Changing Ways

by Comma Typer

Disinformative Attack

Star Tracker still laid there on his hay bed, now drenched in silent tears. Beside him, Swift River was sleeping, though not snoring yet.

There he lay in that dark and hollow room, hearing the snores and feeling his wet face.

The door opened, giving way to a ray of light which blinded him.

Tracker looked up, his teary eyes glittering in the glow, raised his hoof to cover his pupils from being burned. “What’s g-going on?”

Press beckoned with a flick of her head. In a quick whisper: “Remember what you said about bailing Ortho out?”

Tracker gulped. He stood up from his bed. “We gotta do it now?”

Press nodded. “We don’t have much time to lose!”

He tip-hoofed as fast as he could out of the room, joining her outside.

---

It was a bleak night outside. The moon did shine and the stars did twinkle although obscured by clumps of remote clouds.

Before the train station, by the tracks and the train still idle there, a crowd had gathered around the changeling lassoed and restrained by Braeburn’s rope—there, that gallant stallion held him down to the ground by the strength of his teeth and the grip of his jaw. About everyone was raising their pitchforks and torches in the air, shouting at him—crying, too, their soaked faces radiant under their own flames.

A mare threw a tomato at him, splattered red on his torso. “That’s for my family!”

Another stallion stole a loaf of bread from her grocery bag and threw it at the changeling. “And that’s for destroying my hometown, you villain!”

“Let me have at ‘im!” yet another stallion yelled; he stole a cabbage from the mare and threw the worthy vegetable at the changeling.

“Hey, I grew all of that myself!” the mare complained and proceeded to throw her produce at the thieves beside her in the crowd, though they did not mind being assaulted by such weak ammunition as long as that changeling was assaulted by the same.

Then everyone was pelting him with whatever they could find in their bags and pouches: fruits, vegetables, bread, water, coins, even knives; yet, the changeling dodged them all as best as he could while tied to the rope.

Standing at the back of the circle were Tracker, Flash, and Press, the three of them monitoring everypony’s behavior and watching the changeling’s suffering.

“I say we torture him with our home-grown pesticides!” one more stallion yelled, and he held up a spray can with a mosquito symbol painted on it. “Squash him for the traitorous bug he is!”

“No!” a mare argued from across the circle, raising her torch against his pesticide. “Let’s burn him! We burn him with our torches!”

“Yeah, torches!” a third pony cried out.

Everyone was raising their torches to the air, shrinking the circle and closing in on the hissing changeling looking everywhere, eyes hurtling wherever, sharp tongue rasping out hisses.

“Do we have an escape plan?” Flash asked in a whisper, nudging both of his companions as they followed the crowd. “’Cause if we don’t, we’re going to be toast when we come back and she asks why he’s not with us.”

“We’ll find a way somehow,” Press said, her voice nigh inaudible against the riot going on. Got her hat and flipped it over, examined the inside. "But, if we have to let him die—“

Tracker trotted to her front, took up her view. “Are you saying we should let Ortho get killed out there?!”

Press sighed, put the fedora back on her head. “It’s your fault you convinced Ortho to do this."

She stopped, the crowd roaring ever louder. They were lobbing less food and more dangerous objects at him, with knives and blades becoming more prominent, yet Ortho dodged them all.

"Anyway," Press resumed, "it’s going to be difficult to save him without causing further suspicion, not to mention they’re really angry right now, and ponies and their emotions…” and left it at that with a sad shake of her head.

As the crowd shouted, closing farther in on the lassoed changeling. Braeburn was struggling with the creature’s wings struggling against the rope.

“OK, I didn’t think this through,” Tracker admitted, sounding sorry, “but, we can’t just leave him there without something!”

“Would it matter anyway?” Press asked back seriously.

Tracker gulped, his eyes dilating. “What do you mean?”

“He has a hundred broodmates, Star,” Press said with a stomp on the ground, "and if that fails, there’s always a brood about to mature. Feel sorry for him for five minutes, then move on with what we have right now.”

He sighed, letting his shoulders and his head slouch. “You’re still thinking of a plan?”

“I’m still thinking of a plan,” answered Press, trying to find her way to the front of the circle.

She scurried through the disorganized crowd, rushing past ponies in flux—jumping, sprinting, flying—and budged a few out of their place—“You almost made me burn my hair!”—but she stumbled on, enduring the deafening babble of everyone surrounding her.

She reached the front and saw Ortho himself, lassoed with that rope and unable to move. Braeburn kept him in place, though he was making dirt tracks in the ground by trying to pull the changeling closer to him. Already, some ponies were throwing lit matches at him, though the flames failed to dent his black chitin.

Press scurried back, caught up with Tracker and Flash lifting their heads to get a better look of Ortho.

“I was able to formulate something,” Press said, out of breath. “What we need is another distraction.” Then, looked at Tracker.

Tracker despaired, holding his cheeks as a pony in fear. “Oh, no. No, no, no, n-no!”

“Flash Sentry is already here,” Press replied, motioning a hoof towards him—he gave a sheepish smile at that, “so what you need to do is to get somewhere safe without being seen, disguise yourself as another passenger from that train, and then act suspiciously—so suspiciously, they’ll know you’re a changeling. Flash here will apprehend you, and he will lead the crowd to you; they'll want to burn you by then. After that, I’ll drop my disguise somewhere safe and free Ortho, lead him out. That way, Ortho will be home free and we still get to stay here.”

Tracker swallowed a huge lump in his throat. “Uh, but that sounds...dangerous.”

“Of course, it’s dangerous!” Flash spoke, laughing to himself after that. “But, if she’s right, then it’s how we’re gonna do it.”

Tracker wiped his sweaty neck and chin. “Alright. Let me see what I can do.”

He trotted away, going into the deserted hat shop nearby; he could notice the shouts lowering down—winced at the loudest hiss he could hear from Ortho.

“Now, hold up!” the sheriff yelled.

And all the crowd stopped shouting.

The sheriff took a short look on everyone present. “I understand that we must kill this chang’ling right now, but let’s do it orderly! We don’t wanna have any one o’ us gettin’ accidental burns, do we?”

Nods, murmurs of agreement. Some were so kind as to lower their torches in expected compliance.

“OK,” Silverstar continued, “we need to settle on an agreed way of killin’. You keep on forgettin’ we’ve got a ton of pesticides by the shop,” trying to get a look of the stallion who had suggested that way of killing, “and let’s not forget jus’ beatin’ him up to death. As much as I’d like to see ‘im burn, it’d not be good for our poor torches—just wasted precious lamp oil an’ Fire Streak’s delivery won’t be comin’ for another five days or so!”

Then, with more nods and murmurs, the rest lowered their torches.

The changeling hissed, tried to bite the rope, but was pulled and constrained further.

“Can ya’ do this faster, sheriff?” Braeburn asked, rolling more of the rope around his foreleg. “This ain’t a good time to be thinkin’ much!”

The sheriff shook his head, muttering, “OK, Braeburn….” Then, raising his voice: “Who here goes for the pesticide?!”

All raised their hooves and shouted their approval, rumbling the very ground with their words and snuffing the torch of the mare who had suggested burning in the first place.

“I won’t be needin’ a say on the other choices,” he stated. Turning to some ponies behind him in the crowd: “Follow me!”

The sheriff with a few others galloped out of the crowd and into the hat shop, passing by Press and Flash at the end of the crowd.

Press rubbed her head. “Tracker, you better have something up!”

As the crowd resumed shouting and clamoring for the changeling’s death; the storm of produce and weapons returned to punish Ortho.

---

Tracker hid behind the counter, crouching so his head would not be seen.

He could hear the shouts from outside, though a bit dull. He saw the checkered floor and some spilled spears and lancets on the floor. Of the wall, he did not see much—the lights were out, and the distant torches did not give him much to work with.

“OK, OK,” he said, looking at his blue hooves, unable to control his fast breathing. “What do we have here? I got...” eyes lit up, beaming—“Star Bright.”

He glowed, changed into a gray unicorn.

Grabbed a fallen mirror on the floor and looked at himself with it.

“Eh...didn’t he say he likes donuts a bit too much?” He combed his wavy mane with a hoof. “How could I copy a donut obsession? Uh, ‘Why don’t you have any donuts here?’”

Hoofsteps coming up the stairs.

He covered a scream of his own, muffled it in time. “OK, you’re still fine...you’re still fine. N-Nothing to worry about—you’re supposed to get caught! But, what if he’s there...oh, no! Ocellus didn’t tell me!” Breathed in, breathed out. “She thought I was supposed to remember and...oh, no...please, please, please don’t hear—“

“What was that?” he heard Silverstar ask, watchful and alert.

“Must be coming from the counter,” another said.

Star Bright breathed in, breathed out. “Alright, there’s Cosmic. Here goes nothing….”

He glowed.

“Hey! There’s some light over there!” a mare yelled. “Blue! It must be a changeling!”

In his place, a brown pegasus still crouching under the counter.

A clink. “Alright, stinky bug!” the sheriff shouted. “You’re cornered, now! The backdoor’s locked from the inside. You can’t get out! Show yourself!”

Then, two brown hooves out into the air from behind the counter.

“You’re not gonna fool us tonight!” screamed the sheriff and, after yanking the lasso attached to his vest, snatched those two hooves and pulled out the pegasus down to the ground.

The other ponies prepared their ropes and their pesticide cans, aiming them all at the strange pony.

“What do you have to say for yer’self?” he said as he brought a hoofful of salve and smashed some on his face.

The pegasus flinched, glowed, turned back into a changeling. Under the rope's lock, with a hiss: “You’ll never defeat us! We’re too many, and for every one of us you get, a hundred shall rise in his place!”

“Not if we can help it!” cried Silverstar, then smacked Thorax on the head with his bottle.

Rushed hoofsteps from outside.

A huffing, puffing Flash Sentry leaning on the door. “I...I heard the commotion! Is it true there’s a—“

“Yes, Flash!” the sheriff shouted. “There’s two changelings in our midst, and that means there must be more of ‘em roamin’ about an’ tryin’ to get us!”

Flash opened his eyes wide. He gasped. “There’s two changelings here?! And, wait, the other one’s right here?!”

“What, don’t you see ‘im?” the sheriff said, pointing at the lassoed changeling trying to get out of his predicament, wriggling on the checkered floor between the blow torch section and the potato masher department.

“I do see him,” Flash said, “but this is an emergency!”

Silverstar’s ears perked up, trotted to the front door, and pushed Flash aside.

Most of the crowd was moving its way from Ortho to the hat shop, frightened by the guard’s announcement.

The sheriff sighed, about to brace them all. “Next time, cadet, if you wanna shout, ya’ better shout when we’re outside!”

Flash blushed. “Sorry! Just...I’m just surprised and shocked and—“

“Don't speak!” the sheriff said. “We’ll just do the preliminary check on you!”

Flash made another sheepish smile, held up his hooves in self-defense. “It was a mistake, but—“

Smashed a hoofful of salve on the guard’s face.

Flash remained the same, standing there. Blinked.

“Now we’re on the same page,” the sheriff said with a groan. “Don’t do that ‘gain next time.”

Flash saluted Silverstar, then saw him rally the crowd just outside with demands to be silent and orderly.

That Flash let out a sigh of relief.

---

Back to the station and its tracks, Braeburn held on to the lasso, keeping Ortho down with all his might. He had some help, too, for several muscular stallions were also holding on to the rope, hindering the changeling with their combined power.

Ortho hissed, then chewed on his rope.

“Somepony get ‘im to close his mouth!” Braeburn told.

A pony went out to the changeling, punched him on the face, and grabbed hold of his jaw and his nose.

“Alright! That’s how you—“

A figure swooped in and carried Orthos high into the sky, lobbing that pony to the dusty ground.

“What?!” Braeburn let out before being pulled by the rope.

All of them fell, losing control of the rope.

Now, Orthos held on to the rope tighter and tighter in the air as it swung about in the sky, both changeling and rope pulled higher.

Braeburn looked up.

A changeling carrying Orthos away.

“How?!” Braeburn screamed; cast his hat down. “Three changelings in Appleloosa?” He felt his mouth and hooves quiver—goosebumps. “No...no, it can’t be!”

Other pegasi were flying up to the fleeing changelings, but they were disappearing fast.

“There’s something going on,” Braeburn muttered to himself, his hearing fading for a moment. “No...it can’t just be three. It can’t just be three. There has to be at least five of them in the works, if not ten…no….”

“I’m not dead!” he could finally hear the roped changeling screech from the sky.

---

“You gotta help him!” a pony yelled at Flash, hanging on to his neck. “Get them back down here and see them die!”

Flash shook his head, the crowd bustling and budging around him. “I’m sorry, but they’ve already sent enough pegasi guards as is. I gotta stay here, in case he ends up flyin’, too.”

As Thorax hissed and bit at his rope, chewed on it and tried to tear it open with his fangs.

“He’s making a break for it!” a mare yelled, pointing at him.

Then, Thorax spun around on the floor, flinging the sheriff out of the loop; freed himself from the rope.

He stood up.

A fierce stance on his four legs, a face displaying his hunger and starvation—that vicious tongue lashing out, as a gurgling hiss charged out of his mouth.

“Let me handle this!” Flash yelled as he flew over the crowd and stood before Thorax.

Everyone backed away, raising their pitchforks and their torches back into the air, though now threatening to burn the ceiling with those flames without knowing it.

Flash brought out his spear and aimed it at Thorax. “If you want to get these folks, you gotta get past me!”

Thorax kicked him on the face, threw him an uppercut, held his face and smashed him on the floor, grabbed his tail, spun him around, and let him go flinging and flying to a couple of lances hanging on the wall racks.

Which then fell on him, scarring Flash further.

Thorax looked upon the battered guard, the dust settling around that fallen Flash.

He smiled.

A few ponies screamed and dropped their pitchforks and torches on the ground, scrambling to any shelter outside.

The rest of the crowd stood resolute. A mare came forward, holding a pitchfork and keeping him at bay with it.

“You can’t win!” she cried out. “I’m from Canterlot myself, but I’m not mistaken when I say that, speaking for all of Appleloosa—and all of Equestria!—you’re going down!”

Thorax chuckled. “And what do you have?”

“Our friends!” she yelled.

All raised their cries and lunged at him.

Thorax lifted himself up from the crowd, touching the ceiling and disguising himself as a pegasus. He flew back into the fray and threw punches and kicks at this and that as everyone else was punching and kicking their friends in the confusion.

Thorax changing to another pony every few seconds while inside that fighting crowd did not help.

Meanwhile, passing by the distracted ponies busy hurting themselves, Flash threw the lancets away from his body, slapped some bandages and dressings on his wounds, and limped away from the shop.

---

Flying higher and higher, then hiding behind a cloud.

Ocellus and Ortho crouching on it.

“What was that all about?!” Ortho shouted in a deep voice, flailing his hooves in a half panic. “I don’t know what that was, but you almost got me killed! By pesticides, no less! Are you trying to embarrass me in front of these weaklings?!”

“You wouldn’t think about it if you’re dead,” Ocellus snarked. “Look, I saved you. Thank me for that.”

“If this is part of your plan, ‘mastermind’, then you better notify me about it first!” Ortho looked up to the sky. “I didn’t even know who you were before you got me out!”

Ocellus shushed him, forced him to look at her.

Then, several pegasi landed on the cloud.

“Ah, here’s the bug!” a mare yelled, folding her wings and taking out a bow and ice arrow.

Ocellus flew and pounded her, grabbed her ice arrow, and struck her with it, encasing the mare in ice.

Several more pegasi flew at Ocellus, trying to restrain her by holding down her wings and her legs.

Then, a pegasus pulled out a rope.

Ocellus looked and saw Ortho stealing the lasso from him.

“A cowchangeling!” Ortho yelled before grabbing another pegasus and throwing him out of the clouds. “Now, that’s something different!”

“You know they can fly back!” Ocellus shouted.

And, as if on cue, those thrown pegasi did fly back to the cloud.

Ortho threw a rope at one of those ponies.

But, the pegasus caught it in mid-air, pulled it, and swung Ortho to him.

Ortho flapped his wings, increased his momentum, and pummeled the stallion to the ground. Fighting off the punches of the other pegasus, he wrapped the first pegasus’s wings and hurled him off of the cloud.

The other pegasus kept fighting him, blocking almost every punch either with his hooves or with his wings.

Then, Ortho jumped out of the cloud and fell.

“Huh?” blurted out his surprised fighter.

He ran to the edge of the cloud and looked down.

Nothing but Appleloosa and its lights below.

Felt a grip on his leg, was pulled down through the cloud and saw the changeling hanging him now by the tail.

“You know this, don’t you?!” Ortho yelled before delivering a kick to one of his wings.

Grabbed his other wing, bent it—crack!

“Ow!”

“Of course, it’s gonna hurt!” Ortho shouted right at his face.

He dropped the injured pony, seeing that pegasus fall through the sky.

Ortho flew back up to the cloud, saw three more pegasi suppressing Ocellus with the rope. “I’ll show you!”

He grabbed a tail and swung its owner out of the cloud, but not before smacking another mare and knocking her out cold.

Leaving one pony restraining Ocellus.

The pegasus dropped hold of the rope and charged at him.

Only to be grabbed by the tail by Ocellus.

Held down by her, the pegasus felt the fury of Ortho’s rapid punches and a final kick to the face.

And the both of them took his wings and cracked them.

Then, threw him down.

Ocellus and Ortho smiled at each other.

“You see her?” she said, pointing at the knocked out mare. “Stow her away. I’ll take her place.”

He nodded, threw the mare’s unconscious body on to a nearby cloud.

Ocellus smiled, disguised herself as that mare complete with her scars and wounds. She faked a groan, too, and a flimsy gait with it.

And punched Ortho on the neck.

He coughed, massaged his bruised throat. “Really? Do you want me mute or what?!”

Ortho laughed.

The two of them threw themselves into fighting on the cloud.

The last pegasus went on top of the cloud. He noticed the mare duking it out with her changeling enemy. “Rainbowshine, you gotta get out of here! They’re letting the other changeling get away—“

Pulled by the wing, had it cracked, and was left hurtling through the sky, spiraling down to the ground.

---

Flash and another pegasus, a violet pegasus, hid at the back of the shop, breathing in and out.

“I can’t believe we were able to get away with that, Silver Script,” Flash said, patting him on the head. A gust of wind breezed by, freezing them with shivers in the night. “We...we half-way did it. Not fully did it, but half-way. That’s...that’s gotta count for something...like, uh...some kind of...pick-me-up….”

Silver Script sighed, taking a moment to catch his breath. He turned his gaze towards the scenery before him, seeing only the dry and barren ground with a winding railroad running all the way to the horizon.

“So, we already got Press Release and Flash Sentry,” Flash himself said. “Also got Star Tracker and Banknote.”

“But he hasn’t gotten back to the hive, right?” Silver asked.

“You’re forgetting the ‘stash ‘em’ ploy,” Flash said, wiping more sweat off of his forehead. “Ortho told me about a cave he found not too far away from here. That’s where he’s keeping them under a sleeping spell ‘till it’s over.”

Silver sighed. “Alright, alright. That does explain why he extended his lunch break to an hour and a half.”

"Yet they let them have their breaks,” Flash said. Almost chuckled at the thought of it. “These pathetic ponies. If you’re friendly with them long enough, then they wouldn’t see reason if it looked at them in the eye! They’re suspicious against ponies they barely know, but they’ll defend their loved ones to the very end—opposite, opposite!” He let out a laugh which died off quickly. “Well, I’m getting hungry. I wish I could go, but...gotta rely on that passive love, huh?”

“All passive,” Silver said. “Walking around? Yeah, we’ll be walking around....”

They slumped down on to the brisk soil and rested their heads on the wall.

“Look, I found the changelings!” they heard from inside.

“What?! Guys, it’s me!”

“Oh, really?”

Sounds of that poor pony being pummeled down inside; it would not be complete without that pony yelping for help before another of his kind accused him of being a hypocritical liar.

Then, Rainbowshine trotted her way into view from the alley.

Flash and Silver stood up, Silver giving her an odd look.

“Oh, it’s you, Rainbowshine!” Flash said, extending a hoof. “You look hurt! We could get the medical supplies, but they’ve blocked the doors with everyone there—“

Rainbowshine glowed, revealing a smiling Ocellus.

“—oh.”

She switched back to her Rainbowshine identity.

Silver made a smile. “You scared me a little!”

Rainbowshine nodded, glanced past the alley. “Now, the plan is to get to the crowd and get back to fighting. They won’t notice us—that’s how busy they are! When everything’s done, we’ll just be like them and then we’ll have to face whatever process they’ll think of.”

Flash nodded, powerless to hide a growing grin. “If you say so!”

Silver shuddered. “What’s next, though?”

“We’ll play it by ear,” Rainbowshine answered, dusting off her hooves and her spread out wings. “For now, let’s just get into one last bit of trouble.”

The three of them trotted back into the alley, back to that brawling crowd in the hat shop.