//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: Surprise Reveal // Story: Nature of Change // by PostNinja //------------------------------// Both Applejack and Fluttershy were taken completely by surprise by the sudden attack, neither able to react in time. Fluttershy could only stare in horror as three changelings collided with her friend, knocking all four into the next room in a messy pile of hooves, horns, and wings. Two other changelings landed in front of Fluttershy, looking at her with their expressionless, almost alien faces as the rest of the changelings charged after Applejack. Eight to one weren't terribly fair odds, but by the way one of the attackers flew back into the living room and slammed against a wall before falling limply to the floor, they were apparently good enough for Applejack. Fluttershy tried to move away despite her trembling when the two changelings who weren't taking part in the brawl stepped closer. Since she was still tied up, the best she could do was to crawl away until her back was against the closest wall. Her eyes darted from one changeling to the other. Despite her panic, she noticed that one of them was wearing armor of some sort, a helmet and a breastplate. The helmeted changeling pulled her down to the floor and kept her down with its hooves as the other opened its mouth and leaned closer, revealing its sharp fangs. Fluttershy closed her eyes, expecting the pain of being bitten. Instead, her legs were suddenly freed from their bindings. She opened her eyes in surprise, staring at the two changelings as the one who had freed her spat a broken piece of rope from its mouth before biting down on the rope holding her wings together, tearing it apart as well. Fluttershy was pulled back to her hooves, too dumbfounded to resist. She looked at the changelings on either side of her, unsure whether they were holding her up or preventing her from trying to escape. Maybe both. Finally, she managed to stutter out the question in her mind. "What… what do you want?" The two changelings looked at each other. Neither spoke, but Fluttershy saw how the first changeling raised an eyebrow at the one with the helmet, who then turned to look at her and simply shook its head. The two changelings led the still confused Fluttershy towards the open doorway, but the sound of what she knew was her kitchen table being broken in two jolted her out of her shock. Applejack was still in there, fighting! Fluttershy turned to look at the helmeted changeling, practically screaming at him. "Stop! Don't hurt her!" To her surprise, the changeling visibly flinched at her words, turning towards the kitchen where the brawl showed no signs of stopping and saying in a loud, clear voice, "We have her, time to leave." Even in the midst of all her confusion and surprise, Fluttershy was surprised when the changeling spoke, or rather, how he spoke. She had expected him to sound scarier, maybe with the same kind of strange reverberation Chrysalis had in her voice. Instead, the changeling's voice was no different from that of a regular pony. Come to think of it, this was the first time she had even heard a changeling speaking besides Chrysalis. In response to their commander's words, the changelings fighting Applejack moved back, smoothly disengaging from the brawl. Fluttershy looked at her kitchen, ignoring the broken furniture, the safety of her friend her only concern. Applejack had backed herself into a corner so none of her attackers could get behind her, standing there with the remaining changelings keeping a respectful distance away from her around the room. Applejack's mane was disheveled and she had some bruises and scratches, but she was otherwise uninjured. The only real casualty of the fight was Applejack's hat, torn in two and lying forgotten on the floor. Two changelings pulled themselves up from the floor and a third climbed out from a pile of junk that previously had been a cupboard. It felt like the fight had been fairly even before it stopped. Fluttershy sighed in relief when she saw that her friend was alright, but then, she saw how Applejack was looking at her. Her friend's expression was stern and uncompromising, not showing even a flicker of the sympathy or doubt that had been there before. It was like she was just another changeling to Applejack. Fluttershy gasped as she realized how all this looked. Here she was, standing on her own four hooves, freed by the changelings who had attacked Applejack. The two changelings who had freed her had now taken a step forward so that they were halfway between Fluttershy and her kitchen. It looked like they were protecting her from the earth pony, ready to step in if Applejack tried anything. Fluttershy felt like her limbs were going to give out again as her heart sunk. How could her friend ever believe her now? How could she even hope to convince Applejack that she wasn't a changeling spy? Tears fell down her cheeks again as Fluttershy felt like she had just lost her friend for good, the situation just too much for her to cope with. She tried to speak, but no words came out of her mouth, just raspy breaths. The changelings started leading Fluttershy out of the cottage, helping up and taking those injured in the fight with them. Those closer to Applejack kept their eyes on her as they backed out slowly, clearly ready to fight in case the earth pony tried to stop them from leaving. Applejack clenched her teeth in aggravation, taking a step forward with every step the changelings took away from her. The apple farmer wanted to stop them. But just holding out on her own against this many changelings had been tricky. She didn't like her chances if she tried to go on the offensive. Applejack also wagered that if she tried to knock out and capture only one of them, the rest would swarm over her as one, which might be too much for even her strength to handle. "Fine!" Applejack poured every bit of her frustration into her voice, yelling to the retreating changelings. "Get out! All of you! And don't you dare come back to Ponyville again!" Fluttershy tried weakly to free herself, but she had no strength or willpower left to fight as the changelings carried her into the air. Applejack galloped out of the cottage, her gaze following the changelings flying towards the Everfree Forest as she yelled after them, "And Celestia help y'all if you’ve done somethin' to Fluttershy!" Fluttershy meekly turned her head to look at her friend as they got farther and farther away, unable to bring herself to speak even if she had known what to say. Applejack stared at the changelings until they had disappeared among the trees of the forest. Then, she turned around and started running towards Ponyville. Twilight ignored the curious glances from everypony she passed as she ran through Ponyville's streets. She was carrying saddlebags filled with those few books she thought could help with containing the changeling, but she could figure out the specific spells once she was back at the cottage. Applejack could take care of herself better than most, but Twilight still didn't want her friend alone with the changeling any longer than necessary. "Hi, Twilight! Isn't this just the most splendidtastic day ever?" Twilight dug her hooves into the ground to stop herself from colliding with Pinkie Pie as her friend literally bounced from around the corner in front of her. Twilight's relief at finding her friend so easily was clear from her voice. "Pinkie Pie!" "Twilight Sparkle!" Pinkie looked at Twilight expectedly for a moment and then tilted her head. "Or was I supposed to yell somepony else's name?" Before Twilight could say another word, Pinkie stuck her hoof on Twilight's mouth to stop her from speaking. "Don't tell me! I can guess it! Should it rhyme with the previous name?" Twilight blinked and pushed her friend's hoof away, shaking her head. "No! Pinkie, this isn't the time for games!" Twilight opened her mouth to explain the situation, but then realized she had no idea how to do so. How could she explain everything that had happened in one or two sentences without making it sound  either nonsensical or like a joke, even to somepony like Pinkie Pie? "We aren't fillies anymore, silly! We don't have to go to school! We can play and have parties whenever we want!" Twilight sighed and closed her eyes as she rested her hoof against her forehead, trying to come up with how she could convince Pinkie of the seriousness of the situation in just a few words. Pinkie had meanwhile started humming to herself as she bounced in a circle around Twilight, apparently feeling as energetic as ever. Finally, Twilight sighed and shook her head again. "I don't have time to explain, but we need to go to Fluttershy's cottage! Applejack needs our help!" Pinkie stopped her bouncing and slowly floated to the ground with a thoughtful frown on her face. It wasn’t long before her face split open with another wide grin. "Ooh, ooh! I know! Applejack was taking care of Fluttershy's animal friends! Then, one of them ate her hat and now she feels super awkward without it!" Despite knowing Pinkie Pie for years and fully aware that asking for an explanation would most likely only raise more questions, Twilight couldn't resist. "How in the world did you think this had anything to do with Applejack's hat?" Pinkie rolled her eyes and snorted. "Well, duh! She’s running towards us without it right now!" Twilight stared at Pinkie as she started waving her hoof in the air and looking over Twilight's shoulder. "Hi, Applejack! Don't worry, we'll get you a new hat! I'm pretty sure you have a closet filled with them in your house!" Twilight turned around to see Applejack slowing down as she reached them. Her hat was missing and she looked like somepony had galloped right over her. Something had gone wrong. Had the changeling managed to escape somehow? Twilight could just barely keep her rising worry out of her voice. "Applejack? What happened? Are you alright?" Applejack shook her head and gave Twilight a weak smile. "Don't worry, sugarcube. I'm alright, just little roughed up." She sighed, her expression sobering. "The changeling got away though. A whole bunch of them came right out of nowhere. Some kept me busy while others freed it and then they all ran off." Twilight felt a quiver in her stomach when she heard Applejack's words. This wasn't just a single changeling, but a group. What could they be after? What did all this mean? "Where did they go?" Both Twilight and Applejack looked at Pinkie Pie, who had stopped smiling the moment she had heard the word "changeling" and now looked just as serious as her friends did. Twilight turned to look at Applejack, who shrugged in response, raising her hoof to straighten her hat out of habit before realizing she didn't have one. "To the Everfree Forest, which means we won't find them anytime soon." Twilight nodded, knowing fully well that Applejack was right. Everfree was massive, uncharted, and dangerous. They could ask for Zecora's help, but that was about it. She looked at Pinkie Pie and Applejack and took a deep breath, calming herself down. "Let's go to the castle. We need to come up with a plan." It couldn't be helped. They had to act as well as they could based on the information they currently had. Rushing into the forest after the changelings wasn't going to solve anything. Twilight just couldn't shake off the feeling that letting the changeling who had impersonated Fluttershy get away meant that something was going to go horribly wrong soon. Fluttershy's hooves gently touched the ground and after the two changelings carrying her released their hold on her, she looked around at where they had arrived. The ground was uneven with sprawling, knobby roots and dead leaves, the dense thicket making it difficult to tell what she was even standing on. They had been flying for what felt like hours, deeper and deeper into the forest, and it showed. Fluttershy wasn't sure if ponies ever ventured this deep into Everfree. Fluttershy looked up at the thick canopy overhead, which barely allowed any sunlight in. The massive, ancient trees were so close to each other that it felt like they were in some sort of cramped maze instead of a forest. She looked at the changelings sitting down or leaning against the trees, apparently taking a break. One even walked to a bush on the side and started gathering berries of some sort from it, throwing them into its mouth whenever it filled its hoof with them. Fluttershy turned her head towards another changeling, who drank from what looked like a completely normal water bottle before passing it to another changeling next to it who did the same. Slowly, the fear she had felt earlier ebbed away. They hadn't hurt her and, after staring at the changelings during their way here, she had gotten a bit more used to their appearance. Seeing them eating, drinking, and resting when tired helped too. It made them feel less like monsters and more like ponies, giving her more courage. Fluttershy was still nervous and her stomach clenched whenever she thought about Applejack and the way how her friend had looked at her. Which was probably why Fluttershy found herself so eager to push what had happened earlier to the back of her mind, concentrating to her current situation instead. She immediately admitted how weird it was to be surrounded by changelings like this. Or rather how they mostly ignored her. None of them had talked during the flight, but she was starting to see that it was by choice. Some of the changelings glanced at each other or occasionally shook their heads in response to a gesture. She could swear that she had even caught a few whispering to each other once or twice. But whenever the changelings noticed they were under scrutiny, they stopped and either looked the other way or ignored Fluttershy completely. They could speak. It just felt like they weren't willing to talk within earshot of her. Fluttershy looked at her own hooves, black and filled with holes, and wondered why. Somehow, staring at her own hooves while they looked so wrong disturbed her much less than it had an hour ago. Either she was getting used to it or she was still in shock, not really understanding what she saw and all its implications. She still didn't know what any of this meant, but maybe she would find some answers at the end of this. There was a sound, and Fluttershy lifted her head and looked to her left. One of the changelings was lying down on the ground on its side, panting. The sound she had heard had been a grunt of pain. No matter how mentally exhausted and shocked she was, Fluttershy could have never ignored that. She walked to the changeling before she even realized she was doing so. As she got closer, the changeling glanced up at her and suddenly looked very nervous, trying to rise up to stand and failing miserably. Fluttershy looked down at the changeling, gently lifting its wing up from covering the side of its stomach before it had time to object. What she saw made her cringe. "Oh no, you poor thing..." There was a nasty bruise forming, visible even through the extremely dark skin. Every time the changeling used its wing on that side must have caused a spike of pain and made the injury worse. Fluttershy already saw in her imagination how Applejack's hoof had slammed into the changeling during the fight in the cottage. Most ponies didn't know it, but Applejack always held back her strength when she was fighting against other ponies or anything else of her own size. For their own safety. In the midst of the fighting, her control must have slipped for a moment and this kick had been a bit stronger than intended. Or Applejack simply didn't know how much strength it was safe to use against a changeling. This close, Fluttershy could tell that this changeling was younger than others, maybe not even a fully grown adult. She knew that Applejack had been fighting in self-defense, but Fluttershy still felt bad for this changeling. She looked at the changeling nervously glancing back at her and sighed. "Why didn't you tell anypony that you were hurt? It must have hurt an awful lot to fly all the way here." The young changeling looked even more nervous now when it had been directly spoken to and gulped, finally stuttering out with a voice that reminded Fluttershy of an adolescent stallion. "I...I didn't want to slow us down, my q..." The young changeling suddenly snapped its mouth shut and looked down at the ground as if he had been caught doing something bad. Before Fluttershy could make sense of the young changeling's reaction, there was a clank of metal on her side, the helmeted changeling stepping next to them and not looking pleased. To the surprise of them both, Fluttershy just calmly turned to look at the changeling, not backing down in the slightest. Instead, she pointed her hoof down at the changeling on the ground, her voice firm. "This colt is injured, and flying all the way here has only made it worse. He shouldn't fly at all before being properly treated and it would be the best for him not having to even rise up for a while." The helmeted changeling stared at Fluttershy for a brief moment, not sure what to do in the face of this sudden determination. Had there been anypony present who actually knew the Element of Kindness, they could have told the changeling that Fluttershy rarely put up any fight when it came to herself, but could turn unyielding as steel when it came to well-being of anypony else. As it was, the helmeted changeling tried to come up with a way how to solve this situation without violating his orders of not directly speaking to Fluttershy before they arrived at their destination. Finally, he glanced down at the younger changeling on the ground and said aloud so all of them could hear his words. "Chitin, no need to rise up. We will carry you the rest of the way." The young changeling glanced up at both of them and then nodded, raising his hoof in a weak salute. "Yes, First Captain. I'm sorry." Fluttershy followed the exchange, raising a curious eyebrow at the last part. The young changeling, Chitin, had referred the helmeted changeling by his rank, but the way Chitin had said it made it sound like it was his actual name. Fluttershy added that to the growing pile of questions she had in her mind and smiled to the young changeling, patting his head with her hoof out of habit like she would have done to any colt who had hurt himself when playing with his friends. "Don't worry. Everything will be alright." Chitin didn't respond, instead looking at the ground like his own hooves were the most interesting thing in the world. Fluttershy couldn't help but to find that cute, the reaction reminding her of how Rainbow Dash always looked when Fluttershy hugged her. Somepony chuckled aloud and only when she saw that every single changeling present was suddenly staring at her, Fluttershy realized that it had been her. She looked at them timidly, feeling her face heat up, and just turned to look at the forest.The changelings did the same or pretended that they hadn't noticed the unexpected sound in the first place. Soon enough, First Captain gestured for them to to continue, although this time, no changelings came to take hold of Fluttershy, which she took as a good sign. Not that she was going to try and escape either way. Running off alone this deep in the forest wouldn't have been very smart. They had avoided most of the local wildlife until now because they had been flying, but even that had been luck. Wherever they were taking her, Fluttershy doubted it could be worse than wandering alone and lost in Everfree. She still felt very weak. The feeling of emptiness had returned, gnawing her insides like a hungry animal, demanding to be sated. It was like hunger and thirst at the same time, yet also completely different. She had no idea what she could do to make the feeling go away. Of course, Fluttershy remembered what Cadance had said about changelings during the wedding in Canterlot, but she refused to take that line of thought any further. The changelings arranged themselves in a formation around Fluttershy with First Captain leading the way and Chitin being carried by two other changelings at the back. They started making their way through the forest, on hoof this time. Fluttershy could see why they weren't flying any longer. There simply wasn't enough room for it. The trees here had tangled together, forming a natural barrier interspersed with narrow paths sometimes too small for two ponies to walk side by side. The progress was slow. Fluttershy felt twigs scratching at her mane and only barely avoided stumbling down when the ground suddenly dropped, turning downhill. She could hear the churring of insects and the rustling of small animals in underbrush around them. Eventually, the path widened again and they arrived into a small glade, the ground again tilting  uphill in front of them. This time, there was a cave mouth in front of them, partly hidden by some bushes. They walked inside and Fluttershy's eyes widened at what she saw. The small tunnel quickly grew into a larger cave with multiple smaller tunnels breaking off into other directions. Clinging to the walls were concentrations of what looked like green slime, which glowed faintly, acting as a source of illumination in the otherwise dark cave. What was more surprising were the changelings. Dozens of them walked around, appearing from one tunnel only to disappear into another. Some were walking alone, others in pairs or groups. All them looked busy, some carrying tools and others bags or heavy sacks. They also talked. Some were engaged in a discussion with one another and Fluttershy could even hear somepony laughing somewhere. She turned her head towards the sound, seeing a group of changelings too small to be anything other than children sitting around an adult changeling listening to her story. It felt strange to try to fit the hungry swarm that had attacked Canterlot into what Fluttershy saw now. The architecture may have been different and there were changelings everywhere instead of ponies, but otherwise it felt like any other town, just like Ponyville. There was the same feeling of community. Fluttershy would have spent more time staring at what looked like everyday life to these changelings, but a polite tap on her shoulder by First Captain broke her reverie. She looked at the helmeted changeling, who gestured for her to follow him. The other changelings had already left, disappearing into the crowd. Hoping that she could finally find some answers and somepony who would willingly strike a conversation with her, Fluttershy followed First Captain. They walked into a tunnel that  besides a few guards standing at the sides was otherwise empty of changelings. As they walked, the sounds from the main cave gradually grew fainter until they were only soft echoes at the edge of hearing. A few minutes later, they arrived at a large mass of the same green substance that was on the walls, blocking the tunnel. Two changeling guards stood on either side of the green mass, who looked them over briefly before their horns started to glow. The green slime parted, revealing a doorway. Fluttershy followed First Captain as he stepped through the green mass. She felt more than little nervous, not sure what to expect as she stepped into what looked like the quarters of a noble from Canterlot. The walls were decorated with tapestries and gems with a large full-body mirror dominating one side of the room. Chairs, tables, and other furniture that looked as if they had been directly taken from a luxury suite in Celestia's castle were arranged around the room. "Ah, Fluttershy. I have been expecting you." Fluttershy's eyes widened as she recognized the voice, gulping. It wasn't like this should have been surprising. One could say that considering everything else that happened today, this was almost expected. Either way, Fluttershy only felt more nervous as Queen Chrysalis walked closer, the changeling queen smiling in almost unnervingly friendly manner. "We have so much to talk about..."