Applejack found living on the Aurora rather dull at times. There were no trees to buck, the gym had been destroyed, and often, Rainbow Dash slept, providing her with no way to release energy in the form of competitions. Running laps around the ship had worked at first, but it lost its appeal after the third lap.
So she had taken to wandering around. It amazed her how many things on the Aurora were themed around Prince Blueblood. Blueblood-O’s were the only breakfast cereal in the small food stores, which were there for the passengers that had decided to self-cater rather than pay the extra. For the prices the stores charged however, they may as well have paid. It also amazed her how someone had gone out of their way to deface every last one with beards and unmentionable body parts floating around Prince Blueblood’s face.
The third store she came across in her restless wander, as the moon begun to rise into the sky, had plush toys of Prince Blueblood. Evidently, somepony had gone to the trouble on discovering them, of impaling each and every last one with roughly twenty pins. What troubled her more was the fact the pins seemed to be centered on the eyes and the intimate regions.
Ignoring the impromptu haydoo ritual, she wandered deeper through the store and found windows where she expected a wall. Peering through the glass, her eyes widened, and caused her to speak after hours of silence.
“Woah nelly!”
---
Twilight looked blankly at Applejack, barely paying attention to the looks the other ponies and dragon gave towards the pair.
“A zoo?” Twilight asked.
“Yep, that’s what I saw Twi.” Applejack replied, affirming what she had seen.
“You saw a full zoo, potentially with lots of animals, that we’ve kept missing for weeks now, and they’re all still alive, despite all logic saying we should now be facing lots of dead animal bodies. And you’re certain you didn’t find hard cider first?” Twilight asked again, almost unbelieving.
“Animals are a lot smarter than you give them credit for, Twilight,” Fluttershy spoke up, “with none of us aware of them, they would have gone looking for food by themselves.”
Twilight seemed to ponder this for a moment. Her expertise with animals was nothing compared to Fluttershy’s, so it was best to trust her. But it was clear that they couldn’t just leave the zoo as it was.
“Right, I’m sure the ship can handle drifting for a while, let’s get down there, find a list of what’s supposed to be in this zoo, and make sure everything is alive and well.” Twilight stated, giving the others no choice.
Only Fluttershy seemed to be looking forward to the task.
---
The zoo gift shop thankfully had a list of animals on display, and it was this that Twilight held with her magic, along with a quill and ink. She waited patiently as the others moved around and awaited her to say an animal.
Twilight studied the list, and her eyes went wide.
“Um, girls, apparently one of the ‘animals’ on display is a changeling. We’d better be careful.” Twilight called out.
“Yeah, whatever Twilight, it’s going to be behind bars, we’re safe, stop worrying.” Rainbow called back.
“Fine, let’s start, Armadillo.”
“Here!” Rarity shouted.
“Aardvark.”
“Here!” Pinkie pie shouted, giggling at the silly name.
“Adder.”
“Here!” Rainbow called out, she could be seen clearly staying away from the glass that held this animals.
And so the pattern repeated, as Twilight ran slowly through the list. After half an hour, she called the one she had seen earlier.
“Changeling.”
Silence. Wondering if anypony had heard her, she called out again.
“Changeling.”
“We heard you the first time, Twi, but we might have a problem.” Applejack replied, pointing at the cage.
The changeling cage held no changeling, and its solid iron bars had been melted away.
---
“Fantastic! Not only was Blueblood an idiot to keep a changeling from their attack on Canterlot, he then had the idea to put it aboard a passenger ship, with no magic protection and half corroded iron bars to hold it!” Twilight yelled angrily, when they had all returned to the helm.
“You are talking about a stallion that though it would be a good idea to put the swimming pool above the ship’s artificially intelligent computer.” Rainbow muttered.
“And put fireworks next to a heat source, to STORE them.” Pinkie added.
“And let’s not forget, had emergency life boats that could hold all except seven, and hired a crew that actually got to the lifeboats before any of the passengers.” Applejack threw in.
Twilight groaned in frustration.
“What’s next? He decided that the water supply should come from the sea itself and not be filtered of salt and other harmful stuff in any way?”
“You can be thankful that isn’t the case.” Spike answered, looking at an information book about the Aurora.
“Oh, that’s good at least.” Rarity chuckled, lifting a glass of water to her lips.
“Yeah, it’s only urine recycled a few hundred times to freshen the water in that.” Spike added, oblivious to Rarity’s actions.
Rarity spat the water that had been in her mouth out into the face of Rainbow Dash, who looked less than impressed. Twilight stomped a hoof to the floor.
“Enough talking about the idiot prince. There’s a chance that the changeling is still on the ship, and we need to find it and either secure it back in the zoo, or get rid of it.”
--
Twilight decided that it would be best for them to all search the ship in pairs, and with a random question and answer assigned to the pairs that only they would know, and not a personal question or something from their past that the changeling could have time to know in advance.
Rainbow Dash and Pinkie pie were the first pair, sent to check the cargo holds. The search through the holds was going well until the fifth one, where Pinkie and Dash got seperated by falling boxes.
As Rainbow prepared to fly around the obstacles and get back to Pinkie, she saw Fluttershy. Confused, Rainbow flew to the yellow pegasus.
“What are you doing here?” Rainbow asked.
“Oh I got separated from Rarity, I’m sorry.”
Rainbow nodded, and begun to turn away and find Pinkie. A lightbulb went off in her head. “Hey wait a second! You’re supposed to be wit-”
‘Fluttershy’ had turned into the changeling and sucked the love it required out of Rainbow, who fell to the ground.
Hearing something falling down, Pinkie walked past the huge pile of crates and saw Rainbow on the ground, with Applejack standing next to her.
“Ohmygosh, is she ok?” Pinkie ran as fast as she could.
“No, she’s not, the changeling got to her. And it’s your fault.”
“I, I didn’t mean to get separated! Those crates fell in front of me!”
“It didn’t mean you couldn’t walk around them. And you're guilty of what happened here, more than the changeling is.”
Pinkie’s eyes went wide. “Wait, you don’t talk like that Appleja-”
Its disguise foiled, the changeling returned to normal and drained the love from Pinkie, letting out a belch when it had enough. It flew away as Pinkie collapsed to the ground.
---
Half hour later, Applejack and Rarity had found Pinkie and Rainbow in the fifth cargo hold. Not risking their friends further, they carried them back to the helm, where Twilight grew annoyed.
“I’m not blaming those two,” she pointed out when Spike wondered if Twilight was annoyed at her beaten friends, “no, if Blueblood wasn’t as intelligent as a mote of dust, then we wouldn’t be facing this problem.”
“So what do we do now?” Rarity questioned.
“It’s simple. Just searching for it won’t be much good, its expecting that. We’re going to have to find it and use force.”
The others looked at Twilight, their expressions blank.
“Use force? You forget these things took down Canterlot, which was a city on high alert and full of heavily armed and expertly trained fighters at the time, right?” Rarity posed.
“No, but no one knew what the threat was, much less the leader of the enemy forces was inside the shield designed to protect the city. We do know about this changeling, and if we want Rainbow and Pinkie to be fine, we have to act now.”
Fluttershy held a hoof up, causing Twilight to sigh.
“Yes?”
“Maybe we can talk to it? I’m sure its just lost and confused, so attacking it won’t help.” Fluttershy replied, rather hoping she wouldn’t be used as bait to lure the changeling out.
“Let’s see now,” Applejack interjected, “on the one hoof, we can try to take this changeling head on, which holds as much sense as throwing a snowball at a polar bear, yelling ‘got you!’ and expecting the bear to laugh and throw a snowball back instead of tearing your head off, or we can try diplomacy on a creature that has only ever seen ponies as food rather than good conversation.”
To this, Twilight and Fluttershy looked at the other, then returned their focus to Applejack and nodded.
“Sweet dear Celestia… that storm didn’t really pass over, we all died and I went to Tartarus where I now have to put up with this kind of idiocy as an eternal damnation…”
“I do think talking to it will work.” Fluttershy argued.
“So will squashing it like the bug it is.” Twilight added.
“Um, excuse me,” Rarity cleared her throat, “really Applejack? Tartarus? What makes you think after all we’ve done for Equestria you would go there?”
Applejack looked slightly shifty, as she rubbed her right foreleg against her left and turned her head, “Well, let’s just say the Apple family needed a whole lot of bits to get Appleoosa founded and well, if I continue that, it’ll make you go redder than a beetroot.”
“Enough talking! We’ve got a bug to squish!”
“No Twilight! We just need to talk to it.” Fluttershy protested.
“I must agree with the marvelous pegasus,” Rainbow said aloud, standing up, “why, with hair like that, and the model physique! Going against what she says is a crime against fabulousness!”
“Ah buck that! Squish it! In fact, let’s make an explosive device, strap it to my head and I’ll give the mother,” Rarity fainted at this, “the ol’ rock farm nod!” a straight haired and smiling Pinkie Pie replied.
Applejack, Spike, Fluttershy and Twilight stared in shock at the awoken pair. Rainbow was currently trying to tidy up her hair with a brush that Rarity left on the helm for when she spoke to Twilight, and while Pinkie looked no different in colour tone, the only difference to the bouncing pink mare was the straight mane and tail.
“Care to explain Twi?” Applejack asked.
“I think we’re seeing the results of what happens when a changeling feeds and doesn’t drain the life from the victim. They’ve both lost love, which happened to be whatever they liked. For Rainbow, this was being cool, though your guess is as good as mine as to why she’s become a pegasus version of Rarity as a result, and Pinkie simply lost what she loved, compassion to other living things and a desire to be friends with them.”
“Wouldn’t that mean she wants us dead now too?”
“Does the sun rise every day? Don’t let her find any knives just for our safety. Now, if there’s no more protests, I have a changeling to find.”
Twilight ran out of the helm with Applejack following close behind. Meanwhile Fluttershy helped Rarity to a chair, maintaining pleasant conversation with Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash, with Spike taking anything with a point on it out of the helm.
---
The search for the changeling led Twilight and Applejack back to the cargo hold that Rainbow and Pinkie had been attacked in. They could hear movement beside their own, which meant the changeling hadn’t moved.
“Ok, what’s the plan?” Applejack whispered.
“Get up high, find anything you can use against it, I’ll try to lure it out.”
Applejack climbed up crates, as Twilight wandered around for a bit. With a grin on her face, she said aloud, “oh dear, I seem to have got lost. I do hope I’ll be fine.”
From a nearby shadow, the changeling walked out slowly, looking at Twilight with a deadpan stare.
“Seriously? That’s the best plan you could come up with?”
The changeling side-stepped a crate as it fell from above.
“Send your companion up high, then fake getting lost in hopes of stopping me?”
“Um, yes.” Twilight grinned nervously. The changeling shook its head.
“Look, I just needed something to eat to get off the ship and go home. And you ponies are food, so why am I even explaining things when you’ve failed to stop me and are just seconds from being a snack?”
The changeling advanced on Twilight, licking its lips.
“Hold on there, that first one was just to make you think the plan failed. How do you like this one?” Applejack pushed another crate from the opposite side of where the first had fallen.
The changeling didn’t have much of a chance to even cry in fear as the crate crushed it with a rather loud crunching sound. Celebrating, Applejack landed next to Twilight.
“Good idea to have the rope right? And it said the plan hadn’t worked.”
“Yeah, just, did that crate contain a lot of bottled tomato sauce?” Twilight asked.
“No, plastic cups for the zoo. About fifty thousand.” Applejack replied, raising an eyebrow.
“Alright, but for my desire to keep my lunch down, I’m just going to pretend that little trickle of red is tomato sauce, and don’t ever say otherwise ok?”
Twilight headed for the door as fast as she could, with Applejack taking a while to look in fascination at the red trickle, before joining her alicorn friend.
--
Back at the helm, Twilight and Applejack were glad to see Rainbow and Pinkie had returned to their normal selves. With the changeling now gone, Twilight decided they could all spend the rest of the day exploring the zoo.
As the six mares and Spike walked down to the deck, none of them noticed another Pinkie Pie following them, who stopped to hold an open bottle of tomato sauce and grinning to itself.