• Published 17th Jan 2015
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Changelings, Love and Lollipops - Georg



When the Royal Wedding scatters defeated changelings all over Equestria, a member of the hive winds up being captured in Ponyville, tied up, stunned, shot by a cannon, and held against his will. The truly frightening part is he’s starting to l

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Chapter 13 - The Party Begins

Changelings, Love and Lollipops


Chapter 13
The Party Begins


‘Party’ was far too simple and short a word to describe what was going on in Ponyville’s streets. ‘Riot’ really did not fit either, nor ‘bash’ or even ‘explosion.’ Ponies crowded into every space on the street, with games, contests, and challenges all over the place. The ball pit had a line, the bouncy house had a line, and there was even a line in front of a pale blue unicorn’s ‘Tartar Blasters’ booth, where the prizes included toothbrushes and coupons for a free cleaning. There were barrel races and trampolines, danceoffs and five-legged races, parachutes and popcorn balls, and at least one strolling banjo player. Somehow Pinkie had managed to make a giant changeling balloon float over the street with holes in all of the limbs and no possibility of staying in the air.

Although it did.

And the food. Oh, the food! From competitive eating contests with unbelievably good barbecued corn on the cob to candyfloss on a stick, the changeling could not open his mouth without somepony sticking something in it to taste. If his stomach did not hurt so much, he would have wound up unable to waddle down the street, but even with that excuse there were still far too many things to eat. Or snack. Or sample. The entire street was a riot of happiness and joy, damped only slightly when Pinkie Pie told him that Summer Wrap-Up Festival next week was going to be bigger, and that she was going to write an extra-special invitation to Princess Celestia and Princess Luna so that they could bring him along and keep an eye on him.

* * *

”Hello, Pinkie Pie. We brought your friend as you requested.”

Both pony princesses strode side by side from the Royal Chariot into the middle of the giant celebration with a changeling bobbing in their magical fields behind them. He remained stiff and unmoving as they floated him down in front of the happy pink party pony.

“He died a few days ago, but we had him stuffed and mounted with a plush cover.”

Pinkie Pie hugged the yellow unicorn with a squeal of joy. “He’s so fluffy! Come on, Pops! We’re going to go on all of the rides, and then I’m going to take you home and snuggle you all night long! Best princesses ever!”

* * *

There were only two horned lumps in his oatmeal. One, of course, was a certain purple unicorn who stalked him through the festivities in gleeful anticipation of perhaps a dramatic speech where he would describe how he was going to take over all of Equestria by indigestion and carnival food.

The second was odd, and that was saying something for Ponyville. After the party had gotten into full swing and he was just starting to enjoy himself, Rarity slipped up to him and simply stood silent for a short while. She chewed on her bottom lip and looked as if she would have much rather been wrestling bears, making a brief attempt to speak before stopping and looking away. Finally, she lowered her head and said, “I’m sorry, Mister Tolliver.”

“I’m sorry?” asked the changeling.

“I treated you so unkindly when you came into my shop,” said Rarity, still looking at the ground. “My best friend in the world was trying to introduce her new friend, and I behaved like some sort of uncultured beast. Can you ever forgive me?”

She wants forgiveness for treating me like… me. Ponyville is weird. I might as well be honest. There’s nothing to lose now.

“You have literally nothing to apologize for, Miss Rarity,” he began. “A few weeks ago if we had been introduced that fashion, I would have been doing everything I could to twist your emotions around and milk out as much love as I could.”

A tiny wrinkle appeared on Rarity’s brow and her eyes narrowed. “Has Pinkie Pie changed you this much?”

He chuckled grimly. “Hardly. More like Shining Armor and Princess Cadenza. Whatever they did that threw us all out of Canterlot burned out my ability to sense and consume emotions. I must have been right next to the explosion because the other changelings don’t seem like they’re suffering as much.” He paused for a moment’s thought. “Or at least Wenx didn’t say anything about dying.”

“Dying?” Rarity held a hoof to her chest. “I know you were injured, but I didn’t think it was this serious.”

He shrugged. “I tried to tell everypony before, but they all thought I was lying, and frankly I can’t blame them. Without any way to tell how much love I’ve got stored away and no way to absorb any more, I could go at any time.”

I should clutch my chest and fall over right now, just to see the marshmallow panic. It would be hilarious, but Pinkie wouldn’t like it if I were to frighten her friends.


“Why that’s terrible!” The unicorn lit up her horn and waved it several times at him, giving him a tickle in his tummy as her magic washed over him. “I wish I could help, but this is really quite outside my specialty. I can’t get any kind of an abnormal reading from you other than the changeling detection spell that Princess Luna showed us in Canterlot. Perhaps if Twilight Sparkle were to—”

The changeling held up one fuzzy yellow hoof. “I don’t think she’s that interested in helping me. The first time I saw her in Ponyville, she threw me in jail and electrified the bars. The second time she nearly put me through the wall of Sugarcube Corner. Besides, she’s in heat right now, and that’s doing something weird to her brain.”

“It is not!” The muffled retort filtered through the air, coming from a nearby bale of straw with two strategic eyeholes and a violet horn poking out.

“Well,” started Rarity with a glance at her friend’s hiding spot. “We all were traumatized by what your queen did to Princess Cadence and Shining Armor, but a good friend should be willing to help anypony… or creature who needs assistance. Twilight Sparkle is a very powerful unicorn, as well as a very good friend of mine, and if anypony can help you, she can. Now, if you’ll excuse me for a few moments, there’s a handsome young gentledrake who was wanting a dance. I’ll be right back.”

Watching Rarity trot away with a spring in her step was a little like watching the last lifeboat row away from a sinking ship, which did not help when the nearby bale of straw shuffled over to stand next to him. It made a poor replacement for the elegant young unicorn mare, who was promptly set upon by the infant dragon he had been so terrified about before. He and the bale of straw watched the mismatched pair swirl into a vigorous country jig across the grassy dance floor until the relative silence was broken by a quiet cough.

“They seem really happy,” said the bale of straw.

“How could I tell?” said the changeling. “I can’t sense emotions any more. Weren’t you listening?”

It took until the second song before the bale asked, “Where’s Pinkie Pie?”

“Chimichanga eating contest,” he responded. “I couldn’t bear to watch. My stomach hurt too much.”

“Oh.” The bale of straw rustled for a moment as the purple horn withdrew. Eventually there was a quiet pop of teleportation and a considerably chastised and somewhat ruffled Twilight Sparkle appeared next to him. “I still hate you,” she said with a low growl. “You’re doing something to induce heat in my friends, just so you can get inside their heads and steal their love.”

“I think the only thing in my head is confetti,” said the changeling. “I still get these little pink flecks flying out when I breathe sometimes. I lost count of how many times Pinkie Pie shot me with that thing. Although it must have made me smell good. Everypony keeps sniffing me, like I’m some exotic flower. And then they try to nibble.”

“Sniffing?” said Twilight Sparkle. She leaned over with her horn glowing softly and took a cautious sniff of her own, ending in a sharp cough. “The detection spell is picking up a lot more non-aromatic organic volatiles than you should be emitting. I wonder if maybe the concussions shocked your pheromone glands into activity.” Twilight’s nose wrinkled up as she swept her magic over the changeling several more times, each wave of her horn causing a more intensive look of concentration on the thoughtful unicorn. “If you’re starving, that would be a way for you to induce positive emotions in surrounding ponies. It could be an instinctive reaction.”

“That… actually that’s possible. We don’t have any conscious control over our scents.” The changeling considered while nodding. “And since I can’t sense emotions, whatever might have triggered my pheromones doesn’t know to turn them off.”

“I can devise a spell to solve the problem,” said Twilight Sparkle with a frown of concentration. “It would have to be fairly complicated to interact with a mare’s hormonal system and counter the pheromonal interaction. It could take weeks.”

“Or you could just get a potion from the zebra,” said the changeling. “She apparently has already made a bunch from some claw she found out in the forest.”

“Oh,” said Twilight Sparkle. “That’s… well, if you want… darn.” She glared at him briefly before another idea caused her face to light up in a grin and her horn to glow with magic. There was a silent flash of light that dazzled the changeling for a moment and he quickly patted himself to make sure none of his body parts had been forcefully removed. Twilight Sparkle looked unbelievably smug, taking one step forward and deliberately burying her nose into his red-and-white striped mane with a giant sniff.

“Ah-HA! Nothing!” she declared with a happy little wriggle of her tail. “Much simpler. My deodorizing spell worked perfectly. Any volatile organics you’re giving off are being magically deactivated for the next few days, so you won’t make any more mares go into heat and start having dreams about dragging you into the library and tying you to — Nothing! Absolutely nothing! Rainbow Dash!”

The unicorn reached out with her magic a considerable distance farther than the changeling could have tried, grabbing a passing multicolored pegasus by the tail and dragging her down to their little corner away from the crowds.

“Sniff him!” declared Twilight Sparkle.

“Uh… Twilight, are you feeling okay?” asked Rainbow Dash, backing up a pace while glancing back and forth between Twilight and the disguised changeling.

“Go ahead! It’s perfectly safe. Watch.” The unicorn buried her nose in his candy-striped mane again with a deep and energetic sniff.

“Well, if you say so.” The pegasus stuck her nose into his mane on the other side and gave a sniff, then a much deeper sniff with a matching frown. “He doesn’t smell like anything, Twilight. What gives?”

While the pegasus was sniffing him again, Twilight Sparkle fairly leapt around in some weird display of ecstatic unicorn enthusiasm, having produced a sheet of parchment and a quill from somewhere and topping the whole dance off with a series of rapid-fire questions.

“Rainbow, are you experiencing any wing positional shifts? Atrial tachycardia? Intrusive thought of an erotic nature? Unbounded libido? Paroxysmal positional vertigo syndrome? Synesthesia? Involuntary abdominal contractions? Itching? Spontaneous keratinous degeneration?” The pegasus sneezed and Twilight Sparkle flinched, but was cut off before she could ask any more questions.

“Sheesh, Twilight. I just got some mane stuck up my nose. Relax and give Pinkie’s coltfriend a little space. He smells just fine.”

“Coltfriend?” Twilight Sparkle’s pupils shrank to tiny pinpoints as she put on an obviously false grin. “No, no, no, no! He’s not Pinkie’s coltfriend. He’s a hippoarthropodic adaptive creature with substantial pseudologia characteristics using pheromones to alter the underlying pharmacological stability of our trust-based relationship within the domain of our rural peer group.”

“I think she means I’m a lying changeling,” said the changeling to an obviously confused Rainbow Dash. “Because I was leaking pheromones all over town and sending your friends into heat.”

“Oh!” Rainbow Dash took another sniff of his mane. “You don’t smell like heat or pherowhatsits. You don’t even smell like Pinkie’s crinkleberry shampoo.”

The changeling pointed at Twilight Sparkle. “Unicorn!”

“Hi girls!” Pinkie Pie bounced into their discussion with a chimichanga flavored kiss right on the lips for the disguised changeling. “I won the contest! It was easy since Big Mac wasn’t there and everypony else had been eating so many yummy cupcakes that they couldn’t eat very many chimichangas so I thought we should have cupcake eating contest but they already had the chimichangas out so we ate them and I won like I said but we’re going to have a cupcake eating contest next and I wanted all of my friends to be there with me now that you’re done sniffing Pops’ mane unless you’d rather have a mane-sniffing contest.” She buried her nose in the white-and-red striped mass and took a deep breath. “Hey. Why don’t you smell like crinkleberries any more?”

“I fixed him,” said Twilight Sparkle with a broad grin.

Pinkie took a quick look underneath the changeling in question. “No you didn’t. He still has his—”

“Fixed as in made me stop spreading pheromones,” said the changeling quickly, “not fixed like a pet, Pinkie.”

Don’t give Twilight Sparkle any ideas.

“Ohhh.” Pinkie rubbed his aching tummy, which gave him a sudden urge to wave a back leg. “So your tummy doesn’t hurt any more and we can go compete in the cupcake eating contest! This is great! Come on!”

To Twilight Sparkle’s credit, she did try to explain further during their pel-mel flight through the street party, and before the cupcake eating contest started, and even with a mouth full of cupcake. He could not help but enjoy the young unicorn’s frustration, filled with spluttering bits of cupcake and constant attempts to convince Pinkie that her ‘friend’ was in fact… well, what he really was. Even the pain in his gut faded into the background as he watched her fume and fuss. A compassionate smile concealed his vindictive pleasure, all the way until the end of the cupcake eating contest when Twilight Sparkle stood looking at the last cupcake with a peculiar quirk to her lips, as if she tasted something familiar.

“I knew it! They’re made out of love.” Twilight Sparkle turned the cupcake around in her magic, the little sparkles of green in the frosting obvious in the outdoor lighting as her own grin began to grow to an unnatural degree.

“Attention everypony! This is important!” shouted Twilight Sparkle, leaping up onto the table and waving the cupcake over her head. The music stopped, all of the dancing ponies nearby looked at the table, and the awards for the cupcake eating contest ground to a halt as she continued.

“The cupcakes are full of love!”

The crowd cheered, and Twilight gained a little tic in the corner of one eye. “No, I mean they’re full of love! The frosting has love in it!”

“Don’t be silly, Twilight,” giggled Pinkie Pie as she bounced up on the table with a tray of cupcakes. “Everything we make at Sugarcube Corner is full of love. And sugar! Cupcakes for everypony!”

“Are you just a little upset at coming in third, Twilight Sparkle?” said the changeling.

“Yes! No! Aaaahhh!” With a thunder of hooves and a disparaging cry, Twilight Sparkle dashed through the crowd and in the general direction of the library, closely followed by Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie. The crowd chuckled, but in a good-natured fashion as if the explosion of emotions from the young mare were a common event. The changeling accepted his fourth-place prize (a cupcake, of course), and made a brief speech before turning back to the festivities and trying to figure out what to do next.

Pinkie Pie was right. This was the most fun he had experienced in his entire life. For just a few hours, he could pretend he was not some hated and feared bug trying to disguise himself as somepony better. Losing his emotional sense was the best thing to happen to him, even if it meant he was going to die in gruesome agony tonight sometime when he ran out of love. He licked the icing off the cupcake as he thought, although it probably did not gain him back the five minutes of life he had put into it.

“Hey, Pops?” A half-dozen or so energetic little ponies cascaded up to his hooves, carrying balloons and wearing considerable frosting across their faces. Apple Bloom and Snips were in the lead, appearing as if they had been competing in a youthful cupcake eating contest of their own. Somehow, most of them had managed to get pink icing all the way up on their foreheads, while Snips sported a gumdrop on the end of his horn.

“Have you seen Miss Cheerilee?” asked Scootaloo. “We wanted to see if she’d help collect grasshoppers tomorrow for Miss Fluttershy’s trout pond as extra credit towards our Biology class, but we haven’t seen her since school was out on Friday.”

“Ah ain’t seen Big Mac since then neither,” said Apple Bloom. “Not since he went over to work on Miss Cheerilee’s leaky pipes.”

“And we only have one more day in the weekend,” said Sweetie Belle. “If Scootaloo doesn’t get some extra credit points for Biology class, she’s going to have to stay after school next week. She could miss getting her cutie mark with us!”

“I know! I know!” shouted Snails, jumping so high that the gumdrop impaled on the end of his horn bounced perilously close to the the changeling’s nose. “Pops can go with us instead. He’s buggy like, and probably knows where all of the good bugs are hiding.”

* * *

While watching the changeling out in the forest clearing, the students whispered to each other in low, hushed tones.

“He’s sure is attracting bugs, Snips,” said Snails.

“I’ve never seen somepony hold that still for so long,” said Sweetie Belle.

“I just wish he’d attract something other than flies,” said Snips with a glance upwards. “And buzzards.”

* * *

“Tomorrow may not be the best time,” said the changeling. “The Royal Guard is taking me back to my hive.”

Stiff as a board and thrown in the back of their wagon to be dumped in some dry and empty gully.

“But they don’t show up until late in the afternoon,” protested Sweetie Belle. “By then, Pinkie Pie normally gets off work and can help us, but she doesn’t like collecting grasshoppers.”

“They bite your lips,” said Apple Bloom. “Snips is too much of a chicken to pick one up with his magic, and Snails just plays with them.”

“They’re very complicated creatures,” protested Snails.

“What about Sweetie Belle?” asked the changeling. “I’ve seen her pick up things with her—”

“They blow up,” said Sweetie Belle morosely. “Or catch on fire. Or both.”

“Oh.” The changeling regarded the circle of plaintive eyes surrounding him and swallowed back a lump. “I suppose. If I’m still around after work tomorrow, I’ll go with you to collect bugs for… What were you doing with them again?”

“We feed them to the trout in Miss Fluttershy’s pond,” declared Snips. “They jump to the surface and grab ‘em as fast as we can dump the jar.”

* * *

”Wow.” The group of students watched in amazement as the last few ripples in the pond calmed down and the still surface of the water reasserted itself. “They just gobbled ‘em up like Pinkie Pie eating popcorn. Do we have any more bugs?”

“One more,” said Twilight Sparkle, hefting the dead changeling in her magic and tossing him out into the pond, where a massive swirl in the water and the flip of one huge fin was the only sign of his demise.

“Ooooo,” said the little students. “That was so cool. Do you think we can find any more changelings?”