Chapter 21: The Incredibly Annoying Assistance of A Pretty Pony Princess
The changeling hive-mind is a wonderful thing for those who like to live vicariously through their minions. After the whole Tia connection thing, I kind of stopped using it as much. But everything I needed for entertainment purposes was still there. I could review fights changelings had with Everfree animals, all the juicy gossip of Ponyville, the telepathagrams my changelings were paid to send from city to city…and even some pony porn if I wanted to.
Not that I did look at pony porn. Memories didn’t really have a very good tactile sensation for changelings. Which meant memories of combat didn’t come with any pain, but it also meant the other stuff didn’t have much in the way of sensation either. Plus, having memories of ponies like Cheerilee getting banged like crazy by Big Mac would have kind of made seeing them on the street awkward. Oh, and it was immoral…or something.
But, I wasn’t going to use it for any of that tonight. No, what I wanted to observe was the crushing reaction to my little message to Spike. Since Equestria didn’t have text messaging, I did the biggest douche bag move I could think of when I came to breaking up with Twilight I could manage: minion message relay.
I plugged myself into the network and accessed the information that my goons had deposited when they trotted over to Sunset’s room go to sleep near her bed. I got a nice first person view from Beast’s perspective as he followed #619 down the crystal hallway, following Twilight’s scent back to her room after a few twists and turns by using our better than the average pony’s sense of smell.
On the way, guards gave the changelings a frown, and the changelings growled back. Guards promised to restrain them, and changelings promised to kill before pointing at one specific guard, then told them to throw the first punch. In the end, it was the ponies who backed down. After all, changelings were the big bad monsters of the Crystal Empire and ponies didn’t go through with final solution type stuff.
After about four encounters, my goons made it to the door where they could hear Twilight and Spike’s voices.
“But Twilight, they’re evil! Remember what Sunset did? And the changeling-”
“She has a name Spike,” Twilight went on. “And what other lie are you going to tell me? You know how much I hate it when you lie to me!”
“B-But, that was…that was the only way you’d believe me!” he cried. “They-they take you to that castle every morning and they do things to-”
“I do work for Princess Celestia! She gave me an important assignment to do! It’s stupid and crazy and takes up all my time but I have to hurry and get it done or-”
“That’s just what they’re making you think!”
Twilight let out a groan. “Spike, you can send messages to the princess whenever you want. Just check up on it!”
“She’s already been taken over when the changeling queen kidnapped her! It’s just like with Shining Armor and Chrysalis, but now you won’t believe me!”
“I saw Chrysalis using her magic on Shining! What big evil thing did you see Fairy do that isn’t a lie?” Twilight demanded.
“She-she used her changeling magic to take over the town, and she made all our friends like her, and she mind control Princess Celestia and brought Sunset Shimmer back, and now she’s turning you and Shining Armor and Cadence against me! You have to fight it Twilight! Please!”
Twilight let out an aggravated snort. “Spike I can’t,” she said as her voice cracked. “I-I can’t deal with this again right now. I’ve got…there’s just too much for me to deal with right now. I can’t, I just…can’t.”
“But Twilight! She’s going to take the Crystal Heart and use it to take over Equestria! You-you have to stop her now before it’s too late!”
“Go to sleep Spike.”
“But-”
“GO TO SLEEP!” Twilight shouted.
When the conversation finally died down, #619 finally opened the door and walked halfway into the room.
As soon as she appeared in the doorway, the dragon let out a scream and cowered behind Twilight. The alicorn just looked over at the changeling with a tired expression before she spoke. “What do you want?”
“Our leader has a message to Spike the dragon,” the changeling with the double-female voice said.
From his place behind Twilight, Spike let out a scream. “They’re here to brainwash me Twilight! Do something!”
The alicorn sighed. “Go ahead.”
“It’s over, you win. You get Twilight all to yourself,” #619 explained before it turned around to leave.
“What?” Twilight asked as my changeling left the room and started to close the door behind her.
“Those were the only words were we told to convey,” #619 answered as she finished shutting the door.
I opened my eyes to the semi-dark room that was just illuminated by the refracted light that came from the moon’s glow that was absorbed and transferred throughout the whole of the crystal palace. Although the scientist in my wanted to cry bullshit at the event, the pony part of me played the magic explanation card and shut his bitch ass up. As for me, I didn’t give much of a damn, and had more disappointing things on my mind.
Like the fact that the changelings hadn’t stuck around to see Twilight’s expression when she was the pony getting left out in the cold. It aggravated me, but since they were wherever the hell Sunset was at the moment, I doubted my annoyance would last until I found them.
And then there was Spike’s…whatever the fuck that was.
Twilight’s mom and dad, I could understand. The only changelings they had met had shoved them into cocoons. But I had lived at the library, or at least around town, for months. About two of them now.
But Spike was still holding onto his fucking anti-changeling crap and…spreading it around apparently. Two months of me being in town, and he was still being like…the way he was. There was no changing people like that.
The door opening interrupted my thoughts, and I found a purple pony with wings standing on the other side of the door. She had a frown on her face, and looked around the room. “You actually slept in here?”
“Obviously,” I grumbled back. “Now what do you want Twilight?” I swear, if she wanted to do some stupid let’s makeup crap, I was got to slam the for into her face, and then shut it as hard as I could after the damn crystal door gave her a bloody nose.
Twilight gave me an odd look with a raised eyebrow, then shook the expression off and let out a cleansing breath to just give me her normal expression. “Look um, I talked to Sunset…and…well, the last time I was here…before you were around I mean, not during the changeling occupation, Shiny and I discovered an underground system of caves and we all thought it might be a nice experience to…explore them together.”
I sighed. “Don’t I have a mirror to look at?” my surly voice asked.
“Sunset said she doesn’t mind,” Twilight told me before her eyes widened a bit, shoulders drooped, and her mouth quirked just a little downward. “Even with last night, I really would like you to come along.”
That’s when the creepy oddity of the situation hit me. I had broken up with Twilight last night in the most insensitive way I could imagine and…she was just standing in front of me like nothing was wrong. I knew my minions had delivered my message, I had just seen them do it and had to listen to Spike bitch about how evil I must have been because I was covered in black chitin.
And now she was standing in front of me like nothing was wrong.
It wasn’t creepy.
It was scary.
Not the psyco, Twilight Snapple scary where she turns a town into a bunch of Gollum rejects fighting over the one ring kind of scary. It was super terrified over Twilight’s mental state scary that left a hole in my stomach.
“Twilight…are you okay?” I asked the mentally unstable alicorn.
She actually smiled. “I am, and…thanks.”
I didn’t feel like asking questions. I was actually running kind of low on power and another alicorn with her mental sanity intact when it came to dealing with...whatever Twilight was going through sounded like a definite plus as far as I was concerned. “Okay um…I’m going to go get breakfast, and I’ll…meet you in the palace.”
Twilight gave me a slightly confused look, and blinked her eyes a few times. “But I’m right here.”
“And I’m going to the train to get the stuff we weren’t allowed to bring to the palace, so I can eat,” I told her in an uneasy tone.
After a few seconds, Twilight had a moment of clarity and nodded. “Ah good idea. We didn’t find anything when we discovered the one cavern, but their might be something dangerous in this one. I doubt it but…better safe than sorry.”
The possibility of a threat made me tense. Pissed off as I was at her, I didn’t want Twilight to die. Hell, I couldn’t even stomach the idea of her getting hurt. Really hurt, not that emotional crappy hurt that girls get when stuff doesn’t go their way. “Whatever.”
“Fae,” the unicorn called out, which made me turn around and look at her before she started talking again. “I um…” Twilight paused, then looked around. “This really isn’t the best…place. Um…I’ll meet you in the palace gardens when I find everypony, okay?”
“Fine,” I told her before walking away and trying to get rid of my more disturbing thoughts as to why Twilight was acting the way she was.
She was a practical woman. If there really was danger, then it made sense to bring along as much muscle as possible. Hell, she didn’t try and kiss or nuzzle me or anything. I didn’t even get a good morning, and that scowl that was on her face.
Yeah, she wasn’t crazy, she was just being practical.
Breakfast sucked. It was like…
Well, eating Twilight was like eating the most well cooked and delicious burgers possible. Twilight was the kind of burger that can only be made with super fresh meat found in those really successful mom and pop restaurants with their one-hundred-percent home grown vegetables. Clone artificial love was McDonalds, the McDonalds dollar menu…in a neighborhood that skimped on the mustard and ketchup so you had to actually taste the imitation, recycled rat meat that was ninety-percent pink slime. So breakfast was like eating bad McDonalds food from a below average member of the fast food chain in a seedy neighborhood.
After eating eight Big Macs and lamenting my inability to wash out my mouth, I left my minions in the train since they wouldn’t be getting anything to power their magic for the day. Then I walked my way back to the castle amidst the terrified shrieks of the crystal ponies as they prayed to Celestia to come and save them from the dark goddess that was me.
Unlike with my goons, when the guards saw me coming through the city, they quickly decided to patrol a different street, or suddenly remembered they left the stove on at home after I gave them a dark look. What I gave them was no Fluttershy stare. I actually had some teeth to go with the unbridled terror I was sending their way through my gaze. Fluttershy was an angry pony, I was a predator looking at my prey.
Then came the Crystal Palace, and I decided to skip that little ordeal entirely by taking to the skies and flying around the damn place to find just where the hell the royal gardens were. With the bird’s eye view, it didn’t really take that long.
The royal gardens weren’t all that big, about a fifty by fifty foot area, walled off and surrounded by spells that kept everything nice and quiet. It was just a little place full of flowers and a few trees that seemed to exist for the sole purpose of letting Cadenza and Armor have a place to be sort of outside and not mobbed by ponies.
As soon as I got there and passed through the noise pollution barrier to land, I noticed something was wrong.
Very wrong.
I had lived in Equestria long enough to know a setup when I saw one. But whatever was going on wasn’t some malicious pony plan, their scheming abilities went about as deep as a kiddy pool. Unless of course they were convinced you were an evil changeling…and then…okay, even then, their plans weren’t all that complicated and backstabby. Direct confrontation was what ponies did.
Even when faced with a godlike being wearing empowering jewelry and all they had was speed and the magic abilities of a dress-maker, they still warned me of their presence, made some heroic speech, and even gave me a chance to fight back before charging to their certain doom. It was cool and brave, but hardly smart.
But ponies really didn’t need to plan a setup. This was Equestria, and that meant they had some weird fate/coincidence thing working for them that just put people in the right place at the right time. Like how I just came into the royal garden and found Cadenza waiting for me alone when Twilight was supposed to be getting the whole gang together.
After last night, being along with the pink pony princess kind of made me a little nervous. I mean, she was in the top five powerful beings in Equestria…maybe? To be honest, I never actually saw Cadenza throw down except for that shield spell thing, and from what I knew about magic, that was more of a Shining Armor & Cadenza combo move that relied on their love.
Cadenza looked over to me and smiled. Then, something weird happened. I noticed that when she wasn’t standing next to a little douche of a dragon or surrounded by guards, the bitch was…impossibly hot.
I mean, really, Super. Hot. Not up there with impossible to touch Celestia hot, but…she was that barely obtainable by mortal hands hot with her bright pink coat, long and extra spiral horn, multi-colored mane, and lavender eyes that made me know if I had been a male right then, my sword would have been unsheathed because of the perfect mare standing in front of me.
I actually had to remind myself to be mad at her and on my guard for a few seconds before I shook it off.
When I trotted over in my sour mood, the pretty pink pony princess smiled at me brightly. “I’m glad to see you’re still here,” she said. “I knew once you got some sleep everything would look-”
“Changelings don’t really sleep,” I corrected her. “We go into a hibernation and connect with the hive mind while our body rests, but we don’t get any stress relief from it.” At least we didn’t anymore. I was pretty sure Chrysalis might have been able to do something back in the day. I mean, there weren’t any of those voices I head in my head from when she around, whispering in my ear a few times but I had no idea if that was true or not and didn’t want to risk finding out.
Cadenza gave me a surprised look. “Oh…well, then I’m glad you calmed down. And didn’t do anything rash while you were”
I put a stop to that little sentence then and there. “I broke it off with Twilight,” I told her before let out a growling groan.
For a second Cadenza gave me an odd look. “Um…are you sure?”
The question had me giving the pink mare a raised eyebrow. “Trust me, changelings don’t forget things unless we really want to, or if they’re not that important.”
Then Cadenza just gave me another once over, and there was this odd weighing look in her eyes. “Why?” she asked.
“Why what?” I replied.
“Why are you rejecting Twilight’s feelings for you?” the alicorn asked as this weird buzzing started to happen on the edge of my hearing. “Because I can see that your thoughts revolve around her too.”
Then, Cadenza started tapping a hoof to the ground, and I realized what was happening. “Oh Celestia no,” I grumbled as distant tune that didn’t really seem to come from anywhere and…
I just did what I had learned to do in the craziness that was Equestria and rolled with it.
“Fairy, what’s so wrong with Twilight?” Cadenza asked before her voice took on a bit of a more…musical tone before she started prancing around. “I mean…”
Is it the cloppy way she walks
Or the dorky way she talks
Or that she act-chu-lee once...ate...meat?
I blinked in confusion as Cadenza leaned in close to whisper in my ear. “Yes, I know what a hamburger is. Griffons eat them,” she said before a foreleg reached around my neck to pull me close as Cadenza shook her head a little with the beat as she went on one line, then broke off to do more dancing that had me turning in circles so she just didn’t pop out of nowhere on me.
But you’ll never find girl who’s just as sensitive and sweet
Then the dancing that was way too close to my personal space started, and Cadenza made me back away from her while she continued to gain ground with her musical assault.
I know she’s a bit of a fixer-upper
Yeah, she’s got a few flaws
Like her peculiar brain
Or that thing with her mane
And how it just tends to burst into flame
“You know about that too?” I asked as I forced and the music seemed to become more background than foreground.
Cadence rolled her eyes. “She’s my little sister of course I-”
“Sinster-in-law, it's because of marriage,” I pointed out with my hoof.
Which Cadence slapped away before bopping me on the nose. “No. It's because of my love for her,” she countered before the singing continued, and I found myself huddling in on myself.
She’s a bit of a fixer-upper
But this I’m certain of
You can fix this fixer-upper up
With just a little bit of love
I groaned at the taller alicorn and gave her a flat look. “Cadence, the whole song and dance thing doesn’t really work on me,” I moaned as I lowered my head before I felt her muzzle on the back of my ear.
“Well considering you just called me Cadence instead of Cadenza, something’s got to be going on in that head of yours,” she replied in a whisper that made me look up to see her smiling face while her annoyingly cheery music continued to go on in the background. “But this is about Twilight. Now tell me…”
Is it how snakes make her scared
Or that she’s socially impaired
Or that she used to leave a wet spot in her bed?
“TEE EM I CADENCE!” I shouted at the smiling alicorn.
Or are you holding back your love
Because you’re uncertain of
If she can reciprocate it in an honest way?
I frowned at Cadence when she got close to put her weight on me again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“She has a problem voicing her emotions,” Cadence replied with a roll of her eyes before she let me go and went on.
I know she’s a bit of a fixer-upper
She’s got a couple of bugs
“What that supposed to be a pun on my species?” I asked.
Her prolonged isolation
Is conformation
Of a desperate need for loving hugs
Sure she’s a bit of a fixer-upper
But this is what I’ll dooooo
I'm gonna take that filly of a fixer-upper
And fix her up with you!
Despite the drain it would cause on my magic, I let out a burst of energy and disrupted the magic around us, then glared at the pink pony when the music died down and I wrapped her up in my magic to pull her close to me. “Cadence! Enough already!”
“So, you see the light and are willing to give it another shot?” she asked with a sweet smile. “We can just tell Twilight last night was-”
I stomped my hoof on the ground. “No!” I yelled at her. “I am-”
Cadence broke out of my magic with a bust from her own horn, then glared at me for a moment. “You know Omnifarious, you’re not perfect either,” she went on before taking a deep breath.
I’d say you’re a bit of a fixer-upper
But that’s a minor thing
You’ve got some anger issues
That’ll make her need tissue
But without passion, love ain’t got no zing
I groaned and couldn’t resist the urge to face hoof as Cadence got all in my space again with that gentle smile thing she had to of learned from living with Celestia for God knows how long as she got a bit less excited and a little more feeley in her singing.
Look I’m saying you can change her
Cause ponies they don’t really change
All I’m saying is love’s a force
That’s powerful and strange
Turning me into her foreleg rest again as she sang the last line, Cadence then pulled me back to a bench and sat us both down before her magic conjured a chalkboard and she had her TK draw a frowning earth pony, a cowering pegasus, and a sweating unicorn.
Ponies make bad choices
When they’re angry, scared, or stressed
She added a plus sign and a heart next to the faces.
But throw a little love their way
And then comes out their best
Then some equals signs and the same three ponies in much happier situations.
Everyone’s a bit of a fixer upper
That’s what it’s all about
Lovers mothers sisters brothers
We need each other
To fix us up and round us out
A flap of the pony princess’s wings took her into the air and another quickly knocked her away from me as her horn started to glow.
But when push comes to shove
The only fixer that can fix a fixer upper is
Trruuuuuuuuuueeeee Love!
I blinked as Cadence released a bust of magic that created a pink heart firework effect around her that sparkled in the daylight as the music finally died down and I was left actually thinking about what she said for a moment instead of calling bullshit on it all.
I’m not saying her siren song sung with at angelic voice coming from the personification of pony beauty messed with me at all. Cause it didn’t. Not. At. All.
“Wow, that...it’s been awhile since I’ve been able to use the Magic of Harmony like that. Felt good,” the pink pony princess said to me as she came down to the ground. “And, is that an epiphany I see?”
I shook off the last of the effects of Cadence’s musical number and opened my mouth.
Only to shut it again when I heard a loud groan coming from behind me, and I turned around to find my least favorite pony had joined forces with the evil serpent of selfishness. In order words, Spike was there, riding Flash Sentry in the completely non-sexual way that the pegasus deserved to be ridden…by a stallion. A BIG stallion. “Twilight, what’s she doing here?”
“Fae’s coming with us Spike,” Twilight told him in a tone that reeked of forced cheeriness before she trotted up to me and her smiled softened to something so much cuter and genuine. “Look, I know you think that some time apart will calm Spike down and help to get him to accept you. But that’s just running away from the problem and…that’s not fair to you. Plus, with this stupid project I don’t get to spend enough time with you anyway so…maybe this is a way the two of you can bond.”
My mouth dropped open as I came to a very horrible conclusion, and I had to force it shut. “Okay,” I managed to mumble while my brain was saying, you have got to be fucking kidding me.
“Great!” Twilight exclaimed before she rose up on her horsey toes and gave me a quick peck of the lips. Then her eyes widen and she shuddered. “Right…forgot what changeling tasted like,” she said before turning and trotting towards the exit. “I need to get something to wash the taste out of my mouth. Shiny’s waiting for us at the catacombs entrance.”
And a second later she was gone, with Spike and his personal flying monkey trailing behind. “But-but this is the real Flash Sentry Twilight, you don’t need that jerk anymore!”
Me and Cadence just stood there for a moment.
“…I thought you said you broke up with her,” the alicorn managed.
That allowed me to talk, if barely. “I um…did.”
“Are you sure she got the message?” the pony-Aphrodite asked.
“Yes.”
“And understood it?” Cadence asked. “Because it seems to me, she is hardly acting like somepony who just lost the love of her life due to some foolish neglect and a flared temper.”
I felt something punch me in the gut. Looking at things the way she had said it...
“…um…pony feathers,” I mumbled before slumping over…from the weight of a big pink alicorn putting her weight on me again.
Cadence got so close to my ear I could feel the breath from her nostrils when she whispered to me. “So what you’re saying is, my job is more than half done.”
“Cadence-” I got out and she practically hopped over me.
The alicorn let out a laugh that sounded WAY too much like one of Celestia’s as she pranced ahead of me that made her impossibly hot ass jiggle ever so lightly before she looked back with a knowing smirk I fucking KNOW she got from Tia. “Of course, you could just walk in and do it now. Clarify your intent and say this is all one big misunderstanding. I won’t do anything to stop you, but…”
I frowned.
“We both know it would break Twilight’s heart.”
I growled.
“Send her back into a fit of tears.”
I flinched.
“And utterly destroy her.”
I sighed, and looked away from the larger alicorn. “You are really starting to get under my skin here Cadence.”
The goddess of love let out a little laugh. “That’s what family does, and I have a feeling you’re going to be joining mine soon enough.”
I groaned and slowly followed after the goddess while making plans in my head. If Twilight really did want to go exploring in some spooky cave that may or may not have connections to Sombra, there was no way in hell I was going to distract her by breaking things off now.
It could all wait until after we had gotten a minute. Then I could just let her down gently. She…deserved that at least. One last hurrah, and then it would all be over.
Done.
Finetto.
And all that.