Changeling Amnesia

by CrutioAstarothChaos

Changeling Amnesia

Neon Lights stretched in his bed, letting out a long yawn. Or at least that’s what he would’ve done, if it truly would’ve been Neon Lights. Still, the creature in Neon’s bed represented said pony pretty well; down to the last hair in his mane the thing was a spitting image of the male unicorn; grayish teal coat, black hair and tail, and blue eyes. Not a single motion, nothing betrayed the true identity of the impostor in Neon’s place.

Truth is, Amnesia could really get used to these roles; she sometimes thought she maybe did it too well. But the changeling hiding in Neon’s image never had a problem with playing roles; not with her natural talent. She left the hive ages ago, when she saw the perfect opportunity to permanently disappear, and has been acting on her own from then on. There was only one pony, who kept her identity a secret, and through whom she could always find better prey, or more excitement if she got bored.

She was a changeling; a female from Queen Chrysalis’ hive, who deserted before the Canterlot invasion. She discovered her natural talent more than a year ago; and since then she kept it a secret from everyone. She found out that she was able to completely remove the memories of anypony; leaving them as an empty shell, ready to be taken care of by some kind stranger. She did this for a year now; ponies contacted her, wishing for a new life, or a new chance, or just wishing to forget it all, and Amnesia was glad to help them. For the right price of course. All she asked from her ‘clients’ was that they hand over some very loving family members, friends or both. She needed to feed of course, and spying for a few days on her would-be clients usually gave her a pretty good picture of how much love she could get.

She walked to the kitchen and turned on the coffee maker. Not that she would’ve needed it, but the pony she was currently replacing started every morning with a steaming cup of brown liquid. Even though Amnesia hated it and there was no one to watch her drink it, the possibility of being discovered still remained.

To be honest Neon Lights was just another role; the best one for Amnesia so far. He was a lighting technician employed by the famous DJ-PON3 herself, otherwise known as Vinyl Scratch, and they had a pretty good fanbase; Amnesia herself felt full from the love of their admirers after every performance. She hid her true self pretty well; the advantage of flying solo was that she never had to return to the hive to deposit her surplus of love. She had money, spent as little of it on food as she could without being too suspicious, and more on other items helping her to stay comfortable.

She needed comfort lately, since she woke up more and more exhausted every day for a couple of weeks now. She tried taking time off, going to bed early when possible, but it didn't seem to work. She finished her coffee, and began reading her newspaper, when she heard a knock on her door. She stood up and went to open the door of her flat.

“Hey Neon! What’s up?” a white unicorn with blue spiky hair greeted the changeling. The shifter immediately recognized Vinyl

“Not much; woke up, read the papers,” Amnesia replied. “I don’t have anything planned for today.”

“Cool! Wanna come and annoy Tavi?” Vinyl asked with a huge grin.

Truth be told Amnesia wanted nothing more for today than just take a quiet stroll in the park, but she knew Vinyl’s favorite activity was to annoy the famous cellist, Octavia. The changeling could swear the white unicorn had a thing for the earth pony mare, but neither of them talked about it. Amnesia rubbed her forehead, thinking about an appropriate answer.

“Sorry, Vinyl, but no,” she replied. “I don’t really think it’s an appropriate thing to annoy someone just for fun.”

“Annoying Tavi is your favorite thing to do!” Vinyl said, and that answer shocked the other. “Since when do you care about ‘appropriate’?”

It is my favorite thing? Amnesia thought to herself, but tried to keep up her act.

“Well, since never, I just thought our public image would be bad, if Octavia would somehow retaliate,” the changeling quickly replied. “Besides, I’m not feeling too well right now.”

“Gee, sorry. Maybe I’ll come, check upon you later, okay?”

“All right. But I may go and see a doctor, so if I’m not home, don’t panic.”

“You going to a doctor?” the unicorn asked, surprised yet again. “You must be really sick to willingly go near to a pill-pusher!”

I guess I am. Amnesia thought, as she closed the door after Vinyl’s departure.

The changeling went into the living room and dropped on her couch. It felt uncomfortable, no matter how fluffy the pillows were; and she tossed and turned on it, trying to get some rest. Her head hurt, she felt dizzy, and to top it off, her carapace was itchy. How it could be itchy was a mystery for the changeling, but she soon got up, and wobbled her way into the bathroom.

After more than an hour of scrubbing her carapace in the ice cold water, Amnesia stepped out of the bathtub, dried herself with a towel, and put on her disguise. Her carapace was still itchy, but at least her head wasn’t pounding like before. She went to her kitchen and checked the newspaper again, to see if there was any commotion in the Canterlot park, then left her house for a quiet stroll.

On her way to the park she watched the other ponies on the streets. It wasn’t rare that somepony ran up to her, and announced how much they admired ‘her’ work. She smiled to herself; being able to drain somepony’s memories made it possible for her to do the wondrous works Neon did in his best days, and take some inspiration from the memories of her previous clients as well. She knew so much right now, that even if her cover was somehow blown, she could create her own disguise, and live on as almost anything.

But her cover was never blown, she made sure of that. Usually she asked her clients to take a day or two off from their work, and travel far, far away from home. They were told not to make contact with anypony during their trip, and travel in incognito. She of course followed them, and made sure nopony knew where her clients went. Then, when the time was right, she met them in a nice little tavern, with lots of drunkards as regular customers, and usually on the outside of the tavern she stole the memories of the pony. From that point on, all she had to do was start a fight in the tavern, wait for the guards and medics to arrive, and toss the physically unharmed, but mentally blank pony onto the pile of unconscious bodies. After all was said and done, she took possession of her client’s belongings, checked out from their accommodations, and went back, to live the life of a new pony.

As of what happened to the empty shell of a pony, she didn’t really care. She usually entrusted Dr. Migraine to watch over them. Migraine was Amnesia’s little helper, a psychiatrist and psychologist, who for some reason specialized in helping ponies with memory loss to get on with their lives. Memory losses didn’t occur very often, but when they did, somehow somepony always told Migraine about it. He was a unicorn pony, not too tall, with dark brown coat, light brown mane and short tail, and deep green eyes. When Amnesia first made contact with him, she already knew about her special ability, and planned to make a deal with the pony for her advantage. She first threatened him with being replaced, hoping she could force some sweet promises from the stallion.

She was quickly disappointed, when Migraine read her actions like an open book, and asked her what she truly wanted. After that, the pony quickly accepted the deal, and due to his promise to keep his patients’ records private and secure, Amnesia never had to worry about her identity being revealed. Migraine told her about possible customers, and she took the initiative to strike a deal with the ponies. Replacing them of course gave her clients an opportunity to start a new life, before anypony would’ve started looking for them.

Amnesia never looked back after leaving a life behind. She disappeared quickly and without a word, leaving no trace. Even if somepony suspected that there was a changeling involved, they could never find her next target.

She arrived at the park; the sun was shining, a few clouds swimming across the blue ether, birds chirping, and it was perfectly boring. Not that Amnesia was looking for a huge parade with loud music and such, but a little excitement, a little chaos would’ve been a bit better. Watching ponies get on with their excruciatingly ordinary life made Amnesia sleepy. And sleeping in an open place with an itchy carapace was bad news. What if she were to unconsciously reveal her true form and get spotted?

She walked through the park, looking for a place with some life, but only found boring friends talking and couples. Then she spotted a mare playing frisbee with her filly. Nothing unnatural about that.

But Amnesia had memories about the mare. Of course she knew how to act like a polite pony, and right now a bit of social interaction was just what she needed.

“Hey there Swan Dive!” Amnesia greeted the mare. The mare stopped mid-throw, and looked at ‘Neon’. “Long time no see! How are you?”

“Thanks, I’m fine... umm, might I ask who are you?” Swan asked.

“You don’t remember? We went to school together!”

“My memory might be bad, but I would recall somepony this unique!” she replied.

“Well, I always used to tease you about birds, if I remember correctly,” Amnesia resumed. “I called you Mother Goose!”

“Excuse me, this might be a good joke to you, but the pony who called me that disappeared more than six months ago!” Swan yelled furiously. “So take your sick jests somewhere else mister, because it’s not funny!”

What’s happening? Amnesia thought. What did I do wrong?

Suddenly the changeling’s head started to pound, and she ran off. She didn’t know what happened, but she didn’t want to be around ponies for now.

Arriving in Neon’s flat Amnesia locked the door, and headed to the bathroom. She switched the lights on, and dropped her disguise, starting straight into the mirror. What she saw scared her. She saw the face of a changeling.

The face of an unfamiliar changeling.

Author's Note:

Yes, I know what some of you think; it's not the sequel to Conversion, and not the remaining chapters of Leftovers.
I'm sorry. Truly. But Leftovers is under polishing, pre-reading, and editing, and this one was bugging me so much, that I just had to write it down. And the sequel to Conversion is somewhere in my head too; buried under the pile of other smaller ideas. Sorry about that, I'll just have to get them out from under the huge pile.
To share another fact: my life will be getting a bit busier soon; which means less time to construct, but more time to be inspired; I got most of my ideas during work, or doing something entirely other than trying to sit down and write. So that means I'll probably be getting to the topic of Conversion's sequel. Until then, I have this to present.
Enjoy.

Comments

[Luna Secret Stallion]

This is good will watch this.

[TwilightSparkleForever]

You're intrested in changelings? Cool, I like your stories. Even though I didn't read them, they have awesome descriptions that are surely going to get you many views! :D