Chapter 51 - Collaborator
Pretty much everypony went into shock when we saw the Changeling sitting there amongst the scrub. It was exactly as I remembered them; about the size of a typical pony, a black, hard exoskeleton, two flimsy wings, and the eyes. I shall not forget them as long as I live, those unsettling blue eyes, with no pupils yet showing such intelligence and cunning. Strangely though, like the pony it had impersonated, this Changeling also wore an eye patch over its right eye. And atop its head a somewhat stunted gnarled horn that enabled them to utilise a limited form of magic.
“Mother of God,” my father muttered as he examined the creature.
“Well, geez, I know I’m not perfect, but I’m not that ugly am I?” the Changeling asked, still mimicking Strong Shield’s voice, albeit with a noticeable buzzing tone. That was enough to galvanize myself and Shining into action; we quickly made to grab it.
In what seemed like slow motion, it dawned on the Changeling that its disguise was no longer working. Its eyes drifted down to its own form, widening in horror. It looked back up, right at me. And then, it ran.
Quickly it pushed the two of us aside and bolted hell for leather out into the open away from the clearing and deeper into the forest. This finally broke the suspense that had been keeping everypony else quiet and inactive.
“Come on, after it!” Shining roared. He and I immediately took off after it, the others following close behind. Rarity and Fluttershy held back to keep with my family, who were again hampered by their lack of speed over the uneven terrain. Rainbow however, had no problem keeping up with us, nor did Twilight, who both used their wings to match our faster gallop, hovering about three feet from the ground.
The Changeling had gotten a decent start on us and was a good couple hundred metres ahead, just barely in sight between the trees. We were all going as fast as we could, but for the moment, the Changeling kept ahead. I suppose that can be attributed to fear, as a wise man once said: ‘You go for a man hard enough and fast enough, he only thinks about himself, and how he might get clear of that wrath that's about to set down on him’. I must admit that in that forest, some old predatory instincts kicked in; pounding the ground I couldn’t help but feel the thrill of the chase, with the wind at my back and the proverbial bit between my teeth. I was going to catch it. Catch and kill it, kill it dead. We kept on after it, only to hear the tell-tale buzzing of insect wings a moment later. Without magic to disable him, Shining and I would be unable to follow it if it got airborne.
“Dash!” I called. “Try and fly directly above it, keep it from gaining altitude!” The Element of Loyalty wasted no time, promptly taking flight properly and performing a zoom climb to get overhead. This beast may have been fast, but nothing can outrun Rainbow Dash in a straight line. As she reached its six o’clock high, the Changeling looked behind and spotted her. It must have known it was now trapped, but it made an effort nonetheless. Buzzing its wings as hard as it could, it attempted to beat off Rainbow’s interception course. But pegasi are like birds of prey and she was able to close with it without too much effort. Still though, it wasn’t going down without a fight.
Changeling and pegasus slammed into each other in mid-air. I must confess the sound of a fast moving pony hitting the solid carapace was not pleasant. The pair instantly lost any semblance of lift and plummeted. While it would have been a case of serious injury for a human, both parties were able to survive to twenty foot drop and rolled as they hit the ground. Dash managed to pin its wings down with her hooves, giving Shining and I a chance to catch up and help.
And so the race was done, ‘scratch one bogey’ as the air force pilots would say. While the two of us lacked our usual magic, we were still both strong enough to physically restrain the Changeling. Applejack promptly doubled back to the farm to fetch her rope and we hog tied the Changeling before hauling it back to Sweet Apple Acres.
Still hogtied we threw the Changeling, with Big Mac’s help into the barn where we had previously been celebrating the New Year. This one was not off to a good start to say the least. Almost instantly, Shining grabbed it by its horn and began to interrogate it.
“Where is the real Strong Shield?” he demanded. The Changeling offered little in the way of a reply, aside from a few attempts to struggle against the ropes and a go at moving its equally bound wings. With the immediate threat over, I turned to Twilight, who had already done what I was going to suggest.
Just as I turned around, she was handing Spike a piece of parchment. Her temporarily disabled magic was having a noticeable effect. From my own experience, it is almost like losing a limb due to the sheer number of tasks unicorns use magic for. Spike quickly jotted down the letter as she dictated.
“’Dear Princess Celestia,” she began as always.
“Minutes ago we discovered a disguised Changeling here in Ponyville. It had taken the form of Strong Shield. As I’m sure you are aware by now, the rift that brought Blade Star and his family here briefly opened. When it closed again, with everypony and everyone still on this side, it produced a feedback pulse that disabled the Changeling’s spell. Please send a contingent of Royal Guards to retrieve it and begin a search for wherever the real Strong Shield is being held.
Your fellow princess, Twilight Sparkle.’” Spike promptly rolled the parchment up and placed a seal on it. As usual, he blew his own fire onto the letter to send it almost immediately directly to Celestia. This time though, nothing happened; all that came out was air.
“What the?!” he exclaimed. The young dragon tried several more times to perform his unique trick, but it seemed all in vain. It was then that Applejack spoke up.
“Wait a minute, isn’t Spike fire partly magical as well, Twi?” she asked. The princess in question promptly facehoofed and groaned.
“Of course, he’d be affected the same way we would, the fire breath is active magic,” she paused. “So how can we get in contact with the princess quickly? The regular mail system will be clogged letters. There aren’t any trains running tonight so we can’t get to Canterlot.” It was then that our resident Wonderbolt reservist piped up.
“Gimme that, Twilight.” She promptly took the scroll from her grasp. “I can get this to Canterlot in ten seconds flat!” Putting the scroll in her mouth, she took a running start out of the barn and took off. Seconds later, the sky was lit up with a literal rainbow of colours as Dash broke the sound barrier.
In spite of the seriousness of the situation, I couldn’t help but do what I did next.
“A Sonic Rainboom! Woo!” I bounced up and down briefly Pinkie Pie style before the stupidity of my actions dawned on me. “Erm, sorry.” I blushed up to my ears. Still, it was a Sonic Rainboom.
The word ‘Changeling’ appearing in Twilight’s letter, brought not only Celestia herself, but also around twenty of the Royal Guard along with her. All armed to the teeth they quickly swarmed the area around Sweet Apple Acres. After showing them where the captive was being held, Shining ordered four of them to remain with it. The majority he sent out to form a perimeter and seal off the area and prevent anypony from entering, or leaving. Then came the fun part.
When a Changeling is detected, everypony gets understandably nervous. And until proven otherwise, everypony involved, including myself, was a potential hostile. To ensure we were all who we claimed to be, a pair of unicorn guards repeatedly used a disruption spell on us all. It was similar in function to a stun spell, only it was specialised for unicorns and other practitioners of magic. Any spells being cast when a disruptive spell hit would instantly shut off. Thus it was ideal as a way of forcing down disguises. About ten minutes later, we were all cleared and released. The resident medic also checked over Twilight, Rarity, myself, Shining and Spike to ensure that the blast wave had had no permanent effect.
With the brief period of paranoia over, the guards quickly loaded the Changeling into one of their chariots, but not before Shining Armor had his say. He walked over to the Changeling, looking it right in the eye.
“Changeling,” he said quietly, his voice dripping with malice. “You are hereby placed under close arrest. You are charged with espionage, impersonating an officer of the Royal Guard, evading arrest and anything else I can think of on the way to Canterlot.” The Changeling again didn’t respond, merely nodding its head to show it had heard him. Then, they took it away.
After all but a few of the guards had departed, Celestia herself came over to speak to us. Her head was hung low and her typical maternal smile was nowhere to be found. She turned to my father and mother.
“I am sorry,” she said. “I had promised you that I would get you all home. But with the portal sealed, I am not sure we will ever be able to send you back.” My father held up his hand to stop her.
“Princess, I was the one who ordered Shining Armour to close the rift. While I do still wish to return to my home, I will not put this world at risk. Nor were the rest of my family. You have nothing to apologise for. We are still capable of living our lives; we may just have to wait a little longer.” A small smile graced the solar diarch’s features.
“That is very noble of you to say, Roger. You have my word; the best unicorns in Canterlot will keep trying to find you a way home. Now if you will all excuse me, I have to prepare for the fallout from this incident.” And with that, she returned to her own chariot and departed. There was a brief moment of silence; nopony was quite sure what to do next. It was getting on for sunrise, but none of us felt like sleeping.
“Hey, Twilight,” I said. “Why don’t we go and have a look at all that stuff that came through earlier. I want to see what turned up.” The princess nodded. And so the two of us returned to the forest.
With our magic still temporarily U/S, Twilight and I borrowed a couple of lanterns and torches from the barn as we headed back into the forest. I’d been a unicorn now for around four months, and I had already got used to having magic in my life. The disruption was quite unsettling. Worse still, it meant neither of us had our usual method of defence. Twilight at least could fly away from danger; I’d have no choice but to just run. Luckily, it seemed that the recent commotion had driven most creatures of the forest into temporary hiding.
Arriving back at the clearing, we placed the lamps we were carrying all around in an effort to brighten the area. Everything that had emerged from the rift was in a medium size pile. So the first step was to sort everything. I already knew there were no electronic devices here, but I wanted to make sure there was nothing potentially harmful.
Sifting through, I came across a few items I recognised, handing them off to Twilight. We began with books, most of which were intact; a few had scorch marks though. I found copies of Watership Down, some of the old Biggles books, a copy of On War and some Eagle annuals from the 1950’s. Then though came the good ones.
“Twilight,” I called. The mare looked up. In my hoof was an old history book from my Sixth form days entitled ‘Europe since Napoleon’. “This book contains the history of the last two hundred years of the continent on which I lived. Interested?” She promptly grabbed the book with both hooves and began to read, translating into Equestrian in her head.
After that, came the slightly more awkward ones. The funniest being when Twilight spotted a book with Celestia and Luna on the cover; my copy of The Elements of Harmony official guidebook. She quickly found the section on herself and proceeded to blush adorkably.
We then began to sift through knick knacks, a couple airplane models, a small jar containing sand from China Beach in Vietnam, a small bust of Napoleon Bonaparte, and finally a small brushable of RD, which may have been painstakingly modified to match her mane style. This promptly vanished when Scootaloo appeared as if from nowhere and took off with it as well as a t-shirt of mine which had Dash’s cutie mark on the front. We continued to sift, finding DVDs, CDs and the odd video.
“It’s a shame we can’t play any of these, Twilight. I’m sure Pinkie would love this,” I said, holding up a copy of a Fawlty Towers video. Twilight paused to think, examining the video closely.
“Blade Star, these ‘tapes’ are quite similar to our film reels you know, and these CD’s are similar to records. I’m sure if I used the right transfiguration spell I could make them compatible with Equestrian technology.” I thought back to ‘It ain’t easy being Breezies’.
“Yes, Ah suppose they are quite similar. And it can’t be harder than turning yourself and five other ponies into Breezies and back again now can it?” She giggled at that.
“That was actually a lot of fun and pretty useful too.” She stopped as she spotted something glinting on the ground. “Hey, what’s that?” She moved over towards it. Following her gaze, I saw what she had spotted. It belonged to me.
“Err, Twilight. Ah think you’d best leave that one alone,” I cautioned. So far I had done nothing to impede her search and documentation of the ‘extra-terrestrial artifacts’. To be safe, I trotted over and picked it up myself, examining it briefly. The item in question was what the USMC refer to as a ‘Hog’s tooth’. It was a typical 7.62mm round apart from one distinction, which Twilight quickly picked up on.
“Hey, there’s some writing on this. Let’s see. C-H-R-Y…” I cut her off, putting the bullet into a saddlebag in order to hide the name on it.
“Trust me, Twi. You don’t need to know about that one. Ah’ll hang onto it.” Twilight looked annoyed for a short while, before settling on just giving me the stink eye. Eventually, we completed documenting everything and collecting whatever Twilight wanted to study. Apart from the bullet, she had been able to access everything. Once her magic returned, she said she’d get to work on altering the tapes and CD’s, promising to teach me how to do it as well.
With her saddlebags bulging with stuff, she departed, leaving me alone in the forest. I took out the bullet; the one with her name on it. It had been just a little bit of dark humour on my part when I’d made it, but now, who knows. Perhaps I’d have an opportunity to use it.
I looked at the name carved into it; ‘Chrysalis’. Holding the bullet in my hoof, I remembered an old song that seemed fitting.
“You can run on for a long time,
Run on for a long time,
Run on for a long time.
But the power of God’s gonna cut you down.”
(Here begins the collab scene)
After briefly stopping at the farmhouse to put some of my newly acquired stuff away, I headed back out into town. One of my closest friends had been replaced by a shape shifting love thief, and for the moment, there was nothing I could do about it except wait. I was stressed, tired and a little bit angry. In other words, I needed a drink.
I found my way to the Tavern. Strong Shield’s luggage had been collected by the Guard and everypony inside given the third degree. Walking up to the bar, I sat myself down and ordered myself a glass of Appleoosian whiskey. The stuff really has grown on me, certainly better than Old No.7. Taking a sip, I sighed and looked up at the ceiling.
"That can't be good"
Turning to the left, I saw a pony that I hadn't seen in Ponyville before. He was a unicorn and had a red mane and tail with orange at the tips and a light blue coat that was white at the ear, hoof, and horn tips. His cutie mark seemed to be half orange crystal and half blue fire. He had what appeared to be a mug of hot chocolate with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top.
"A pony only drinks alcohol with that expression for two reasons. If something is bothering them, or their face is stuck that way... bit for your thoughts?"' I snorted irritably.
“Ah didn’t realize this place had a comedian,” I replied sourly. I figured though that it couldn’t hurt to be civil to this guy. “Just a bit of trouble with a friend of mine.” Two more Royal Guards came down the stairs carrying evidence bags. My eyes followed them, my face grew more sombre and I took another swig.
"I'm assuming that trouble has something to do with the Royal Guards? If I'm right I wouldn't want to be your friend right now. At least the guard is calmer than it used to be." I let a ghost of a smile play across my face.
“Just wait, what happened tonight will kick ‘em into high gear. Remember the paranoia after the Royal Wedding?” He nodded. “That’s how bad this could get.” I stared into my glass, this would be number three now. “They caught a Changeling, right here in Ponyville.”
"Well that's not surprising. Ponyville is a lovely town after all, practically a bakery at full stock for a creature that feeds on love. And while I don't remember much about the wedding, I don't think it will be that bad. What was the Changeling doing?"
"What do you expect those scumbags to do? Son of a Diamond Dog replaced my friend and probably was using his position to feed itself. We caught it when its disguise spell failed. Guards came, took it back to Canterlot, and Ah'm stuck here feelin’ chewed up," I lamented. The whiskey was loosening my tongue more than I realized. "For all Ah know ah never met the real guy, just this imposter. And Ah was dumb enough to fall for its tricks."
"No need to be so rude. Besides, even if they swapped before you meet, why would it trick you? I hear those rank and file guys were dumb enough to fall for the whole 'I'm a Changeling too' trick. And the smart ones wouldn't come within a hundred yards of a town."
“I think it’s been disguised for a long while, somehow it managed to escape what happened to all its friends and tried to stay under the radar. Still, I’ll bet you it’s been feeding off a few ponies back in Canterlot and maybe a few here.” I paused to think. This guy was right, a Changeling like this one was no dumb moron; it was a clever little blighter compared to the common drone. Why would the one that replaced Strong Shield stay in Canterlot, and stay in the Royal Guard? With their failure to take Canterlot, they were in no position to try again. Why didn’t it just slip away?
“So why didn’t you run, Captain?” I muttered to myself. My new companion continued.
"Did the pony he was impersonating have a next of kin? Or some other type of family? Because, they have more of a right to be angry than you."
The ice cream had melted and cooled the hot chocolate to the point where it was no longer steaming. He took a sip before suddenly stopping and turned to me with a hoof out.
"Where are my manners, I haven't introduced myself. I'm Thermos," he said pronouncing it 'THərmOs.
“Blade Star,” I replied, offering him a hoof bump, which substituted for a handshake amongst ponies. This, ‘Thermos’ ran pretty hot, I almost felt a burning sensation on my hoof, yet he didn’t seem to radiate it. I knew from Twilight that Strong Shield had no one else. But this Thermos was right. If anything Twilight or Shining had more of a right to be angry; I’d only known him a couple months.
Neither of them had noticed anything to suggest Strong Shield had been replaced either, and they had far more experience; Twilight had sniffed Chrysalis out in a heartbeat. Why would she not spot something amiss in one of her best friends from Canterlot?
“It wasn’t just me who got fooled, no,” I answered. “This guy was friends with Princess Twilight, and the Captain of the Guard.” Something wasn’t right. How could it have evaded detection like that?
"Sounds like a military stallion... which is strange, because if I was a Changeling, and I'm not, I wouldn't swap with a military mind. My brother is one of those, only way to loosen him is with an entire bottle of whiskey. You'd be better off switching with Berry here. You’re not a Changeling are you Berry?"
That got the barmare's attention. "N-no. I'm not. Please don't call the guards to check. I'd promised Pinchy I'd be home for dinner."
"It's okay Berry, I was joking. Besides I still need to pay for the drink." He then turned back to me. "So, when was the last time anyone saw the original pony before 'this guy' showed up?" I paused to think, setting aside my own whiskey. It would be difficult to work that one out.
“Well, Ah reckon he’d been switched before Ah met him. So it has to have been at least a few months now. But assuming it was involved in the wedding, my guess is it’s been impersonating him for over a year and a half.” So why did it stay? Why didn’t it cut its losses and run? Plus there was no signs anypony was being heavily fed on by it. Then it hit me.
“This ain’t your common or garden Changeling, Thermos,” I said pounding my hoof on the bar. “This one was a mole.” Thermos raised an eyebrow at me in confusion. “It must’ve infiltrated a while back, even before the wedding. It was acting as a spy; a pilot fish. Now that the incursion has failed, it has nothing to do, but it couldn’t leave Canterlot without raising suspicion.” The question now was whether or not the Royal Guard had figured that out. If they treated it like a typical Changeling, they’d be wasting an opportunity. It could be that it hadn’t replaced anypony, but invented its own identity.
I had to get this information to Canterlot. That meant going there myself; the mail system was still clogged and Spike still wouldn’t be able to start sending messages until tomorrow. I quickly fished out a bag of Bits, paying for my own and Thermos’
“Thermos, you’re a damn genius,” I said. And with that, I belted out of the door to catch the night train. I was going so fast I didn’t hear him mutter into his hot chocolate.
"I was going to suggest he may be friendly, but what do I know?"
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You and Sidetrack work well together. That was quite an enjoyable little chapter, and Thermos does not even look like he is a forced character at all.
Unfortunately, I am one of those Changeling-liking writers. Danget.
...A brony with good mind won't let that little prejudce cloud their judgement...
Love and tolerate and all that shitz.
God I love those "YOU'RE A GENIUS!" moments. It just has this way of bringing a smile to my demented and twisted heart.
4855483 Thank you!
Used the term "Rank and file" are the others Clones? Star Wars Reference?
From the description of his cutie mark, i thought that it would be like a color reversed Firefox symbol.
4857781 Good pony! … er changeling! You know what!? Good job.
4857606 Same here
And for being an inferior species, as well as existing, being black, oh and for being a changeling.
You are hereby sentenced to death by 'dropping the soap'
May Faust let you scum burn for eternity
DABUCK!? Why is everyone/pony such a xenophobe?
Ugh... Look here Blade Star, the appropriate gender pronoun for a hermaphraditic species is which ever the individual prefers. Using 'It' is incredibly rude as that's how you refer to an object. If you don't know someling's preferred pronouns, the words they and their are appropriate.
I liked Scootaloo popping up from nowhere.
Edit 1/29/2019: