Chapter Eight: A Bad Memory, Part I (Revised)
The Greatest Show of Kindness
Chapter Eight: A Bad Memory, Part I
The changeling invasion of Canterlot had just begun, and the changelings were swarming into the city hundreds at a time. Bumble and his mother were part of the swarm that was infiltrating southern Canterlot – the most “rural” district of Canterlot. It was less kept to and a bit dirtier than the west-most area, which held the main castle, or the eastern section, which was the main housing district; however, this didn’t mean that it was still a very luxurious place to live.
As they touched down upon the bleak cobblestone, they looked at each other with unexcited expressions. Bumble shuddered a little as a fierce chill rolled down his spine. As he looked around the streets, he saw ponies of all sorts being held against their will and beaten, terrorized. It unnerved him, and worst of all, he felt terrorized himself.
“(M-m-mama?)” he squeaked, pushing against her. She turned to him, and seeing him so scared, sat herself and him down and pulled him up into her chest.
“(It’s okay, Bumble. I know that you don’t like this either, but it’ll be over soon enough. For now, let’s just obey the Queen’s orders,)” she whispered.
“(O-okay…)” he mumbled back.
The two went onward to a small house at the end of the street where no other changelings had gone to yet. It was a shade of red between light-red and pink and was one story. There was a small garage on the left side of the home. The home looked disheveled and unkempt; a ladder drooped down from the gutters on the roof, visibly reeking with rust and mold from the rain.
Bumble’s mother knocked on the white marble door and waited there. She looked to her side, but saw that her son wasn’t there next to her. Looking back, she saw that he was staring in complete awe at the structure.
(“Bumble?”) she asked. (“Are you okay?”)\
(“It’s so big…”) he said, mouth agape.
“(I know, sweetie, but we have to do our ‘job’ here… Come on, dear,)” she ordered. He shook his head and knocked himself out of his trance, running quickly up to his mother, who smiled at him.
“Eek!” a sudden cry rung as a door slammed.
Bumble and his mother looked to the door, which almost fell apart at the force of the pull. The two-hinged door snapped and crackled, falling backwards onto the pony inside.
“Ow, help!” the pony cried. The voice was unmistakably one of a young colt.
Bumble’s mother gasped, immediately using her magic to lift the door off of him and throw it behind her. He shook his head and looked up at the changeling. Upon seeing her, he did not making haste to get back to his hooves and backpedal away. Bumble’s mother, concerned, wanted to make sure that he was okay.
“Are you all right!? Do you have any broken bones!?” she worried, taking a few steps into the house. It was too dark to see what he looked like, but in the glimmers of the darkness she could see that he was a unicorn.
“Get away! M-M-Mommy! Help!” he screamed, backing up into a corner.
In an instant, the lights turned on and a dark-gray unicorn mare with a contrasting pink, straight mane and droopy tail rushed in. There was a long, golden tress on her flank. The colt, now visible, had a bleak-green coat and dark-yellow mane. Oddly enough, he had no tail.
“Get away from my son, you monsters!” she screamed, standing in defense. Both Bumble and his mother flinched in shock to the immediate hostility.
“Hey, we don’t mean any harm! We came here and saw that this door,” Bumble’s mom started to defend, pointing to the broken door that was now on their small front lawn, “was toppled on top of him, and we just couldn’t sit back and let him be hurt!” It wasn’t a complete truth, but that’s what changelings were known for.
“Oh, really? You’re a changeling. You are liars. Why should I trust your words?” she challenged.
"Because you've never seen or met me before, and you should stop being judgmental," Bumble's mother tried, realizing she was opening a can of worms. Before she could correct herself, the mare cut her off.
"I'm being judgmental? Look around you; look at what is happening to our city. You're one of them, and I know you're trying to fool me. I'm not an idiot," the mare growled, stomping the ground with her fore hoof.
"I am not!" she yelled, baring her fangs and buzzing her wings. If there was one thing she hated over anything else, it was being called a liar.
"Okay, I'm going to just-" the mare started, before casting a barrier spell over her now open door space. The adult changeling moaned from frustration.
"Okay, I'm sorry, but we need to get in there. I apologize for this," the mother said, charging a spell.
She grabbed Bumble and turned her body into a light-green missile, crashing herself into the barrier and shattering it. She slammed into a wall next to the colt, breaking through it and landing in a small kitchen.
The kitchen itself was quite small, with a miniscule, obsidian-black, double-burner stove and a pearly-white, short refrigerator and freezer combination with flowery designs towards the back, and a table for four in the center. There were rose and tea designed plates hanging from the walls that swung on their holders, and on a short counter along the left wall, a miniature vase that was tipped over was pouring out water; a rose lay in the now spreading puddle.
Bumble's mother set down him down gently and told him to 'stay there,' before the two ponies rushed into the room. In an instant, she released a green glow over both of the ponies, making them wobbly, apparently dizzy, and fall to their stomachs. She cast another spell, which put them to sleep.
Finally she analyzed their bodies, looking over their general anatomies one more time. After doing so, she turned towards Bumble and shrouded him in her magic. His body lit up in a green flame before a small puff of smoke launched out above him. He now assumed the form of the colt.
Changing into the mare, she looked at Bumble, who shook in his new skin and coat. She looked concerned at her child, pulling him into a hug.
"Is something wrong, sweetie?" she asked, nuzzling him.
"D-Did you h-hurt them?" he asked, frightened.
"Not at all, Bumble. I simply put them to sleep. They'll wake up eventually, so you don't need to worry about them for the moment. For now, let's find a spot to hide them at, and fast. We wouldn't want any other changelings to come in here and hurt them, would we?" she suggested, soliciting a frown from Bumble. She kissed him on the forehead, which made him feel a little better.
She looked around the house, which in itself was cramped on the inside, much more than one would think from looking at the outside. As she walked down a dark hallway connecting the kitchen to a group of rooms, two on each side. She checked each room to make sure there was space to fit both of the ponies, but none of them had enough space. They were all tiny and cluttered, mostly with family heirlooms and other things, except for the back-right room.
In the back right room, there was space underneath a long table that she could place them under, and in her mind, she thought, 'perfect!' Thus, she went back into the kitchen, lifted the two up, and took them to that spot, placing them softly down onto the wooden floor. A quiet squeak sound emerged from the floor. She then took a dusty, ugly cloth from a box in the corner and placed it over the table, making sure that it hid the two from immediate sight.
After this, she decided to use the fact that she had already changed herself and Bumble and tried to hide themselves. Going back into the kitchen, she was that Bumble was just sitting there, doing nothing in general. She figured that there wasn't much more space in the house, based off of what she'd already seen, so she took a quick look outside through a window in a door that lead out of the house.
She saw another external building literally five steps outside of the door, and she figured that she would be able to find a spot to hide in there.
"Bumble! Come on! We're going to find somewhere to hide in that building back there!" she informed her son, who stood up and nodded.
She opened the doors of both buildings and waved him inside. Once he was inside, she closed the door to the house and walked inside. She closed the door and saw a deadbolt lock on it and locked it with her magic.
Looking back to the room, it was a large tea garden. There were five rows of thorny, lush, green bushels of tea, one on each of the walls and three in the center, equal distance between each of them. On the far wall, there was a row of blueberries and strawberries. There were large windows on the walls, and purple light shone down from the ceiling and underneath each of the bushes. The building itself was made out of a light-blue metal.
Both Bumble and his mother were in complete awe - they had never seen this kind of garden. They looked around, Bumble in amazement, his mother in search of a hiding spot. She thought that the two could hide in one of the shadowed corners, behind one of the bushes of flora. So, she told him to go to the back-right corner of the garden with her, and he did.
In the spot that they laid down at, they were somewhat secluded by the shadows. Flutter was lightly covered in light that came from one of the windows on the opposite side, but she was otherwise darkened.
Bumble was already nodding off to sleep, so she decided that the way to remain the calmest would be to fall asleep with him. She smiled down at her child, pulling him up into her chest. Within minutes, they were sleeping.
Nearly fifteen minutes later, three undisguised changelings flew up to the side windows of the garden and looked around the inside through them. The one female out of the three noticed Bumble and his mother, and due to her changeling eyes, she could see right through their disguises.
"Oh, there! I see two of them!" she said, pointing in the general direction of the two.
"Where, Ambrosia?" one of the female, Ambrosia's, squad mates asked.
"In that back corner, Sniper! They aren't ponies. It's weak, little Bumble and Flutter, the cowards. Of course they would hide," she growled, twitching an eye.
"The Queen will have their heads for this!" the other changeling declared to them, causing both of them to nod.
"Do you think Her Majesty has taken the castle yet, Strider?" Sniper asked.
"Probably. It's been about a half hour, and Celestia wouldn't stand a chance to Her great power. Come on, let's go tell Her," Strider responded.
As the three flew back off to go tell Queen Chrysalis, a piercing scream rung out through the city. It even woke up Flutter, who looked up through the windows and saw a pink bubble extending out from the Canterlot castle. She saw changelings, including the Queen, flying outwards from the city. Her eyes widened as she held Bumble tighter. Within five seconds, the pink bubble passed through the garden building, picking both Bumble and Flutter up and throwing them through a wall and off the edge of the city, towards the badlands.
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31.media.tumblr.com/d77ef8ec3cb2c138ca482217bb002b53/tumblr_inline_n04o4sJqQd1sw334p.jpg
4315438 That is the perfect picture ever. Thank you for the fav and comment!
Yay updates! Couldn't wait for the next chapter, great work!
/)
4316069 Yeah, sorry for the short stick there, buddy. I'll get the next one out as soon as possibru!
Wow this was really a good chapter! It helps flesh out the character development of the other changelings. Worth the wait :)
This chapter is... quite strange.
How could they chat like that, and the ponies don't be suspicious of trickery, IN THE MIDDLE OF AN INVASION?
And "play outside"? While there is tons of flying enemies?
It's a good development, but not a good situation.
Like other readers point, play outside in middle of invasion... wat?
hoooorah Its back!
4316972 I seemed to have somehow forgotten it. I'll work on it to make the chapter better. Thank you for the criticism!
Have you got any personal ideas to help this chapter to improve?
4318225
I have no idea
Maybe play "inside"?
(Sorry if I'm not helpful on that
)
4318698 Perhaps I could have Tea's garden inside of a larger outside house? (Like an indoor garden?)
4320362
)
Still the problem of the "flying bug" if there is widows, but that could do it with a bit of reflection
(Right-now, I too busy to help you more
4321491 Unn... Okay.
The friendship between Bumble and Spinner...
I thought this story was OK until I got to this chapter. This threw me through a loop:
A pair of changelings ask to be sheltered during a changeling invasion, they get accepted pretty quickly and the first thing they do is send their kids out to play in the yard.
WTF?
I would have to agree with the others. Aside from the massive number of grammatical errors this chapter seems . . . utterly implausible from every possible perspective. It just doesn't make any sense. I won't give the story a Dislike because there is some hope for it. But here are some things you need to work on:
1. The whole thing feels rushed.
2. Fluttershy's and Bumble's internal monologues are too descriptive. You explicitly state everything. Let the readers make some assumptions.
3. There is nowhere near enough description of the environment. (Although your descriptions of expressions and movements are solid)
4. Fantastic premise, execution needs quite a bit of polishing.
On many aspect, this version is better (in term of story)
But:
Care about repetition!
Also, try to diversify a bit your vocabulary
Anyway, I'm waiting to see what's coming next (After Chapter 16 of course!
)
This revision is, undoubtedly, an improvement to the previous chapter to where it fits into the general flow of the story.
There's going to be some basic editing to the vocabulary, but I think that an extension to the story is another thing that will need to be done later on to decrease any "rushed" scenes. A few more bits and pieces of information around the story would help, in my opinion, such as when they approach Tea Leaf's house and when the door-somehow-slams-in-front-of-them-when-it-was-closed-a-second-ago.
Personally I didn't mind the first version but I admit, the revised does make more sense as I don't think the ponies would be so forgiving with the invasion going on. Also the shorter chapter gives the flashback a better flow and doesn't prolong things. You might want to find a proof reader for tiny errors. I'd be happy to help. I'm not a perfectionist but could do my best with keeping a good reading flow ;)
This change actually makes things a LOT worse by introducing a serious plothole.
Befriending ponies and protecting them from your own forces? Yes, that is treason. Providing aid and comfort to the enemy.
Capturing two ponies and then hiding for the rest of the battle? No, that is not treason. Dereliction of duty is the strongest charge they could face, and that doesn't meet the terms of treason.
4565594
True. But also Flutter could have killed the two ponies or stolen their love for each other; but she sort of did help them out by hiding them from the other changeling troops while she and Bumble hid.
Much improved, but please don't use a chapter update to tell us about a chapter update. ;p
Aw... I liked the old chapter better.
Wait, so the love bubble was able to push them through the walls? Did it break the walls or make them pass right through them?
this chapter makes absolutely no sense. I would think that during a battle it would be violence and chaos everywhere. I don't see for what ever reason a mother and her young child should end up in it. It just makes no sense.
Also that Bumble has a conversation with those ponies doesn't make any sense either. I mean, isn't this an invasion? They are supposed to capture them and if not possible kill them.