Just Another Rogue: of Shadows

by Tattered Ribbon

A Punch in the Gut

Ribbon awoke from a restless sleep. One of her Chitin plates was starting to itch and she knew it would only get worse, she needed to nip it in the bud before it really started to itch and waiting for it to shed would be murder. No she needed to break it off.

After asking one of the maids if she can eat in her room and taking a shower, she grabbed the knife she brought with her, and she slowly and carefully etched a line in the lower plate.

After a few minutes of agony she heard a knock on her door. If she put on a disguise it would itch more and she couldn’t let anypony see her like this. “Don’t come in!” ’Please don’t be the Princess’

“Ribbon, calm down. it’s me Chitsuki!”

a brief moment of silence to decide if she could trust Chitsuki, but then she already knew about Ribbon didn’t she. With a quite. “Ok, come in quick.” she move to the side so anypony in the hall could see her.

Chitsuki in the doorway it only just now dawned on her that she had a knife in her hoof and clearly Chitsuki saw it because the first words she spoke was “The buck are you doing?!”

Ribbon pointed at the large scratch on her body. “I need you hit me right here.”

“Whhhhhy?”

“I need you to break my plate so it will grow.” Ribbon said with growing urgency to get the itching to stop.

She complied, winding up and giving Ribbon a solid hit. the plate moved, finally getting jarred loose, except the hit left Ribbon wheezing.

“CRUD! That was a bit too hard, wasn’t it?”

Ribbon coughed a couple times before replying. “Maybe, not that hard.” With the plate of Chitin now loose, she grabbed it with her magic and carefully set it on fire to get rid of it. Chi seemed confused by the act.

“Why are you doing that?”

“I can’t just leave it here.” If some guard were to find it, well, she’d rather not think about it. Knowing what she going to say next. “And don’t worry about the fire.” Knowing she was going to ask.

“B-but you, SET. IT. ON. FIRE.”

"Changeling fire only burns us. we use it for transformations, attacks and getting rid of evidence." Chitsuki throws her forehooves into the air, clearly aggravated by the lack of sense this apparently made to her.

"Changeling fire only burns us... Did you mean to say it like that, because it seems to make little sense.”

"No I said that right 'It burns us' but it doesn't hurt us, try going hoof to hoof with somepony who can set themselves on fire."

"Okay, now it sounds awesome. but wouldn't that much light make you a sniper magnet?"

"What's a sniper?"

"Someone who attacks from extremely long ranges, usually aiming at targets of strategic importance, like commanding officers or enemy snipers" That didn’t sound too familiar to Ribbon, most Changelings resort to espionage.

"Whoever manages to do that must be very lucky or has especially good accuracy with a bow"

She stares at Ribbon "A bow... Snipers don't use a bow, they take you out from over a mile away with a sniper rifle!"

"Again what's a Sniper rifle. The most I've ever seen a pony use is a cross-bow and those are illegal."

"Basically they use gunpowder, you know what gunpowder is right?" Now Ribbon knew what she was trying to say, A griffon firearm. Those are beyond illegal, more so than any cross-bow. Perhaps she should play dumb.

“Yea good for making small bombs, not real useful through."

“Basically they use gunpowder to propel small bits of metal at ludicrous speeds, ripping a hole in the other guy, usually through the head." ’How, Violent.’

"That sounds... very messy. wouldn't it be easier to teleport a vial of poison into his chest?"

"That sounds pretty energy intensive though, all you need to do is point and pull the trigger and BOOM, other guy’s dead with his brains all over the place." How can a Pony say that so easily. Then again, she already found out this mare is insane.

"And what if he's wearing a helmet?"

"I dont think that would protect him from a pointy object traveling faster than the speed of sound, and beside, why teleport poison if you can teleport explosives and turn the guys ribcage into shrapnel, potentially getting multiple enemies. Can you think of the mass amount of panic it would cause in their ranks if their comrades started randomly exploding?”

Ribbon took moment before replying, wondering if she should tell the guards how violent Chitsuki is. "That maybe so, but getting attention is the last thing I want. I have to be careful, low profile, out of the way. I did tell you before we're eaten by some and starved by the rest." If she did tell the guards, would Chitsuki tell them about her? One mistake, and she has the worst possible dirt on me

"Stealth was never my strong point, I always focused on taking the other guy out in fastest most efficient way possible." She paused, as if having a thought "Although psychological warfare, that I had some brilliant ideas about."

Ribbon tilted her head. "I don't know really anything about psychological warfare, I was just a scout, whistle blower and if need be? the one to get caught." Guilt trip her!

"I'm guessing the queen decides that you've gone rogue if you get caught, giving her plausible deniability?"

"Normally we don't, but Scouts are mostly used as cannon fodder, we die so others don't have too" Ribbon stares at the ground, depressed. "I didn't like being hatched as a scout. though, it pays to be as fast as you can be if you’re a Changeling, and scouts are the fastest." She seemed conflicted with herself.

Chitsuki suddenly got up, walked over and Hugged her. "Confound you Ribbon, why must you be so adorable!?"

Ribbon blushed green "Adorable!? I'm not adorable I'm a love sucker!" Too Much guilt trip!

Ribbon struggled a little before giving up, she couldn't escape the hug. When she stopped she heard a rustling sound, like feathers and took a peek around Chitsuki’s back but couldn’t see the door. A moment later Ribbon snickers realizing why. “You, uh, having a little trouble?”

Chitsuki put Ribbon back down. “What do you mean?” Ribbon points behind her.

She took a second to look behind her. “Quite. Now how the nuggets do I get these back down?!”

Ribbon speaks with slight disbelief in her voice, curious if this ever happened to her before. "You never had this happen before? Uh just calm down."

She takes deep breaths, as her wings slowly return to their folded position… “Let us never speak of this again.”

"That would be best. You probably don't want others to know you have jolly's for Changelings" She seemed to freeze at that. Ribbon couldn’t resist poking fun at the Alicorn for making her Blush.

Putting on a poker face worthy of royalty, but emitting a lot of mirth, She voiced her opinion. “I am neither pleased, nor displeased, by this occurrence.”

They stare at each other, before laughing at the awkwardness of this insanity. Upon recovering from her laughing fit, Ribbon voiced her curiosity. “So, what did you come to see me for?”

"I wanted to get to know you better."

Ribbon was slightly surprised. What more did she want to know? “What did you want to know?”

“When we first met, why did you flip out like I was Death itself?”

“Stories of Nightmare Moon being a cannibal.” stated matter of factly.

She nods. “Yeah, that would makes sense. Although, I’m curious, what is it like being a Changeling?”

"Not much different then you really. Hated by all, looks terrifying, except we’re also hunted."

She seemed to stop and think. before deciding on what to say. “So how badly would you want to overthrow this Chrysalis, and bring the empire ‘under new management.’”

"None. Chrysalis still needs to have a princess to pass the crown."

It was about this time Ribbon seemed to notice something, and hesitantly asked, “Hey, have uh… you been feeling extra tired today?”

“Not at all, why?”

“Oh, uh. No reason.”

Chitsuki however, had other ideas. Ribbon was suddenly blindsided by wave of suspicion come from Chitsuki, and Ribbon couldn’t help but flinched at the foul smell.

"I thought so... it explains why ponies would fear you, and why you are so skittish all the time... and why you would infiltrate a pony society, unless they have something that you can’t acquire normally. But it makes no difference to me."

Ribbon ignored Chitsuki and started panicking. "NO, WAIT! Its not like I snuck into your room to feed on you, I don't do that like the others!"

"Huh? No! I didn't mean it like that, I'm saying that I don't mind if you feed on my emotions! I know that you don't really want to, but you need to do it to survive, don't you? I can't blame you for that." The suspicion from earlier was replaced with compassion.

Ribbons eyes widened and confused, why wouldn’t she be? An Alicorn freely showing her emotions and doesn’t care if their taken. “Y-you don't care that I'm f-feeding off your love?"

“And besides, do you really like ‘feeding’ on ‘love’?” Chitsuki implied, even do air quotes with her forehooves.

Ribbon grins. “It tastes different from pony to pony.” ’Her friendship tastes like frozen blueberries.’ Despite her thoughts Ribbon know what she was implying.

Chitsuki seems to smile “Finally someone who understands my sense of humor!”

"Changelings aren't really hatched with a sense of innocence."

“So anyway, i’m curious, Is that transformation thing a spell, or an inherent ability of your race?”

"I think it's both, since I haven't seen a unicorn do anything close to it. But I can't be sure, I don't have access to that knowledge anymore."

"Can you try to explain to me how you do it? Because I REALLY want to see if I can do it."

"Build up some power, the bigger or smaller I need to be the more power I need, picture what I want to look like and release."

Chitsuki closed her eyes with a look of concentration. As she seemed to dissolve into a cloud of Miasma before it began taking the form of something else. What emerged from the Miasma was a horrible mockery of a changeling, it was bipedal, standing even taller than Chrysalis. Its forelimbs looked like some kind of amalgamation of mantis claws instead of forelegs. Its wings seemed to be a fusion of a Pegasi’s and a Changeling’s. Ribbon simply stood there, trying to move as little as possible.

It opened its eyes. “Wha- holy feathers my voice is bucked up!” its multi toned voice seemed to echo off the walls. It took a moment to take in its surroundings, before looking at its forelimbs, a look of shock appearing on its face near immediately after. “Okay, exactly how badly did I Buck up?”

“A lot?” Ribbon honestly couldn't think of any other way to describe it.

It immediately runs into Ribbon bathroom and stares at its reflection in the mirror. "Holy feathers, I look awesome! I am sooo gonna reuse this at some point."

As it admires its reflection it realize something. "Now how the heck do I undo this?"

Ribbon pipes up. "Remember what you looked like before."

it closed it’s eyes, and seemed to dissolve much more rapidly this time, reforming back into Chitsuki’s body. She opened her eyes and shook her head. "Darn, now I know how a rubber band feels."

"I've never felt like that before just uh, warm. That also looked a lot different too, doing it my way -which I'm surprised worked- may not be everything you have to do."

There was a flash of bright light followed by apparently nothing. Chitsuki and Ribbon talk and practiced her transformation before something finally occurred to Chitsuki. “Ribbon, why are we standing on the ceiling? and why is everything colored purple and blue?”

Author's Note:

So here's the next chapter, point out any mistakes. And as always(yes there's an 'always' now) please feed the hungry authors by leaving a comment.

Comments

[rainbowPOOTIS]

are you a wizerd? Fryiozen blueberrys are my favriot food!

Also you might need to swap a few 'ing's and 'ed's