Another day...

by chil304

odd jobs.

The briefing room - like most things in Manehattan - is plain, concrete and built solely for functionality. In the middle is a wooden table with a complex blueprint on it. Various symbols and arrows have been drawn all over it in chalk. "This, changeling, is where your assistance is required. We need you to change form and set off the alarm so we get a clear way through the back." I put on my best shit-eating face and nod. Of all the things that they can ask me to do they choose changing form. Way to rub salt in the wound there guys. Not that I dare say anything. I know a bit about the plan now... Not enough to compromise them completely but enough to be a threat. If I refuse they'll most likely kill me.

If I do it i'll probably be killed as well. What an excellent choice.

Slowly, carefully, I push myself off the chair and begin to walk out of the room. I need some time to think over my part of the plan and how i'll achieve it without a disguise. "Oi, changeling, we're not done yet." I feel my entire body freeze up as his words echo round the room. "See, you know things now. Things we don't want anypony else to know. I want some... Insurance on this deal, to ensure your not gonna go straight to a royal guard."

"I um... I mean... There isn't much I can offer really it's kinda well, I don't really have-"

Pain.

Pure, unrelenting pain erupts through my horn.

The pain starts to spread around my body, first to my face then down my neck. I try to cry out as the pain wraps round my torso but nothing comes out of my mouth.

Then, just as soon as the pain arrived, it vanished again.

"Tell me changeling, what do you know about magic?"

"I... I was never any good at magic sir..."

"Think of it like this: There are two types of spell, ones that only exist through continued conjuration - like levitation and ones that exist as a one-time cast that then passively works over time - like magically enhanced bandages. The spell I cast is of the second type, and while you don't need to know what it does you do need to know that I am one of very few ponies that knows the counter-spell. As it turns out, I can't perform the counter spell if i'm dead or in prison so think twice before trying anything."

I slink down and make my way towards the door, hoping not to be called back again. The door sticks for a second and I end up spending a bit too much time pushing it open.

The alleyway I walked out into wasn't exactly the best introduction back into the sunlight I've ever seen but just the slight warmth and light of that ever glowing orb in the sky managed to calm me, just a bit. I just needed to approach the problem logically: how do I ensure that enough of the guards are elsewhere that I can get into the building and set off the alarm. I started to mentally kick myself for saying that I didn't need a map of the place. At the time it seemed like a clever way to pretend I was competent and as a way to make myself less of a nuisance to the ponies and thus lessen the likelihood of being killed. Then again, at the time I was hoping the ponies were planning a small-scale heist on a jewelry shop and just needed me to pretend to be a cashier for an hour. How wrong I was...

I shook my head quickly in an effort to clear my thoughts. The action however was in vain as I found head even more clouded than before. Thinking was never my strong point. Fondly, I remembered back to the hive. How me and my friends used to use the paper to make little airports out of sight then throw paper planes to each others airports. How the teachers would confiscate the airports and how we would always try steal them back letter - an action that frequently landed us in detention.

Slowly, carefully, I poured through everything I was told in the meeting. Guard counts, alarm locations, magic fields... Cameras? Where there cameras as well or was it a spell that showed locations of ponies in the building? I started to despair as I realized just how little I had remembered from the meeting. Maybe it would be best to tell a guard, and hopefully get a handsome reward for-

A sharp pain in my chest quickly discouraged that train of thought.

No, I needed a plan and I needed it soon if I wanted to survive the spell the pony put on me. If I wanted to get past all the guards...

If I wanted to live another day.

Author's Note:

writers block stinks.