//------------------------------// // Modified Awareness // Story: Social Engineering // by Damaged //------------------------------// "Are you sure you are ready for this, Fluttershy?" Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship and master manipulator of changeling swarms, looked to her good friend. "You will be in a town full of changelings, just… try not to treat them any different." Fluttershy peeked around the edges of her wings, slightly lifting up from her cowering position. "T-T-Twilight, I am terrified, but… I am always terrified." Fluttershy's voice was so soft and hesitating that Twilight almost felt her heart break. "But I really want to make sure my little friends are okay." "Hold still then, time to settle you back into the town." Twilight recited the spell in her head, extending it with her alicorn magic to wrap both Fluttershy and herself in the invisibility. "Fluttershy, are you still there?" "I'm scared, Twilight…" Fluttershy was trembling. But something seemed to bite at that terror in a way she hadn't felt before. She blinked and realized that, like this, she was hiding from everything. "I… I will be okay…" Reaching out a wing, Twilight meant to give her friend a gentle hug with it, but completely missed. "Uh, right. So, let's meet at your house and meet up with the nice mare who has been learning how to be so kind." She spread her wings and launched into the air. There was something liberating about flying while invisible, leaving so little behind in tracks. Although having to dodge birds, was less than fun. Landing near the little house just on sunset, Twilight looked around for her friend before clonking herself on the forehead. "Of course I can't find her, she is invisible." "Twilight." Fluttershy startled the alicorn. "Twilight, I am here. Are we going to wait out here?" Getting her heart-rate down was taking Twilight a moment, how Fluttershy of all ponies had managed to scare her had the alicorn almost as shaken as the actual shock had been. "Inside, we want to make it hard for her to run." Twilight trotted along to the door and watched it open before her. Slipping in, she let the spell drop the moment they were both inside. Fluttershy immediately realized she wasn't hidden anymore and drooped a little. "We aren't going to be invisible?" She trembled a little, the prospect of maybe fighting a changeling didn't seem like her idea of a good time at all. "You can stay hidden, I will make myself known first. Come out when I ask you." Twilight settled herself at the nice little table, ready to wait. Looking around her home, Fluttershy was quite amazed at how normal it looked. The place was clean, the food bowls of her various friends showed signs of recent use. "O-Okay." No sooner did Twilight hide behind her stairs than the door opened. A veritable flood of animals rushed around Fluttershy as she entered her home. "Come on, Angel, stop bullying the skunks." She trotted to her kitchen and started preparing food. Then her brain registered there was an alicorn sitting at her dining table. "Twilight?" "Hi, Fluttershy." Twilight reached out with her magic, casually sealing the doors and windows closed. "How are you doing?" The yellow pegasus, feeding her friends, blinked a few times at some confusion. "I am fine… how did you get here so fast? I was just at your castle and then-" "That wasn't me at the castle." Twilight smiled. "It was a changeling, and you know it." Slipping from the chair, Twilight stepped toward the disguised drone. "And you are one too, aren't you?" The words rocked Fluttershy, she was a changeling, but her time spent as Fluttershy was… imprinting. She felt comfortable, happy. It was certainly better than having a stupid queen yelling at her. "I… I…" A blur of yellow and pink rushed out and Twilight was surprised to see the real Fluttershy hugging the changeling version of herself. "Twilight, can't you see she is scared!" Twilight blinked, unable to comprehend this reaction, in either of them. "Uh, Fluttershy-" when both heads shot up and looked at her, Twilight revised her approach, "changeling Fluttershy, what is your name?" "F-F-Flutters-" She couldn't believe how tight and warm it felt, when the mare she had disguised herself as hugged her. Comfort and empathy poured from the yellow mare in a flood. "Dry Wit." She gave a sigh and let down her disguise. "My name is Dry Wit. Uh…" the 'ling gently nosed at a wing still wrapping her up, "you are meant to run in terror now…" "Is that what you would have done, if you found somepony scared and alone?" Twilight couldn't keep the smile off her face as her pegasus friend showed the changeling just how well caught she had been. "Just hug her back, relax." When the dark, hole-filled legs wrapped around her in return, Fluttershy looked up at the 'scary' face of the drone. She smiled. The fangs were smaller than some of her forest-friends', their face no more scary now than when Harry got upset at something. She lifted a hoof up and booped the changeling on their nose. A soft chittering sound proved to both ponies that changelings could laugh. "I don't know, I might have… alright, I would." Dry gave the mare a little more of a squeeze before letting go, finding the wings letting her go too. "So you caught me, what now?" "What do you think we would do? But you are forgetting some more important questions." Twilight let go of the door and windows, instead using her magic to start preparing some tea. "You said you know you were replaced by a changeling…" Dry found a chair and sat down, feeling a little naked without a disguise and outside the hive. "How did you find out?" "Good questions." Twilight took her chair again, pouring the hot water into the teapot. "I found out easily, I arranged it." The alicorn floated the teapot over and started pouring. "Fluttershy," when she said the word two heads lifted to her, "how do you want your tea?" "Black with a sprig of mint." Both changeling and pegasus spoke together, then one giggled while the other chittered. "That would be fine, thank you." Dry Wit finished up, watching as the Princess served them. "Can I ask more?" Twilight nodded. "If you arranged it, then… the queen is sending more changelings? How many have been replaced?" "All of them." Twilight's words heralded the cup that she had just set neatly into the changeling’s green magic to rattle alarmingly. Grabbing it and steadying the cup, she waited for the drone to calm. "A-A-All? The whole town? How can that…" Dry's worldview exploded, she ran over all her recent interactions with her 'friends'. "It wasn't real?" "How real did it feel?" Twilight sipped her tea, letting the changeling have her own cup back. "I can promise you, I am amazingly proud of you all." "Proud? Proud of us?" Dry wanted to rage and scream, but she could feel what it meant to be a pony, it was a heavy weight, but a welcome one. "Why?" "You saved the ponies of that village. You gave everything you had to protect them." Twilight watched dawning comprehension form on the drone's face. Reading Changeling Expressions had been a hard book for her to get through, but it wasn't anywhere near as helpful as actually seeing the expressions on a live pony. "So yes, proud." She nodded her head. "We did it? How many of us were… we all were, weren't we?" Dry gulped down some of her tea, finding the slightly minty camomile to be just what she needed. "Spike too? Of course, Spike too. So what now?" "Do you want to go back to the hive?" The moment the words left Twilight's snout, she knew the answer. Those expressive ear-ridges tucked back sharply, the 'ling's crest folded down. If she hadn't seen the clues, Fluttershy's wing spreading out to hug the changeling defensively would have given it away. "Relax, you don't have to. The spell we cast over you all, stopping the pull of the hive, it can be made permanent." "That is a spell? I thought I was just too far?" Dry shuffled her chair, moving a little closer to Fluttershy. "Can I stay here? Of course I can't, we can't have two Fluttershys." "No, we can't have two Fluttershys until everypony is happy. Your friends are working really, really hard to try to be the ponies they are disguised as, how long before you think they will be this far?" Twilight realized how important this was, bringing their doppelganger back to meet them. Or maybe it was just Fluttershy. "If you let me come back, from time to time, I could try to read them… well, taste them." Dry grinned and sipped her tea. "You could do that, I am sure Twilight can help more." Fluttershy sipped her own drink before looking down at the ground. Sure enough, Angel Bunny didn't look impressed at missing his dinner. "Oh, just wait a few moments, Angel." Fluttershy lasted nearly two whole seconds before she got up and started preparing salad for the rabbit. Dry watched the event with a little smile, a tear rolling down from her eye. Twilight caught sight of the raw emotion and gave a nod. "Yes, you can help me. We have a… interim town, you can come and live there, if you wantm Dry Wit" The changeling blushed a little, telling a pony her real name was just about the biggest rule to break for a changeling infiltrator. "I am sorry if I have caused any problems…" "Dry, no, you helped spark the idea for the biggest experiment ever. And at the same time, you are the first success from it." Twilight held out a hoof across the table and got a hesitant tap back from the drone's own. "Drink up, we have a long flight ahead of us." The moment Twilight said it, she realized her error. A tingle ran through her, warm and like silk; Dry was drinking, but it wasn't what the alicorn had intended. "Thank you, Your Highness." Dry finished her snack, feeling full of happiness and soon tea both. The honorific, spoken with full intent, warmed Twilight back up from the experience of having been openly fed from. "That is the first time I felt… quite that much. Do you normally drink more," Twilight blushed, "circumspectly?" Dry nodded, blushing a little. "You have my permission, that so long as it won't harm me, you can drink whenever you need to." The words meant more than any promise or command her queen had ever given her. Dry felt better than she had even as she had hugged the ponies she thought… who were, her friends. "Lyra's Lying Lips Leak." Twilight sighed. "Muffins, it is me." "That was yesterday's password!" Muffins stood her ground, frowning. She could clearly see the changeling beside Princess Twilight, and it put her on edge. "Wait, or is it tomorrow's?" "It is today's password, Muffins. Please?" Twilight spread a wing over Dry and gave her a little hug. "Come on." She stepped forward, guiding the drone through the protective wall around the village. Dry blinked, over and over. "Wow…" She had been impressed with a pony able to make themselves and others invisible, but this was amazing. "How is this all…" "Princess Celestia, of course. And you know who she is doing it for?" Twilight drew her wing back, advancing into the makeshift town full of ponies, and now one changeling. "For you?" Dry got some odd looks, ranging for surprise to panic. She cast about with her senses but for the life of her she felt no fear. "For you." Twilight put her foreleg over Dry's withers and gave her another hug. "Let me find some ponies who really want to meet-" "SUPRISE!" The words assaulted alicorn and changeling together, along with about ten pounds of high-grade confetti. "Welcome to the town!" Pinkie Pie had somehow produced a cake and was wheeling it in, dumping a party hat over both Twilight and Dry's horns; the latter going a little cross-eyed as they tried to focus up and on the colorful spiral. "Is this her?" Princess Celestia strode out of one of a nearby building. Twilight nodded. "Everypony, please welcome Dry Wit, the newest pony in Equestria." A cheer went up. "Don't cry, Dry." Celestia's wing reached forward to dry the changeling's cheek. "Twilight gave you your choice?" Dry nodded, her throat having seized up. She was standing before Princess Celestia herself. She nodded more for good measure. "And you want to stay with us?" Celestia got another, shyer nod. "Then you shall, let me finalize that spell for you." Bright gold haloed the changelings head, the power of the Princess of the Sun channeling and helping a changeling forge herself a new destiny. As her magic eased back, Celestia had to catch the little black pony. "You are now a citizen of Equestria, Dry Wit."