Nature of Change

by PostNinja

Chapter 2: Lost Friends

"Excuse me, Princess!"

Twilight Sparkle sighed and lowered her hoof from the handle of her castle's door, turning around to face the speaker and setting her books down to the ground in an organized stack, alphabetically ordered from top to bottom, of course.

A grey, plain looking stallion Twilight had not seen before trotted up the stairs towards her, though his profession wasn't hard to guess from his mailpony uniform.

Before Twilight could ask what this was about, the stallion pulled out a letter from his mailbag and gave it to her. "Express mail to the Princess of Friendship."

Twilight looked at the letter, blinking in puzzlement when she saw the name of the sender.

It was from Fluttershy, dated yesterday and sent from the Smokey Mountains, where the meeting of Equestrian Society for the Preservation of Rare Creatures was held this year. What was this all about?

She looked up from the letter, her brow furrowed at the mailpony already walking down the stairs.

"I just came from the mail office. I thought mail was delivered to Ponyville every day on the morning train. How come this one wasn't with them?"

The mailpony blinked in surprise and turned back to look at her, but anypony who knew Twilight would have been more surprised if the alicorn hadn't known the daily schedules of more or less everything that went in and out of Ponyville.

He gathered his bearings quickly. "It slipped out of the bag. The conductor found it from the floor and passed it forward," he said, adjusting his collar nervously. "I wanted to make sure there weren’t any more delays and came to deliver it personally. It was for a princess, after all."

Twilight nodded and smiled at the stallion to ease his worries. "It is alright, you don't need to worry. Thank you for your hard work."

The mailpony nodded, raising a hoof as if to salute Twilight, but quickly turned around and walked away instead.

Twilight watched him leave for a moment before turning her attention back to the letter, both the mailpony and her books forgotten. If Fluttershy had sent her a letter from the meeting before she left, why hadn't she mentioned it?

She quickly opened the envelope and started reading the letter.

"Dear Twilight, the meeting is going wonderfully! I met Tree Hugger again and..."

The further she read, the more Twilight's frown deepened. It took her only a moment to read through the short letter.

In short, Fluttershy wrote that the meeting was going even better than she had hoped. She was going to stay there studying the animals for another week and wanted Twilight to tell everypony about it so they wouldn't worry.

But this was strange. Fluttershy in the letter sounded energetic and happy, a complete opposite from the exhausted pegasus Twilight had met today.

If something had happened in the meeting last night, something drastic enough to make the nature-loving pegasus come back immediately, why hadn't she said anything about it?

Applejack's words from earlier came back to Twilight and she frowned. This whole situation just felt wrong. Fluttershy was the last pony who would hide something from her friends.

Or was she just worrying over nothing? Twilight tried to think how the events could have unfolded.

Fluttershy could have felt sick during the night and decided to come back this morning. In her hurry, it wasn't unfeasible that she had simply forgotten the letter or at least to mention it.

Since the discrepancy between the letter and Fluttershy's behavior today could have a perfectly mundane and normal explanation, was there really any need to worry?

But no matter how much Twilight tried to assure herself that everything was alright, she couldn't. The situation just felt too odd to ignore.

She gave one longing look at the books next to her before shaking her head with a faint smile.

Fluttershy was her friend. The new books could wait. It was best to visit Fluttershy herself and make sure that the pegasus was alright.

---

"Are you sure you’re alright?"

Rainbow Dash hovered a foot or two from the ground, still holding her new book in her hooves. Applejack stood next to her, both looking at Fluttershy as she stood in her doorway.

At first, Dash had not really understood what exactly they were doing here, especially when she had some very pressing things to attend to, like the book in her hooves.

But now when she looked at Fluttershy, she was starting to understand why Applejack had been so insistent for them to make a visit.

The yellow pegasus looked back at them with a smile so forced, it made Dash feel uncomfortable. Fluttershy looked completely exhausted, so much so that she was having hard time even keeping her eyes focused on them.

She looked like she had drank too much cider, but Dash knew that Fluttershy never drank cider. At least, not the kind that could get a pony drunk.

"Yes, I'm alright. Sorry. I'm just exhausted."

Dash and Applejack shared another look with each other.

"I'm sorry for sayin' this, but you don't look alright, Fluttershy." Applejack gave her friend a warm smile, gesturing with her hoof inside the cottage. "Can we come inside? Startin' to feel weird just standing in the doorway like this."

Fluttershy stared at Applejack's hoof just a moment longer, enough to feel uncomfortable, before nodding. "Oh, of course. I’ll make some tea."

Dash and Applejack followed as the yellow pegasus turned around and walked back inside, sharing another worried look with each other. Something was definitely wrong here.

They sat down as Fluttershy disappeared into the kitchen and looked around the room. Everything looked normal at least, but as the yellow pegasus walked back with three teacups on a tray, Rainbow Dash had to ask.

"Um… is one of your animals hurt or something? We kinda heard a scream through the door."

Fluttershy looked startled for second at the prospect of her animals being injured but quickly relaxed, smiling as she lowered the tray down on the table. "Oh no, that was me."

Seeing as how both of her friends were now staring at her without even trying to look unsurprised, the yellow pegasus waved her hoof at them to calm them down.

"It was nothing! There was this strange gemstone I got from the mail and I was just so tired that…"

At first, Fluttershy couldn't understand why both Rainbow Dash and Applejack stared at her with open mouths and wide eyes.

Then, she lowered her gaze to look at her raised hoof.

Which was black and filled with holes all the way to her knee, where there was a ring of emerald flames surrounding it, her normal yellow fur starting on the other side.

"Again? I must really be ti…"

Fluttershy's sentence trailed off as she raised her head to look at her friends, finally remembering where she had seen limbs like this before.

But she didn't know what her friends saw.

Applejack and Rainbow Dash looked how Fluttershy… no, a thing they had thought was Fluttershy was literally trailing smoke. Her eyes turned green, and sparks of emerald flames erupted into a ring around her.

What made it even more disturbing was how Fluttershy’s face just felt wrong, like those dolls that looked so lifelike that they became outright creepy. Her features were blurry and almost transparent, like they could morph into another shape at any moment.

It was like something was just wearing Fluttershy's face, and the mask was just now breaking apart, showing glimpses of something monstrous behind it.

That was finally the thought that broke Rainbow Dash out of her shock.

"A changeling! Get it!"

Rainbow Dash was in air and charging towards Fluttershy before the former pegasus even had time to understand the words her friend had just shouted.

A seasoned warrior wouldn't have been able to react fast enough. Those of great experience and prodigal talent in magic like Twilight or Starlight Glimmer could have maybe been able to cast a some sort of protective spell in the split second of time it took Rainbow Dash to close the distance from across the room.

Fluttershy had neither. Even somepony like Rarity, who designed dresses for a living, could have easily bested her in any kind of fight.

Even if the yellow pegasus possessed the necessary ability, she would never have knowingly hurt anypony.

Least of all Rainbow Dash, her oldest and closest friend.

Yet, when Rainbow Dash's hoof was only inches from her face and about to slam her head against the wall behind them, something inside Fluttershy surged to the surface.

An instinct, as natural as swatting a fly or pulling a hoof from boiling water.

Afterwards, when Fluttershy returned to that moment in her thoughts, what scared her the most wasn't the expressions of shock, revulsion, and terror on the faces of her friends.

It was that just for a blink of an eye, she didn't see her friends Rainbow Dash and Applejack.

She saw enemies who meant her harm.

No, not enemies.

Prey.

Just before Rainbow Dash's punch connected, the changeling's horn flashed with a green light, and the cyan pegasus was sent flying back as if a manticore had just smacked her.

Applejack had just enough time to jump up and catch her friend before Rainbow Dash hit the wall, grunting as her own back slammed against the wooden surface instead.

But the Element of Honesty had been through a lot worse in her life. Applejack could have kicked her way through that same wall if there had been a need for it. All she got from the impact was a bruise.

As she dropped back down on the floor, Applejack was also relieved to see that Rainbow Dash was fine too. No pony could have yelled that many curses and insults so loudly if they weren’t fine.

Applejack also knew her way around in a fight better than any of her friends, so she immediately returned her attention to the changeling, preparing to jump to the side in case of another attack.

What she saw was the changeling staring at her with a dumbfounded expression before it fell over onto its side, accompanied by a thud as its head hit the floor.

Applejack waited for a moment, but when it became obvious that this wasn't a feint, she walked closer to look at the thing.

It still looked somewhat like Fluttershy, even though it was clearly a changeling. It had wings and a horn, all with holes in them just like its legs. It was about the same size as the average pony too, but the pale yellow mane and tail reminded Applejack more of Chrysalis.

What in the hay was this thing? Some new kind of changeling?

"Cloudsdale to Applejack? You can let go of me now!"

"Oh, sorry about that."

Applejack released Rainbow Dash and soon they both were standing in front of the changeling still lying on the floor, trying to figure out what to do next.

Even when it was unconscious, the thing looked creepy. Its appearance was just eerily similar enough to Fluttershy's to be unsettling. Even unconscious, its limbs twitched every few seconds.

While Applejack was worried about what all this meant, Rainbow Dash was seething with anger.

This... thing had done something to Fluttershy! Even when knocked out, it still dared to look like her!

She would make it wake up right now! It better to tell her where Fluttershy was or she would...!

"We should tie it up and get Twilight in here. She’ll know what to do."

Rainbow Dash looked up at Applejack and took a deep breath. They didn't have time for any of that! They had to find Fluttershy now before it was too late!

She was just about to shout all that to her friend's face, but Applejack gave her a calm, determined look, the one she always used when she wanted to stop Rainbow Dash from doing something the pegasus would later regret.

"I'm worried about Fluttershy too. But we need a plan. We have no idea where she is, or whether this is the only changeling runnin' around. We were mighty lucky that this one messed up its act."

Applejack was right, as much as Rainbow Dash hated to admit it. Slowly, she felt the anger drain out of her, quickly replaced by a tight feeling in her chest.

Rainbow Dash looked down at the changeling again and tapped its head with her hoof, getting no response. It had looked really creepy just before blasting her, but now it looked fragile somehow, almost as if it would fall to pieces like a pile of twigs if the cyan pegasus kicked it hard enough,.

She thought over again what had happened during the brief fight and something occurred to her. "I don't think the ‘playing sick’ thing was an act. That blast was really weak and it fainted right after throwing it."

Applejack looked back at Rainbow Dash and nodded, but before they had a chance to take that line of thought any further, a shape appeared in the doorway.

They tensed when they saw it had both wings and a horn, but a closer inspection revealed who it was, and they relaxed.

"Hey girls! The door was ope..."

Twilight's sentence trailed off as she looked at them, then at the unconscious changeling on the floor, and then back at them.

She blinked in sheer surprise. "I was so looking forward to reading those new books today..."

Comments

[kojivsleo]

Nice timing Twi.

[yellowest butter]

I really need to find more stories as good as this.

[Fluttershyisbestpony1234]

This is a very good story.keep up the good work

[Starcat5]

"I was so looking forward to reading those new books today..."

To be fair, that would have been my reaction, too.

[peace corps general]

Now I'm worried for fluttershys sake

[JazzyWaffles]

In short, Fluttershy wrote that the meeting was going even better than she had hoped. She was going to stay there studying the animals for another week and wanted Twilight to tell everypony about it so they wouldn't worry.

The plot is thicc.

"A changeling! Get it!"

And then Floofershoe died and the everyone was sad. :V

Prey.

Spooky

She blinked in sheer surprise. "I was so looking forward to reading those new books today..."

Book horse is book horse.

[JazzyWaffles]

8097794
I thought you were worried about her cake and was very confused.