• Published 20th May 2019
  • 7,605 Views, 566 Comments

A Pony Named Nope - Nyerguds



In an unremarkable city, in an unremarkable hospital, to two unremarkable ponies, a filly was born. A filly who was all too remarkable. A filly who radiated Destiny, and Adventure. Her parents did not approve.

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Nope 06: Nope and the Abducted Changelings

Nope opened her eyes, and looked out of the green membrane.

Well, she thought. This was different.

A quick glance around her confirmed what she had already suspected; she was inside a changeling hive. She pushed against the membrane of the cocoon she was in, and surprisingly found it to be hard and glassy.

A bored looking drone flew lazily between the cocoons, occasionally looking inside one to check on its occupant. As he passed, Nope politely knocked on the transparent wall to get his attention.

"Excuse me... did one of you actually... replace me?" She gave the changeling an unsure look. "Just want to make sure my dad doesn't get worried."

The changeling looked around nervously. "Uh. Well. We did. But the drone replacing you stopped checking in for the arranged meetings, and we couldn't locate her anywhere. So we sent another drone to replace her, and... she also vanished. That's actually the reason you're awake now; we were hoping you'd be able to shed some light on that."

Nope blinked. No... surely, destiny couldn't be fooled that easily... could it? As the implications became clear, she couldn't help but laugh. And laugh more. In fact, she had trouble stopping.

"I-it's not funny, okay? This normally doesn't happen!" the changeling responded with an embarrassed look on his face. "We just figured, alicorns are generally beloved figureheads in Equestrian society, so..." He sighed. "So what is your deal, anyway? You must have some powerful enemies out there..."

Nope snorted, but managed to get her laughter under control. "Nope," she said. "Quite the opposite." She imagined what could've happened to the poor changelings that had replaced her, and almost burst into laughter again.

"What happened to my hivemates?" the changeling demanded. "This is a serious matter! It's like they vanished into thin air!"

Nope took a deep breath. "Right, right, sorry. To tell you the truth... I've been plagued by portals."

The changeling gave her a confused look. "Portals?"

"Magical portals," Nope explained. "See, I'm an alicorn. And apparently, according to the Rules of the Universe, that implies that I have a Great Destiny. But I've been kind of, uh... avoiding it. And so, we get portals."

The changeling shook his head. "Wait, wait, hold up." He flew up to the cocoon that Nope was trapped in, and suddenly started talking more quietly. "You're saying my hivemates did, in fact, not get vapourised by some all-powerful bad guy. You're saying they've been swallowed up by magical portals to... some great destiny?"

Nope nodded. "Sorry. By now, your agents are probably rulers, heroes or princesses of some podunk kingdom in some parallel world. That's how these things go."

The changeling nodded thoughtfully. "I... honestly have somewhat conflicting feelings about that."

Nope raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Kinda relieved they're probably okay..." The changeling's voice lowered to a whisper. "Also, kinda jealous, I guess."

Nope rolled her eyes. "Bah. Adventure and destiny. They can have it. If I learned anything about adventure, it's that my dad was absolutely right about it; it's a lot more trouble than it's worth."

"Easy for you to say," the changeling objected. "You're destined for greatness anyway! But we, on the other hoof, are just lowly drones! If we ever see that kind of action, it's on the side that gets adventured, rather than the side that does the adventuring." He narrowed his eyes. "It's the less fun side to be on, I assure you."

"Okay, fair point," Nope conceded. She put a hoof under her chin. "Hmm. Actually, I could see this as some kind of vacation."

The changeling smiled, and looked around to make sure no one else was listening in. "Hmm. Actually, so could I," he said, conspiratorially. "The hive does need a new drone to replace you, after all." He looked around the other pods hanging onto the cave ceiling. "Must be a better job than this one, anyway."

Nope looked around, but through the green membrane it was hard to make out if there were ponies inside the other pods. "Did you... uh, get, my friend Sunshine in here, too? She was with me, last I remember."

The changeling facehoofed. "Ugh. Her." He looked back at Nope. "We normally never do this, but... we kicked her out."

Nope blinked. "What?"

"Yeah. See, normally, we put ponies in a pod, give them pleasant dreams, and harvest the love they generate. But your friend Sunshine..." He narrowed his eyes. "She's a lucid dreamer."

"Oh," Nope responded, unsure what to say. "So, what happened?"

"Well, at first, everything went fine. Very nice, dreaming of her boyfriend, all lovey dovey. Then, she figured it out, and started... changing the dream." He shivered. "I don't know the details; I was thankfully never on dream monitoring duty for her. But, those that were are a shivering mess now, and refuse to talk about what they saw." He glared at Nope. "And then she just... woke up, and asked if we could please let her out."

Nope nodded. "She has this odd way of being... unaffected by this type of thing."

"So, yea, we blindfolded her and dumped her at the edge of town. Good riddance."

"She, uh, didn't ask about me?" Nope asked.

The changeling once again gave her an embarrassed look. "She saw your pod, and said we poor creatures had no idea what powers we were messing with." He chuckled. "We stupidly assumed she was just talking about alicorn magic. Guess I know better now."

"You know," Nope said, "even if we pull this off... they're going to figure it out eventually. Either your hive will catch on, or the destiny mess will catch up with me. We can't fool them forever."

The drone smirked. "Sure. But by then, you'll have had some more peace and quiet... and I'll be long gone."

"All right," Nope said. "Put me back in the dream, then. We'll see how long it lasts."

"I monitored your dreams," the drone said. "Never seen anything like them. Most ponies dream of adventures... being great and powerful... making a difference in the world. But you... your dreams are boring!"

Nope flicked her constantly-flowing mane with a hoof, with no visible effect. "My dreams are the only place where I have some peace and quiet... and Princess Luna gave me some pointers."

She didn't bother to correct the obvious wrong conclusion that this would mean she was friends with the Lunar Princess. Said pointers had in fact been given quite reluctantly, as bribe to make sure Nope wouldn't tell her dad about the fact she had caught Luna messing with her dream. Because none of the princesses wanted to deal with him when he was in a bad mood, and in the past he had already proven to be far too good at cutting through the red tape to spit his bile at them in person.

She looked at the drone. "Well. I'm going back to sleep, then. Good luck on the whole destiny thing."

The drone grinned at her. "Why, thank you, princess." He nodded politely. "Pleasant dreams."


One week and three missing drones later, the changelings caught on, and kicked her out of their hive.

Sunshine just asked if she'd had a relaxing vacation.

Author's Note:

Yeah, I decided to expand that little thing I posted as comment before. Enjoy.

Thanks to lazyreader19 for the original comment that inspired this!