//------------------------------//
// Chapter 19: Medical Check 
// Story: Converted 
// by Shaded Changeling 
//------------------------------//

	“Do I really have to wear this thing?” Shade said touching the metal band placed on his curved horn. It apparently blocked his magic, but he felt no different than he usually did, if anything it just stuck out on his black carapace.
“While you are being brought to the hospital, you are still a prisoner and the Princess doesn’t want you using any magic.” Silver replied.
“I can understand that, but…” He looked back at his wings, which were currently held against his side with straps attached to his hooves. “This just seems a bit… excessive.”
“Maybe it is.” Silver replied. “But the citizens of Canterlot are still a bit jumpy, and seeing a Changeling won’t help that.”
“I understand…but…” He looked back at his hind leg, currently being held up by some kind of wheel contraption.
“Would you prefer a knockout spell?” Silver asked. “Because I would be happy to do that.”
“And let you tell them I tried to escape? No thanks.”
“Then don’t complain.” Silver Shield replied. Leading the small group of Guards surrounding him. Shade hadn’t exactly been happy with the fact they didn’t just let him transform back into Sunstreak, but there was the pointless questioning of ‘Where is the real Sunstreak.’
The guards around him were both Pegasi and Unicorns, probably in case he did anything… Which was highly unlikely, given he would be disabled pretty quick by his leg, the only time he could really ignore the pressure of running was when he was focusing on something else, like rage or fear. And he doubted that even if he was in full physical form, he would be able to take out these guards.
He didn’t have to walk very far before they exited the building and he was led to some kind of carriage.	Shade didn’t really get a good look at it, owing to the fact that the suppression ring did not block out his emotion senses, so all the feeling of fear, suspicion, curiosity, anger, and resentment began to cloud everywhere he looked, so he had to eventually just block out everything, and just allow himself to be led by the guards.
When the carriage stopped, Shade was looking at the closest thing to a familiar sight he had seen; the hospital was a large, white building. The universal Red Cross sign symbolizing the hospital. It looked like it had a large number of rooms, as the entire hospital seemed to have windows running up and down it, but what caught Shade’s eye was the familiar White unicorn he saw who had done the original field examination on his leg, was now leading a group of three other doctors with a gurney out towards the carriage.
“Are you sure this is a good-“
“Yes!” Dr. Rose said to the other doctor, Shade couldn’t pick out details he was still focusing most of his strength on avoiding absorbing emotions. “He needs help, and think of the scientific applications of what we learn from him.”
Shade tuned out the conversation in favor of searching through his own mind to see if he had any idea what and what wasn’t different about him from ‘normal’ changelings. His mind for one, but aside from his eye, he honestly had no idea how much different he truly was from a normal changeling.
He was distracted when he was suddenly lifted into the air by a couple unicorns and felt his wings become free from the straps that were placed there as he was laid down on the gurney, which immediately clasped steel rings around all four of his hooves to hold him in place.
	This was either rehearsed prior, or they have insane ponies here. Then he thought of Pinkie Pie, take away the friendly bit, add a bit of anger in there, Okay now I can see it.
He was quickly wheeled down the halls, allowing him to get glances into the hospital rooms. There were mostly Guards, and even a few civilians, some of which looked like they were just puppets, staring off into space. He almost immediately realized these were ponies sucked dry of their love…he could only feel a pang of guilt when he realized that. I almost caused that…
When they went up an elevator and past a few more rooms, Shade looked towards one of them and felt the world freeze around him.
He noticed Sunglider, laying in one of the hospital beds, his wing was turned completely around, his front hooves still looked broken, and he too had that blank expressionless stare. Shade wanted to go in there and apologize personally, try and find someway to help, but he was quickly whisked off down the hall.
When they finally came to a stop, Shade was jolted out of his focus on Sunglider. He looked around; it seemed like a standard hospital room, an IV, Vital monitor, does that even work through the carapace? In fact the only difference was the fact that the windows all had the blinds pulled down to stop other ponies from seeing him.
The next thing he saw was Dr. Rose looking at him. “So… do you have a name?”
Shade looked at her curiously. “Of course I have a name. What kind of sentient creature would I be without a name?”
“Well what is it? We need it on record for the medical reports.”
“It’s Shade. My pony form is named Sunstreak. Whichever one you put down won’t really affect me.”
Dr. Rose scribbled on her clipboard, which was being held in a light red glow, the same color as her eyes. “So do all changelings have names? Or only a few of them?”
“Uh….” Shade replied. How do I respond to that? In his experience, all Changelings had a name, but he had only known six others. Was that enough to judge the entire race by? “I’ll… get back to you on that…”
“Okay.” Rose replied, scribbling on her pad, “Now this question is rather important. What is your standard diet?”
I have no clue… Darkblaze did mention a hunt at some point, so they may be carnivorous and emotion eaters… “Meat and emotions.”
He could tell that this surprised Rose, given that she was now staring at him. “We are omnivores. So if you can’t get meat don’t worry about it.”
“Right….” Rose replied clearing her throat. “Now then any…history of family based symptoms such as Stroke-“
“I know what the symptoms are and the answer is no. I have no history of those symptoms.”
Rose wrote down on the clipboard. “Alright so this is the last question, does your carapace interfere with X-ray scans?”
Shade opened his mouth, but quickly closed it. “I... have no idea...”
“Would you like to find out?”



Shade hadn’t had an X-Ray scan in quite a long time, he remembered the basic point behind it, but he didn’t quite remember it requiring him to be fully restrained from moving by metal clamps.
“Uh… won’t these interfere with the scan?” Shade said as one of the unicorn guards removed the suppression ring from his horn, but not before warning that if he tried to use magic, he would be punished.
“We need to get a full body scan,” Rose said to him. “After all, this is the first time a Changeling has ever been placed through an X-Ray.”
“Yes but the…”
“The guards insisted that you be restrained during the procedure, in case anything happens.” Rose replied as she walked into a side room. “Are you ready?”
“I…guess so…”
“Great. Now you will feel a little tingle…” She said as she nodded to the Unicorn Guard in the room, his horn glowed a light purple.
She hadn’t been lying, all he did feel was a small tingle as the knockout spell hit him, the next thing he felt was a strange mixture of emotions as his head slammed into the back of the table.



When he woke up, he had a pounding headache, but nothing new appeared wrong with him, he kind of wished he wasn’t currently restrained to a bed, he would have liked to rub the back of his head. At least I was warned about it this time…
At that moment, the door to the room opened and Dr. Rose walked in, hovering a few pieces of black X-Ray printings. She looked over to Shade. “Oh. You’re awake.”
Shade’s vision was spinning for a second. “So I am…”
“Well I just got the X-Ray images, and I hope you don’t mind, I sent some of your blood down to the lab to test it.”
“For?” Shade asked, really wishing he could move something, and then remembering his wing was no longer restrained, buzzed it softly.
“Well…I wanted to see what the closest known insect relative to you we have on record is. Wouldn’t want to accidently poison you or something.”
“That would be good…” Don’t want to die when I have a vendetta that needs to be finished.
“Well you will be happy to hear that the carapace didn’t interfere with the scans.” She said placing the images on a backlight. “But it did make it slightly more difficult.” She turned on the backlight and Shade was surprised by the skeletal design.
More specifically the legs, there was certainly a massive difference in the bones, they curved around the holes that had been placed in his legs, giving a strangely sturdy support despite the integrity damage caused by the holes.
“The bone structure was fascinating I would love to see it when there is not a giant crack through it…”
She was right, in the middle of his hind left leg, the bone had a large crack straight through it, but the bone had smaller cracks etched throughout it, even one reaching towards one of the holes in his leg. Throughout the carapace on his right leg, there were slightly lighter cracks, which Shade realized were on the inside of his leg.
“Well…that doesn’t look good.” Shade said, looking at the fractures in his right leg, along with the clear blue light coming through the direct center of it.
“Yes…but strangely enough, the wound has actually closed quite a bit since I looked at it in the cell.”
“How?” Shade said surprised. As far as he knew, his leg shouldn’t have healed too fast. “How much?”
“Well…maybe the answer will be in your blood, but as far as I can tell, it has healed about a third of the way already…but it has a pretty bad infection, we have to wait for your blood test before we can prescribe any kind of antibiotics.”
Shade nodded, looking back at the X-Ray, he noticed that his wings weren’t showing up on it. Dr. Rose noticed it as well.
“Shame we couldn’t get your wing on there.” Rose said, with a slight hint of sorrow towards him. “I really wanted to see if we could fix your wing… But it’s not like a Pegasus wing, it is made out of a membrane, not bone…”
“Why don’t we make it a bone?” Shade asked, while he was in no hurry to get knocked out again, he did kind of want to know how quickly it would be fixed.”
Rose had raised her hoof to her chin pondering. “How so?”
“Well… I am a Changeling. And from how I understand my own transformations, any injuries I take are transferred into their equivalent no matter the form I’m in.”
Rose rubbed her chin. “Perhaps…but the problem is that I’m not in charge of that suppression ring.” Shade looked up at the silver ring. “You would need to get the Guards to okay you using magic. And I don’t see them allowing it.”
“Well… I’m not sure if this information will help at all,” Shade tried to remember where on his wing he heard the snapping when Spine broke it. “I heard a crack near the center and two further down before I blacked out, I don’t know how much it helps though.”
“I’m not sure if we can help…” Rose said looking at Shade. “The membrane looks too complex… I’ve never seen anything like it before. You may have to wait for it to heal gradually on it’s own.”
Shade lowered his head slightly. “Oh…okay.”
Rose took notice and walked over to him. “Listen…I don’t know much about Changeling medicine.” Neither do I. “But if we are lucky, we can use the healing potions we have to speed up your recovery, and maybe it will heal your wing.”
Shade wasn’t so sure, his wings were not like a pegasi’s, and he didn’t like the idea of never flying again. So he was hoping there was some kind of secret Changeling healing magic or something, next time Darkblaze connected with him, he would need to ask. But he had something else he wanted to ask.
“What’s wrong with Sunglider?” Shade asked.
“Sunglider… He’s not exactly one of my patients.” Rose replied. “And medical law has a thing know as Doctor Patient confidentiality, I couldn’t tell you even if I knew.”
Shade’s spirits dropped a little. “Well…if you ever need help with any of those ones drained by…” Shade had to force the next few words out. “My fellow changelings… just let me know.”
Rose smiled slightly. “I’m sure they would appreciate any help you could give them.” With that she left the room, leaving Shade alone to think about what he helped to do.
It made him feel like a monster…



Rose entered into the lab where she sent a few samples of Shade’s blood and chitin, hoping to find something useful about the Changeling race. “Bloodclot?”
The unicorn in question was busily looking at a small vial of crimson blood through a microscope. His coat was a dark red while his mane was a frosty white. His Cutie mark was of that of a microscope “Fascinating…” he was mumbling to himself.
“Bloodclot?” Rose said. Trying to get his attention.
“The white blood cells just-“
Rose loudly cleared her throat to get Bloodclot’s attention. She hated when he got like this, he gets far to invested into his work sometimes and it feels like the only way to get him out is to slap him.
“Oh. Rose. I didn’t hear you come in.” He said as he whirled around in his chair. “I was just looking at the blood samples you sent me.”
“Yeah…about those…” She said, she had no idea whether he actually did the job she asked him to or not. “Did you run it through our records like I asked?”
“Yes I did actually.” Bloodclot replied. Hopping off the chair. “But the strange thing is that I couldn’t find even a relative match between them and any of the insect variants we had on record.”
“Then what was he closest to?” Rose asked. “If the Changeling isn’t close to insects, then what is he close to?”
“You see, that is the strange thing.” Bloodclot said, levitating a file over to Rose. “I could only find one blood test that we had that was even close to being a match.”
“And?” Rose said looking into the file before her eyes widened. “That can’t be right…”
“I’ve checked it myself. Twelve times to be exact.” Bloodclot replied. “That is the closest thing on file we have.”
“Well this is great!” Rose said. “It means that the healing potions will work on him… but… How could this happen?”
Bloodclot shrugged. “I’m not a Changeling expert. So why not ask him yourself. I’m sure he has the answer.”
“Thanks Bloodclot.” Rose said, closing the file and holding it up with her magic. “I’ll get back to you on this.”
“There’s no rush. I’ll just be here.” Bloodclot replied turning back to his microscope. “Crazy mare…”



Shade was just sitting in his room, not that he could do anything else, when he heard the rapid clopping of running hooves outside the door. He perked up, listening to the voices outside, while it wasn’t perfectly clear, he could understand what they were saying.
“I…Need to…talk…with…my patient.” Rose panted through heavy breaths.
“Are you okay Doctor?” The guard outside asked. “You look like you’ve just ran a marathon.”
“That’s…because…I just…ran…from…the lab…Now…I…need…to talk… with him…”
Shade could tell the two Guards were trying to figure out whether or not there was something wrong with the situation. But finding none, they opened the door. To which Rose quickly ran in.
Shade looked at how tired she looked. “Do you need something? Like a glass of water… or something?”
“No…I…Just…need a minute…” Rose said, sitting in a chair near the door.
“So…what’s got you so wound up?” Shade asked, turning his head to look at Rose. She had a manila folder being held by her magic. “I thought you said you couldn’t show me anything about other patients.”
“Hm?” Rose replied. “Oh no…this is actually related to you.”
“Oookaay?” Shade replied. “What is it?”
Rose had apparently calmed down enough to be walking again. “It’s your blood test results.”
“Wow… That was fast.” Shade was used to it taking at least a few hours to do a blood test… “How long was I unconscious for?”
“About two hours. But Bloodclot works pretty fast.”
“So…what does it say?” Shade asked. “I don’t have any kind of carapace-eating disease do I?” I pray that is not a thing.
“No… but it’s just…” Rose was never good at these kinds of things. She always got flustered when she tried to lightly push something important like this. “Look for yourself.” She placed the file on top of Shade.
“Umm… I can’t.” Shade said, moving his gaze between the clamps on his hooves and the ring on his horn. “So you are either going to have to unclip my hooves or lift the file so that I can read it.”
“Oh…right…” Rose blushed in embarrassment, and Shade barely got a taste of it… it tasted a little like buttercups. She began levitating the folder in front of Shade.
“Blood test results: Inconclusive.” Shade said as he read. “No match for any form of insect in any known family. No known match for ponies.
One conclusive result: Closest match…” Shade had to re-read it a few times. “Spike?” The closest blood match they had for him was the baby dragon that Twilight had hatched from an egg. “Um…What?”
“Bloodclot ran your blood against every insect and pony we have on record here.” Rose began to explain. “The closest match he could find was Spike. Now why is that?”
Shade was fairly sure he knew the exact reason behind the blood test, but the real question was, how was he supposed to explain what took him nearly a week of thinking about, and then a Changeling Queen to explain it to him. After a few moments, he sighed. “Alright…but one condition. Can I get it so that at least one of my hooves isn’t strapped to the bed?”
“I’ll ask the guards… But I’m not sure that they’ll-”
“If they honestly think I’m going to do anything with one hoof, two broken legs, a broken wing, and no magic, then I would like to hear what they think. It would make for an interesting story.” Shade replied sarcastically. “Besides they could use some kind of leather strap or something to stop me from moving it too much if they are really worried about it.”
“I’ll just ask…” Rose opened the door and began talking with the guards outside.
Shade didn’t even need to listen in to tell how the conversation was going, the Guards looked at her like she as crazy, then she explained, they doubted, she explained more, probably the same pattern for a bit, then eventually she won them over or something. Shade blocked out all of their conversation and was trying to think about how to explain his life.
After about five minutes, one of the guards walked in and released Shade’s right hoof from the clamp. “Merci Beucoup” he said as he managed to roll his wrist so that he could feel it again, before he rubbed the back of his head. “That has been bothering me for hours…”
The Guard clearly wasn’t happy with releasing even one of the clamps, so Shade was lucky he only needed one for emotive purposes…and for scratching. When the guard left, Rose locked the door behind him and looked expectantly at Shade.
“So…how did you get Dragon blood?” Rose asked pulling the chair closer to Shade.
“Well… in short. I used to be a dragon.” Shade said, before looking over to Rose, who was looking at him like he told a very bad pun.
“Come on.” She said. “If you aren’t going to take this seriously, I’m just going to tell the Guards to clamp your hoof back to the bed.”
“I’m being serious.” Shade replied. “I used to be dragon, born in the Burning Fiords, you’ve probably never heard of it but it exists, I was there during an attack by Queen Chrysalis and her Changelings. They…uh…kind of beat us. But not for long, from what I’ve heard they got pushed back pretty far.”
“That doesn’t explain why you are a Changeling.” Rose said.
“I was getting to that. So apparently, Queen Chrysalis is one of a large number of Changeling Queens, each running their hives separate to each other. And she is one of the few Queens who has the ability to…” Shade twirled his hoof around. “Convert other creatures into Changelings.”
“Give me one reason to believe that anything you are currently telling me is true.” Rose said a look of pure disbelief on her face.
“Hmm…” Shade replied tapping his chin with his hoof. “How about I point out that my blood results, taken while I was unconscious, prove that I have Dragon blood, and that my eye is still a dragon’s.”
“I meant to ask about that…” Rose admitted. “But I figured you were just next in line for the throne or something.”
Shade dry heaved. “No! I’m not a female. Only females can become Queens. And I don’t even know if converted changelings can even technically rise to the level of Queen.”
“Well I’m not an expert on Changelings. And neither are you.” Shade was going to retort but didn’t…she was completely right.
“Anyway… I woke up before the invasion took place and got dragged into it. Yadda. Yadda. Yadda. Love blast make bug things fly away.”
“So how does this tie into your dragon blood?” Rose asked.
“Ah yes…” Shade remembered something he found remarkable himself. “Well…when I got shot out of Canterlot, I picked up a…passenger…”
“Who?”
“A filly.” He looked and saw the shock on Rose’s face. “She’s fine…I hope. I’ll tell you that story later. Or ask Candlelight. Whichever comes first.”
“Tell me anyway….”
“Well… during the attack I fell through a building and cracked my carapace on a wall. Yes it was painful. And within a few days it was fine.”
“So you are saying that because you have dragon blood, you recover from injuries faster?”
“I think so…it still takes a long time, but compared to a normal pony, I suppose I heal rather quickly.”
“Fascinating…” Rose made a mental note to research the usage of Dragon’s blood. Seemed like it could be useful.
“And before you even think about trying to harvest other dragons… remember two things. One: Most dragons will not hesitate to eat you, and two: the healing properties only last for about an hour when outside of the body. After that, it is just normal blood.” Shade knew that was a lie because Dragon blood turns into a deadly Molotov when left to sit for too long. He had seen some really stupid changelings melted by blood that covered them as they tried to tear through a dragon.
“Well…that’s good…I guess.” Rose replied.
“So…I’ve told you my secret.” Shade said. “Now then… What’s wrong with Sunglider?”
“Are you still on that?”
“I was the one who did it to him so yes.”
Rose stared at him. “You?”
Shade slapped himself with his hoof. “I did it again didn’t I…”
“That’s…all by yourself?” Rose asked. Shocked.
“Yes… I’ve regretted it every chance I get. I thought I could help him, using an old spell I learned from-“
“I think you can tell us what happened to him better than any of us can…”



Managing to get the Guards to allow Shade to actually leave the room was by far the most trouble they had come across, the next biggest problem was how the others would react to a Changeling wandering around near wounded Guards. But after Rose vouched that she would be fully responsible for his actions, and she would allow herself to be thrown in the dungeon alongside Shade, the Guards loosened up slightly.
For the first time in about three days, Shade was finally able to take his persona of Sunstreak again. Which would have been infinitely better if his wing was not jutting out strangely, so he opted to change into Comet Trail instead, mostly to get rid of the strange crumpling noise every time he took a step, but also so he could still use his magic in case that was the problem.
But the Guards had insisted he keep the suppression ring on his horn as Comet Trail so that was quickly dashed.
Now that he wasn’t being quickly pushed down the halls, he actually got a look at the Guards and civilians in the hospital, and he was kind of glad his mane covered half his view. He saw Pegasus without a wing, unicorns with shattered horns, civilians lying empty on the beds. He had to stop himself from looking at a large room where he knew children were being held. He ducked his head down so he couldn’t see any of them.
When they finally got to where Sunglider was placed, Comet saw he wasn’t faring much better than when he first saw him. His wings were still badly bent, his legs were at odd angles, and he just stared towards the ceiling… Comet felt more guilt hit him when he actually walked inside.
But that wasn’t all he felt…
The instant he walked in, his mind began to race, images flashed before his eyes, hundreds of sounds all played in his ears at once.
“No!” He shouted, trying to stop the images, he could tell that Dr. Rose was worried, he saw her lips move, but couldn’t pick up the sounds. “Get out of my head!” Shade shouted, Rose walked up close to him, but he tried to get away from her. “Stay! Back!” He shouted, as his body began to move on its own. Taking a stance as if to pounce.
His body refused to listen to his commands, he jumped, felt something hard connect with his hooves, and could hear shouting, screaming, and then a brief stinging sensation in his side, and he hit the floor with a loud thud.