit,” a harsh, electronic voice commanded. The interviewer slowly stepped closer and sat on a small chair in front of the desk. “I want you to listen very carefully,” it intoned. She leaned in a little closer.
“This is a very important secret that none of the others know about, and it helps make this operation run smoothly,” the voice continued. Little beads of sweat appeared on the interviewer’s forehead. “Die, Twilight.”
She gasped, a brief muzzle flash from behind obscuring her face. Bits of her skull flew out of her muzzle, and she collapsed onto the table. The seat crackled as blood fell onto the hidden speaker.
Gilda blew the smoke away from her heavy revolver. A bit of confusion went through her as she thought about her statement. “Why did she remind me of Twilight?” After a little bit longer, she realized she had some difficulty remembering her face beside a purple coat. “She was a .. unicorn? Or was she an Earth pony?” Nervously, Gilda crept towards the body, her gun pointed at it.
Poke.
There was no reaction. She carefully rotated its head and summoned all her energy into focusing on the bloody mess. Yes, there was a lavender coat. The remains of her horn appear to be there. What mane that wasn’t covered in blood appears to be a dark blue or indigo. Gilda pushed away some of the black bone fragments....Wait, black?
There was a sound like a sizzling wire, and a whoosh. She spun her head, raising her revolver, eyes widening at the growing wooden baseball bat.
Crack!
Gilda bounced off the table and landed onto the corpse, eyes spinning. She saw a blurry purple figure in front of her, the bat held aloft in a glow of green magic. “Hreey,” she slurred. “Yerr a ded rin’ner for dat Engi.” The bat blurred again, and she blacked out.
“You know,” the interviewer said...
A month before
Equestria was in uproar over the disappearance of the princesses. Twilight did her best to hold it together along with the parliament, but the Elements of Harmony seemed to come down with an illness shortly after. Their minds and body became duller and weaker, and not long after, they fell into a coma. It was all Twilight could do to still remain conscious while the rest of her friends were placed on life support. Spike stayed with her, trying to help out anyway he could. A week after the disappearance, a changeling uncloaked at the doorway to the royal hospital, covered in cuts and bleeding slightly. Swords and spears materialized around his neck from the guards posted at Twilight’s door.
Spike jumped up, teeth bared. “What do you want?” he growled.
“A message,” he rasped. “From my queen. It concerns *gasp* all of us.”
Spike was about to kick him out, but paused at the last sentence.
“Let him in,” Twilight weakly called from her bed. “He seems injured, and even if he....she...it? wanted to do anything, there are plenty of guards around us ... if we need any help.”
Spike snarled, but merely glared and the changeling as the guards hesitantly stepped back, yet still tense..
After a somewhat more detailed explanation of his journey: “Basically,” Spike said, “they were all kidnapped by a mysterious entity. Along with the Princesses, Discord has also been taken. There may be others, but you couldn’t get any more information without risk of capture.”
The changeling paused, but nodded disgruntledly.
“What do you want to me to do with this information?” Twilight murmured.
“My Queen said that she and Luna managed to escape whatever mind spell they cast over the rest of them, and ... agreed to make a plan for escape. They managed to send me this spell, one that a powerful mage like you can cast.” He made a move to move forward, but Spike’s claw shot out in front of him.
“What do you want?” Spike hissed.
The changeling frowned. “To show her the spell matrix directly.”
“I know quite a bit of magical theory,” Spike said. “Give it to me. If there’s any effect on the spell, I can shrug it off easily, and if I think its safe, I will show it to Twilight.”
The changeling unhappily agreed, and put his horn to Spike’s forehead. A green glow flowed into Spike’s head. The dragon closed his eyes, his eyes darting underneath his eyelids.
A moment passed as the changeling stepped back and waited.
Spike grumbled, opening his eyes. “Its safe. It does seem quite complicated, though. Have a look.”
He knelt over to his adoptive sister and breathed a gentle flame over her horn, then sat back onto his haunches.
“What do you make of it, Twilight?” Spike asked.
“Hmm,” Twilight murmured, her eyes darting underneath her eyelids.
She opened her eyes. “And who do you want to do this on?.”
“One of ours healthier than I will be sent here to practice with you after you cast the spell. We are used to the feeling of multiple minds,” the changeling answered. “I must return now, for my magic reserves are low. We hope you are willing to go through with this.”
“Well, the enemy of my enemy, I suppose,” Twilight sighed.
A few moments of silence passed between the two lifelong friends as they watched the guards glare at the leaving changeling..
“So....” Spike said. “What was that all about?”
“It appears to be a swapping spell of sorts...Ugh,” she quietly complained. “I feel so tired all the time. It makes it so hard to focus nowadays. If this does what I think it does, it would change everything. Gimme a minute”
The next day
“Ready?” Spike asked, twiddling his thumbs. “You don’t seem strong enough yet, can we postpone this?”
“I appreciate the sentiment,” Twilight said, “but the changeling said that he/it/whatever would transfer some of their stored energy to help me cast it...”
Her eyes rolled towards the doorway. “And there he is.”
A larger, thicker changeling walked over to the doorway, ignoring the glares the guards and Spike sent his way. “Ready?” he asked.
“According to your information-” Twilight gave a rattling wheeze which made Spike glance at her in worry, “-the longer we wait, the less chance I’ll wake up tomorrow. Let’s get it over with.”
Twilight readied the spell matrixes in her mind, and accepted the rivers of energy the changeling sent to her. She tried to ignore where it could’ve come from. Once she gathered up a sufficient amount, she fired it off at the changeling’s horn. The changeling backed up, letting loose a silent scream and collapsed. On the bed, the unicorn stared blankly at her smoking horn, then slowly melted into the sheets.
“Twilight?” Spike asked. He worriedly glanced at both bodies. He had a basic idea of what might be happening, but in either scenario, both getting knocked out was not in any plan.
The changeling stirred, then slowly began shifting into a sitting position, shaking his head. “Owww...What happened to the bed” he muttered in a very feminine voice, sliding a hoof around the floor.
Spike dropped his jaw when Twilight’s eyes opened up toward him, though tinged with blue.
“Twilight...is...you...wha?” he stammered
“What do you mean-” the changeling looked at the hoof in front of him and gave a breathless gasp. He scrambled backwards but merely tripped and fell over. He frantically looked down, mouth open as He realized the hoof was connected to him. “What happen-” the feminine voice cut off.
“Spell,” a woozy voice emanated from his mouth. “Mind swap.”
Spike made a confused face, pointing at the unconscious mare and the changeling.
The Twilight inside blushed. “Oh. Oooooh. I see. Sorry about that. Head, still woozy.” She looked at Spike. “Basically, the spell appears to have transplanted my mind into this body. Didn’t expect it would do ...oh gosh! Are you alright in there?” She poked her head.
“Fine,” her mouth said. “Minor shock. Give me few minutes.”
Twilight spent the next thirty minutes checking her body out and remembering how to walk why Spike convinced the worried guards outside that everything was fine.
Twilight stretched, lightly flapping her new insect like wings. “Alright, I guess I need to go back and check out that portal,” she said. “Since my body is now also in a coma, I guess we should hook up the life support to ... myself.”
She scratched her head. “That’s so weird.” She shook her head. “Don’t worry Spike. I’ll get them back. Just keep our bodies safe for us, alright?”
Spike looked like he dearly wanted to go with her, but managed to hold himself back. “...No problem Twilight. I can’t promise to prevent muscle atrophy, though,” he added weakly.
Twilight suppressed her own well of worries, but managed to force a grin to her face. “I’ll do my best.”
And then she was gone.
“... I want you to listen very carefully,” it intoned. She leaned in a little closer. “It’s a very important secret that none of the others know about, and it helps make this operation run smoothly.” Little beads of sweat appeared on her forehead.
Who is this? I never heard of this pony before. Is he a commander, hidden but the one who actually pulls the strings? A powerful warrior? Keeper of Secrets? Oh my gosh, what if he’s an enemy? Do a have a plan for this scenario? I can’t fail-!
“Die Twilight”
Twilight the changeling’s eyes shrunk to pinpricks. With the speed borne of weeks of practice, she flipped open a silver pocket watch and pushed its trigger.
BANG
Twilight flew forward, feeling like a large hoof had slapped her from behind, and tumbled over the table. She managed to glimpse the fake corpse the watch generated, then quickly hurried around in the shadows. She froze when she saw Gilda walk in, poking the corpse. She silently summoned a baseball bat and ended the cloaking spell with a crackle.
Gilda spun around, her eyes wide with shock. A meter of hard pine wood slammed off her cheek. She bounced off the table once, her gun clattering off to the side. She grinned groggily at her, eyes unfocused. “Hreey,” she slurred. “Yerr a ded rin’ner for dat Engi.” Twilight swung the bat once more, knocking the griffoness out cold.
“You know,” Twilight said. “You really shouldn’t call out your attacks. It gives your opponent a chance to counter it.”
She levitated over the gun, somewhat disappointed that Gilda didn’t carry any extra rounds, and deposited it into the bag with her notepad.
The changeling/pony rested the bat on her shoulders and trotted out of the cave, a whirl of smoke briefly obscuring her as she recast a “Not my Problem” spell on herself.
A few minutes later, Gilda’s head bounced off the floor when the fake corpse melted away.
Elsewhere
A journalist stared at a steel working factory, named “Torra’s Fishing Industries..”
“....This is not what the picture said it would look like.”