//------------------------------// // The Times, They Are A Changeling // Story: The Red Cyclone // by Onomonopia //------------------------------// "Whee! Make the ride stop!" Rainbow Dash said with a chuckle that wasn't all there as she slowly rotated on her hospital bed, her friends and the princess looking upon her with worried eyes as she laughed again before collapsing onto her back. "Round and round we go and when do we stop? Nopony knows!" "How much longer did you say that she we be like this princess?" Fluttershy asked as she gently placed a hoof on Rainbow's chest and helped her back to her pillow, her eyes locked onto the bandages that were wrapped around her head. "The doctors say that hopefully within a week she'll be back to same Rainbow Dash that we now and love," Celestia answered as Dash tried to take off, only to flutter for an instant before crashing back onto the bed. "And considering the severity of the concussion she suffered during Zangief's...move, we should be thankful that it isn't any longer." "His move?! You mean when a three hundred pound human defied every known law of physics to delivered a pilledriver that he himself shouldn't have survived!" Twilight half screamed as she ran her hooves through her unkept mane with sheer confusion on her face. "I can't even begin to image how much force and pressure was behind that attack and yet somehow Zangief survived it! His body should have pulverized!" "Twi, ah don't know why yer so upset with this. Stranger things have happened," AJ reminded her fried, but Twilight was on a warpath at that point. "Yes, but to us beings that posses magic within them! Humans can't use magic, yet Zangief still managed to turn himself into a mini cyclone to defeat Dash! I study humans in the other world and they can hardly jump off the ground at all and I know for freaking sure that they can't perform those kinds of moves!" Twilight yelled as she look at Pinkie and screamed, "Do you know how much pressure must have been on his body under those kind of g's?! Or how about when he shattered solid concrete with his BUTT?!" "There is a simple way to figure all of your questions out Twilight. We simply go talk to Zangief ourselves and ask how he did it," Luna calmly suggested as Twilight began to claw at the curtains in frustration. "Actually, I think it would be better if I did it alone. In your current condition you might try to dissect him. Any of you aside from Twilight and Rainbow Dash wish to come with me?" "Heavens no princess, I do not want to be anywhere near that barbarian!" Rarity said as she moved herself as far away from the door as she could. "I do not even know if it bathes. I do not want to be remotely close to it." "I'd love to meet a new friend, but first I'd like to make sure that this one is alright," Pinkie said with a shrug as Dash began to paw at Pinkie's tail while giggling to herself. The other ponies respectfully declined as well and Luna shrugged at their answers as she headed for the door, but was stopped when Celestia cleared her throat. "Sister, odds are that Zangief will be with Insectum and Chrysalis and while we may not know how...Zangief did defeat Rainbow Dash. We will have to keep our word and figure out a way to help feed the changelings," Celestia reminded Luna. "Not to mention that means that she and her daughter get to stay in Canterlot and Ponyville to make sure that everything goes the way see likes it." "Yes, we will have to deal with that eventually," Luna said with a shake of her head before a smile crossed her face. "First I'd like to know though how such a large creature like Zangief can spin faster than a Pegasus." ←↙↓↘→↗+H Zangief winced slightly as he felt the antibiotics burn into the wounds on his face, but his smile never faltered as both Insectum and Chrysalis helped attend to the wounds that he had suffered at the hooves of the rainbow pony. The princesses of Equestria had given them a very nice room to rest in while the rest of the changelings had been ordered back to the hive to await their food. Insectum wouldn't stop talking while Chrysalis was being as gentle as she wished to, meaning that every few seconds was filled with pain. "An Element of Harmony! I still can't believe that you beat an Element of Harmony, one of the strongest magic wielders in the world!" Insectum exclaimed, unable to contain her excitement despite the match having taken place a day ago. "And not only did you beat her, you performed...a miracle! That's the only way I can describe it! You should have seen the ponies faces after you hit that, I don't think that there was a single closed mouth in the entire audience! I know my jaw was on the floor." "It was not a miracle my dear princess, it is just the fruits of training as I have," Zangief said with a laugh before pain flashed through his body and turned the laugh into an "ow". "I will admit that Rainbow Dash was far more clever and faster than I would have believed possible for such a pretty pony." "She really used your face to mop the floor for a good portion of the fight. If she hadn't sucked you into the tornado you may not have been able to beat her," Chrysalis said with a thin smile as she saw Zangief pout at her words. "She managed to avoid nearly all of your grabs and used her speed to attack you from all directions at once. If the tornado hadn't shown up then you might have lost." "Maybe the fight would have been longer, but the end result would have been the same," Zangief said as he reached out with his hand and ruffled Insectum's mane with a hand that was larger than her head. "Because the little ones believed in me, believed that I would win. And with their faith within me, I would not lose." Chrysalis rolled her eyes at his answer, but when she saw Insectum's eyes shining in a way that she had never seen before as she gazed up at her hero. 'I suppose I should go easy on him, he did hold up his end of the bargain and won,' Chrysalis thought as Insectum tried to worm out Zangief's secrets to his spinning piledriver. They were interrupted by a knock at the door, which turned out to be the Princess of the Night. "And what do you want? I thought that the little sign on the door said do not disturb?" Chrysalis growled. "Down Chrysalis, I'm just checking up on you and seeing how you are enjoying your room," Luna said as she looked at Zangief, snickering slightly to herself as she saw that the bed he was sitting on could barely support him and groaned with agony. "I have to admit Zangief that after over a thousand years of being alive little surprises me at this point, but whatever the heck you pulled yesterday to beat Rainbow Dash did just that." "How is the young sparrow doing? Not many can take a move like that and be walking around the next day?" Zangief asked with a chuckle as he flexed his muscles. "She is recovering and probably won't be back on her hooves for a week," Luna answered, the smirk that Chrysalis wore not escaping her eyes. "But that move of your is actually the reason that I wanted to come talk to you. Twilight tells me that it should be physically impossible for such a motion to be performed by a regular human. So how did you create the...?" "The spinning piledriver," Zangief finished for her as he rose to his feet, the bed letting out a small groan of relief that it was free. "My greatest technique. I do not mind sharing my secrets as no one else can do like I can!" Luna sat down next to Insectum and waited for Zangief to start talking while the changeling princess moved closer to her mother. "In the blizzard swept forest of the motherland stood I, Zangief, in front of at least ten massive bears that wished to fight me. The wind was blowing far faster than usual, but I would not let something so trivial prevent me from showing bears what a true wrestler is!" Zangief began as the three imagined the cold landscapes that he mentioned, although he did get some looks at his reasoning fro wrestling the bears. "I had defeated three of them with ease when I engaged in battle with the fourth one, one that I had fought before and knew my moves. But that would not be enough to defeat me!" "Question. How can a bear learn wrestling?" Insectum asked, confused. "You teach them it of course. Now then, I had overpowered the bear and was about to throw him for my victory when the fool cheated and took advantage of a cyclone that I had not seen to take the both of us off of the ground and into the vortex, where my throws were useless." All three of the audience members looked at him with gobsmacked looks on their faces, all of them wondering how he hadn't seen a cyclone. "Once within the raging winds I believe myself to be finished, but then I looked down to see that I had pulled the bear into a piledrive position and an idea came to me in the heart of the cyclone. What is more powerful than a regular piledrive? A spinning one. So by using the winds to turn my body I spinning piledrived the both of us out of the cyclone and the technique became my own." Utter silence was all Zangief heard as he finished his story and when he looked at the audience he found them all staring at him with dumbfounded expressions. That was until Insectum had a moment of realization and she let out a gasp. "Oh, so that's why you call yourself the red cyclone. Because you spin like one and wear red," she deduced. Zangief shrugged in response, figuring that she was close enough. "I don't believe it," Chrysalis said with a shake of her head. "The you getting sucked into a cyclone? Sure, I can believe it. But the fact that you piledrived a bear out of one is too much even for me." Zangief's response was to laugh at Chrysalis good naturedly as he pointed to his wounds. "So you do not believe that I piledrived a bear out of a cyclone, but you do believe that I piledrived a pretty Pegasus out of a tornado?" he asked her with a smug smirk, Chrysalis opening her mouth to answer before closing it again, figuring that he had gotten her with that one. "But how did you survive the fall back to the stadium?" Luna asked, still utterly confused by Zangief's story. "That is simple my dear princess. I am Zangief." Luna raised both her eyebrows at his answer, but apparently that was all she was going to get out of the wrestler. With the mystery "solved" she then turned her attention to the second item on her agenda: Chrysalis. "Chrysalis, you and I still need to talk about how we are going to get the love of the ponies to the changelings," Luna began, turning the queens attention from Zangief to the princess. "We made a deal and since Zangief won the fight my sister and I shall honor it, but you must know now that your changelings are not allowed to run wild in the streets and feast on every last drop of love like you tried to do before. We must find another way." "I suppose that I have little choice in that matter?" Chrysalis asked, sighing as Luna nodded in response. "Fine, but I don't want to stay here. Canterlot air is toxic to my lungs and all of the ponies in it are stuck up jerks. There isn't as much love here as you think. The only reason I invaded it was because of the wedding. If I'm going to stay somewhere it better be a place where my daughter and any other changeling can get three meals a day." "That is...a fair request," Luna agreed with a nod of her head. "Well then, I suppose that if you agree to be behaved and don't mind one of the mane six being with you at all times, then you can stay in Ponyville. That is, if any of them bother to put up with you after all you've done." "And Zangief gets to come with us," Insectum added as she grabbed hold of one of his fingers with both of her hooves. "But that raises a question for me, who will protect the hive while I am gone?" Chrysalis asked with concern as she looked at Zangief, who was watching Insectum try to move his arm to no avail. "Tenna might be broken, but all that will do is light a fire under his flank and make him even more dangerous." "I shall do it," Luna said, the room going silent for a moment before Chrysalis began to laugh. Her body was wracked with laughter as tears fell down her face, the queen falling to the floor and clutching her stomach as she tried to get control of herself. "I'm sorry, but do you have any better ideas?" "By all means, go for it," Chrysalis said with a sinister smile on her face as she wiped away any tears that hadn't fallen off her face. "You're in for a hell of a time Luna. But by all means, go nuts. In the meantime, Insectum, how do you feel about staying in Ponyville for a while? The princess and I still need to figure out a way to feed my people without upsetting the ponies, so good luck to us with that." "I like the idea," Zangief said with a smile as he crossed his arms with a smile. "I am curious to see what this Ponyville is like and if there are any worthy foes there." "Very well. once I inform my sister of what the plan is you shall head out to Ponyville," Luna said as she rose to her hooves and left the room, Chrysalis snickering at her as she left. "So why did you so quickly let Luna take up your role in the empire?" Insectum asked her mother. "Because daughter my job is crap and I hate it. Love the changelings, hate the role. So to hear that Luna's going to take over all of those annoying tasks while I get to relax for a while sounds greats," she said with a smile before she took on a more serious face. "Besides, Tenna has shown that you and I are his targets. We are safer here then in the hive." "Do not worry Chrysalis. If he comes after you again, I shall show him my real power," Zangief promised with a laugh.