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.
hehehehe
If she was so good at avoiding it then she wouldn't know her dad was right. And if she stopped she'd get her destiny and get to settle down into it
Cute
One day someone is going to figure out how to weaponize Nope's Great Destiny, and that day's gonna be problematic.
10007223
Well, the Evil Mirror Self chapter does show she had some adventures like that.
Even then, she did nope the heck out of there at the first opportunity.
I hope those drones enjoyed their adventures
Nope
I now want to see a crossover with Sunsets Isekai if only for Nope to completely ignore it
I suspect Destiny is eventually going to get pissed and have nopes dad murdered brutally, it seems like the logical course of action and while her father might be a tough customer, nothing in that fuckers career is going to prepare him for a trained professional with orders to kill him or his daughter with the idea of his daughter being a means of killing him.
So I wonder how long it took her father to figure it out and enjoy watching all those drones get sucked into all those adventures.
Destiny felt cheated three five time over. On the other hand, the missing changeling must be facing the badguyof the week right now... Maybe they are having fun?
Wonder how the drones are doing. Could get a whole spinoff series.
10007366
Destiny knows that the best heroes have dead parents. So that will happen at some point.
10007366
You assume it hasn't already happened.
I mean what are the chances that he tried keeping nope away from a portal,get sucked in, and go on a yoshi/baby mario adventure.
Hah. :D
Heh
10007357
That would be amusing, the bar door constantly trying to ambush her by substituting itself for other doors. Might create some kind of funky feedback loop, as it's designed to give it's patrons an opportunity to get away from it all, but it's the bar itself that Nope is trying to evade.
What a lovely turn of phrase.
10007660
Nope opened the door to the pantry and was greeted with an, unfortunately, not altogether unexpected sight. She slammed it shut again.
"Daaaaaaaaad!"
"Yeah, sweetie?"
"It's that door again!"
*sigh* "Yeah, I figured it might be... Hold on sweetie, I picked up something on the way home just for this."
"Is that a...?"
"Yep. The biggest one they had in stock, from G&PT's Back-Alley-at-Midnight Firework Shop. Now let's see, um, unlatch those two safeties there... Press in on that tab and—stand aside sweetie—then light the fuse and... FIRE IN THE HOLE!"
10007492
If you think a prepared father like him is NOT going to go out and get personally trained by Shining Armor the first chance he gets...
10007710
Well, he has been babysitting Shining's daughter on occasion
But honestly, destiny already tried that stuff; Nope already 'tragically' lost her mother. That's as far as I'm going to take that.
10007682
That's Dark, lad. Somebody's gonna get a'hurt real bad.
Anyone else picturing a Chicken Little scene where the sky itself starts falling on her?
10007682
The Great and Powerful Trrrrixe had nothing to do with with that 💥 fireworks 🧨 incident! She was in Las Pegasus at the time!
I thoroughly enjoyed another adventure of Nope avoiding adventure and destiny! Thank you for the smiles!
Can we have a sequel for this? It's flipping HILARIOUS!
10008173
As the Author's Note on the first chapter says... this is kind of a finished / unfinished story. I marked it as finished because I never had any real ending for it, but whenever inspiration strikes, I'll add more to it, despite that status.
So anything I add to this is kind of sequel already.
10008192
oh ok
Hehehe
Sunshine and Nope are like Batman when people enter their minds. It's not a nice place to be.
10007492 With REALLY reluctant heroes, they tend to have the mom start transforming into a lizard so she kills herself. And the dad just runs off.
That's how we got a Legosi!
vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/beastars-eng/images/0/07/Legosi.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20190317202738
10007357
Great. Look at what you've done. You made me read through that whole damn fic... and write out that scenario
https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/884347/nopes-yet-another-freaking-isekai
10007668
I'm glad it gets appreciated. I loved that piece
Destiny took a nopecation
Yup, that is an appropriate reaction.
Poor Changelings...
Well, being boring is her dream; both figuratively and literally.
Now I keep wondering what the other Changelings who replaced her are doing right now...
I didn't expect it, but that laughter was infectious, and I laughed like crazy, too...
The tone of this chapter: "No, there's no way. Destiny can't possibly be that stupid."
Glorious.
Wrong. The skeins of Fate have been scheming against her for decades.
By stomach is hurring from laughter... I never know how enjoyable pain could be
And that event spread the Changelings race through out the multiverse. The End.