Changed

by Dream Seeker

Work First

Rose Bloom awoke hyperventilating. Why didn't I have a problem with this before?! It goes against everything I've ever learned! Lying, stealing, hiding what I am... What am I doing?! he asked himself, angry and confused. I need to turn myself in, and the location of the hive, and tell them everything. Maybe they'll lessen the punishment if I do. she opened her mouth to scream, alerting everypony in town, but a hoof covered it.

"I thought this might happen." Petal Blossom sighed sadly. "In the Hive, your bed has certain... chemical properties. Remember? Nod if you do."

Rose Bloom nodded, her mouth still covered by a hoof.

"That prevented this freakout. I was hoping it wouldn't come, that you had fully adjusted already, but it was too much to hope for. Now, first of all. I have cast the spell to prevent sound from leaving this room. If you told them, you would die." Petal Blossom removed her hoof from Rose's mouth.

"They would never kill a living creature on purpose!" Rose insisted with an angry glare.

"Not on purpose, no. Where would you get your food from? You'd starve to death until you begged them to release you from this world." Petal laughed mockingly. "They would, I've seen it. Changelings rescued from prison, rescued from starving to death. And ponies wonder why Chrysalis did what she did. We were starving to death, and she kept us going. Her methods may have been wrong, but any other path would have taken far too long to get results from. Nopony will love a Changeling within a day of meeting them. They're all afraid that we're life-sucking monsters that kill for fun. We would have starved before we could show them the truth. Now, I'm not asking you to immediately be okay with Changeling life. However, for both our sakes, you should not reveal yourself. Anyway, there is no way to turn you back. You're stuck as you are, would you rather make an enemy out of your only potential supporters, or attempt to befriend ones that will more likely kill you accidentally than help you?"

"I-I guess... When you put it that way..." Rose mumbled, looking at her hooves. "Fine. I'm not happy about it, but I don't want to die, especially not of starvation. What's planned for today?"

Taking down the spell preventing noise, Petal explained that today was for getting jobs. They went downstairs, and found Twilight already awake and... a dragon cooking?!

"W-what's a dragon doing in hear?" Petal asked fearfully. Not even Changelings were fearless.

"Oh, he's Spike, my assistant." Twilight said happily, not noticing Petal's scared tone of voice. "He's much better at cooking breakfast than I am..." she muttered. "Anyway, today I'm going to my friend Rarity's house. She asked me to enchant some gems for her, to make dresses that have various abilities. It seems she took it to heart when I told her that clothing based on function could be a big hit."

"Enchanting gems? I thought it took multiple unicorns to do that." Rose asked questioningly.

"Oh, it does usually! I'm surprised you've heard of it. Most unicorns aren't very interested in magic, especially at your age." Twilight beamed. "Princess Celestia gave me a gift on my birthday recently, a gem that splits channeled magic into two flows, allowing you to enchant a gem with only one unicorn! It even came full of energy, so any energy I put in is doubled when it is split, so-"

Rose interrupted her. "So you don't have to put in double the amount of magic when using it! That's genius! But it takes quite a bit of magic to fill up a gem. I would assume that both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna had to enchant this gem, then? As a joint present from both of them?"

"Exactly!" Twilight looked quite pleased. "You're quite well-versed in magic for one so young. Barely out of school, and already deep into high enchantment theory! You remind me of myself when I was your age." she frowned. "I needed to go out and make some friends. Do you have many friends?"

Rose shifted from side to side a little. "I didn't have any before coming here, actually." she began to smile. "But at that party yesterday, I met some nice fillies, named Sweetie Belle, Applebloom and Scootaloo! They're going to make me into a-" she began inhaling deeply, and Twilight, knowing what was coming, quickly cast a spell to muffle the sound that reached her ears. "CUTIE MARK CRUSADER!" Rose roared, shaking the room slightly. Caught unprepared, Petal did not have her sound-proofing spell up. Her ears were sent ringing, and a few books fell off of the shelves. Twilight winced, some of the sound bled through her hastily-cast spell.

"H-have fun with that..." Petal said weakly and winced, her ears throbbing. "I'll be looking for a job. Twilight, do you know of any good jobs I could get?"

"Uh, I'm not sure, but you could get a position as my library assistant. Pay would be a small gem every day." Twilight said amiably.

"Just know that I'm her number one assistant!" Spike grumbled, receiving a hoof to the head from Twilight for his complaint.

"I'll look for a job, and if I don't find one that looks better, I'll be Twilight's assistant. Not number one assistant, though." she added, noticing Spike's frown.

"Can I go down to Applejack's farm to see what Applebloom and the other Crusaders are up to?" Rose asked excitedly.

Twilight frowned. "I think that school's in right now. However, I have a lot of magical theories and ideas that I'd like to be able to bounce off somepony. While they're in school, can you maybe help me? If you don't know what I'm talking about, I have some books that can help." she added.

"I guess I don't have much better to do. I might need to read a few of those books, but I'd like to help where I can!" Rose said with a smile.

A Few Hours Later

"But if I redirected the magic through a Thaunaumic Core, and transferred the power through iron wires-" Twilight said.

"You would need tier 3 or higher wires, like bronze-" Rose interrupted.

"Bronze, right, through the visible rune-wired spell matrix, then I could direct the power into the gems-"

"You'd need at least 500-"

"Unless we directed the power through local houses and the floor. We could have a functional shield spell that would protect the Crystal Empire from dragons trying to eat the houses!!"

"And powered by the natural energy fields outputted by Crystal Ponies!"

Twilight stopped, her jaw dropping in amazement. "Did I really just have this conversation with a pony barely out of school?" she asked.

Rose blushed furiously. "It wasn't that hard to understand, I just needed to read the books you asked me to."

"College level books!" Twilight insisted. "You're really good at this!"

"Maybe I can get my Cutie Mark for it!" Rose's eyes brightened.

Twilight smiled. "I think you might be right!" she encouraged. Her face dropped. "Uh-oh, I'm late for my meeting with Rarity!" then she grinned. "Wanna come? I'd be proud to cast some enchantments on gems with you!"

"I'm sorry." Rose smiled apologetically. "I promised the Cutie Mark Crusaders that I'd go Crusading with them."

Twilight's grin grew serious. "Okay, just... Try to keep them safe. They have a long history of disasters and accidents... Now, I'll finish up by sending my letter to my brother and Cadence. They'll be pleased to know that their dragon problems are over! And I'll be sure to mention you." Twilight smiled again. "See you later!"

Meanwhile, Rarity was pacing back and forth. It wasn't like Twilight to be late for something so important! She heard the bell on her door ring softly as the door opened to admit a potential customer. Rarity sighed and collected herself, repeating her mantra to herself. The Customer Comes First. she reminded herself. She walked to the door, about to introduce herself, when the visitor spoke first.

"Hello? I'm Petal Blossom, the new pony in town. I was wondering if I could get a job here?" the pony asked, exhausted.

"Of course! Are you... okay? You sound... a little less than well." Rarity asked, trying to get her point across without seeming rude.

"I'm probably not." Petal Blossom blushed. "I've spent the last few hours rushing everywhere, bucking apples off of trees..." her voice drifted off.

"Let's go to the spa, then. We can talk about getting you a job there."

"Oh, but I can't afford it." Petal said softly. "I'm out of bits, that's why I need a job."

"Nonsense!" Rarity insisted. "I'll pay! I have plenty of leftover bits from my last order. I'll just have to reschedule my trip to the spa with Fluttershy from later today to now. We can all go to the spa together!" Rarity smiled.

"Okay. Thanks a lot!" Petal smiled. "I really need to slow down and relax for a while."

"Hey Rarity?" a young pony asked from the stairs. "Can I go Crusading with my friends?" she asked. "We made a new friend yesterday, her name is Rose and we want to give her a Crusader cape!"

"Of course!" Rarity said, smiling. "Have fun!" she called out as Sweetie left in a hurry, carrying an extra Crusader cape in addition to the one she was wearing.

"Rose? She's my daughter!" Petal exclaimed in shock.

"Is she? What a coincidence!" Rarity smiled. "Now, let's go to the spa." she paused. "One moment, I just have to leave a note in case Twilight comes to enchant the gems I wanted enchanted."

"Isn't that important?" asked Petal.

"I can just reschedule it to another day." Rarity said. "It'll be fine. Let's go pick up Fluttershy."

Author's Note:

Did anybody understand the talk about the 'Thaunaumic Core', 'visible rune-wired spell matrix', or redirecting the power through gems? Because that spell matrix would actually work, according to the way I'm making magic work. I have a bonus chapter that explains all of this in my story New Reign. At least, it sort of explains it. A little bit. If anybody has specific questions about this, ask away! I have created fully-functioning magic systems.

I'm going to assume in this story that between S2 EP25-26 and S3 EP1-2, there's only about a week. The Mane 6 have only just returned from defeating Sombra.

Comments

[Dream Seeker]

4713655 another guess? Hmmm... Keep in mind that sometimes I create major plot points based on comments so every prediction you make here is very likely to become part of the story, even if it wasn't before.