It was a dark and stormy night... In Baltimare yesterday as it is now cloudy over there with a 24% chance of rain (due to the Weather Pegasi drinking so much at a post-work party yesterday that they may forget they already made it rain the day before), but that's all irrelevant as it is currently a clear sunny day in the Everfree Forest. The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and the trees are... photosynthesize.. ing? Gah! Enough setup, time for story!
We see a changeling lying unconscious on a flowerbed *1. Suddenly, a branch breaks from a nearby tree, exposing the changeling to sunlight that causes him to stir.
"Ohhhhh..." you groan as you slowly open your eyes. You get up shakily as you start to look around.
"How did I get here?" you ask noling in particular.
You try to remember how you got here, but all you can remember clearly is being a part of your Queen's assault on Eqeustria's capital before being launched by a powerful bubble of love energy. Everything else before then is either a blur or in fragments.
"So I have blunt-force amnesia... Great. That's story-time cliche number one out of the way."
You start to brush leaves and flowers out of your limb holes as you comment,
"At least I can still remember my rank and drone number; Specialist 815."
Deciding that you could get a better view of where you are from above, you start to buzz your wings only to feel a sharp flash of pain. You grit your teeth as you sarcastically grumble,
"Guess flight's not an option. Just when I thought my wings couldn't get any better..."
You sigh at the fact that due to an abnormality in your wing tendons, you could only fly short distances at most.
"Might as well run a full systems check." you mutter to yourself, "Magic..."
Your horn glows as you telekinetically lift up a stick and a stone.
"Check..." you confirm as you drop them, "Disguise."
With that, you briefly get engulfed in green fire and standing in your place is a red unicorn with a yellow mane & tail and a black jacket.
"Chec- Ow!"
You feel another flash of pain in your head as your disguise fails.
"Uncheck..." you groan, "Must have banged my skull harder than I thought… Changelings?"
You focus your senses as you start sweeping in a circle trying to sense members of your Hive, but you can not sense even the tiniest trace of other changelings.
"Also uncheck... Or would that be an 'X' or a blank or... Gah, Focus bug!"
After giving up on finding others from the Hive, you summarize,
"Okay... Flight, disguises, and reinforcements are out, but I can still use magic and walk and chew bubblegum at the same time."
After turning your head to get another sweep of the area you think,
"Better get moving. I'm sure I can get an idea where I am eventually."
With that said, you begin walking through this dense forest...
ONE HOUR LATER
"Okay... This forest is bigger than I thought, but I WILL get an idea as to where I am."
A FEW HOURS LATER
"Okay, maybe I only have a slight idea where I am, but that doesn't mean I'm los-"
A FEW MORE HOURS LATER
Equestria girls. We're pony-fabulous. Fast, fine, fierce. We trot till we dro-*trip WHAM* "Ow..."
HALF AN HOUR LATER
"Buck it. I'm lost." you say to yourself as you continue to make your way through the forest. In your solitude, your mind can't help but wander.
Feels weird being by myself for so long. Sure, I've been sent on missions before, but other changelings were never that far behind. Now that I can't feel or sense them, it feels... weird, but not in the bad way oddly enough...
As you walk further into the forest, you begin to think more about the structure of your Hive. Because you were all bugs that looked the same and could disguise themselves as almost anypony, there wasn't much need for what ponies would call a "personality". It was just more convenient to just do your job as another loyal faceless drone while letting the Queen do most of the thinking.
But now that you're so far away from your Hive, you can't help but feel like you want to act and think independently more instead of just being another mindless drone. As far as you can recall ("Stupid amnesia..."), there are at least 4 traits that have helped set you apart from other changelings back in the Hive (*2);
One; As a hatchling, you were always good at "hide and seek" (one of the few games not frowned upon, but actually encouraged in the Hive as it improves stealth and tracking skills) and even as a grown bug, you've had a knack for evasion. Great for standard missions... Not so great when you're ordered to go along with a head-on assault on the bearers of "The Elements of Harmony".
You shudder and ache as you remember you were one of the few changelings who managed to get hit by all 6 of those powerhouse mares (*3),
"Mere civilians" my flank. Note to Self: Find out who's job it was to gather the intel on the Elements of Harmony and smack that moron upside the head. you think in annoyance.
Two; You LOVE going to the theater. Applewood blockbusters about costumed superheroes, animated fairy tale musicals, grand sci-fi adventures involving time travel, animated Neighponese serials about spiky-maned characters declaring their fancy attacks as they hurl them at each other, even sitcom serials about mismatched roommates; you love watching them, you love referencing/quoting them, you just love them period. Not to mention that Romance movies are a great place to collect and consume love... if you can put up with the formulaic sappy writing.
"Seriously, more romance movies need to be like Shauna of the Dead or The Prince Groom..." you mutter to yourself.
Three; You always were a bit of a Smartass. A snarky sense of humor comes in hoofy for helping you stay calm(er) in missions and for dealing with incompetent squadmates. Although your mouth has gotten you into quite a bit of slime...
Four;-
Suddenly you trip over a small rock and slam face-first into a tree... Again.
...You were never exactly always in Fortuna's favor (which is a fancy-pants way of saying you're prone to bad luck).
As you rub your aching face, you think,
It would REALLY help if I could just figure out where the hay I am. Hay, just knowing the current date-*smack*
Your thoughts are interrupted when the wind smacks you in the face with a newspaper. After you take the newspaper off your face you notice that it looks recent so you read it and it says...
WHAT DO YOU SEE/DO?
do what every man does after he fails GET DRUNK
If possible, find out how long he have been unconscious based on the date and condition of the paper against the date of the failed invasion. Find the source of the paper and possibly a town close by... Food sources are never a bad thing...
The newspaper details Tirek's current rampage across Equestria.
Our changeling decides to singlehandedly do what Chrysalis couldn't, and take over Canterlot Castle. The princesses being stuck in Tartarus, the castle staff all missing their magic, and the elements of harmony being elsewhere won't detract from his achievement, right?
Read All About It!
Discord, God of Chaos Reformed!
Your eyes bug out at that.
"By the Queen's luscious long legs, how long was I asleep!?"
You've heard of the God of Chaos. Everlying has. For such a being to be reformed? It's unheard of. Heck, he's specifically labeled as non food, and you still remember the horror stories told about those that tried to take his love.
"Chicken legs...chicken legs..." you mutter, before shaking your head and checking the date.
It appears you've only been asleep for about a week.
A week...
"How in the 9 layers of Tartarus did I not get eaten sleeping that long?!" you wonder aloud.
"More importantly, how the heck did they Reform the God of Chaos?!"
You then turn the page and see him smiling while holding all of the Elements of Harmony and Celestia in a group hug.
"Ah, they overwhelmed his libido it seems," you chuckle. "But seriously, the Buck these girls are Normal Civilians, this just proves it even more! I mean seriously I...Oooo, what's this?" Your attention is drawn to some celebrity gossip.
"Sapphire Shores is the lead pick to play Radiance in the Power Ponies movie?"
You look up in thought and imagine the pop star in the form fitting costume of the comic book heroine, and drool starts to leak out your mouth at the image.
Other advertisements include Try outs for The Equestria Games, and Recruitment for the Wonderbolts.
The newspaper depicts stories of the royal guard capturing any changelings that managed to survive their forced ejection from Canterlot. It requests that ponies watch for suspicious behavior in their friends and loved ones, and report it if any is detected. However, it seems to purposefully avoid telling the readers what happens to the changelings who get caught...
Our hero, determined to find out what happened to his brethren, sees a blue pegasus with a rainbow mane flying through the air performing tricks and decides to go towards her. Once there, he sees that they are just on the outskirts of a small town, and that the blue mare is being watched by a pink-maned yellow pegasus from the ground. He takes cover behind some foliage and isn't noticed until the pegasus performing fails at her last stunt and is sent flying straight into him.
it seems decent so far.
just then yet another newspaper hits you in the face, with this headline.
under the bits mentioning
discord you the see that
gulping nervously at that you continue reading... (you had only heard story's but as far as you knew they strapped changelings down to a chair and forced them to read horrible Fanfics on a daily basis and after hearing that you swore to never be caught.) only to find that they literally copy pasted the exact same paragraph you just read as filler.
"OK that's just lazy! who the hay wrote this?"
[ten minutes later]
the newspapers did help you figure out what the hay was going on around you after your impromptu hibernation, but unfortunately you still knew nothing about your location, and at this point you where beginning to starve. it was then you sat under a tree and started to think of a way to find something resembling civilization.
then you facehooved.
all you had to do was climb a tree.
standing up you look up at the plant towering above you.
"could it really be this simple? why the hay diddint I think of this before? " you ask as you start to climb.
the only problem being you had hooves and not fingers.
after the 500th attempt you finally reached the top... only to fall off and land on your back.
" screw it. " you say in defeat. " mabey I can pretend to be a Timberwolve's mom and get some love from her Cubs when she's not around... do Timberwolves even feel love?"
you decided that for the moment you wold lay on your back and contemplate the possibility of impersonating a Timberwolve until you see a rainbow streak suddenly fly above you at blinding speeds.
you decide you should follow it, even if it oddly seemed like a huge storybook cliche.
after reaching a clearing you see a town in the distance as you realized you've reached the edge of the forest.
you then facehooved again as you literally took a grand total of ten steps away from your previous position on the floor, meaning all the time you've spent climbing the tree had been wasted.
"son of a-"
What's the sudden spike in life of a wanted changling side story's? This the second one I seen this week. It's not a bad thing, but its going to be hard to keep up with them all
Hmm... Let's see
The Foal Free Press from Ponyville
I'm pretty sure that's where those girls are from
Uhh... Date is A MONTH?! how exactly did I not get eaten?
"Discord Reformed"
Great they have a god of Chaos on they're side
"new Daring Do movie"
Let's hope It's better than that last one
Oh, New Ponyball Z movie sweet
sigh guess I better get moving.
you began walking through the forest and come across pathway with no ideas left you decide to take it
*I shake the newspaper off my face before looking closely at the front cover. I note the date was several months old and began to read.*
"New Princess crowned? That looks like..." I trailed off. "Oh buck me...that's that...one element the element of Magic i think..."
*I grumbled before rubbing my throbbing head.*
Great...lovely...let's hope her majesty doesn't try ANOTHER invasion...one can only take so much singing.
Good job Kersey! Keep up the good work!
After you read the newspaper you decide to climb a tree to get a better view (using leg-holes to help you climb) when you come across a squirrel that attacks your face and makes you fall and hit every branch on the way down. As you do fall down you unluckily hit every branch on the way down...and mostly hitting your face....ouch.
When you finally manage to reach the top of a tree (after subduing the rabid squirrel), you see a familiar rainbow maned pegasus scouting the area for...something? You decide to try to follow her to see if she cab lead you to some civilization. You attempt to do this by attempting a short glide to the next tree to parkour after her, but...
Your wings still hurt to munch, but you power through the pain to a branch across from you. But the branch then breaks which sends you
tumbling and curisng through the forest outta control!
As you finally arrive at a town, you see it is Ponyville.
"Pony-fanfiction-clichè Nr. 1", you mutter to yourself.
6244145 I already knew this one was in the work when I published mine, so I doubt there are going to be that many. Actually, his thread about his side-story reminded me I could write one.
The newspaper says:
Tirek On the Loose, Aided by Discord!
Discord, the once thought reformed God of Chaos, has betrayed Equestria bu allying himself with the evil centaur Tirek. Ponies from all over have reported the two terrorizing Equestria as Discord rounds the ponies up and letting Tirek consume their magic from not only unicorns, but also the inherent magic from pegasi and earth ponies. Nopony has seen Princess Celestia, Princess Luna, or Princess Cadence since Tirek was seen entering Canterlot Castle. Princess Twilight Sparkle has not been seen since she left the castle hours before Tirek's appearence there. We can only hope that she and the other bearers of the Elements of Harmony can pull us through this dark time.
6243253 Dog is here, it's gonna get good
this songs fits with this
Desmond the Moonling~
The End