Part 1 - Interlude
August 25, 2015
Dear Journal,
Our latest salvage operation to St. Louis ended better than I could’ve predicted! No rabid animal attacks this time, and as a matter of fact nopony even needed their rifles. I wish we didn’t have to keep them with us so often, but until we get better with our powers… better to have a gun and not need it, right? I’d be dead like three times now if I hadn’t learned how to shoot.
We found everything we’d planned to bring back in the city. Two new motor-homes for Alexandria’s thriving trailer park. It’s funny, I had no idea RVs were made with this level of luxury before the Event. Oliver’s has a balcony. Whatever. I want to live in a house with a balcony!
When I was younger, we went to Newport Beach once. I’m not sure how Mom paid for the hotel; I think it was a friend’s reservation or something. I sat on the balcony and watched the ocean for hours; fell asleep out there. Woke up with mosquito bites all over my face, because of course that was my luck. I wonder if mosquitoes would try to bite me if I slept outside in northern Illinois.
Aside from the two RVs, we also brought the truck we loaded last time, the one we filled from the Tesla dealership. Okay, so it was mostly floor models; but we’d already known that Tesla had problems with stock. Shame their headquarters was so close to Los Angeles… it’s probably ashes now. I used to love driving by their showroom in LA.
Batteries do not live forever, and the batteries in electric cars like these will not be easy to replace. Tesla vehicles are so specialized that I know very little about how to repair them. My garage wouldn’t touch them, so I never really got to tinker. This means the transport truck full of them we brought back with us is only a stopgap measure; eventually we’ll need to make biodiesel of our own. With so many dead vehicles, it’s likely we could keep a few running from spare parts for a century if we had a way to preserve a few dozen vehicles we aren’t using.
So that makes the final inventory: -1 sedan, +2 RVs, +1 auto transport truck and contents, +1 luxury pickup, +1 cargo truck. 60 kw additional weatherized solar panels, 10 boxes assorted digital media, 1 freaky bug.
Our next trip will be in three days, though I think Adrian’s going to be sitting out. Next mission: deep cycle batteries. Joseph’s computer magic indicates there is a shipping crate full of said batteries waiting in a warehouse to be shipped out west. There’s a catch, though. They’re dry batteries (actually, this is good for us, kinda), which means they haven’t been filled yet. St. Louis also has several chemical plants. We’ll have to fill a transport truck with sulfuric acid of the correct concentration, without melting our hooves off.
You might ask; why the hell are you doing something so stupid, Alex? Aren’t there auto shops and golf carts all over the world with batteries already filled and ready to go? Why melt your face?
Yes, I answer. That’s just the problem. I’m thinking long-term, baby! Batteries are all about chemical reactions. It takes acid to get the reaction going. No acid in the battery, and it won’t degrade. We can keep them in storage for decades if we want. Fill them up, and they’ll be ready to accept a charge like we’d just picked them up at the store, even if the stores are all gone.
The more I think about it, the less this sounds like a good idea. Getting the acid now, I mean. It’s not like it’s going to keep. Manufacturing sulfuric acid isn’t actually that complicated. I read up on the process during the drive back. Okay, listened up. Whatever, same thing. Taking this drive half a dozen times doesn’t make it more fun than it was the first time. I’m discovering a newfound love for audiobooks (public libraries often have tons, did you know that?). I prefer the nonfiction ones. My life is fantasy enough without reading fiction.
Probably another fuel truck, maybe another RV or two during our next trip. We’re running out of time. We could get snow in as little as two months, which means the more often we travel now, the better. I don’t expect too much to decay in a single year, but once winter comes… we’re not going to be able to travel very easily. I would like to have enough stocked locally that we can keep working (weather permitting) through the cold months. I think we’re well on-track. We’d be closer if Joseph took driving lessons a little more seriously.
So I finally got someone to come with me to the St. Louis City Museum! If you’ve been reading, you know it isn’t a museum at all, but a gigantic indoor playground. It’s a playground the same way old chemistry sets used to be in the fifties, with little vials of acid and real uranium in every box! I learned this a little… too personally. The building is divided into several different sections, each of which is large enough for a human adult but would probably be much more comfortable for a child.
We heard something when we got there, Adrian and I. It was a child crying, probably just a filly (she was just a filly, but we didn’t know it yet). Adrian’s faster and better about getting around in tight spaces, so I lost him pretty quickly. I think I must’ve got turned around somewhere in the dark, because I sprinted into a part of the playground that was still under construction.
Holy crap was it unsafe. Power tools just sitting there, rusty metal bars just sticking out of the ground at chest level, some pretty sharp from where they’d been cut. I know I’ve never worked construction, but there’s no chance in hell this place would’ve passed any kind of inspection. I guess the most fun places usually were that way.
It’s fine, though. It hurt less than last time. I’m taking some penicillin to be safe, but I don’t think I’ll get anything. I was up with all my shots before it happened. As usual, nopony noticed, I made sure of that. I cleaned up pretty good before I went looking for Adrian. It wasn’t as though he was going to get hurt finding a kid somewhere locked up in the building. He could wait for me to find some water and clean up. I went through the building much slower the second time.
The others hadn’t really gone far, and I waited outside for them to find me before I went in. Yeah, sight and sound. Yeah, I set a bad example. It made sense, okay! I didn’t like the idea of risking any of the others might make my mistake. Found Adrian upstairs. Just like I thought, he’d found the kid.
There’s no getting around this; she’s something weird. When I first saw her, I felt afraid. Kinda like I did with the HPI, but not the same. More like… what I’d fear for a wolf. It was like being near a predator. I could see she had fangs so that makes sense I guess. I’m not sure what I would’ve done if Adrian hadn’t been there to stop me. Probably run away. Ponies like to run away. It’s in our genes.
Adrian stopped me, and with his help I saw that she wasn’t some predator at all, she was another human left behind, another person whose life was completely screwed up by the Event. She got double-screwed… while her sex and age seems to have remained the same, she’d become a species that regular ponies find disturbing and dangerous! She seems to be a very different kind of life than ordinary ponies. Like seeing a spider, but way worse.
Picture… the biggest, ugliest bug. Lots of thick armor bits, wings, gross stuff… now make it almost as big as you are (and would’ve been as big, if she wasn’t a kid). That’s Riley, Riley the bug.
Riley is also a 12-year-old little girl, one without the slightest clue what she’s become or why. She’s an innocent child who has done nothing wrong. Yet other ponies have abandoned her in the city. We aren’t the first to pass through. Some even tried to hurt her if her story is true, but she ran away.
So what is her story? Apparently she was with her class on a field trip, spending the night in the museum. Next thing she knew, she was alone… you get the rest. She thinks she’s been alone in there for a few weeks, but she can’t tell us exactly how long. She doesn’t keep a diary. She said she ate food from the cafe downstairs, which I believe. There was so much rotten food up there, and all of it looked like it’d been stolen from someplace like that. Pretty disgusting, really.
A little kid was left alone to fend for herself, in a world she thought hated her for nothing she did. She was forced to eat rotting food and live in a scary room full of taxidermied animals. Well, maybe not forced. She could’ve left and lived anywhere. But she’s a kid, and anyway we might not have found her otherwise. We don’t have some magical pony-senses, we don’t have any way of tracking down the ponies who don’t make tons of light and sound or don’t come to us. She didn’t really, but by sheer chance, we happened to want to visit the same building she did.
Maybe there’s a lesson there. We can better anticipate where we’ll find other survivors by making sure they want something at a place we can find. I guess that makes sense. That’s Moriah’s logic about the library. And I can understand for now. I’m sure we’ll be able to change that once we’ve got copies made of every book. The sooner we get that knowledge working in the world, the better.
The others are… let’s just say “less than enthusiastic” about her. Cloudy Skies is scared out of her mind, won’t get within twenty feet of her no matter how many people tell her it’s safe. Moriah thinks that her story doesn’t check out, says that it’s possible she’s actually older and that she’s got some nefarious plan in mind. Oliver says she looks like she’s dangerous, and there are things about her biology he can tell can’t be good for us. He’ll still talk to her and pretend to be nice, which is good. Joseph was actually the kindest, he just seemed ambivalent and disinterested in her.
I don’t understand how the others can treat a little girl this way. She’s the freakiest thing I’ve seen in my whole life, but since when is that her fault?
Riley didn’t want to leave at all that night, so Adrian stayed the night with her. I was a little nervous about it, but it’s been long enough that the predator population in cities has plummeted pretty sharply. Might as well enjoy the respite before all the natural predators like wolves and stuff move in and fill the void, right? Adrian didn’t want to leave the girl, so I did my work preparing our vehicles alone.
Spent the night in our outpost of course, nothing eventful there. I wish Joseph and Moriah would keep it down sometimes. I can’t wait to see the look on her face when she ends up pregnant. I’ll draw it, see if I don’t!
Adrian spent the night convincing the girl to come with us. She was afraid of all sorts of things, her family coming back and missing her chief among them. We delivered the hard news, and Adrian and I drove her to her old house. She knew where to find it. Nothing was there. You know the drill.
While she was packing some old things, I snagged a picture of her from the wall. We’re going to have a meeting about her tomorrow, once she goes to bed. I’m gonna bring the picture, so they can see.
Nobody mentioned bugponies during my week tour in Equestria. I didn't see anything like her, or else running into her wouldn't have been so startling. But if they're in the transformation spell, I bet they're in the library too. Something to look into tomorrow as well. Adrian’s furious. I bet he would’ve left Alexandria if I wasn’t here to calm him down.
Riley is going to be living with him for the time being. He suggested she live with me, but she didn’t want to, and I’m ashamed to say I was glad. I know she’s just a kid, I know she’s safe and everything, but… I’ll sleep better at night with just Cloudy Skies in my "house".
Of course, there is another serious concern with Adrian, one we didn't mention to him but everypony was thinking. His wing. We all saw it, what he'd been keeping covered for all this time. He let it get bad. It was all I could do to keep Oliver from grabbing him right there. In the interests of sanity, and not separating him from bugpony, I got him to wait until we got back to Alexandria. Tomorrow, after our meeting, we're staging a medical intervention. We will not let Adrian's wing kill him.
-Lonely Day (not the loneliest!)
![https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/qo5yq7nrhj5rxy0/8f62a4b444ee2ca8097425520007a8e95c5cc353.png[/img]](https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/qo5yq7nrhj5rxy0/8f62a4b444ee2ca8097425520007a8e95c5cc353.png[/img]){kind=link}
It's hard to draw her as scary as she looks. I couldn't really do it, but I did my best!
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Joe was the nicest
well, that is a first
I still anticipate Oliver giving him a solid knock on the head or joe holding him down if he tries to bolt
media4.popsugar-assets.com/files/2014/03/09/235/n/1922283/b57599a97c1a4e44_intervention.jpg.xxxlarge/i/Intervention.jpg
Intervention time
Damn pony instincts, those suck.
And Cloudy is simply embracing pony too much, so the instincts turn on her too quickly.
... and Moriah is a conspiracy theorist, as if I needed another reason to hate her... oh, and please Alex, get that picture.
That is a very, very bad drawing of a scary thing :)
Enjoying this greatly.
So, is it the passive love feeding or just the fangs that are scaring them? Either way, nice to see that not everyone in the group is treating her bad. (I'm looking at you Moriah...) Cloudy, hopefully, won't get as bad as the flower girls, but she has been skittish for a long while.
And more power to you Oliver! Adrian is in desperate need of a hoof to the noggin and a bed with straps to hold him down while you treat him.
6226705
I'm glad to see someone else is on my frame of mind
Patient consent be damned the Hippocratic oath must be upheld
Wonder how having an Empathic/Emotivorous shapeshifter will go.
Looking at Riley's eyes, she's a queen-caste changeling. I have no idea if they need a mate or if they're born able to lay eggs that become drones, soldiers an the like. I've got a nasty feeling that our intrepid ponies are going to find out one way or the other. I also think that her empathivoric nature is going to become apparent in a nasty way too.
Not out of any active malice on Riley's part, of course. In the end, she's a scorpion (Changeling). That's what they do.
So Alex doesn't know about Riley's species. And Luna not mentioning that was huge oversight on her part.
Edit: The picture in this chapter isn't a link to a higher resolution picture.
Can't really imagine how absolutely awful it must be to be able to sense emotions in a post-apocalyptic world. Where, on top of that, almost everyone else instinctively hates or is terrified of you.
Becoming aware of what she actually is and that she has to feed on those who rescued her in order not to starve is not going to improve that. Pretty sure changelings don't have a 'vegetarian option' on the menu.
I wonder how the HPI are going to react to her existence; that should be interesting.
Also, intervention time. Finally.
Moriah and Adrian just might end up having something in common thanks to his own stupidity...
Interludes like this work well I think. Good idea.
Riley isn't scary, she's adorable. Then again I really do think some real life bugs are cute, so I probably have a skewed perception on the matter.
I see Joseph and Moirah have gotten... "comfortable" in their new forms.
Though I imagine she's "safe" until estrus hits.
6226671 I'm as surprised as you about Joseph. Bonus points for second-least-favorite-pony-to-Wolf, I suppose.
6226908
And his reaction was apathy basically
OK, they better all star being nice to poor Riley, she has gone through enough. Hopefully the ponies of Earth can have better pony changeling relations then the ones in Equestria. Also, I see the Sunset Shimmer tag is now gone, Starscribe you tease!
Medical interventions, more Equestrian didn't-think-this-all-the-way-through-isms, and goddammit Jo and Mo.
6226822
The HPI? Well, seeing as the entire planet already kills them by just existing, I don't think they'll be anything beyond mildly intrigued.
Uhhhh... Alex? By scary you mean adorable right?
Why was this chapter written in a journal style??? I thought we weren't gonna do that for this story.
I just looked it up and it turns out that the St. Louis City Museum is a real place.
planetware.com/photos-large/USMO/missouri-st-louis-city-museum.jpg
farm7.static.flickr.com/6175/6158638251_f8deea4f56_b.jpg
regenaxe.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/city-museum-10-story-slide.jpg
media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/02/32/5c/31/view-on-the-roof.jpg
Alex has a point. How the buck is that place even legal??? Although, I have a question about this part.
I've never been to that place before so I have no Idea what it's like. Has anyone been to that giant playground before??? That seriously doesn't sound like the kind of thing people should let kids play around in. I was wondering if this part about the half finished construction is true or not.
No rabid animal attacks makes it better than usual? This is a more dangerous trip than I realized.
An unusual trip by many standards.
Audiobooks are indeed an excellent resource.
Alex get hurt by rusty metal, hides the evidence and tells noone. She fits right in with Adrian and his wing.
In spite of the possibilities inherent in finding a changeling, I'm actually inclined to believe her story. I'm not sure I buy the idea of someone who has been a changeling for only a few months gaining enough expertise with her powerset to pull off the required foal-esque appearance.
Oooo, seems even more likely now that she's on the level.
Good.
6226742
You don't know anything about Changelings in this setting, why are you writing them off like this? There is no evidence that there is sinister aspects like being a scorpion would be 'obvious'. Ponies have instinctual fear of them, in the same way animals avoid coral snakes to the point where there is a species of snake that attempts to copy the pattern. Doesn't mean it's a correct fear, and this may be the case of a self-fulfilling prophecy if everyone treats the Changelings bad for no reason, what do they expect her to do to survive?
6227183 That is awesome!
I like this, a playing catch-up for everything that's happened from another character's perspective. Works great.
And nice to know canonically it's still Alex giving us these drawings.
Also I keep comparing Riley to the Riley from the recent Pixar movie, Inside Out. Ya know what? Screw it. I'm saying they're the same girl according to my headcanon.
6226673
At least she would get along pretty great with Lyra. "conspiracy theorist" is pretty much her entire character.
Well, Alex still has her head on straight. That's good.
Oliver's opinion on the matter is fairly reasonable, although still kinda a dick move.
Moriah... Why you gotta be so pessimistic? I mean, yeah, the world ended, yeah, everybody went poof, yeah, you lost your original body... Oh. I'll stop now.
Cloudy... Calm down. She's not going to kill and eat you.
Points to Joe though, for being pretty much apathetic. The day when apathy is the best reaction given is a sad day, though.
At least they all finally see what's up with Adrian's wing. I mean seriously, you've got a doctor on hand, but you let your wing fester? Why? It's not like they'd refuse to help you, Adrian. Why couldn't you have just asked for help sooner?
6227213
I thought of that too! Wonder how the emotions are reacting...
You know that moment when you see the picture of Riley in this story... yeah, and you look at it, and cant help but clutch your chest.
...
SO. MUCH. D'AWWW
P.S. why so mean to Riley
))
P.P.S. I assume the mares still have heat to look forward to, so i can almost expect a pregnant moriah by the sounds of it... (heh, sounds... terrible pun intended (what is my life
It's not picture of Riley but I found a pretty good example of how changelings are ugly as f***!!!!!! Hope this helps the ponies reactions to her make more sense.
orig02.deviantart.net/201c/f/2012/120/2/1/chrysalis_the_dark_queen_by_ziom05-d4y2gye.jpg
6227254 heh kind of makes the whole Bon Bon spy thing rather Ironic. The conspiracy theorist and the conspirator living under the same roof.
6227213 I did the same thing with her. XD
I don't like that people think Riley is evil because she's a changeling. Chrysalis was the embodiment of everything wrong about the Changelings, and cast them in a poor light. Changelings can be beautiful if you give them a chance to!
The way the population of Alexandria is responding to her is not unusual, but also a little... strange, given what they've been turned into. I hope that Alex can find something in her saddlebags to show the rest of the town that this is another normal type of pony and nopony should be afraid of her, and welcome her into the fold. She's only 12, for Luna's sake. I would hate to be alone and lost without my parents or friends.
6227286 Oliver at this point would try to strangle him for letting it get that bad LOL
Nice to hear from Day again.
Jeez, they must've been really loud if they could've been heard from seperate RV's and such.
6227150
This is an interlude written by Lonely Day (A.K.A. Alex) so i'm assuming that we'll only have chapters written this way during interludes.
If it helps, the author's note at the bottom written by Starscribe states:
6227254
Don't forget 'best friend' of secret agent Bon Bon , and human fetish-er.
I just had this horrible mental image of Joseph and Moriah as parents.
6224976
That sounds like a very, very good idea. I would be surprised if they don't do something similar. Sooner, that is, rather than later.
6226054
I don't think he's talked about minecraft, but he did play Skyrim in the last story! Now Pokemon... Can't say I'd know what to do without them either, though I think the thing I'd be saddest about giving up would be my ability to type and write. Hooves and mouths just can't compete with fingers.
6226673
She did! Get the picture, that is. She'll use it, as soon as she gets the chance to hold the meeting.
6226690
Alex did her best! She's juts... a pony, without magic or any other convenient way to draw.
6226737
You won't have to wait very long to find out!
6226742
Indeed. Riley is dangerous to ponies, there's just no getting around that. She eats what they produce. She might be a queen, might be bringing tons more changelings into the world before too long. The question is, can they work together? Changelings might be a wonderful ally! If... the situation can be correctly managed. Maybe caring for her as a child will be an advantage there. Assuming nobody kills her first, that is.
6226764
Yeah, there is no higher resolution version of this one. X.x
6226822
I'm glad you think the interlude worked out! I felt like prose wasn't really that... fast, for conveying information about a developing colony. Given that, I thought I could wrap things up each week with one of these little journals. Throwback to the old format, for speed, and to get a glimpse of our protagonist and all the ways she's changed. I have a few other ideas for interludes, so we'll see if the future sections are all journals, or I end up doing something else. We'll just have to see.
6226843
We're also human, we don't have the right instincts to be afraid. That's the cruel irony here. If Riley wasn't brimming with magic, she could probably waltz right into the HPI bunker and get nothing but hugs and "dawwws!" Unfortunately, she's still brimming with magic, or some kind of magic at any rate...
6227150
This has already been said, but It's just something I'm doing to help bring things together between character portions. It's not a regular chapter, just an interlude before moving into the section belonging to the next character.
6226908
Do we know that hasn't happened already? Horses take eleven months, after all...
6227183
I have tried to focus as much on real locations as I could in this story, just like in the last one. Construction was going on last time I was there, and it was very close to the places people were playing. During the day there are plastic sheets and signs. Even in the cave section (without windows, obviously), there were still lights so you would be able to see if there was anything going on you should stay away from. What happened to Alex was that she's a pony, with terrible night-vision, and so her headlamp wasn't enough for her to see she'd wandered into construction. At least, not with the fact she was sprinting after her friend, trying to keep up with Adrian while he ran. She couldn't, and so she got just a teeny weeny bit impaled.
The city museum isn't just a real place, it's an awesome place!
6227188
Alex, leader who didn't want to be leader. Hopefully this doesn't go horribly wrong somehow!
6227213
But what was Riley doing in St Louis on a field trip? She lives in San Fransisco!
img2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20150310151208/disney/images/7/72/Inside-Out-87.png
6227286
Some people just don't like doctors! Not saying it's very rational, though. I can't imagine people who avoid medical attention have the best life expectancies...
6227312
That's assuming they haven't experienced it already!
That's assuming it didn't happen in the previous story.
I'm not saying it did, though. But I'm not saying it couldn't have. If you were Alex, would you have talked about something like that? Not to mention we're not reading her journal that often anymore, so we don't get to see all the things that get missed...
6227598
medias.gifboom.com/medias/t_8c35a9e0e4e40132f902723c91561e03.jpg
6227814
She seems to be trying to improve things for Riley! She was afraid at first, but... I have faith Alex will be able to overcome whatever instinct was motivating her.
6228593
Thanks! It was two months of keeping that secret under wraps. Two months of reading the comments and fighting the desire to say something, and editing my messages to remove any gendered pronouns. Not an easy feat.
6228650
Yep, exactly right! And... it might be Alex was talking about the night in the "outpost" in St. Louis, which seems to be a building they've set up to be a temporary home base while foraging there. It would probably be easier to hear stuff in a single space.
6228841
I'm sure Alex would appreciate the sentiment, but... screw it, she don't care! That place is too much fun to care what think about you visiting it!
6228998
I was hoping for an RV wagon train circle of sorts, but a temporary base in a building can work.
6228998 I like reading your comments just to see how you dance around spoilers. Alex's gender was specially fun because your answers had be specially structured for that.
I like the idea of interludes between parts.
it'll be nice to see Day's persepctive again every now and then.
Why do ponies think she's so revolting? I think she looks cute.
6247678
Did you miss that final line?
Plus they've got pony instincts and things. Kind of like how mice find cats terrifying, or gazelles and lions, or wolves and sheep.
....Uhm....everytime you say scary... i will say cute. it have a style of anime somehow.
6312112
I severely agree.
if this is your version of drawing a scary changeling I want to see cute.
Thank you for reminding me what got my head stuck in your first story.
Alex is one of my favorite narrative characters so far.
And failed utterly
Do you even know how to draw something scary?
6226671
mlpforums.com/uploads/post_images/img-3551352-3-nope-mylittlepony.gif
A mare who used to be a dude getting pregnant. Yeah, when that happens she's totally going to freak! Heck, pony heads seem to be even larger than human heads. Not to mention horns. She's going to have a 'fun' time during labor.
Alex, that is so bucking mean. Humbug!
You have completely and utterly failed to make her at all the slightest bit scary in any detail; So great is the depth of your failure in this endeavor, if it was the space shuttle Endeavor, it's rocket engines would have fizzled out on the launch pad.
Now, if you had been a sensible fillycolt and admitted you were making her look adorable like a puppy in need of a home, I could say nice things about success, Saturn Vs, and successful achievement of lunar orbit, but you didn't, so I can't, so shame on you.
Nyah~!
8907304
Nyah.
Never been a fan of Changelings, but Riley continues to be the cutest wittle bug ever.
I don’t rightly understand why some people seem to despise Lonely Day so much. I think her bitterness in regards to numerous matters are quite justified, given what she’s had to endure.