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// CHAPTER 27 (AKA: XOXO) 
// Story: A thing or two about changelings and their habits saga 
// by Young discord 
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When Rose thought about spending time with the kids this wasn’t what she had in mind.
They had just passed the 10 mile mark on their travels, the flora becoming more and more lush, this is where the woods start.
Aunt Rose was going through a list of things that they could talk about, Pacifica was the quiet type, especially lately and Monty had long been used to that so he wouldn’t even bother striking a conversation at all so the sound of words were replaced by the sound of hoofsteps and pants.
To Monty’s surprise, the same Pacifica that would always trot far ahead of him now was trotting along very close to his side and seemed to be happy with it… overall she seemed in high spirits which surprised Monty considering what had just happened hours ago.
“Are… you all right?” Asked Monty.
Pacifica nodded energetically with a smile, she couldn’t help herself when she was close to him and she really wanted to be close to him now, whenever he would pick up the pace, so would she, whenever he’d slow down, she wasn’t far behind.
“You know, this is great, we’ll get to spend some time together and I’ll get to know you kids better!”
Monty took the chance to finally talk to somepony.
“We’re… well I’m from Maretropolis”
“Oh, really? My uncle lives there!”
The conversation suddenly died, Rose accidentally put herself into a corner, neither her not Monty could think of what to say next.
“I like Trisport” Monty started , he couldn’t think of anything else right now
“Trisport? Oh isn’t that the game when they fly and shoot from those big guns or something? That sounds dangerous”
“Nooo, it’s not like that, aunt Rose”
What was it with changelings and this sport recently, it’s like nobody heard or knew about it.
“Are you sure? I remember seeing one of them with a gun or something shooting at another one on a poster”
“Well… no… yeah… sort of”
“How do you play it?”
Monty was waiting for this question from the moment he met Pacifica, he’s been dying to tell her the rules and try and play it with her but he never found a good excuse to do so.
“Well… there’s like this big field, right? Like really big, it’s sort of a long square and stuff”
“That’s a rectangle my dear”
“Yeah, rectangle, and there are lines all over it right?”
“Lines, like what lines?”
“You know to divide the field for each team”
“How many teams play, three?” Because of the sport’s name, Rose assumed that it would have three teams playing.
“No, two teams play and they both have a half of the field, right?”
“OK…”
“And there are four different types of players, there are the runners, the chasers, the shooters and the flyers”
“So they use guns”
“Only the flyers, there’s one for each team, like the shooters and the runners, the shooters despite their name don't use guns, they use their horns to shoot magic”
“I see, so both teams have one of each”
“Yeah”
“What about the chasers?”
“Oh there are five of those for each team”
“All right… and what do each of those do?”
“The runners are supposed to run to the end of the opponent’s side of the field and cross a line”
“And what happens then?”
“The team gets a point and everypony comes back to the middle except for the flyer and the shooter”
“Where do they go?”
“They go to the end of their team’s field”
“Why?”
“Well, because the shooters are supposed to shoot the flyers, then the team gets 10 points and the fliers are supposed to shoot the shooters with the pegazooka and if they both go to the middle, the game would be too easy so they have to go far away from each other”
“Pegazooka?”
“That big gun thingy”
“Oh… and how many points does the team get when the flyers shoot the shooters?”
Monty chuckled, everypony knew that shooting the shooters doesn’t give the team any points!
“They don’t get a point”
“Then why do they shoot them?”
“Because the shooters are always Unicorns, right?”
“Right”
“And they use their magic to shoot at the flyers”
“All right”
“And the flyers have a pegazooka that has special magic bullets that take away some of the shooter’s magic when they’re hit”
“I see…”
“When the shooters of each team are out of magic and can’t continue, the game ends”
“Sounds like a dangerous game”
“Oh yeah and the chasers are supposed to catch the opponent’s runner before they get to the other side of the field, when they touch the runner, the runner has to return to the middle of the field”
Monty began to go through the things he mentioned to see if there’s anything he missed out.
There were a few things.
“The chasers cannot touch the shooters and the shooters cannot shoot anypony else except for the flyers, the flyers can only shoot at the shooters, the runners can’t touch each other too, if anypony breaks those rules, they are sent away and have to be replaced with another spare player, there are two spare players for the chasers and one spare player for the runners but no spare players for shooters and flyers and everytime a rule is broken, the opponent's team loses 5 points”
Monty was getting carried away, he was talking too much and too fast for Rose to follow.
“I’m sorry dearie but could you repeat that?”
“Which part?”
“Umm… the part when you say who can touch who”
Monty sighed, it was simple, how did she not get that?
“Ok… to make sure nopony cheats or hits the wrong player, only chasers can tackle or pin other chasers and runners, shooters can only shoot flyers and flyers can only shoot shooters, nopony else can touch or shoot anypony else”
That, Rose understood a little better.
Pacifica rolled her eyes, this conversation was so bizarre and out of place as if it were some sort of forced chapter in a book... no a book would be too well structured for this, more like... a fanfic, yeah, a badly written fanfic.
“And if anypony breaks those rules they change with a spare player, right?”
“Yeah… except for the shooters and flyers that don’t have spare players… there are also a lot of other rules like the flyers cannot touch the ground or be too high or nopony can leave the field and stuff like that”
“It must be a dangerous game, do players get hurt often?”
“Not usually, no. They have special suits that protect them, the runners have a speed suit that protects them from the chasers that have to wear rumble armour, it’s like a speed suit but heavier”
“And the shooter and flyer?”
“The flyer has a very light suit so they can fly fast and attatch their pegazooka when they need to evade the opponent’s shooters; the shooters are the only ones who don’t have a suit”
“That doesn’t sound fair”
“It’s because if they had a suit it would stop the magic bullets from the flyers from working on them”
“So this is your favourite game?”
“Yeah! I always played it with my friends at home!”
“And who were you playing as, The flyer?”
Monty looked down in disappointment
“I wish, I was an earth pony back at home and I could only be a chaser or runner, I always wanted to try the flyer, they’re awesome! But you need the pegazooka and they’re like reeealy expensive you know, so I never got one”
Now Rose had something to get for hearth’s warming eve or his birthday.
“Maybe if you’re a good colt, I’ll buy you one”
Monty’s hopes were raised incredibly high.
“Really?”
“But only if you’re a good nephew”
“YAY!”
Monty gave Aunt Rose a big hug.
Pacifica looked with envy at Rose, Monty always hugged her.
“What about you Pacifica? What do you like?”
Pacifica gave her aunt the silent treatment; she turned her head in the opposite direction pretending not to hear her.
“…”
“Come on dearie, don’t be sad, it’s not so bad, look, your older brother is having fun”
What did Rose just say?
Pacifica snapped.
“O…o… older b-brother… OLDER BROTHER???”
“Uhh… Aunt Rose..." Began Morty who was about to blow his new aunt's mind "...we’re not siblings”
“WHAAAT?”
Aunt rose didn’t expect to hear that, she never asked them about it because she just assumed they were siblings.
Pacifica went on rant mode.
“We’re cousins! Why would you think we’re siblings! we look nothing alike and if anything I’d be the older one, not him, he was the one always being so childish and I always have to get him out of trouble, and for your information, I’m like a year older than him! hmph!”
Pacifica puffed up and went up front at a cute angry stomp.
Rose suddenly understood what was going on and she instantly caught up to her.
“Pacifica, I’m sorry, you’re angry because you’re jealous, aren’t you?”
Pacifica halted… Rose knew? But how…
“I’m sorry, there’s no reason why you couldn’t hug as well”
Pacifica blushed, so Rose is fine with her Hugging Monty?
“Go on”
She smiled shyly, Rose was a better aunt than Pacifica thought, she totally understood her! And not only that but she’s also fine with her and Monty hugging!
“Well, what are you waiting for?”
Pacifica couldn’t hug him just like that, she started panting heavily with excitement.
“Oh, all right if you won’t… Monty-”
Pacifica squeed, Rose was totally going to make him hug her!
“-Don’t be jealous, all right?”
What?
Rose gave Pacifica a bear hug
“There there… remember, you can ALWAYS hug your aunt when you want to… you don’t have to be jealous of your cousin”
Pacifica’s hopes had smashed like a plate falling from a clumsy pony's grasp.
For the rest of the day Pacifica was back to her usual self, trotting alone far up ahead in silence.
By nightfall, the Changelings had reached the nearest town.
Rose found a small inn for them to stay at and got two rooms, one for herself and one for Pacifica and Monty.
Everypony was tucked into their respective beds tired and eager to fall asleep.
Of course Pacifica and Monty were in their own beds this time.
“Monty?”
“I thought you were mad and you weren’t talking to us”
“…”
Monty was mad at Pacifica this time, she was being weird again for no reason.
“Why do you hug Aunt Rose so much?”
Monty turned around to look at Pacifica, that was a weird question to ask.
“I don’t know… I just like to hug, maybe because mum would never have time to hug me at home?”
Why did Monty have to hug Aunt Rose? Couldn’t he hug her instead?
“I don’t like it when you hug Aunt Rose”
“Why?”
“I… I just don’t, Ok? Stop doing it”
“But I like hugging and she’s so nice to us and everything”
“Still, I don’t want you to hug her”
Monty got off his bed.
“No! I like hugging so I’ll hug auntie whenever I’ll want to! You can’t tell me what to do!”
That’s it, Pacifica also got off her bed and looked straight at Monty, her furious gaze piercing him.
“FINE! IF YOU LIKE HUGGING SO MUCH THEN I’LL HUG YOU!”
Pacifica ran into him and at full force and knocked him off balance.
The two changelings fell to the ground, Pacifica embracing Monty as hard as she could, pressing her face against his chest.
For an eternity the two savoured the moment, nothing had ever felt as important as this very second.
“I’ll… I’ll hug you every day from now on so… don’t hug anypony else, okay?” begged Pacifica in a muffled voice, Monty felt every word vibrate clearly on his chest.
“…”
“Please…”
“Okay… b-but you’ll have to hug me every morning!”
Pacifica nodded.
“And before going to bed!”
Pacifica nodded again.
“And… and… whenever you… want t-to…”
Pacifica tightened her embrace around Monty in a reply.
Tomorrow was going to be a new day for everypony.





The morning sun had risen to blind a sleeping Clock face.
Saddle town was torn upside down and the changelings had to rebuild everything all over again, everything that they have been working on in the past few days had been destroyed and the discount on the nails wasn’t a good enough consolation prize.
The changelings reluctantly got up from their beds and got ready to start working… yet again, in fact not only they were back to square one but they also had to fix some damage done to the houses, trim the branches off that tree house, bag the fire-spitting plant-in-a-pipe, wash away the ground pulp, replace the windows with doors, replace the doors with windows and blow away the chocolate rainclouds.
All in all it seemed like a good day for a fresh start but unfortunately for the changelings, today’s weather forecast, was once again chaos.
A Discorded whirlwind brought a surprise with it.
The God of chaos had finally found the source of that magic surge he felt yesterday.
He looked at yesterday’s aftermath.
It was amazing, Discord was like a little kid and this was the candy shop.
“Oh my! Is the road… and the windows… the clock…”
Discord gasped, he couldn’t contain his excitement, he was flying here and there looking at every single little thing, the tools hiding under the shed, the ingenious houses, it was incredible, he was speechless.
Discord looked up.
Tears of joy and happiness trickled down his grinning face.
Two little clouds were floating, enriching the town with chocolate rain.
“CHOCOLATE RAIN! I can die happy now!”
Discord was so moved that he had now words… when he finds whoever did this he will give them one big hug and a wet kiss, he didn’t care who it was, they deserved it.
Discord couldn’t help it, he burst into song… along with the rest of the entire town, the houses, the clock, the tools, everything except for the changelings living there were now singing.

What is this, all that chaos that I see
A soul is here, much alike to me
Has provided needed betterment
For this tiny lousy settlement
Come out, come out wherever you are
I have travelled so long, wide and far
To finally find somepony with whom I’m on par
I’m Discord the god of chaos, who are you?

Discord awaited for the voice of the culprit to sound but heard nothing.
That was strange, Discord tried again.
I’m discord the god of chaos, who are you?
Still nothing, this made Discord angry
“I’m sorry, didn’t you know it’s rude not to join when you hear somepony randomly burst into song?” the draconequus replied to the nonexisting culprit
Still no reply.
Something was fishy here and it wasn’t the fish walking on the roads.
“Well then, I see it’s time to ask a few questions once again…”
Discord was livid, nopony has fun without him having a piece of that cake, he wasn’t in a mood to horse around so the changelings here had better make this easy for him or else they’ll find out just why ponies call him a GOD.