Part 6 - Interlude
Last night, little Riley had learned that the information Alex had shown her from the library hadn’t been wrong after all. Just as the Equestrian books said, she could will herself into new forms. The effort was exhausting, and she had very little idea of what she was doing. Yet the instinct was there. With the original pony helpless before her, she had all the time in the world to make sure she got every detail exactly right. The pony who called herself Carol, whose real name was apparently True Sight, had been easy to copy in the end. The body of a changeling was literally built for it.
Transforming for the first time had been almost as wonderful as feeding for the first time, and not just because of how it felt. Imitating Carol, changing hard chitin to soft fur, meant more than just taking another body for herself. If she could do it once, she could do it as often as she had the strength. She didn’t have to be a freak anymore! She could look like somebody normal, and it would be easier for her to get their attention. It would be easier not to go hungry.
Yet her first change had come for good reason: Alexandria contained a danger far more severe than the survivors that had shot at her in St. Louis. As surely as she knew that love was good and pain was bad, she knew that the thing in Alexandria would do far worse than just kill her friends. It would swallow their insides and fill them up with shadow. She wouldn’t be able to feed, then. A shadow could not feel anything, only pretend. How Riley knew this she couldn’t have said, but know it she did. Beings like herself did not hesitate, they acted.
She couldn’t fly into town, much as she wanted to. She didn’t have enough practice with her wings, and anyway Carol’s batlike wings didn’t work the same as her graceful transparent ones. She would have to act without flight.
Not being able to fly wasn’t nearly as strange as being suddenly gigantic. Carol the batpony was taller than Cloudy Skies, at least a foot taller than Riley had been. Not only that, but she felt so strangely adult, mature in ways her young mind didn’t fully comprehend. What little girl hadn’t dreamt of being an adult, and enjoying all the privileges of adulthood? She couldn’t explore her mystical adult powers now, not when there was a city to save.
Perhaps not save. She hadn’t gone into town knowing what the state of things would be, after all. She hadn’t even known for sure if looking like the captured pony would be enough. What if there were secret handshakes Carol was supposed to know? What if the batpony hadn’t really been won over to their cause? What if they planned for changeling infiltrations, and all the secret words she had been told were really code for “Please kill me now!”?
But they hadn’t been. After a ride into town with Cloudy Skies, Riley had bound her wing in the most convincing way she could, smearing it all over with stage blood. Apparently she was a natural at that too, because every pony she saw seemed quite concerned to see her.
Concerned wasn’t quite the right word. They had seemed positively befuddled. Somehow, she knew why that was too. The being that controlled them had its concentration elsewhere. It was mighty, yes, but no god. It was a fallen, disgusting imitation of the real thing. Her sworn enemy without even having to meet. Even when the strangers had first arrived in Alexandria, she had known something was wrong. She had reconsidered attending their first meeting at the last second, choosing to hide in the trailer when she felt the strange twisting in her gut for the first time. She never went out on her own after that, and almost never left the trailer during the day.
That decision had probably saved her life as surely as this one might cost it. She might be dressed up, but she was still going straight into the creature’s den, delivering herself right to the platter. This mission didn’t call for her. It called for… she didn’t really understand. Lesser versions of her? Like limbs she wasn’t afraid of losing. She longed for true versions of the phantom bodies she sometimes felt, and now that she had need of one she positively ached for them. Whatever the strange urge was, it wasn’t granted.
So Riley the Changeling Queen, ever pragmatic, had rolled up her nonexistent sleeves to get the dirty job done herself. At the very least, she could learn more and deliver that information to Alex when she returned from Philadelphia. She would know what to do. Alex always knew what to do, it was as much her nature as needing the attention of ponies was part of Riley’s.
When she had started hearing gunshots, Riley had abandoned the pretext of her injured shamble and galloped for the sound right along with her escort. She knew where they would be going: Alexandria’s library. Yet as she neared it, she felt again at a distance the strange chill that would tear her magic away. It felt awful, like it was turning her body to clay the closer it got. It wasn’t painful exactly, but she recognized the feeling anyway. It was the reverse of what she had felt when she had taken this form.
The HPI vehicles had machines to take magic away. Evidently those machines worked on her magic too, strange brand though it was. She couldn’t approach. With their distraction and her own natural stealth, Riley slipped out of the rush, letting them continue along without her for the library. She dared go no closer than the movie theater, slipping inside and collapsing to pant on the floor.
She had no way of telling Cloudy Skies how she was doing: they hadn’t wanted to risk her bringing anything Carol hadn’t flown out wearing. She probably could have gone much closer to the field before she was actually forced back into her original form. She was far too afraid to take the risk. What would happen to her if she drew Odium’s notice and it sent its puppeted ponies after her again? Cloudy Skies wouldn’t be coming to her rescue this time. Nopony would.
As she thought, a distant explosion shook the city. Without preamble, the anti-magic field and all its horrible implications abruptly vanished from her sensation. She gave caution ten seconds before turning back out the door and galloping the rest of the way. Though she could see little out of place in the direction that was her destination, her strange senses showed her a very different picture.
It was loose. A naked singularity, a great invisible snake that radiated despair and mocked the sanctity of life. She too knew what it was like to be unwelcome in the world. What her body could not produce on its own, she obtained from ponies who could, and that was how she found her place. This being hadn’t even tried to weave itself into the tapestry of life. A dozen different names for the creature flashed through her mind, words she wouldn’t have been able to pronounce as a human. Eventually, she settled on one she could pronounce. Abaddon. Every step she took brought her closer to the light that cast shadows the wrong way, dragging life and strength towards it as black holes drew cosmic gas. Yet against all her expectations, ignoring every instinct, the being did not attack her. It didn’t even notice her!
As she reached the library, she found a warzone. A hole had been blasted in the building, and a huge HPI vehicle like a tank had been torn into pieces and scattered about the street. Ponies had been stunned, ponies lying on the ground or trapped in nets. A few still held guns, or rested near them, yet stood staring off into nothing. Among them she saw Adrian.
She went to him, fleeing to the first pony in all the world that had ever been kind to her. She sensed the dark malice about him like a cloud, swirling around the event-horizon that was Abaddon. It twisted and constricted about him, preventing his movement but little else. It had not dragged him down with it yet, much as it wanted to. The being’s influence was thin around him. Whatever was going on inside evidently required most of its concentration.
She stood right before him, and spoke with Carol’s voice. “Adrian, are you alright? Can you move?” He seemed confused. He looked at her, then through her. One lip nearly quivered, one hoof nearly lifted. Neither did. The weight pressing down on him was too great.
In her few months in Alexandria, Riley had needed to relearn much of how to live. Kindness she had learned from Adrian, who had seen her soul and ignored her body. The importance of knowledge she had learned from Joseph, who had been able to discover the answer to any question. Oliver had taught her to see beauty again in growing things, which looked and felt so strange to her now. Sky had taught her two lessons; that she was a monster, and that she could be something else. Moriah had taught her too, though it had only been by example. She had seen in her that she had the power to decide to be happy, if she wanted to be.
From Alex last of all, Riley had learned. Learned that no sacrifice was too great to save the ones you loved. Instinct whispered other words; caution was always safest. She ought to move slowly, never attract attention, and never take risks. Yet that same instinct came from the part of her that knew Abaddon. The part of her that revolted the souls of the ponies she met. The part of herself that she hated. Riley would not be controlled, she wouldn’t be a doll or a puppet, not even to herself. She would be Riley no matter what the world tried to do.
What was the point of living if you lived in shame? What was the point of having a family if you wouldn’t protect them? The world itself had taken her first family away, and she had been able to do nothing. How could she live with herself if she stood by and let it happen a second time?
Riley pressed her forehead to Adrian, though she knew what she was about to do would draw the attention of the thing her people called Abaddon down upon her. She did so, and didn’t care.
Blacklight did not understand what it was like to be a changeling, not really. She knew from the Equestrian books that she somehow ate emotions. She took something from ponies, something creatures like her couldn’t ever have on their own. It was the very essence of life, since her body could not exist without it. She was not Odium, to blight the world and draw all that was good unto itself to be consumed.
Yet still she consumed. Not this time. This time she gave.
She had to change back to do it. In a flicker of light and green magic, her form began to twist. She felt the strange energy flowing around her, heard the creak of bones and the squelching of fluids in her chest. Fur vanished along with the false cutie marks, and her horn returned. Adrian grew taller and taller before her, and she only reached his chest. All the while instinct screamed she was making the wrong choice, screamed that she was going to get herself killed, that she shouldn’t let anypony see her in her real skin ever again.
She ignored it all. Once she had her fangs, she bit down on Adrian’s chest, hard enough to break the skin. She ignored the coppery taste of blood with the same ease any Queen would, devoting the multitude of her separate conscious threads to reversing the process of her usual feeding. What had always been a subconscious process became quite difficult when going the other way, yet not impossible. She managed in the end.
Where the being called Odium had taken passion from Adrian and left him a shell, the little changeling did the opposite. Through the wound, Riley poured a flood of passionate love more intense than anyone could naturally experience. Pure, concentrated emotion. She felt herself extend then, quite reflexively. Without knowing how she did it, Riley’s consciousness extended in a way it had never done before. While the rest of her was concerned with the physical world, a single fraction saw something else.
A young stallion, gray in flesh and form, lay supine in a desert like old bones. The ground sloped downward, slow but inexorable, and a stone rested not far away from him. The stone had a huge chain wrought of words, running to his hooves and fastening there. Though he resisted, the stone dragged him down with it, further and further from the distant light at the horizon.
Well, he was almost Adrian. Some of his features blurred the difference between human and pony. The shackles never touched skin, but furred flesh where hooves were instead of feet. She watched him reach for the chains with his hooves, only for them to pass through them as though they weren’t there. She watched the color flood back into him. Gray skin going dark mahogany, his face taking on one of his characteristically stubborn expressions. She kept pouring the emotions into him, until the tide of feelings was too great for Odium to suppress.
“What do I do?” he asked.
“Whatever you want.” She reached out, and with their strength together they broke the chains. “You’re free.”
And just like that, he was.
Stats
Page generated in 0.027 seconds
Total duration
998 users online
2,039,339 hits today, 2,004,447 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I think we might have just read about the most powerful pony of the whole lot.
That was intense. Changelings (at least the queens) seem to have stronger and somewhat more useful instincts than the other transformees to far. A genetic memory (to borrow more Stargate terminology) or understanding of sorts? And no wonder Odium hates changelings. Some of the strongest forms of hate are grounded in fear.
I'm thinking this ability suggests why Philadelphia was attacked instead of mind-controlled. I guess there was a changeling (queen?) in the group who had managed to make a place for themselves there.
Pretty awesome sentiment. She's really had to grow up quite fast, hasn't she?
Nice job Riley! I bet she's going to have more supporters after this
I'm not sure if it says more about me or about this story that, when I saw Riley coming on a rescue mission when unbeknownst to her things had more or less been solved, my first instinct was that it would make things worse for the next story somehow (like Odium would manage to hide in her subconscious or something).
But this was sweet.
And now we have a Changeling who is swapping standards.
I'll leave more thoughts on the story when the last chapter comes along.
6378253
And she has to somehow do this exact same thing to everyone in Alexandria bar Alex herself...
Odium sucked them dry, and Riley has to fill that void...
That's what? Over a dozen at least?
Night Speaker had the bulk of his cult waiting outside town for the takeover signal didn't he?
Wow! That last part was beautiful. I am always excited to read each new chapter!!
*signs up for the Queen Riley fanclub*
Apart from being a very nice chapter, your descriptions of how the mind of a changeling queen works are fantastic. So far I've taken this 100% as my new headcanon. The addictive feeling of changing, the already felt absence of extensions, e.g. drones to hatch. The immensely powerful ability to absorb and then control and distribute emotions. The whole decoupling and parallel processing ability.
Her mind can be a fever dream or a spreadsheet or both simultaneously.
Either kill her now or make sure she's a beloved member of society, you may not get a chance to reconsider your approach later down the line.
On edit: That picture!!! Wow.
Heh! In this, we get to see something I had hoped to, how deeply rooted the instincts of a queen are. And how potent they can be directed rightly.
Yessss...
YES.
Go Riley!
I can't see the phrase "naked singularity" without thinking of this …
I'm sorry.
Riley is the Metroid Hatchling ( The Baby!) to Adrian's Samus Aran.
And that is why it is best to befriend the monsters who are amenable to such tactics. They're people too. Often far more powerful people than average. And while a few drones here and there may be expendable, it is a queen's duty to step up when the survival of the entire hive is on the line.
Also, another cool psychic combat scene. Very nice.
6378278
And once Odium is destroyed, then what?
Okay, kids, the line to hug Riley forms behind me.
Expect a long wait.
YEAH GO RILEY! I love it all!
Whelp, that seems like a pretty good reason why Odium hates changelings. They can directly counter his control.
I'd like to say I called the "Carol was Riley in disguise" thing, but I feel like everybody had guessed pretty early on.
6379041 Yup Changelings clearly posed the greatest threat to Odium's plans, that will sure earn our resident queen some good rep she is after all the ultimate defense against evil possessing spirits and Odium might not be the only one that slipped through to our world.
GO RILEY! WOO!
Riley. Hero, Changeling Queen, and founding member of the new 'Beatles'...
"All you need is love..."
Great Riley interlude. Again, the main draw here was how you showed her thought process and the subtle ways it differs from humans' and ponies': from her feelings when transforming, the the instinctual need of a hive, to what she had learnt from every
onepony else in the Herd, using her pony name given by Sky, to her battle against her own changeling queen instincts.The EqG-ish way Alex looked in the last chapter might be one thing but did you really have to turn Adrian anthro?????
Hey Zutcha, if you're reading this, I'd really like it if we could get a picture of what Alex used to look like as a human before the collapse. I've seriously been wondering about that. And, Starscribe, If you read this comment first, please pass on the word.
6378657
The hint is that most of Odium's minions are hollow meat puppet slaves, sucked dry of their own will...
Adrian was being dragged into the dark... and the rest of the cult members seem to have finished that fall already consumed by Odium and its presence... except Abrams... who was the token non pony... which, given the mindscape imagery, made him resistant to Odium...
If Riley can fix that by filling in the resultant void, it's going to take a while... her love stockpile is rather finite at this time. And even it it's not, she still has to do it one on one, and one by one.
Just because Odium is about to get a practical lesson the third rail doesn't mean the hollow hole he made will be magically healed.
It would kinda be a let down if it is...
...better if it leaves them dazed, confused, and lost till Riley and Alex give them a will and purpose once more.
At least it would logically dull the trauma of what horrors they committed...
...and cement Riley as an accepted, and exalted, member of Alexandria by deed.
Alex slays their demon, Riley heals their souls.
But that just my observation, supposition and opinion...
(Just because the Mirari was gone, didn't mean its damage was fixed.)
6379442
I don't know about Riley but Pinkie Pie was in the Beatles.
img00.deviantart.net/f95d/i/2015/181/f/9/pinkie_pie_and_the_three_beatles_by_smoothcriminalgirl16-d8zekje.png
6379809
No.
6378832
Wait, the pony or the other art?
Either way is awesome!
It seems Riley... I won't use 'Blacklight' yet because, if I read this correctly, she's refusing to be Blacklight, at least in the terms Cloudy Sky thinks the name applies... is getting greater and greater control over her powers. It is clear that whatever Odium is to the Changelings, it is something very old and possibly very dark. Could the Changelings have been magically engineered (possibly by Star Swirl, that great but amoral master of magic) to fight these shadow-wraiths?
Only time will tell if Riley will forever be able to restrain the instinct to be a scorpion. It seems that her friends have started her along the right path to resist these urges. However, it is a war that Riley can only ever lose or keep at a stalemate, never win.
6378222
The all have; this brave new world that they have inherited leaves them with no other choice.
Riley continues to be fairly alien, but talk about a situation where it was the exact right sort of alien.
That bit about her phantom bodies was especially interesting. Makes me wonder how much the changeling drones are separate sapient beings and how much they're direct extensions of the queen in question.
Hell. Yeah.
I kinda figured transparent bug wings would be the lowest tier in regards to grace, but then what do I know about wings? Not much, I'll tell you that!
6383358
Well, insect wings allow for very controlled hovering which could be considered more graceful than the flapping of feather-adorned sticks of flesh and bones