//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8: Past Life 
// Story: Converted 
// by Shaded Changeling 
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	It was dark the next time Shade returned to the village, the moon luckily covered up by clouds, casting a long shadow, perfect for walking across the large plain between Everfree and Ponyville. Especially if you are a Changeling who can’t transform.
Shade had been in Everfree almost the entire night, trying to get a Timber wolf’s essence for Darkblaze. It wasn’t the most difficult task…just kind of annoying. Seeing as it took three tries before Shade could even gather it. Apparently it was not as easy as feeding off emotions, you actually needed to be focused on absorbing all of it. And for some reason, that made it so Shade couldn’t disguise himself. Would have been nice to know about before now.
While the actual subdual of the Timber Wolf wasn’t difficult, that didn’t make it easy. Shade’s carapace was covered in small scratches, wood dust, mud, and the holes in his legs each had sticks perfectly jammed into them…so that felt weird. Along with the fact he now smelt like a Timber Wolf… So that would only complicate things.
The only good thing about tonight in Shade’s opinion was the fact it was cloudy, preventing his black carapace from gleaming in the moonlight, so that was good. When he actually managed to get to Darkblaze’s door, which luckily wasn’t too far into the village, he knocked on it a few times before hissing. “Darkblaze, open the door. It’s Snake Eye.” Shade made a mental note to actually tell Darkblaze his real name. Because he hated that nickname, but the strange thing is that it worked for both Pony and Changeling form, so it didn’t make any strange questions from passersby.
The door opened to the familiar gray Pegasus, who quickly grabbed Shade and pulled him inside. “Are you crazy?” He hissed, “Why aren’t you disguised?”
“I couldn’t disguise.” Shade hissed back. “When I absorbed your stupid Timber Wolf essence it stopped me from transforming. Thanks for the warning by the way.” He said, managing to push Tornado Dust off of him. “If it wasn’t cloudy I might have been caught.” As Shade finished Tornado Dust was covered in a green flame and there stood Darkblaze, a look of shock in his solid blue eyes.
“You actually managed to get it this quick?”
“With difficulty.” Shade replied, beginning to try and pull the various sticks out of his legs, with mixed results. “It took me three tries before I got the hang of it.”
“Only three?” Darkblaze replied as Shade was busy pulling out a rather stubborn stick. “It took me a few days before I managed to pull that off.”
“Well maybe…” Shade said, fidgeting with the stick in one of his front legs. “It had something to do with me not being good at controlling my abilities. I can…” Managing to free the stick, and spitting it out before continuing, “I can see all the emotional energy at all times, so I just sort of picked up on the energy the first time. After that it became a bit easier to focus on the actual holding it down so I could drain it.” Shade shook his leg so that the remaining loose sticks fell out onto the floor.
“Well… I was expecting you to take much longer.” Darkblaze said, rubbing the back of his head. “I didn’t really plan anything for you to learn today... and I am nowhere near prepared enough to have you practice magic in my basement.” Shade figured using magic in a basement of a building made mostly out of hay and wood could go very badly, especially when the only spells you seem to be able to use involve fire.
Shade was still in the process of pulling sticks out of his front legs when a sudden question hit him…something he had been wondering for quite a while.
“Darkblaze.” He said, letting go of the stick he had placed between his two fangs and the rest of his teeth, “Is it…in any way possible…for a Changeling to transform into a dragon?”
Darkblaze stared at him for a second, surprised by the question, before he began to tap his chin. “Huh…” Was the first thing he said. “I suppose it is possible, but it would be incredibly difficult to pull off. We operate by nearly fully modifying ourselves to look and, by all cases, appear to be a creature. I’ve seen some really good Deceivers turn into rocks and griffons before, but a dragon…I don’t know.”
Shade wasn’t about to give up that easily. “Hypothetically speaking, if you were to have…an exact idea how they work…could you?”
Darkblaze was still tapping his chin. “Hypothetically…yes. It would take a ton of energy to keep going…but you should be able to… I mean. It would be really dangerous, using that much energy for a long time could kill you. The only Changeling who could manage it would have to be a Queen.”
Shade felt slightly disheartened by this answer. But still, he did say it was possible. But really dangerous. So there is no way Shade could hold it for too long. “Exactly…what would happen… just out of curiosity.”
“You disintegrate.” Darkblaze said seriously. Shade was only mildly aware that Darkblaze seemed to be talking from personal experience. “If you use energy too quickly, your magic will actually start to eat away at your body.” He held up one of his holed hooves. “I’m pretty sure that’s what these came from originally…A tradeoff for our magic.” He lowered the hoof and began to shake his head. “I sound like a philosopher.”
“Yeah but you aren’t quite as pompous.” Shade retorted, noticing a small glint of yellow flame coming from Darkblaze.
“Snake Eye, you know exactly my sense of humor.” Shade noticed the small blue flicker with his left eye.
“If you don’t mind me asking…” Shade said, he was curious, but not discourteous. “Who was it…that you saw…you know.” Shade didn’t know how to phrase it. But Darkblaze understood.
“My twin.” Darkblaze replied. “She…she was… forced into a transformation… too much energy…too quickly. She burnt herself up.” That blue flicker was getting slowly bigger. “She was always a trouble maker… In fact I think she’s the reason I wanted a life outside the hive.”
“What do you mean?” Shade replied, he got that Tornado Dust was kind of a cover, but he never would have guessed that there was a reason behind it other than to serve.
“My sister was always talking about getting out of the hive, seeing the world, meeting ponies on more than just a food basis. And she did… She even threatened our secrecy, showing us to one of her closer friends. Turns out that Chrysalis didn’t like that very much.” Darkblaze shifted slightly, he was clearly uncomfortable with the topic, but he kept going, this had clearly been on his mind a lot. “When Chrysalis found out, she had the pony captured, my sister drained of all her love, and then she forcefully transformed her,” He seemed to be wincing slightly, as if remembering a repressed memory.
“That…can’t have been easy for you…” Shade replied, he never had a sibling, at least…not one so directly linked… from what he remembered, siblings had a much stronger mental connection, almost so they could feel each….oh…
“That was a punishment for you…” Shade realized started to understand. “She didn’t want you to follow the same path as your sister…so to ensure you didn’t…she forced you to feel it with her… To ensure you wouldn’t…” Shade trailed off. Thinking about this. No wonder Darkblaze was so much different, he didn’t like the queen either, she had tortured him, killed his sister, for no good reason…well logically anyway… “Holy…Pardon my French but: Elle est une vraie salope. What kind of queen would torture a subject for no reason?”
“The same one who believes love can be harvested from fear.” Shade perked up at hearing this, halfway through pulling a particularly troublesome vine, he let it go and it slapped into his chitin with a painful THWAP!
Shade was shaking his leg to try and soothe the pain a little when he replied. “This wouldn’t happen to be the same plan she had when she was in the Burning Fiords would it?”
“No idea.” Darkblaze replied.  “I wasn’t hatched until after that event. I don’t even know too much about it. Why?”
“Because,” Shade said, once again pulling on the vine. “If my little visions are a reference,” The vine snapped in half, “Then those things are not going to give into fear anytime soon. Especially after the most recent one I had where…” He stopped, staring out of the window. He could have sworn that he saw some kind of shadow there a minute ago… It looked…strangely familiar yet…
“Snake Eye?” Darkblaze said breaking Shade’s train of thought. “What is it?”
Shade shook his head. “Probably just me being sleep deprived.” Yeah that was it. “I haven’t slept well in days. Probably just seeing things.”
“How much sleep have you-?”
“Five hours in the past three days.” Shade replied quickly
“Yeah…no. You need to sleep.” Darkblaze got off his chair and walked over to Shade, “Touch your horn to mine. I’ll extract the Timber Wolf essence myself, you just head back to AJ’s and sleep.”
Shade was hesitant at first, but after touching Darkblaze’s horn, he suddenly felt a large relief as he found himself immediately transform back to Sunstreak. “Oh thank god. Thanks, Darkblaze.”
Darkblaze gave a slight nod before motioning to the door. Sunstreak quickly dashed through the door, closing it quietly before taking off and flying back towards the orchard.
Getting back to the barn, he flew in through the small window and landed in his makeshift bed of hay. Much less a bed more a cocoon with the fact that he buried himself in the stuff as well so he could sleep while looking like a Changeling. Once he finished pulling the remaining sticks and vines from his leg, he began to wade into sleep. So long as he wasn’t…say…body slammed by Rainbow Dash he should be fine.
Hopefully…