//------------------------------// // Act 3 Chapter 1: The presence of wrath // Story: Friends like these // by Istaran //------------------------------// When Frank returned home after work, the first sign that something was wrong was that his front door was open. That didn't prove anything was wrong, but it was certainly out of the ordinary. When he got closer to his front door, he started to get a bit shaky, light headed, with sweat beading on his forehead. It was a reaction he normally got to the smell of blood, even when it was too subtle to notice it consciously. With a few more steps he was all too aware of it. Despite his body's poor reaction, he stumbled forward quickly, shouting out his wife's name in growing concern. No voice answered him from within the apartment, and he hurried forward. Rounding a corner, he saw where the smell was coming from: a massive puddle of blood in the main hallway, with smaller bloodstains leaving a trail toward the back porch, and right up to the railing. His wife and son were nowhere to be found, their car missing from the parking space outside. He tried dialing his wife's cell phone number, but no one answered, so he dialed the police instead. He told the officers what little he knew when they arrived, quietly suffering the indignity of being held under guard off to the side, under the implicit rationale that he was a natural suspect. The officers who initially arrived did their job diligently, cordoning off the area and beginning to document everything for their investigation, but before too long another squad car pulled up, and an officer headed straight toward Frank with an unexpected glint of recognition in his eyes. "Frank Cobbler? I'm detective John Miller. You might have seen some of my emails a while back to your 'Eastside Equestrian Club'? I never saw any response from you, so I don't know if you read them," John began as he sat down beside the man, gesturing for the other officer to find something else to be doing. "Oh. No, I didn't really notice. I've been busy with wife and work, and not really keeping up on the emails. To be honest, I kind of just wanted to leave that whole part of my life behind me. I don't know how much you know about all of that..." Frank answered, glancing at the other officers to see if they were listening in. "Well, I've had a video chat with, uh, the librarian you met. The one with the purple hair? You know who I mean. So, let's just say I'm more inclined to believe you than most. So you really don't know what happened here?" John asked. "No idea. Well, ideas, but all of them are just wild fears. My wife and son are missing, and so is the car, so my best hope is that she fought someone off and then drove away with George safely," Frank answered. They sat in silence for a minute, unsure what to say next, when one of the officers, an Officer Sam Barbosa came around the side of the building and called out. "Detective Miller? You'd better come take a look at this." John stood up, gesturing for Frank to follow, and followed Sam around to the back of the building. "I noticed the blood doesn't seem to go off anywhere after the edge of the deck, so I looked around down here, and noticed this crawlspace. It seemed like it had been entered and exited an awful lot... see the ruts here in the dirt? Most crawlspaces in places like this pile up dirt in front of them because they're never accessed. But look what there is to see inside there." He opened the access door, and shined his flashlight in, staying out of the way as much as he could. John looked around for a bit before getting an odd look on his face, a mix of thoughtfulness and disgust. Frank looked in as well and cryptically remarked: "fuck, Robert was right." Within the crawlspace were a massive, empty greenish pod, big enough to hold a full grown woman, and dozens of large eggs. The eggs looked like insect eggs that had held insects the size of large dogs before their hatching. There were also a few odds and ends, such as his wife's cell phone, easily recognizable by its decorative case. "Please tell me this is part of that alien invasion bullshit," Sam requested. "Probably. That makes you feel better?" John responded. "Yeah. Compared to that crazy tower in downtown, this is nothing. So we got some freaky alien bugs on the loose, on top of the unicorns and whatever else? Sure. Why the fuck not. But I don't even want to think about bugs that big just being a thing that was already here on Earth. For one thing, that probably would mean there are a hell of a lot more of them." "Dozens of them aren't enough?" Frank asked. He was staring at the eggs in the crawlspace, but his eyes were out of focus, his mind replaying what he knew and putting things together. With every passing moment he looked paler, his face contorting with nausea. "What's wrong?" John asked. "Robert was right!" Frank repeated more emphatically, his eyes turning to John and begging him not to make him spell it out. John scrunched up his face a bit as he thought, trying to remember. He brought up his emails on his smart phone, looking up the forwarded messages from the Eastside Equestrian Club from his earlier investigation into Zeke's disappearance. In a minute he pieced it together. Frank had mentioned his wife being extra affectionate and Robert had warned she might have been replaced by a changeling. Frank had been sleeping with a shapeshifter, who then went on to produce all these eggs. Where they somehow Frank's bastard hybrid children? Did it matter. "Hey, the trail of blood goes deeper into there. Should one of us, you know, go in there?" Sam asked. He sounded a bit nervous about the prospect. "I'll go," John answered with a sigh of resignation. He got out his own flashlight, and started into the crawlspace cautiously, looking around. He was nervous as well, not wanting to meet one of those insects in here. It would be difficult to draw his weapon and bring it to bear if he needed to in the tight spaces, or to fight effectively with his bare hands. Fortunately, what he found was in no shape to put up a fight. "Find anything?" Frank asked at length. "Yeah, a dead one. Looks like the source of the blood. It's got a meat cleaver stuck in its skull. It looks.. humanoid, like some kind of, I don't know, bug person?" John replied. "Humanoid? Not, you know, pony shaped?" Frank asked with a frown. "Definitely humanoid. About five-six or so. I'm guessing that means the Queen, or whatever, is pony-shaped?" John asked back. "Yeah, at least normally," Frank answered. "So.. humanoid alien bug monsters?" Sam inquired, "or half-human alien bug monsters?" he asked, suddenly guessing at what Frank and John had been trying to hide from him. When Frank blushed and didn't answer, Sam smirked and chided him a bit. "I didn't know you were into alien pony bug monsters. What was she like?" "What? No! It's. She's a shapeshifter. I think she was impersonating my wife. I'm guessing Eliza must have gotten out of there somehow and killed one of them to escape," Frank answered, flustered. "And then hid the body down here? No, that was probably the others. But that could only have been.. what, a month or two? Since that bus ride, right? So how is this one five foot six already? No way they can go from conception to full grown that fast," John inquired as he extracted himself from the crawlspace. "Magic? I don't know. The shapeshifter pretending to be my wife didn't explain any of the alien things she was doing behind my back," Frank pointed out. "Alright, so we need to get some, I don't know, who do you even call to study alien bug monster biology? We need to figure that out. Put out an APB for your wife's car, try to find her and your son, make sure they're alright. Meanwhile, you should probably stay at a hotel. This is now well beyond your ordinary crime scene.. you won't be able to come back here anytime soon. Sorry," John said. Frank just sighed and hung his head. "Would it be okay if I packed a suitcase at least?" 3 hours earlier Scapegoat was depressed. She was perfectly capable of keeping an affable appearance, even smiling, while being depressed, but that didn't really lift her mood. Being named Scapegoat didn't help. The fact that she knew her name was accurate made it worse. Scapegoat hadn't had a childhood. She hatched a mere week ago, and then her mother promptly began force-feeding her as much of daddy's love as she could handle, using it to accelerate her growth, along with a couple of her siblings. The other two, the aptly named Caretaker and Protector, had a long future ahead of them, if all went well. Though perhaps not too long. Scapegoat had plenty of aches and pains from the rapid growth that she suspected would prove to be major health problems in time, possibly even fatal. And she knew Caretaker and Protector had the same pains. That was certainly one reason the other dozens of siblings were being allowed to grow naturally, at their own pace. Scapegoat suppressed a yawn as she dragged the human woman, her step mother, out of the pod beneath their home. After a quick check to make sure no one was looking, she took flight, gossamer wings carrying them both up to the porch and in through the back door, before she set Eliza down on the couch. She leaned over the unconscious woman, spitting a bit of stimulants into her mouth to counteract the drugs from the pod. Finally, a wave of green flames replaced her chitinous exterior with a perfect replica of Eliza's own form, and she sat down on the couch beside her, turning on the TV. Her mother, in the form of a third copy of Eliza, came down the hall to greet her. "Scapegoat, dear. George is down for his nap, so I'm going to take my leave now, with the others. You know your part, dear. Don't be nervous, you'll be great. Remember that I love you, and that what you're doing now will help give your siblings a safer future." "I know mom. I love you too," Scapegoat replied, unable to meet her mother's eyes. The queen left, in much the way Scapegoat had entered, and promptly began the migration into the woods beyond the back fence. It was quiet for a good hour after they left, aside from the television, before the stimulants finally did their job and Eliza awoke. Scapegoat was nervous. She'd only met the human a few times before, and thought she had done a passing job of posing as her mother posing as Eliza, but this time she really had to sell it. This was what she was born to do, and she only had one shot. "Good, you're finally up. Listen.. about what you said the other day. You're right. Frank doesn't love me, he loves you." The line was very painful for Scapegoat to say, but she didn't let it show. It wasn't just the knowledge that Frank loved this human woman and not the powerful, beautiful queen who had actually been slaving away in his home all month, caring for all of his children, and giving him a sex life for porn stars to envy. It was that Frank didn't love any of his children except for his first born, his human child. It wasn't Frank's fault. He had been deceived from the beginning, and never knew he had a daughter who longed for his love living under his nose.. or at least under his home. Scapegoat continued, while Eliza was still trying to focus on what was happening. "I thought I could get him to love me by taking your place, but it just made him love you all the more. And meanwhile I made you suffer needlessly. So. I'm sorry. I really am. I wish that we could be friends, maybe even share Frank between us, but I know that is a lot to ask from you." They sat in silence for a few minutes, Eliza looking at Scapegoat with an unreadable expression. But Scapegoat wasn't limited to reading expressions. She could feel the hatred boiling inside the woman. An apology wouldn't be enough. Of course not. Only one thing would be. "George is waking up," Eliza said. "Can you go change him?" Scapegoat nodded, and started walking toward the back room slowly. She didn't really want to reach it, didn't want her half brother to see what was going to happen. Her hearing was better than Eliza gave her credit for. She heard the footsteps. She heard the sound of metal slide across wood as the knife was drawn. She heard the final rush of footsteps closing in on her. She could have dodged, parried, fought back. Instead she accepted her fate. This was the role she was born for, the role of a lifetime. She didn't cry out, lest George hear it, and perhaps suffer nightmares. Dopple woke up with a yawn, stretching his limbs as he looked up at an unfamiliar ceiling. Where was he? The bed he was in was nice. It smelled nice. And there was a warm indentation beside him, suggesting he hadn't been alone even a short time before. There was also a bunny at the end of the bed, glaring terrifyingly at the disguised changeling. The glaring bunny made it all that much harder for the changeling to gather his thoughts, and think back to the night before. Fluttershy. He had just finished his third date with the shy pony and walked her home. They had shared the sweetest, most filling kiss he could remember and then... Dopple's face burned a bright crimson as he remembered being invited inside. The shower stopped, the white noise it produced only registering in his conscious mind when it stopped, as his mind raced ahead, trying desperately to remember how much they had done. He wasn't sure what to feel when he realized they had slept together, only in the literal sense. Fluttershy was a precious and delicate flower; there was no need to rush her into a physical relationship. Sleeping while spooning was more than enough, especially with her love practically radiating from her even as she slept. Dopple desperately wanted to drop his disguise to check the state of his holes, and see just how well-fed he was, but he wouldn't do so in front of Angel bunny, much less with Fluttershy on her way out of the shower. "Oh! Did I wake you?" Fluttershy asked as she came back into the room carrying a brush and sat in front of her vanity. "No, I woke on my own. Here, would you like me to brush your mane?" he offered. "No thank you, but thanks for offering," she said, as she got to work styling her hair. She smiled at him in the mirror. "Did you sleep well? You look.. flushed?" Dopple flushed harder at the comment. "Sorry, I was just thinking back to... our kiss last night. You're a really good kisser. I mean, I think so. Not that I've kissed that many ponies... I mean. I liked it." Dopple exaggerated his shyness a bit, as he found it worked well with Fluttershy, though it wasn't all an act. The mare in question blushed in response, quietly working on her main as she struggled to regain control of herself. "Thank you, Dopple. I really liked it too," she answered, before almost inaudibly adding, "it was my first kiss." Dopple barely heard her, but he had made a habit of focusing on her whenever she was nearby to hear every peep out of her mouth, and rarely missed a thing. "You have a natural talent for it, I think from all the kindness in your heart," he said as he approached her, laying a hoof gently on her back and smiling at her reflection warmly. She turned to face him, and almost looked like she might kiss him again right there, but instead she blushed brightly, wavered, and turned away again. He caught himself about the sigh and stopped himself. Fluttershy was going to be his, already was, he was sure of it. He just had to continue to be patient. She was worth it, especially since he could already feel her love for him even now. He basked in it, absorbing it easily, careful not to draw heavily from her lest she grow weak from the drain. He was hungry still. If he tried, he could probably knock her unconscious just drawing the love from her to fill himself completely. But that would surely end their relationship, and possibly his life given how protective her friends were. So he patiently took only what was freely offered, which was more than enough for his needs. "Why don't you take a shower?" Fluttershy suggested as she finished styling her mane. "I'll go downstairs and make us breakfast," she offered. "That sounds lovely, like the mare who suggested it," he said with a smile, lightly kissing her cheek before heading off to do as she suggested, leaving her to blush. The privacy of the shower allowed him to finally cast off his disguise, letting the water run over his chitin as he scrubbed himself clean. There were only a few small holes remaining, he noted with pride and happiness. There had been quite a lot more when he had checked himself last night, while preparing for his date with the shy pony. If he managed to get rid of the last of these soon, he could show himself off to the changeling generals, prove how successful he had been, and then... And then, what? Leave Fluttershy behind and go back to run the hive? No, he wouldn't do that to his precious little wallflower. He couldn't. He didn't even want to rule in the first place. Heck, that was the part that was so brilliant about his plan to begin with. It scattered the hive so that there was no effective leadership, no coordination on a large scale. At most the changelings in any given town would support each other, but for the most part that would be nothing much more than pony friends would do for one another anyways. They would melt away into pony society completely, and he wouldn't have to worry about ruling over anypony. It was tempting to not even check in with the generals, in fact. To just let them think what they wanted, even assume him a failure, so long as they left him alone with his beautiful butter pony. But he did worry a bit about what plans they might try to enact if he did. Some of their plans were just awful in terms of being poorly thought out, others awful in terms of what they planned to do to the ponies. Weren't they allies just a few months back, when they fought together against the deadly human invasion? And while the alliance had been broken at the end, Dopple knew full well that it was their own queen's doing, not any treachery from the ponies. The muffled sound of voices from downstairs broke his train of thought, and Dopple turned off the shower, beginning to dry off and make himself presentable. He was back in his disguise when he headed down the stairs to the main room to join Fluttershy and her guests. When he started down the staircase, he took note of the guests, even as one of them took note of him. He recognized the element bearers, of course, Rainbow Dash and Applejack, and worried a bit that AJ was frowning at him from under her Stetson. What element was she again? RD was still preoccupied regaling Fluttershy with tails of her athletic triumph. "Hey, Fluttershy. Would you mind introducing me to your friends?" Dopple asked as he descended the stairs. "I'm Dopple. I'm sure you were both at my Welcome to Ponyville Party, but I don't think we properly met," he offered, sparing Fluttershy a bit of effort. "I'm Rainbow Dash, and this stunning mare is Applejack," Rainbow introduced, likewise sparing her shy friend the need to speak up, "I'm Fluttershy's BFF forever, and AJ here is my bride to be." AJ blushed a bit, "so we're just announcing it to strangers now?" she said, drowned out by an excited squee from Fluttershy, well above her normal volume. "Wait, what were you doing upstairs in Fluttershy's bedroom?" Rainbow asked, derailing the conversation again. "Are you... Fluttershy's special somepony?!" Fluttershy and Dopple both blushed, the pegasus seemingly trying to disappear into her pink mane, while Dopple managed to speak. "Well, she probably wouldn't admit it openly, and I think it's a bit soon to claim as much, but we've had several wonderful dates now. So..." Dopple blushed harder, working up the nerve. "I'll just go ahead and say that she's my special somepony." AJ looked at him thoughtfully, then sighed looking away. "Hey, what's eating you, AJ?" Rainbow asked, concerned. "It's just... that last thing he just said... I don't know," she said uncertainly. "You think he was lying?" RD questioned, looking at Dopple skeptically. "Well, actually, I think that was the most sincere thing he's said since we met him. There's something off about him, but I can't place what," Applejack said. Dopple thought it kind of rude and super awkward for them to discuss their suspicions about him right in front of him like he wasn't even there, but before he could figure out a way to protest his back slammed into a wall, trapping him between it and the multicolored streak of light that resolved itself into the athletic pegasus. "Alright, spill it mister! If you want to date one of my friends, no more lies!" RD said, threateningly. Dopple blinked at her, his mouth working soundlessly a moment while he tried to think of anything to say that wouldn't involve him getting pummeled viciously and bucked out of Fluttershy's life forever. Fluttershy tried to intervene on his behalf, quietly, "umm... Rainbow Dash, if you don't mind, could you let him go? He's been nothing but a perfect gentlecolt ever since I met him, and I'm sure whatever it is there's a good reason for it. Like maybe he's a secret agent or something?" Dopple glanced at AJ, half tempted to go with the secret agent line, but had a feeling he wouldn't get anything but the truth past that pony. Honesty. That's right. She was the element of honesty. And the pegasus holding him was the element of loyalty, who would surely protect her friends with her life. Dopple might have been a war hero, but that wasn't from being a great fighter. It was from being magically whisked away and ending up in just the right place at just the right time to put down a helpless, practically defeated foe with a cheap shot. He didn't even have a crossbow with him this time. And if he did, it would only get him in more trouble. "Fluttershy, I..." he took a moment of introspection, understanding the truth about himself before daring to try to express it before the pony who seemed to see through every lie. "I do love you. I really do, but I have been untruthful to you, and everypony else, since I got here. You see, I'm not really a unicorn..." Green flames washed over his body and his true, changeling body was revealed. "My name is Dopple, and I'm really a changeling." Everpony was stunned into silence for a moment. Then Rainbow drew back a forehoof, ready to strike Dopple in the face, before she felt her elbow caught in a desperate embrace. "Don't!" Fluttershy insisted, louder than she usually managed. "But, he's been lying to you to get close to you. He hurt you, and I-" Rainbow objected. "He hasn't hurt me! Or anypony else! I told you, he's been a perfect gentlecolt, and I meant it. And even AJ said he was being honest about loving me. Can't you see? He's still my..." Fluttershy looked Dopple over quietly for a moment, before squeezing in next to him, facing Rainbow Dash defiantly. "He's my special somepony," she said barely over a whisper. But despite the volume, everypony heard her just fine. RD dropped to all fours, looking embarrassed but not letting Dopple out of her sight. "Why Fluttershy?" Applejack suddenly asked, confronting the unmasked changeling. "She's a great mare, but shy as she is, she couldn't have been easy to get close to. She couldn't have been the most obvious chose out of all of Ponyville, so why her of all ponies?" "Well, it's kind of a long story, but it had to be one of the element bearers. You're all lovely mares, but Fluttershy seemed like the best to me. Her shyness is cute and endearing, and reminds me of myself. And her heart is practically overflowing with love and kindness," Dopple explained. Fluttershy seemed a bit bothered by the mention of the elements, but then beamed a bit as she thought of the competition she had overcome, especially realizing that she had seen him talk to Rarity during the party where they met, only to blow her off and head straight for Fluttershy herself. "I think ya better take the time to give the whole story," Applejack insisted. "And I think maybe the other elements better be here to hear it. RD, go get the others. I'll keep an eye on this one and buck him to next week if he even thinks of doing anythin' wrong." RD nodded and zipped out the front door, while AJ settled in to her stint on guard duty. Silence reigned for several uncomfortable seconds before Dopple broke it by asking AJ, "so... wedding plans?"