"What Have I Become...?"
"M-Merry Weather w-will just be a m-moment, M-miss." The private stammered as we sat in one of the guard's interrogation booths. "C-can I get you some w-water, or...?"
Rainbow shook her head. "Nah, we're good." The stallion beat a hasty retreat, the door closing behind him with a soft click. "That's... odd."
<<What is?>> I plunked my chin on the edge of the table.
"I've never seen White Rook so nervous before."
<Maybe you shouldn't have lead off with "Saw Changelings in the Everfree, need to see Merry Weather" then.>> I snarked.
"Yeah, that probably wasn't smart..." Rainbow reached over with a hoof and started rubbing me behind my ears. "Hmm? Oh, hey! You put your studs back in." I shrugged, leaning into Rainbow's hoof. We stayed like that for the next fifteen or so minutes until, eventually, the door clicked open.
Merry Weather stepped in and closed the door with a sigh. "Going to have to make this quick, Zecora also wants to see me." She took a file from her saddle bags and placed it on the table in front of her. She then slid onto the bench across from us. She flipped the folder open, revealing documents and pictures of insectoid ponies. "Right, so..." Merry Weather shuffled through her papers. "Tell me about this Changeling."
"Well, we found it in one of Applejack's old barns." My mare began, Merry Weather jotting down notes. "The one closest to the Everfree? Leo and I were trying to work on her weather abilities, and it started making noise near the back. As we got closer to it, it burst from whatever form it was hiding as and fled from the barn. I went to give chase, but lost it at the Everfree's edge."
"Do you know what it was transformed into?" Merry Weather glanced up at Rainbow. "In the barn?"
"Er..."
<<An old plow.>> I supplied.
"An old plow." Rainbow confidently repeated. "The sound it made knocking against the back wall was what alerted Leo to it being there. To be honest, I only thought that they could turn into ponies."
"A common misconception." Merry Weather allowed. "Did you see what the Changeling looked like?"
"... Like a Changeling?" Rainbow tried glancing at me.
I just shrugged.
"Right." The lieutenant sighed. "Did you see what colour the flames were?"
I shook my head.
"Sorry, no. I was too busy thinking about the fact that there was a Changeling in Ponyville." Rainbow frowned.
"And then you came here?" Merry Weather probed.
"No. I had to let Applejack know about it because it was on her farm, then I went into the Everfree to warn Zecora."
"Which is why she's here..." Merry Weather grumbled under her breath, too low for Rainbow to hear.
Said prismatic mare continued on. "She told us -Leo and I- about the Hive that's in the Everfree, and that you guys already know about them. But I figured it would be best to talk to you guys in case this was a rogue Changeling."
Merry Weather nodded, looking at her notes. "Well," she swept them up into the folder and closed it with a snap, "thank you for informing us. If you will wait here for a moment, I need to discuss some things with a few ponies. I'll be right back."
Rainbow returned to rubbing my ears as the door shut, leaving us alone with our thoughts again. It wasn't too long before we heard muffled voices on the other side of the door. I was able to catch something about "ponying up", "doing duty", "short straw by lowest rank", and "because I said so". The door opened to let Merry Weather and White Rook back in.
The lieutenant glared at the private into sitting across from us before taking up position in front of... the only... door...
This is going to suck..
Merry Weather coughed, causing White Rook to snap up straight and focus solely on Rainbow. His nervous gaze kept twitching in my direction, almost as if he was trying to avoid acknowledging me. Sweat began beading on his brow as Rainbow stared at him in polite confusion.
"Oh, for Celestia's sake, colt." Merry Weather snapped. "Either you tell her, or I tell her!"
"I-I-I" He stammered.
"You what?"
"I-I will!" He gulped, eyes darting to me before flinching away. "I-if it's not here..." I cowed away from him.
Merry Weather raised an eyebrow, her eyes tracking from the stallion to me, then to Rainbow's darkening frown. "The Eevee stays."
"You're a Changeling, aren't you?" Rainbow bluntly asked, tone cold.
"No!" White Rook then cringed. "I-I mean, y-yes I am." He began to flail his front hooves in front of him. "BUT! But I'm a local! I'm not from Chrysalis's hive, I swear!"
"He's telling the truth." Merry Weather spoke up. "He's the latest liaison between the Ponyville Guard and the Everfree Hive. Drop your glamour, White, they need to know."
He nodded, screwed his eyes shut, and transformed with a wave of rose red flames. In place of the standard white guard in golden armour, there was now a ponylike creature with a dull mottled green carapace in gold armour. Its wings flicked out, allowing it- him to drift up onto the table. His lanky limbs and slim body was taller than I remember the Changelings at Canterlot being, a proper mane where the head fin was, and he had fewer holes in his legs. And, whereas the horns of Chrysalis's changelings were curved and sharp, White Rook's was angular with a "y" shaped split at the tip.
"Well..." Rainbow paused. "... That's certainly new."
<<Uh-huh.>> I nodded, causing White Rook to flinch.
"Th-this is what changelings look like in my hive." He buzzed as he quickly retreated back to his seat. He replaced his glamour with another wave of flame. "Totally different from the ones you fought before."
Merry Weather softly spoke up. "... I was going to have him be somepony you could go to with anything to do with changelings, but..." She sighed. "I've never seen you like this, White. What's going on?"
"I can still do it, Lieutenant!" He flinched away from looking at me again. "J-just... not near it..."
"Leo's not an it!" Rainbow glared at him. I just shrunk further into the bench.
"I know that!" White focused on my mare, his voice gaining a slight buzz. "It's just... hard to separate strong memories and emotions." He held up a hoof. "It's a Changeling thing. You remember that we have a hivemind, right?" We all nodded. "W-well, every time a Changeling joins a new hive, they molt into their new form, and their memories get added to the hivemind. W-we took in some refugees from Chrysalis's hive. Th-they were blasted into the Everfree by that love spell Captain Armour and Princess Cadence made." He wilted under Merry Weather's glare. "H-hey! I told you about them! They're only on hive duties for now, they can't be this far out! A-and they'd look like my hive now anyways!"
"Okay, fine." Rainbow cut in. "But what does this have to do with Leo?"
"Th-they all have painful memories of it -HER!" White Rook hastily corrected himself before his voice softened. "Out of the thirty or so refugees, ten were in the area she was fighting in." He chewed his lip before sighing. "And we got one that came in in bad condition. It was touch and go for a while, but Carver managed to pull through."
<<My R move...>> I whimpered.
Rainbow's frown faded into sad understanding. "I... I'm glad to hear that. Um..." She glanced down at me. "Did... did you hear about...?" She waved a hoof at me.
"Y-yeah, the whole hive knows." The disguised Changeling nodded. "It's helped them recover some."
I gently poked Rainbow until I had her attention. <<...Could you tell him that,>> I hoarsely whispered, <<I am truly sorry for what I did? Even if they never want to see me again, even if they'll never forgive me... I gotta at least beg forgiveness from them...>>
Rainbow nodded and translated for me. We all stewed in quiet reflection for a bit.
"I'll..." White Rook began. "... I'll pass it along. Just... Just stay out of the Everfree for now. Our larva already can't sleep for..." He gave me an apologetic look. I nodded, encouraging him to tell me how big my fuck up really was. "For the fear that the dog that breathes mana like a dragon breathes fire is lurking outside their pods. They... call you Celestia's Wrath. The refugees have started calling you the Changeling Bane. We're looking into getting them therapy, but it's slow going."
Merry Weather nodded. "I can imagine that it'd be even harder now that all of Equestria knows that you exist."
Rainbow abruptly stood up. "I'll see what I can do. I make no promises, but I can at least let the Princesses know-"
"NO!" It was White's turn to stand. "We... We've lasted this long because of our secrecy. The records in our archives have shown that ponies will forget about us, they will again. We'll... We'll be fine. If... If there's nothing else?"
Merry Weather sighed and nodded, allowing the stallion to beat a hasty retreat. She held the door open for us. "Thanks for bringing this to my attention. We'll look into your sighting, and..." She gave us a concerned smile. "You both take care, okay?"
We nodded, and left the station. Rainbow and I drifted our way to the pond, settling into a tree overlooking the water. Rainbow returned to petting me, while I just gazed sadly over the water at all the happy ponies frolicking along the shore.
Rainbow's hoof slowly stilled. "What're you thinking about, Leo?"
<<I fucked up, Rainbow...>> I grumbled.
"How does mating-"
<<For the love of ARCEUS,>> I cut her off, <<that word does NOT mean mating! It's a swear word! Like "Horsefeathers" or "Fewmets"!>>
"Then how come that's what it translates as?!" Rainbow snapped at me.
<<Because the damn thing started as vulgar slang basically meaning to mate.>> I plopped my head down onto my front paws. <<It's since expanded to mean so many other things in different contexts. It's also one of our more serious swear words. I just use it too much. But this time, I mean it when I say I fucked up.>> And now we were both sad again. <<I mean, so many ponies from fillies and colts to full grown mares and stallions are going to have nightmares of Changelings for years to come because of Chrysalis. But then, what about those that will have them about me?>> I choked back a sob, watching ponies have fun that I knew I was denying myself.
<<What have I become when even nightmares fear me?>>
I felt Rainbow wrap her hooves around me, holding me tight. "My friend." She snorted. "My fucking friend."
<<Rainbow!>>
"You said it was a serious swear, and I'm being very serious about being my friend, Leo."
<<That's not how it works, dumbass!>> I couldn't stop myself from chuckling.
"Do you want me to see if Angel can see you early?"
<<No... not this time.>> I felt slightly better. <<... I think I needed to hear what White Rook said. And...>> I trailed off, following along my train of thought. <<I... think that I can understand what Princess Luna went through when she came back.>>
My mare gave me another squeeze. "Any... How would Twilight put this? Insights? Any insights that gives you?"
<<It fucking sucks....>>
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Maybe now Leo can actually, finally, start to heal from the Changeling battle. Even though I think she will always fear her R move in some capacity, and may even hope the time for her to use it again will never come. I also think her biggest worry is that, should she continue to use it, it may become easier and easier to cast it, and what that may mean for her mindset.
The image of Rainbow hugging out an eevee is too much for my mind to process. There's not enough insulin in the world to recover that.
Thanks for the update.
Finding socially acceptable ways to stab themselves, I guess.
And what about the non-ponies involved in this?
Seriously, I comment as I go so this was made based purely on what came before and not what came after. It still raised an eyebrow for poor wording.
Minor format correction there. ^^
Being famous and infamous has it up and downsides.
Perhaps the name is stop conflicts from happening because having the 'Wrath of Celestia' against them isn't healthy...
Become what nightmares fear.
Christopher Lee.
One wonders if any of the pack are familar with The many uses of the word F*@k:
https://youtu.be/26UA578yQ5g?si=vRyfB1IlYZQZSIzN
Or perchance maybe they know of the song I've no more f*@ks to give:
https://youtu.be/Vqbk9cDX0l0
Or even just F*@k this s#*t I'm out:
https://youtu.be/5FjWe31S_0g?si=fEO12eOkKKC_5xae
It would certainly expand Rainbow's understanding of why 'mating' keeps popping up where it doesn't seem to make any sense to be involved.
11767774
Fixed, thanks!
Wow, Leo really has it rough since her move has such a destructive force.
A week later: Ocellus is coronated in a very public ceremony as queen of the New Dragonia Hive, swearing they will never hide again.
The Everfree hive: Well... fuck.
This was a very interesting chapter please let there be a way to turn/let Chrysalis be good or become good but be sassy and with a adatude
11768264
A week? I kind of assumed the whole joke is that this was happening concurrently.
11770543
Hey, I'm just a guest. This is your house. The fact that you let me get to a good pausing point in my own story, despite it being ahead of yours, is a merit to you.
Ah, caught up on my reread of this. Man, I really wish there were more long-running Pokemon crossovers like this, I always have a fun time with them. Glad to see this one is still up and kicking, either way! Here’s to much more to come.