Retrofit Opening themes, because opening theme music is cool. DON'T JUDGE ME! 
Retrofit Opening themes, because opening theme music is cool. DON'T JUDGE ME!
Ki noted happily that fewer ponies were screaming “monster!” and running away in panic each day he walked this route. On the other hoof, it irked him that there were also fewer ponies on the streets at this time of day along his route from Just Deserts to the changeling hive. But overall, it meant that at worst, ponies had decided to content themselves with leaving him alone, and by and large, he liked being left alone. It was close enough to call it a win.
Overall, he was fairly contented with his new lot in life. On the one hoof, he had been transformed into a terrifying beast of a pony by the living Embodiment of Chaos. On the other, it actually beat waging war against the armies of King Sombra as a middle aged human. He was still kind of, sort of with Pinkamena (in that Surprise was kind of Pinkamena, and they were sort of a thing). And he was in a fairly good mood because Healthy Change had said they were going to let Swing Shift out of the pod today so they could actually visit, and that made him happy for reasons he couldn’t adequately explain but assumed had something to do with the various time-travel-induced paradoxes that seemed to make up his life these days. So, over-all things were looking up. As always, that was when things went sideways.
“Psst, Train Wreck,” An orange unicorn mare with a poofy red mane called out to him from an alley and he idly wondered if he should use a hoof or a tazzle-snake to face-palm, “Train Wreck, it’s me Swing, I broke out!”
“Swing Shift!” the tazzle corn glanced around quickly before realizing that he was nearly twice the size of any normal pony, looked like a cthulian horror, that it was useless to try and be at all sneaky, and finally just rolled his eyes and walked casually into the alleyway, “What are you doing out of the hive? You’re gonna get us both in trouble!”
“They’re keeping me locked up in a stupid pod,” the juvenile changeling groaned, “They weren’t even letting me out when you came to visit!”
“It’s a medical procedure, Swing,” Ki sighed heavily, “And they let you out today specifically so you COULD see me when I came to visit.”
“Well, yeah, but I don’t see why they can’t just let me stay with you,” the changeling filly stamped an angry hoof.
“Because the Princess and Stand In are trying to look out for you,” Ki shook his head, “They want to make sure you don’t end up with someone… er… somepony who’s going to take advantage of you, or make you do something you shouldn’t be doing at your age.”
“You mean sex,” Swing Shift said flatly, “You can just say ‘sex’. I know what sex is. I’ve been living on my own since the invasion, and that’s pretty much the quickest way for a changeling to get a pony to feed you. Besides, I can be any age I want.”
“You’re really, really not helping your case Swing,” Ki rolled his eyes, “Besides, you really do need the pod therapy. You’re looking a lot healthier already. So how about I take you back to the hive, and you finish your therapy. Besides, you know Switch Shift's gonna panic if she comes out of her pod and you're not there.”
The little changeling looked guiltily about and ran in a cute little circle, “I- I didn’t even think about that! Okay, I’ll go back, but can I ride on your back?”
“Okay,” the tazzle-corn gave a lopsided smile, “But you have to take your natural form.”
“But the ponies will see my holes!” little Swing Shift protested.
“Well that’s what you get for running away before you got done with therapy,” Ki chuckled.
“But what if they’re scared of my teeth?” she persisted.
The monstrous stallion grinned wide, splitting his lower jaw to let out his tazzle snakes, each of which bore a grin of it’s own, “I promise you, if they’re gonna be scared of anypony’s smile, it’s gonna be mine.”
As the pair left off towards the changeling hive, with the smaller monster steering the larger by the ears, neither noticed the red unicorn watching them from the rooftops. A lunar guard glided into a landing beside her, his arrival followed by a bright yellow unicorn in a flash of teleportation.
“Good afternoon, your majesty,” Dream Catcher greeted the changeling princess, who dropped her disguise and smiled at the guard and the warlock.
“Well,” Fast Change grinned, “It’s good to know if he had turned out to be some kind of creepy weirdo I had backup. After the incident at the tavern, I didn’t want to bring any of my changelings.”
“So, was this some kind of test, then?” Sun Chaser raised an eyebrow.
“Not a deliberate one,” the princess shook her head, “That little ball of trouble was Swing Shift. She’s one of the anomalies from the time slip. We’re trying to help her at the hive, but she doesn’t really want our help, and ran off first chance she got. Since she can look like pretty much anything she wants to the only way I could think to find her was to case out Train Wreck.”
“Train Wreck?” the yellow unicorn asked curiously.
“The big one, that’s what all the changelings call him,” Fat Change shrugged, “I figured sooner or later she’d go straight to him, and I’d just wait and see how it played out. It went better than I could have reasonably hoped for.”
-=-=-=-=-
“And that’s how my day went,” Ki stretched out on his bedroll while Surprise kneaded his massive shoulders like dough between her hooves, “Man, that feels really good. Didn’t even realize how tense I was. Anyway, I was gonna ask, how would you feel about adopting a changeling? If I can okay it with Princess Fast Change that is.”
“I thought Fast said Swing Shift was too young to leave the hive,” Surprise reminded the massive pony-thing.
“Well, yeah,” Ki gave a contented sigh, “But if she’s just gonna keep running off and following me around until I drag her back for her therapy, why not just cut to the chase, and she can stay here with us?”
“‘Us’, hmmmm?” Surprise purred coyly.
“Well… I mean… I thought…” Ki stammered.
Surprised leaned impossibly upside down in front of the monster and booped his nose, “You know, you don’t have to sleep in here on the floor, I have a perfectly comfy bed, right down the hall.”
“I doubt your bed would support my body mass,” Ki snuggled into the green party-pony, “Remember what happened to the chair upstairs?”
“I could get used to a bedroll, I supposed,” Surprise yawned, “Tomorrow we really have to finish those citizenship papers, are you gonna take a pony name, or just keep your old one?”
“I was thinking about that,” a single tazze-snake stretched out to hit the light switch, “What do you think of ‘Train Wreck’?”